Its like anti-"drunk-dialing" for online chat.

Thanks Kryo!

What I never understood is how the Geico cavemen learned English.

Just wait till the spambots are better at distinguishing the random letter/number combinations than humans. You know it's going to happen sooner or later....

Computers can only crack poor validation codes with a brute force approach. Humans, however, are extremely good at pattern recognition. Perhaps too good, since it often leads to superstition and such, but I digress. The point is, it is difficult or impossible to teach a computer proper pattern recognition, because you would first have to make a "recipe" for how to recognize patterns. My professor brought this up as an example of what he calls "open tasks" in a lecture earlier this week, so I couldn't resist commenting on this (first post on these forums).

Purge, if this ever gets multiplayer, I will steer clear of facing off against you. Numero uno on the metaverse. Most of your games are on suicidal too!

on behalf of drunk people everywhere, the validation codes have never held us back.

Brawn (AI on suicidal) might not always beat brains, but only because there is no point to having an unbeatable difficulty level.

Also you will find with multiplayer, that fairly standard tacktics will develop among elite players whereby anyone who dares try anything different would quickly loose, kinda like playing 'tic tac toe'. That will become monotonous and booring.

The AI is always beatable largely because it has inherent programming flaws in it's logic and tactics which are constantly repeated. once aplayer has noticed those flaws, he can easily win. Tic tac toe, on the other hand is a game with limited possibilities where one can achieve a win or draw everytime without effort. A win requires stupidity or inexperience on the part of your oponent.

In Multiplayer GALCIV There would be no AI to apply the same tactics each game. All players would be free to play creatively. If the "war rush" tactic is eliminated or countered effectively then I bevieve that this game would go on for hours. Since the civs could no longer trade techs under the table as the AI controlled Civs presently do, tech advancement would be slower as a result.

Like all other multiplyer games, the weak point will be in the civs ability to expand its empire and improve its industry and resources.

But the logistics of multiplayer GALCIV may prove difficult to overcome. Waiting for the other players to make their move will be exponentially more boring as the number of players increase. The game would have to send you an email when your turn comes! Although you could be designing ships and planning stratergy while you are waiting, once your opponents make a move you may have to re-evaluate your plans.

What happens if a player quits part way into a 3 month game?

One can always count on the assholes being there. Thats the reason I stopped playing other online games in the past. But a good multiplayer game should make a "war rush" more difficult to achieve and make growing your empire more rewarding by research and industry. And no cheats allowed.

Maybe there should be mines, traps or pitfalls for the first ones to venture into space. This would make it more difficult to try to rush a Civ. Plus if a Civ had planetary defences like land to space missiles or guns then small ships or carriers would find it difficult to invade a planet.