Thoughts on gameplay and AI

Experiences and Strategies

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have played through a number of games now, most of them on intelligent or higher, and gigantic galaxies. I have found a couple minor bugs. Most of them I have found posted elseware so I won't go into them except for one. The minimap. Whenever I zoom in the minimap the influence circles get confused/corrupted on the minimap. If I zoom in two levels and then out one it seems to correct this. The second part is, when I am zoomed in to say 200%. How do I move the focus of the minimap? It seems to primarily just zoom in closer to my homeworld. This is great at the beginning of the game, but late game I want to look at other areas.

The biggest issue that I have run into is that it seems to easy to manipulate other races without penalty.

Ok, here is my setting for the last game: Gigantic galaxy, abundant habitable planets/planets/stars/anomolies, and loose clusters. All races were playing set to gifted, and I was a custom race. My strategy after the early rush is to max out diplomacy, trade, and influence. Once I have these I trade with the most hostile nation closest to me. The last game I has trading 623bc/mo with the Arceans. I have no real military to speak of. I trade techs, dumping a huge amount of money in research. I pay close attention to the other nations. If anyone is starting to get too strong, or if anyone drops down to wary relations with me I insite all of the other nations to attack them (for about 1000bc or a couple of techs). Not wanting to fight an 8+ front war they will never attack me. So, I sit the entire game being the puppet master forcing wars between all of the other nations. I instigate fights between trading partners so they both lose money, and are forced to trade with me. My record is having all nations fighting each other, leaving only me as a trading partner.

This seems to easy. I could see this happening on the low level AI, but it shouldn't work 100% of the time on the high AI. As a feature request could a small probability be put in that if you insight two nations to war there is a chance that you will be discovered by the defender, and you may get pulled into the war? This diplomacy at the extreme end just seems a little broken.

...and this game is awsome! I really enjoy playing it. Great work Frogboy.
9,901 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I use a variation of the above tactic as well, and it's key to my success on the higher difficulty levels. You're right, it's pretty easy to manipulate the AIs with Jedi level diplomacy, but I'm not sure that it's diplomacy itself that is the problem -- it's just that it's not expensive enoough, and/or the AI is too willing to to fight an unbeatable war on your behalf. For example, early on in my last game I bribed the Drengin for a measely 2100 BC to fight 3 other AIs -- heh, one of them the poor Terrans. True, they destroyed the terrans, but then the other two destroyed the Drengin. They shouldn't have agreed to do it in the first place.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i second that
its just too easy to let the AIs fight wars for you
after all, starting a war is a serious hit for your economy and should be taken very serious
it should be VERY expensive to bribe the AI to attack an enemy of equal military/economic strength and quite cheap to have them pick out weak enemies (since they would do so soon anyway)
e.g. the AI sees some weak defended planets and goes for them for little money, the AI sees some guy who can put up a fight that will last at least 50 turns and wants some real huge amount of money/tech to risk such a long war
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think the AI should be really careful with entering wars on your behalf if you are not taking part in them yourself. They should only be willing to do that if its against someone they hate anyway and you pay an extremely high price.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I said this on another topic. Your AI allies need to act like allies. I allied with the Drath while the altarians were at war with me. 2 turns later the drath and altarians were allied, and the altarians still hated me. Neither seemed to see anything wrong with this set up.

So, I'm pleading with the altarians to stop. The arcaeans are contacting me every other turn to say "The altarians are getting too powerful, they must be stopped". I suggest the arcaeans attack the altarians, since maybe 2 on 1 is a better strat then me getting trounced. The arcaeans pull a George Bush senior (a la SNL) and just say "Wouldn't be prudent" over and over again. I suggest the Drath maybe act like allies. The Drath inform me of my threatening tone and how they don't appreciate it. All the while, "Netro Mancer" is on the other line, and his silent stares only seem to confirm what I already know: this is most probably my last turn.

God bless the Yor. At least they're consistently evil.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
God bless the Yor. At least they're consistently evil.

Quoted for truth and humor. Then again, my favorite race setup is Yor with +50% Diplomacy, +30% Economics, +10% morale, and either Populists or Federalists. I'm everybody's rich shiny robot friends.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Whats even more fun is to get an AI to attack another and built ships for them. For example, say I pay Dregins to attack Terrans, they agree to my offer of say 2000bc or whatever. Then I give the Dregin any ships I have laying around that I am not using. To top that off, I will build even more warships to give them, especially if they are losing the war. All the while, I am allied with Dregin.