Spored out of your mind?

[Reg]

I went back to my original Bortax empire now that I actually know how to play the space game. I'd given up on them in disgust because I had two big empires pounding on me every five minutes. Those empires are both gone now. The new Bortax philosophy is one of complete intolerance to the overly aggressive. If you don't have a nice friendly smiley when you meet the peace loving Bortax empire you will be eradicated.

This galaxy is just for vegetarians.

[Kail]

One question I had: in the civ phase I kept paying a neighboring town off. No real reason, I just thought at the time if I kept giving them money they would feel less inclined to attack me. I eventually got to the point where I could roll through them. But afterward I wondered if I hadn't paid them off periodically, would they have attacked me instead of attacking others? I never saw any indication that they liked or hated more or less in their smiley-face/shield icon thingy, but I don't know how granular that scale is (like, was my graft making micro-improvements to the relationship?)

If you mouse over the nation's little color indicator on the hud (the one that you click on to initiate communications once they've captured at least two cities) it tells you their exact relationship (1-100) with you, as well as a breakdown of all the influences on it (e.g. "You attacked our enemy, +65" "You're a threat to us, -30").  Same thing with mousing over the comm indicator in the space stage.  There's a limit (something like +130, I think) on how much total benefit you can get by giving gifts, but up to that point, I think it does help to give gifts.

Anyways, I'm playing on Normal, too.  Didn't see much difference between the difficulties (they all seemed pretty easy to me, and you're talking to a guy who, for a challenge, might crank the difficulty in Civ IV all the way up to the third easiest setting).  It's easier to die in Hard, it seems, but since you still can't really loose, it's not a big deal.

[FatuousTwat]

I went back to my original Bortax empire now that I actually know how to play the space game. I'd given up on them in disgust because I had two big empires pounding on me every five minutes. Those empires are both gone now. The new Bortax philosophy is one of complete intolerance to the overly aggressive. If you don't have a nice friendly smiley when you meet the peace loving Bortax empire you will be eradicated.

This galaxy is just for vegetarians.

Same here. If you don't kill off anyone lower than meh-faced, they just keep attacking you.

[lamaros]

Why does this game sound like nothing more than a pretty simple RTS when people are discussing it?

[FatuousTwat]

Because that is what it is?

[Triforcer]

Why does this game sound like nothing more than a pretty simple RTS when people are discussing it?

Actually, it sounds like:

 

and his original vision. 

EDIT: Removed his name so he doesn't find us in one of his periodic Google searches of his name. 

[Venkman]

If you mouse over the nation's little color indicator on the hud (the one that you click on to initiate communications once they've captured at least two cities) it tells you their exact relationship (1-100) with you, as well as a breakdown of all the influences on it (e.g. "You attacked our enemy, +65" "You're a threat to us, -30"). 

Thanks!

I made some spaceships and whatnot but decided I was more interested in trying a different track. Got to Tribe phase as a herbivore->social race and it is a very very different game. I like the low-impact nature of decision/result here and the pacing of the outcome. It's like the WoW of turn-based Civ-like games

Why does this game sound like nothing more than a pretty simple RTS when people are discussing it?

Because it is. But that's just the gameplay component. The feeling of ownership comes from how you customize your face and all its parts. A lot of choices are more "world" than "game" though, and the ability to have your world further customized by the choices of your Buddies makes it even more immersive.

[Sky]

I also enjoy the 'massively single player' style alot. My Spork posse:

My Spork Marauder, Reg's Angelic Messenger, Mr Noisy's Halycon and Morfien's Arach.



Also, why aren't people posting their Buddy Names?? I'm pretty sure there are a couple people (DQ, naum) who aren't playing the pirated version and are creative people. Makes me sad when some fun races haven't been updated in over a week (Looking at Lantyssa!)

[CmdrSlack]

Also, how come in the civ phase the religous path is the "nonviolent" one that you get by having played as a pacifist the entire game, but in the Space phase all of the religious civilizations you meet are giant warmongers?

Oh, sure, get this moved to Politics why don'tcha. 


Sky, I think there's a buddy name thread. I'm obviously CmdrSlack.

Your Meeps are one of my best terraforming tools.

[Sky]

Sky, I think there's a buddy name thread. I'm obviously CmdrSlack.

I know, I was looking over people's stuff last night after reading this thread and realized there were some glaring omissions in the buddy thread :)

[CmdrSlack]

Sky, I think there's a buddy name thread. I'm obviously CmdrSlack.

I know, I was looking over people's stuff last night after reading this thread and realized there were some glaring omissions in the buddy thread :)

Ah, yeah.  After reading this thread, I checked that one and saw that I have new people to add. I guess it's time to start a new game.

