Yup,

I have lost 2 games to the damed Draginol, both times they appeared about the time i researched the BattleAX. Wasn't fun to watch my empire destroyed in a handful of turns.

~SDC~

Erm, I'm of the impression that if you crank Espionage enough when the first "wacky cult looking for an orb" event you can catch it before the Precursors appear. Is this not so?

If random events seem too powerful to people, perhaps a simple switch could be added to the main screen: random events: [none] [a few] [normal] [let lady luck decide who wins]

Maybe?

~SDC~

I haven't had any really bad things happen to me via random events yet in my first play with version 1.01. The Yor found some kind of doohickey that's supposed to give them an overwhelming tech advantage, but it's not helping them that much because my tech is keeping pace with or slightly ahead of theirs, and my influence, population, and military are WAY ahead of theirs. As a matter of fact, I came into a major piece of luck a couple of game-years back when the "galactic economic boom" random event occurred. The boom is still going on, though for how long I don't know, but I've built up so much cash in my treasury that I ought to be OK for a good long time (it's probably time to start demobilizing the old ships or give them away to friendly empires).

Here's something interesting, One of the special abilities I picked was luck and so far I've been very lucky.
Earth got boosted to a class 35 planet.
I've had two economic booms,
two minor races came to me with tech they stole from my rivals. The star system price is a bit steep, but if you're far behind it can save your life.
One of my last two remaining rivals got the random event to force it to go to war with the other destorying their alliance.
If you ask me this is just alittle too lucky.

I think that every game is a little different, once youre lucky, once youre... well not
A setting for these afraid of this is good, maybe some adjusting about things that can kill you (like too early drengin IF it is not counterable (What I doubth))

I like the random event, it is a harsh universe, and if you can't cope, youre buttered... but unlike in RL you can always start a new Universe. I think you folks are defining 'winning' as fun, which is definitely not a good way to have lots of fun either in RL nor in GalCiv.

~SDC~

Random events are all right, I mean I've had two economic recessions in a row this game and I'm not complaining. What is bad are those events that simply end the game for you, right then and there. If the Draginol appear before you have Dreadnought technology there's practically no way to beat them unless you have a massive fleet of battleships.

Random events should be toggle like this:

[none]
[fewer]
[normal]
[a lot]
[X] fewer bad
[X] normal bad
[X] more bad

They should also occurs for other races more often. Big big minus for this game right now.

I've played 5 games so far and lost them all mainly because of bad random events. I absolutely love the game but this has to be fixed before I really start to hate it. I like to win sometimes too ya know!

Actually, I was just looking around in the Data files directory for the game, and found the CoreEvents.EVENT file which is just plain text.

Monster.ship also has the stats fr the Space Shark.

Unfortunately alot of the other events like the minor races, etc I can't find anywhere in the files so I assume there hard coded into the game and uneditable.

~SDC~

Well I havent had any events that really messed up my game so far, the two games I won was dominating and it didnt matter, but just keep the auto save on for lik eevery 5 turns or so then you can just reload and you wont have lost much.

Er, random events that can end the entire game for you? This can't be happening, can it? If this is true we really need an option to turn them off, or at least rebalance some of them. I don't think many want to build up an Empire so one random event can kill them out of the blue.

i guess were just not good enough to handle random game busters, Joe

A few random events have the potential to destroy a civilization or at least bring it to the brink of collapse. The Draginol are one of those events. I guess you could draw some parallel between the Draginol and events in TV series like Star Trek (Borg) and Babylon 5 (Shadows), where a strong alliance working together was needed to counter the evil before it spread to destroy everyone.

I personally like the random events, though there should be some way to rate the potential danger or benefit of an event and an option to turn off all events or limit random events to a certain level. You could rate the Draginol event and the +X to planet class for all planets in X sectors as "highly dangerous (5)" and "highly beneficial (5)" respectively. If you had the events set to not allow that level of event then the good and bad would both be eliminated from the game. I think if you remove the potential dangers you have to remove the potential rewards as well to keep things balanced.

~SDC~

Personally, I'm finding the random events unbalancing as well. Just finished playing a game where in the first two UP votes, my neighbor built two of the space creature zoos. Wouldn't you know it, not too much later both of them broke free and ravaged both his planets and mine. The monsters were way too powerful for either of us to defend against in the early game (90 hp, 30 attack). Not a chance. While random events are good, they should be scaled by map size and time to prevent them from destroying an empire (or two).

I almost forgot to mention that I did have another random event happen that might have turned out badly except for a piece of luck. The UP issue setting up a galactic prison planet had been voted on, and I'd gotten the nod; some turns later came the news of a major breakout, and when I went to the system in question I found three powerful "prison cruisers" surrounding the star. The good news, though, was that by that time, I'd researched dreadnoughts and just so happened to have one of them sitting there in orbit. I whistled it up, and crushing the revolt was just a matter of blasting each rogue cruiser out of space with one salvo, I even had enough movement points left to put the dreadnought back into orbit in the same turn!

