Noob Qs and help

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have a bunch of questions about this game, i only got it a few days ago, and I also need lots of help now that I've started playing on Normal difficulty.
1. How do I threaten the AI if they have too many ships in my territory?
2. Are UP votes determined by Influence or Population?
3. Is it possible to NOT have ships saved from game to game?
4. Can you change how many degrees ship parts are rotated by from the design screen or only from the main menu?
5. How do I rotate the map without a middle mouse button?
Ok, so those were my "easy-answer" questions, but I have a lot of problems with my strategy. I started playing on normal this morning, first game was on a large map with six other players. I got creamed by the second-to-last civilization when I refused to pay tribute. I was the last. I decided I needed to study how the AI played on normal so I started a small game with Iconians, Torians, and Altarians. The AI rush colonizes a lot. Do they purchase all of their ships? Is this a good strategy for me to go by? A few turns later, I noticed that the Torian's economy rating was WAYYY higher than mine, and so was their research rating, and so was their industry rating. How the hell did they get it so high in so few turns? I turned my research bar to 100% to see if my rating would catch up to theirs. It stayed about the same. The AI seems to be able to build a military, economy, and research like crazy all at the same time.

Can someone explain how they are able to do this? It was driving me nuts. No matter what I did they were significantly more advanced than I was. I got my approval to over 90% and turned myself into a star democracy. Their economy was STILL significantly more advanced than mine. Every few turns, it seemed they built a different "capital." In a couple years they had an economy, technology, and manufacturing capital, as well as repair bots and diplomatic translators. I wanted to pull my hair out. My military was sill made out of FREAKING DEFENDERS!

So, my rant is over, If I have any more questions I'll be sure to ask, so please give me some insight on how to remain competitive.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Best thing is to read the Strategy and Game talk forums here for hints for improvements on Game playing.

The Ai is very good in this game. There is a learning curve that is fairly steep - if you are having issues I'd suggest a lower difficulty until you get the hang of it.

#1 -Yyou can't. Just invade. In the newest builds the aI will notice when you move strong ships near their worlds and complain.

#2 Influence points. If you want to you can buy and sell them in the Diplomacy screen.

#3 Yes. Delete all files in the \My Documents\My Games\GalCiv2\ships before starting a new game. You may want to copy the folder contents before deleting in case you wwant them back sometime. I keep a ship folder copy with just base designs in it so I can use them in each game and delete the upgrades I made from them. I just coy it over to the game folder each time.

#4 Only from the Main Menu at this point. Good suggestion to submit to SD.

#5 If you find out let me know - I have the same problem!
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I could be wrong, but I believe in the current 1.1 beta that they're testing (due to be released as an alpha some time within the next week or so) you will be able to rotate ship parts even after they are attached (whether this is done in the viewer or from the menu I'm not sure as I've not downloaded the beta, so someone else could tell you that for sure, or maybe you have the beta and I am totally not supplying you with any information you don't already have in which case you should ignore this post) ^^

I'm afraid I also cannot answer #5 and as to your economy question I just saw a great thread dealing with that very subject the other day- try entering "economy" or "money" into the forum topic search and you should find the info you're looking for. (You could also try searching "morale" since the two are closely related, apparently).
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I could be wrong, but I believe in the current 1.1 beta that they're testing (due to be released as an alpha some time within the next week or so)

Alpha and beta are different stages of development, with alpha coming first as a version that is not open to the public at large. Because testing is open to the public, the patch is in the beta stage. Just a technical point.

The AI rush colonizes a lot. Do they purchase all of their ships? Is this a good strategy for me to go by? A few turns later, I noticed that the Torian's economy rating was WAYYY higher than mine, and so was their research rating, and so was their industry rating. How the hell did they get it so high in so few turns? I turned my research bar to 100% to see if my rating would catch up to theirs. It stayed about the same.

The AI does purchase colony ships, and yes, it can be a good idea to do it that way. I prefer purchasing a couple of factories (especially if I've got bonus tiles) and then putting all my production into military to churn out ships, but purchasing ships directly is viable also. If you start with a 700% industrial tile on your home world, you can buy a factory and then just build a colony ship every turn or two for a tiny fraction of the cost of buying the ship. The money you save can then be used to buy a factory or two on each world you colonize, giving you an exponential advantage in production and research over everyone else because you can build research centers quickly instead of waiting forever for your factories.