[Aez]

I made a "f13" sporecast.  It's great.  Over 900 creature/building.  It took me several hours of fighting the spore server...  Be nice, use it and rate it.  I can't even load the sporepedia page right now, if anyone is able to find it with a search, please post a direct link.  It's named f13 .

[CmdrSlack]

Ok, so this EA downloader thing is utter crap. I login and nothing shows up on the screen. So how the hell do I find the patch?

Fucking EA.

Edit -- Even yet more stupid. I fire up Spore and it notifies me about the patch. So why the hell did I have to install this download manager?  Fucking bloatware.

[Venkman]

Launch Spore itself and it'll ask if you want to download and install the patch.

Or, grab from here.

I had the same problem in that EA DM didn't see I needed it.

[Reg]

I haven't been able to sign onto the Spore server all afternoon so you probably are going to have trouble getting the update.

[Venkman]

Yea, it's getting crushed under something or other. I'm glad I grabbed the patch yesterday.

[Aez]

f13 Sporecast with 900 items from everyone who posted on the buddy list thread

This is amazing.  Please subscribe to the sporecast, the game is much more enjoyable when 100% of the creatures you meet are from a buddy.  It spices things up.

[naum]

Also, why aren't people posting their Buddy Names?? I'm pretty sure there are a couple people (DQ, naum) who aren't playing the pirated version and are creative people. Makes me sad when some fun races haven't been updated in over a week (Looking at Lantyssa!)

When I figure out how, I will do so…

[CmdrSlack]

Also, why aren't people posting their Buddy Names?? I'm pretty sure there are a couple people (DQ, naum) who aren't playing the pirated version and are creative people. Makes me sad when some fun races haven't been updated in over a week (Looking at Lantyssa!)

When I figure out how, I will do so…

When you first launched Spore, you probably created a username and whatnot. That username is your My Spore username as well. Go to Spore.com and login. Then click the link that lets you see the public version of your profile. Take that URL and post it in the buddy name thread.

I think that's how I did it.

[Venkman]

One thing I'd like to see added: a way to build a city from the race, building and vehicle choices you made. Just some sort of snowglobe thing, maybe a way to make it a screensaver. This occured to me today when making creatures, buildings and vehicles with my kids. I really had no way to quickly show them the results without having to log in game. I'll hafta play something through to the civ phase but never continue it just to use that as a diorama I suppose.

[Hutch]

I'd like to be able to share music from the city composer. I'd also like to listen to the city music while in outer space.

[DaZog]

Curious if anyone has bumped into my critters in space stage. I lost a few to the complexity bug but supposedly, they still show up in games.

Haven't seen any others in space.. YET. But lots in creature and tribal. Tres cool stuff.

[Raging Turtle]

One thing I'd like to see added: a way to build a city from the race, building and vehicle choices you made. Just some sort of snowglobe thing, maybe a way to make it a screensaver. This occured to me today when making creatures, buildings and vehicles with my kids. I really had no way to quickly show them the results without having to log in game. I'll hafta play something through to the civ phase but never continue it just to use that as a diorama I suppose.

This isn't exactly what you're asking, but you can always go to the Sporepedia, click on 'my creations', and you can pull up any of your own stuff real quick.  But not together, which is I think what you're after.

I think I'll hit an internet cafe tomorrow with my laptop and upload my awesome Flarks and Magoth, and download some of the critters here.

[Morat20]

Curious if anyone has bumped into my critters in space stage. I lost a few to the complexity bug but supposedly, they still show up in games.

Haven't seen any others in space.. YET. But lots in creature and tribal. Tres cool stuff.

Restrict yourself to only buddies, and they show up all the time.

I got one of my brother's retarded creatures in the Creature phase (he calls it "So ugly I didn't want to hit the mate button, because it should die out as a gift to God") and I forgot that he'd optimized it for, um, killing shit. I go charging in with my mostly social creatures and got slaughtered.

I need to figure out how to get an omnivore mouth one of these days.

[Samwise]

I had trouble with that with my Zaphods, too.  It seems like if you finish the cell phase as an herbivore, you never have the option of developing an omnivore or carnivore mouth (those parts will never unlock for you).  Annoying since I wanted the more "human-looking" mouths for cosmetic reasons.

BTW, the trick to dealing with aggro carnivores as an herbivore is to use Siren's Song to stop them from chewing on you, and then befriend them before it wears off.

[Samprimary]

Actually, it sounds like:

 

and his original vision. 

