Sirian
Designer, Mohawk Games
Your links have a space in front of the h. That would be my guess. Try editing out those spaces.
Luck of the draw. Morality swings are based on the size of the benefit or penalty. Neutral choices are always break even. Good and Evil choices range from 1 to 10 per event, with some events having a choice that is always only worth 1, some that are always worth 10, but most with a variable range.
When planning for "must have" alignment, you can't rely on pulling the ten point jobbers, so we just have to keep plugging away. Eventually we'll get one, and one is all we need to qualify for victory. We can nickel and dime it the rest of the way if we must. On the up side, none of our planets took a major hit.
The AI's are stronger than I expected. I know I set the habitability to Occasional, but this looks like a Normal range. Luck of the draw there, too, I guess, but there's a silver lining. Since we're not in a runaway position, the game should be more fun.
Although it may not make sense at first glance, when I start research in my own games, I run 100% science and dial the spending down to whatever is the minimum to get the tech in one turn. Yes, this leaves a surplus. Yes that is spending that could be going into military or social. However, after picking up Comm and UniTrans the research price goes up. I will hit them bang-bang-bang and be done with my initial research push in a short span of turns. Usually the savings from low spending on the cheaper techs goes right back out the window with deficit research on the more costly ones.
Then 100% spending to either military (freighters) or social (PQ boosters), then swap.
At the end of a given number of turns, the same spending ratios will balance out as dividing them up and putting some to each turn, but by doing 100% on one area, then rotating through which area gets the attention, we get some things done faster and start getting the benefits of them sooner. That may translate to speeding the production of the rest, or to securing other benefits sooner.
This is a way to gain a slight edge on growth curve. Over time, these little bits of gain can add up, though, as they can multiply one another in many cases, creating acceleration, not just velocity. Having the tech sooner may mean being able to put production spending to more beneficial projects. Can't build freighters until Trade is learned. Can't build habitats right after soil if Basic Enviro isn't known yet. Can't be building light military while freighters or early constructors are underway if both Deflectors and Phasers are not known.
I agree, but we haven't made it a priority, so it hasn't happened, and the clock is ticking. No worries. Plenty of cushion between what is possible and what we will need to win. I hope you guys enjoyed your first turn at an SG.
Sorry for the little snags regarding the forum and the various procedures, but those will get ironed out and then it's all gravy from there.For future reference, there is an image limit. I believe it is either eight or nine images per post, including both smilies and linked pictures. Thus, I broke my report into chunks. I should have mentioned that point, but I forgot.
I recommend copying and pasting your post to a temporary text file, or AT LEAST to the Windows clipboard, before you press submit. This prudent move will save you all kinds of misery down the line, both from miscounting images and from net burps (including this busy forum server having too many people logged in at the moment).With split spending, definitely.
I had my first Arrgh Moment when I read about you trading away Improved Environment. That's one of those minor-bonus, off the beaten path techs that the AI's never research early. I never trade it to them. Why hand them a 10% pop boost that runs free for the rest of the game? Whatever we get out of that, it's not worth what we're giving away. At least that is my perspective on that particular tech. I feel the same way about a couple of other techs the AI like to ignore, like optional repair techs and morale techs, and a few others. And I suppose I also keep them for a cushion, knowing the AI won't learn them on their own, since in a pinch they could be traded for something vital in a situation where you know you'll have one chance to cut a sweet deal.
Eh?
Oh, I see. The split spending slowed the military production rate. I will have some adapting to do in my recommendations and hand-offs if spending will be split rather than focused for large chunks of the game.Spending into the red also lowers morale, so that's another reason to stay in the black. However, in my last dozen or so games, I've gotten away from my aversion to deficit spending. On huge and giant maps especially, where the 1k starting cash does not go as far, I've found it better to "go negative" during the 100% social push to build soil/habitat. All the way down to -500 even, with social spending at whatever rate will get me finished before I drop to -500. Then run NO SPENDING for a few turns, with the stronger economy (and higher income) in place, to get back into the black. This definitely beats staying in the black the whole way. Can't do this with split spending, though, and yes, during the push, if you needed cash to help sweeten a tech trade, you're just out of luck.
Medium maps this usually isn't necessary, because there are fewer planets and a shorter initial spending push building colony ships. Still, if we're sitting around without soil, habitat, and banking centers, we're losing income we could be bringing in.
Maybe not. The AI's get significant bonuses on higher difficulty. They are insane at Maso, but still quite strong at Crippling. They get free PQ boosts, which means more tax income, more production capacity, and a whole lot more spending power than you. They get free bonus picks on economy, which piles on to their PQ bonus to give them even more power. They get free morale, which means they can sit on 100% morale and keep their pop growth at MAX, but still bring in more than you, and they never "overlook" or "forget to check" taxes, so they have a morale lapse that slows pop growth in places for a couple of turns. At about 30 turns into the game, they could easily have built that constructor by hand. In fact, they probably built a pack of them. In Maso games, I often see lines of constructors, six or eight in a convoy toward a resource, by this point in the game.
Oh, and that "wasteful" Drengin starbase out in the middle of nowhere is probably a range extender. If they've got that, they may now be able to reach out all the way north to grab the military resource near Earth, as well as be able to send freighters PAST us to the civs behind us. Could get ugly.
Sorry, that doesn't happen. If there are no ships on manual control, the game forces you to press next turn before it will advance. That, or you wake a ship and move it. If you do have any ships on manual control, the turn will cycle immediately after you move the last ship. If your computer is particularly fast and you have only one ship active, you may get only a very small pause between turns. You need to watch this more closely.
If the game reached February, it did so because you moved something in January. You are not supposed to do anything in January. December is your last turn. I realize this is new and it's an easy enough mistake to make, so don't sweat it, but please pay attention as each player is responsible for not stepping on the next player's toes with the handoff.
Overall I think we're in a good position. The Drengin are stronger than I hoped, but at least both good civs have four systems, and there isn't much pie left for the minors and the remaining majors to be dividing, so they are probably all bit players in this play.
Good luck to President Physicist, our next leader.
- Sirian
I am sorry for that. Both sliders have to be adjusted (raised) as our pop is growing notably now. Also, the autopilot order (an old one) for the scout in Yor space is stupid, I saw that only after the game was saved and zipped, so I did not cancel it myself. 
THE GOOD TEAM! 
