Gal Civ II - nonmilitary solution

[Chardok]

So I picked up Gal Civ II ultimate last night, and I started playing as (Of course) Terrans, without really thinking about it. Now - here's the thing, I took master diplomacy, and a little boost to research as well, I colonized precisely 3 planets (Small galaxy) and preoceeded to research all kinds of stuff. I literally ran the game. I would go to the other races and trade them my tech for theirs plus their money, but I always had loads and loads of tech to use as a commodity. Anytime I saw one race getting more powerful militarily than the others, I would use tech/money/influence to get all the other races to beat them back to the stone age. Useing this method, I kept all the other races from ever building up a significant military presence. I bartered and connived, I bought tech and traded for tech and sold other race's tech to their enemies and just basically lived as a peaceful, ultra-high-tech, enlightened peoples for the duration of most of the game.

Is this normal? I had literally no military, I never got into a single conflict, every race loved me while I sowed the seeds of hatred and xenophobia through diplomacy for everyone to want to kill everyone else BUT me.


Second thing - I was peaceful. Until I completed my research on Terror Stars. I built 3 of them, then just for Poops and giggles, I went and destroyed the Korath's home system, which was cool, except that when I did, they sent two heavy fighters which destroyed my terror Star in ONE SHOT. Is this normal? Are Terror Stars that weak? should I have sent support with it? was it because I'd not researched advanced hulls or whatever (I thought Terror Star Construction was all by itself on the tech tree and unaffected by ship-based tech improvements.

After the destruction of one of my three terror Stars, I reverted to a save prior to the attack, and began spitting out contructor ships like nobody's business, I now have 7 terror stars, all strategically placed within 1 turn of the main system of every race in the game, plus 2 sitting next to earth. That's where we stand. everyone loves me, even though I have a railgun pointed at the heads of everyone in the game.

I think I will start a new game tonight in an immense galaxy with 10 races tonight. But Am I doing it wrong?

[Sarevok]

Is this normal? I had literally no military, I never got into a single conflict, every race loved me while I sowed the seeds of hatred and xenophobia through diplomacy for everyone to want to kill everyone else BUT me.

Tech trading can be a hideous money making exploit in Galciv II. After you make contact with one race you somehow buy one of their techs. Then sell it to everyone you meet for their techs and some money. Rinse and repeat and you could end up the most richest and technologically advanced species in the galaxy with nothing but two underdeveloped planets....

[Chardok]

Well Dangit. I didn't mean to exploit it - I just thought it was a good idea and it turned out to be almost game-wrecking.

[Stark]

'exploit' LOL.

Sorry, unless he's not using any expansions it's hardly sploiting. It is in fact the strength of the dip model - and the ease of the default difficulty - that you can do this. He was just lucky nobody killed him (normal diff LOL)

When 80% of the ships in the game come from your shipyards, that's when you know it's more than luck.

[Oskuro]

As for Terror Stars dying in one hit, yes, it is perfectly normal. Their vulnerability is just a way to make it harder to use them properly, otherwise, once one is built, wrecking a system would be trivial.

Still, I managed to nuke the Dreadlord homeworld with a Terror Star by having a fleet escort it, even though, in my case, the game would rash horribly if I tried to join other ships into a fleet with a Terror Star. If you do this, you'll also notice that the game will warn you that any ships in the blast area will be obliterated, so you get a chance to move them away (if you wnt to).

[Stark]

Sorry, I couldn't read anything after 'giant copout to deal with stupid idea that was only introduced because fat nerds whinged about it'.

He should really just a) turn up the diff and b) not use the 'baby broken superrace' of Terrans. Normal is teh lamez, but an 'immense' galaxy is the sort of thing you'll never finish because it's sooooo boooooring.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Because I never Played GalCiv-Ul;timate and thus never got Terror stars.. Am I correct in assuming they took on a SW brain bug of "Tiny ship flies inside and blows it up" Thus making tine fighters able to destroy it in the game?

[Oskuro]

More like "Tiny piece of shrapnel barely brushes aganist massive installation and makes it explode"

If we were to rationalize the Terror Stars, they are just the Death Star's superlaser with an extremely slow engine strapped to it, and nothing else.

I agree with Stark that it is on the lame side of fanbase pleasing superweapon, specially since I never noticed it having any political consequences (In other Civ games, using nukes usually angers your population), but then again, if their frailty and slowness (hint: build them at the intended target) doesn't turn you off, their massive cost to develop, and the motherfucking time they need to become operational will (wich makes their frailty doubly dissapointing).

On the subject of superweapons, apparently there's a Civ super-skill in the Arnor expansion that grants the terrifying... Ok, I forgot the name, they are this module that wipes out a planet's population. Any comments on its uses/lameness?

[Samuel]

It is added in Dark Avatar- spore weapons. It kills everyone, makes the planet toxic and gives it to you. No need for troopers. Downside- no population on the planet. Retaking it is easy and the planet has a negative income from infrastructure.