EDIT: Removed his name so he doesn't find us in one of his periodic Google searches of his name. 

what, do you mean

DEREK SMART DEREK SMART DEREK SMART

[Morat20]

I had trouble with that with my Zaphods, too.  It seems like if you finish the cell phase as an herbivore, you never have the option of developing an omnivore or carnivore mouth (those parts will never unlock for you).  Annoying since I wanted the more "human-looking" mouths for cosmetic reasons.

BTW, the trick to dealing with aggro carnivores as an herbivore is to use Siren's Song to stop them from chewing on you, and then befriend them before it wears off.

I was trying to see if killing them would unlock carnivore or omnivore mouths.

[Samwise]

I don't think it does.  By the end of my creature phase I had literally unlocked every creature part except for any of the omnivore/carnivore mouths.  I think it's locked in by your choices as a cell.  I even tried eating meat to see if eventually it'd let me change my diet, but no dice.

[Khaldun]

I find it too frustrating in cosmetic terms to be limited to carnivore, herbivore or omnivore mouths when I'm designing, so I'm just cutting to the chase now and designing creatures to be played from Tribal on. Which is sort of too bad in that I like the Creature phase somewhat.

[Sky]

I've taken to making prototypes for new games. I'll run the space creature editor and try to figure out where I want to end up and then play to there.

While omni/carni mouths aren't available to herbis, I forget if they're allowed at the pre-tribal final design phase.

Was playing tonight showing my fiancee the space phase, particularly terriforming and making colonies, and she said "Why does the game keep interrupting you with everyone asking you for help. I was also trying to avoid a war (right after finishing two wars on people that just annoyed me with nonstop attacks) with another local race and now I'm locked in a war with a wicked tough race. He will wipe out my fleet most battles, though I do ok with my maxed out ship, conquering his worlds takes forever because I have to keep going back and recruiting allied ships. And the aforementioned two wars removed two allies so I'm two ships short now.

Blah, too much game in the sandbox and imo they never had a chance with 'gamers'. Take a look at who's still playing.

[Samwise]

The patch helped with the sandboxiness a lot, at least for me.  I'm playing on Easy because I knew from the outset I wanted as little "challenge" as possible.   

[Hutch]

I don't think it does.  By the end of my creature phase I had literally unlocked every creature part except for any of the omnivore/carnivore mouths.  I think it's locked in by your choices as a cell.  I even tried eating meat to see if eventually it'd let me change my diet, but no dice.

This. The band you are in (herb/omni/carni) at the end of the cell phase determines what kind of mouth parts are available in the creature phase.

So if you want omni, pick herb/carn in the cell phase, then switch mouthpieces when you hit the cell editor.
Then make sure to monitor your History, and switch mouthpieces if you're getting too close to herb/carn.

[Morat20]

I don't think it does.  By the end of my creature phase I had literally unlocked every creature part except for any of the omnivore/carnivore mouths.  I think it's locked in by your choices as a cell.  I even tried eating meat to see if eventually it'd let me change my diet, but no dice.

This. The band you are in (herb/omni/carni) at the end of the cell phase determines what kind of mouth parts are available in the creature phase.

So if you want omni, pick herb/carn in the cell phase, then switch mouthpieces when you hit the cell editor.
Then make sure to monitor your History, and switch mouthpieces if you're getting too close to herb/carn.

I think I'm going to put two damn mouths on my cell and see what happens. :) I tried the probiscus thing, which seems pretty damn "Omnivore" to me, but I must have switched to late or eaten too many plants.

[CmdrSlack]

The best way to get the omnivore mouth is to keep an eye on other cells.

Once you see cells with the proboscis, either a) kill them (if you're a carnivore or an herbivore but with spikes) or b) let an uber cell kill them, then, grab the DNA bit. If you start carnivore, eat just floating meat and don't kill other shit. That helps when you want to go omnivore as soon as you get the right part.

I finally managed to get something other than "trader" for my species in space. I have a new race that is a "Knight" race. IIRC, I went omnivore, then predator in creature, then friendly in tribal, then ended up with enough military victories (even tho I was religious) that I was ultimately just barely into the "red" type as opposed to the economic type.

I've been trying to game the choices to see how it works in space. Going to the military end of things in civ mode certainly helps with lowering the pirate attacks.

In "Knight" mode in space, I get to summon a mini craft which is kinda neat.

[Baldrake]

Despite what I said earlier, I'm beginning to really dig this game. I have so little time to game these days that the pacing is working pretty well for me.

Man, Lantyssa's creatures are awesome.

I'm not seeing how they are going to build a franchise out of this, though. The College CoEd expansion? The Wild West expansion? Somehow I'm not getting where there is to go.