Newbie questions

from Stardock Forums
I wish they had a newbie forum so all the good players wouldn't need to wade through such posts:)

Game 1: crushed - I bought an expensive ship going thousands in debt and not building anything. Score 8.

Game 2: crushed - avoided the huge debt, but the economy just mysteriously slowed down and it didn't go well. 71.

Game 3: this is what my question is about. Other than my colony ship disappearing for no apparent reason (not sure if I was trying to get it out of a star wrong, or if it was shot or what), here's what my question is:

My economy had hundreds of bc, and a positive cash flow (set taxes about 40% and bringing in 2bs more than I was spending). Yet my research for ships and social research said "no resources" and 1000 months to go. I have no idea why, I thought it only shut down when you are over 500bc negative.

As long I'm posting, second question: defenders seem worthless. I put them in stars, and some little ship comes over and shoots the star and the shield disappears. I thought they're supposed to be strong at defending the star?

Third and last for this post: any tips on technology trades?

I find they prefer some technologies over others, and I'm pretty much guessing whether it's a good trade.

Sometimes I'll trade 2 or even 3 for one, especially to allies.

I'm just starting to try and see the effects of giving/trading technologies, it's hard to tell yet.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
I wish they had a newbie forum so all the good players wouldn't need to wade through such posts:)
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Craig234,

You'll fine we are a very friendly bunch here and noobs are welcome.

If you look ove to you're left you'll see a link to the strategies forum. You should have a read throught those threads. You can start with the pinned threads at the top. Anything you see on maso you should read. While not a maso player myself, there are lots of good hits and tips those threads that can be used at any level of game diffculty.

Start at the lowest level of difficulty and try some of the strats suggested.

Morale and trade are the keys to cash flow. You want to keep you morale above 50% and get trading as soone as possible. So you'll need to build morale and PQ (planet quality) improvements on you're planets. And watch you tax level.

You'll need to resarch the trade techs to be able to build a frieghter.

As for no resources... THat means you were not spending enough money, either as a civilization (needs to be around 10% I think) or on the individual areas (res, soc, mil).

This has to do with the att/def ratio of the ships involved. The attacking ship always has the advantage, unlees the defending ship is several classes abvoe the attacker. There's a thread on this in the strats forum if I remember correctly.

Trades: As you guess the AI does prefer some things over others... Almost always mil tech.

Gifting/trading tech is used to keep your relations with the AI in a happy place. That way they are less likely attack you. Money works as well. So does actualy trade between you.

Trading/gifting an item every 2 or 3 turns is better that give them 3 techs at once. Don't for get you can gift money and influence as well.

Oh... And welcome to the forums. :)
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Also you have to go to the screen where the governor is and decide what your want to build and what percent of your resources you want to use for each field, how much for military research and social production,also you can increase the percent of how much you want to tax your people and how much of that percent goes towards expenses. If you have any questions let me know and I can send you a small guide about how to play the game, or you can click on the top of this screen in Encyclopedia and you can find a lot of answers there as well, and if you are looking for an empire to join click on Metaverse and you will see the list of empires and players and make your choice to what empire you want to pledge alliagence, we are a good empire "The Empire of The Light. Goodluck and let me know if you need more help.
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Craig234

I found the Gal Civ Strategy Guide very helpful when I started. http://www.orionsector.com/pages/galciv/downloads/The_Unofficial_GalCiv_Strategy_Guide_v1_0.pdf
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
The key on trades that wasn't immediately obvious to me-- select what you're trading, and then select different things for the alien side on the right--if the text in the middle goes green, they'll take the offer. Try trading for modest amounts of cash over a year or two instead of one lump sum. Research the non-military techs, techs that show as green and yellow on the tech tree, since the AI doesn't make them a priority (and so doesn't have them) but will trade for them. Certain military techs (e.g. corvettes, disruptors, battleship) are highly valued by the AI and majors won't trade them unless you give them something fairly stupid.

Defenders are good against corvettes and star fighters, not much else, really. You can check that out here--http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/simulator.asp Battleaxes are good against battle cruisers and frigates, after that you almost have to defend with comparable ships since there aren't any better pure defensive ships. Try to avoid being on defense, the best defense in this game really is a good offense. Attack the incoming ships, especially transports. If you can't beat the other incoming ships, leave. The warships can't hurt your planets... LOL

If you're just starting, key to the initial rush--set spending to 100%, and taxes as high as you can without morale dropping down off 100% on Earth. Set Earth to making colony ships, and set production to about 90% military, just enough to make it say "2" next to how often you get a new colony ships. Set the rest to research, comm theory. Keep spending at 100% as long as you can, cranking out enough colony ships with about 100M (don't launch them with half of Earth's population!) to populate all the PQ15+ planets you can. Then switch to pure social and research, getting soil improvement, habitat improvement, banking, manufacturing center, etc. Produce a scout on new planets before setting them to colony ships, and use it to clear the "fog" and find alien civs.

You'll have to move way down from 100% spending around now, and you'll be behind on tech initially, but can research techs they don't have to catch up on trades. Then trade for cash over time, and get spending back up.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
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Hi

Another Newbie here with a question please.

What the heck do the Governors actually do, and how do you get them to do it on specific systems.

I don`t see anyway in the interface to assign a specific system with several Planets to a Governor.

I checked the manual & saved threads and didn`t see anything on this.

Thanks got any help :)
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
What the heck do the Governors actually do, and how do you get them to do it on specific systems.
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You make a list of improvements for that governor and set it to that planet and the planet will automatically build everything on the list in the order you have it. I just use one for eveything so I can't say much on using different governors for different systems.

~SDC~
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
On the planet screen, there it a button (I think it's called details) that shows the built improvements with some other information and allows you to select the governer.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I usually don't use governers, I find them most tedious. Although Micro-managing every aspect of your empire is also tedious. In this way when a planetary improvement is done I can check the morale and now to go for a morale boost or something to help production, ie a Fusion Power Plant or a Banking Center. In this manner I can keep a close eye on everything. I haven't yet found an good argument to use governers, but thats me.

But you should give it a try.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I give all my planets the same governer and put basic improvements that all planets should have on it.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
One of the best ways to learn is to read AAR's. Here's a link to my GalCiv page, where I've recorded several AAR's, all from Masochistic games.

http://sirian.warpcore.org/galciv/

And here is a link to the first GalCiv Succession Game, which is on Painful, with the reports in great detail, and "slowed down" with extra commentary to help new players or even total spectators follow along:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72311&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=1


- Sirian