The Torians quite likely expanded a lot more than you did in the early game. If they're buying colony ships and you're not, odds are good that they'll be outperforming you in just about every way in the early/mid game. It's also important to know that the AI civs do trade with each other for technology. They'll trade with you just as easily, so take advantage of it and don't sell any tech that nobody else has unless you're going to sell it to everyone. If there are nine races that each research a different tech and then everyone trades with everyone else, they each gained nine technologies in the time it would take you to research one if your research is as good as theirs. Even if you've got four times as much research as any other faction, you'll get left far behind if they're all researching and trading like that.

Fortunately, the AI factions don't all research different things and they don't all trade everything they have with everyone else. They do this to some extent and my example was just to show how much difference tech trading can make. Tech trading and a poor early-game expansion policy seem like the most likely reasons for your disadvantagous situation.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
rush colonization is imperative. I played the original game, and have had this one since the day it came out. My strategy always involves a colonization rush. Until you get the hang of the game, try giving yourself a huge pop growth ability, and when the game starts, buy like 4 colony ships in the first four turns, fill with like 250, 300 colonists, and send them out. I only take planets over 10 in this phase...I grab all quality colonies in range for as long as I can, moving out until I get far enough from my home that I can't get the good ones, only other players can. then go back and get the close in ones, that are of a lower quality. For instance. I'd much rather get a level 10 that's far away, then the 4 in my home system. I almost never get that one, initially, but it flips to my side rather quick, no matter who gets it. Also, trade techs whenever you can. I almost always have weak economys and an average to weak military for a long time, but during that I gain a huge tech advantage, so eventually, I can run forward. It takes a few years (in the game), but if you get a fair start and keep a big technology advantage, and get some good planets and galactic acheivements, you'll have the best econmies, productiona nd military. and it is very satisfying
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had the game for some time now but haven’t had the opportunity to play as much as I would like (You never do). I’ve had the same problem though and this is what I did.
First my analysis was that basically this is war, and war is a mater of resources. I imagined that the AI simply was better at getting these resources then I was. If You feel that this applies to You then maybe this could be useful:

First, LOWER the taxes. Taxes is what politicians use to regulate stuff under a guise of free choice. When you lower the taxes You are basically saying ‘Get drunk and procreate’.
Being an evil politician, what You really want is of course a wider tax base.
It’s hard to say with how much you should do this but you probably get a feel for it.
I usually try to get around 75 – 76 % approval. Remember that at 75% and upwards your loyal subjects will receive a bonus (or rather, You will). I usually end up with a tax rate of 12 -13 % and have no problems at all as far as the economy go. You could probably make this work even better with a well chosen bonus prior to starting the game, but I haven’t tried that one yet. This also allows You to buy stuff rather then to wait for the lazy bums that works for You. A Dominars work is never done .

As far as the initial land grab goes:
Buy Your way thru the first rounds. I usually buy a factory as well and let them build another colony ship until I found something to colonize. By letting the crew do their thing for a couple of turns, You can save some money when You buy it. Oh, and NEVER use any other way to buy stuff then hard, cold cash. Just like in real life, the interest will break You. Also, a monetary improvement on a planet helps but save the economic capital for planets with a lot of food bonuses on them.

I usually make my own designs of colonizers as well. Initially this was to save some money, but in the end that turned out to be a minor side effect. The design consists of a freighter hull and one colony-pod. That one goes to Mars (You didn’t waste your precious free colonizer on mars, did You?). The rest of the colonizers got the same basic design but I cram in every darn engine I can find as well. You want to spread faster then the plague, so if it means taking a hit in the economy then that is just something You have to live with.

Another thing about the tax rate:
Sometimes You just have to increase the cash flow by increasing the tax rate to 100 %.
This is OK, just don’t over do it. If You have been in the red for too long You will receive a penalty so living in a colony filled with grumpy voters for a week or two could be worth it.

I hope that helps. I’m still somewhat behind a couple of races but at least I don’t get owned any more .



Rygel XVI - Dominar to over 600 billion (more or less) loyal subjects.