If an option is created to switch off random events I just hope they make that get transmitted to the metaverse along with the other data so it can subtract a large amount from your score. Coping with the random events is supposed to be part of the challenge, surely?

~SDC~

'Erm, I'm of the impression that if you crank Espionage enough when the first "wacky cult looking for an orb" event you can catch it before the Precursors appear. Is this not so?'

That is the case for that event (the Dark Anor), but not for the Draginol. You do still get a warning, and the planet can simply be invaded the first turn after it's taken over if you prepare for it.

The Fundimentalists only get planets from evil races, although once they're in the game they can proceed to declare war on others.

If you have significant non-military power, you could always engage in diplomacy. It is entirely possible to make peace with these races (although the Calor will still mess with your planets, even if they are peaceful/allied), just like any other, and potentially even ally with them. Only the Belua, Pirates, and prison escapees cannot be reasoned with.

~SDC~

I have only played one game of the released version. So far, I found the random events can change the course of the game & also ensures that each game is different from the previous.

For example, it the game that I was playing, the Terrans had just became an EVIL race when it was hit by a UP random event "Evil races can have only 2 trade routes". Ouch! Took the Terrans many turns by selecting all GOOD choices before they became neutral again & by the end game they were considered a GOOD nation.

In the same game, where the Terrans now control 49% of the trade, the UP decides that the Terrans need to contibute 5% of the trade revenue to the UP council nations for the next 3 years! Responded by cutting down spending & building more Starbases to boost trade revenues.

I could go on and on about the random events that the game kept throwing at me; e.g. share all tech, galactic zoo... etc.

The point I am trying to make is it is how we respond to these random events that make this game fun & also ensures that each game is different from the previous game. Had to keep changing strategy based on the random event!

I basically won this game (medium size, all AI normal) by researching "Final Frontier" & ensuring that Terrans were NOT involved in any war. Heck! I believe the Terrans only destroyed one ship & it was a Space Monster that got loose.

'Erm, I'm of the impression that if you crank Espionage enough when the first "wacky cult looking for an orb" event you can catch it before the Precursors appear. Is this not so?'

That is the case for that event (the Dark Anor), but not for the Draginol. You do still get a warning, and the planet can simply be invaded the first turn after it's taken over if you prepare for it like arturus magi explained.

If you don´t like to spend money espinage.. sorry your problem when there are some nasty surprises later on.



The Fundimentalists only get planets from evil races, although once they're in the game they can proceed to declare war on others.

"If you have significant non-military power, you could always engage in diplomacy. It is entirely possible to make peace with these races (although the Calor will still mess with your planets, even if they are peaceful/allied), just like any other, and potentially even ally with them. Only the Belua, Pirates, and prison escapees cannot be reasoned with. "

Sorry, I have the impression somethimes you have simply to be more flexible to deal with the random events. I see the people complaining they don´t have powerful enough ships to simply kill the space sharks.

For example give the Zoo to somebody else. LKure away the sharks with fast ships...It works for me.

Draiginol.... You know you can simply abdon the colony and cut your looses your looses.

new patch 1.01a
Changes:
+ Some random events come later in the game.


there you go!

Now that's better. These guys rocks!

purefx, I've never felt that the AI were all ganging up on me without reason. In fact, I didn't fight a single war in the first three games I played. My first war was only started because I wouldn't pay the Arceans outrageous sums of protection money, and their alliances dragged the Alterians and Torians into the war as well.

As for the random events not being game-ending, if you don't know the tricks of how to handle it and the first time it pops up it's still early in the game, the Draginol event is just about as close to game ending as it gets short of popping up a screen saying "Game Over!" You either need decent tech (the first time I had it happen to me I had just picked up the tech for Frigates) or you need to know how to prevent their arrival (simply shipping off all of your population, which is what I assumed is what they meant when they said "abandon the colony" doesn't do it).

The latest version of GalCiv (just released yesterday) moves certain events later in the game. I assume that this is one of them, and it will probably handle my greviances with the more overwhelming random events.

I love the random events. It mimics life. If you want a easy predictable game go play reach for the stars.

I agree with Joeaverage. The random events mimic life. Our troops in Iraq aren't complaining because this war is not a "cake walk", they are adapting and winning. So adapt to the random events. It is how you react that determines how good you are.

I don't think its so much people not wanting to adapt as not wanting to be screwed over on the roll of the dice. UP aren't as bad since you can vote, but having no way to submit resolutions ruins that as well. The point is many people don't like random events. It may make it new and fun games for some people, but for others its the equivalent of the AI starting out with full fleets and boosted economy.