Galactic Civilzations II: 21 Feb

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-03-09 02:39am

ok, economics 101 for me and this game. since I can't build trade ships in the campaign mode could someone suggest how I should build my worlds in the campaign?

I can't get past mission 2...

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 03:15am

I found the campaign difficult for the same reason. No traderoutes meant I was fucked financially most of the time.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-09 06:36am

Rush fighting ships and rush planetary invasion is best for Campaign, IMO.

It doesn't matter how far you go into the red or what your approval rating is, as long as you conquer the goal planet before you finally give way to economic pressures.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-09 09:15am

I've just spent an hour designing a first-generation, unarmed, unarmoured, engines-and-a-pod colony ship. Damn that ship design screen is fun

I didn't actually get around to much, you know, empire building and shit - tiny map, one opponent, just to get a feel for the controls - but even sandboxing like that is a lot of fun. Very nice interface, lots of info but it's very well presented. I even got a nice surprise when trying to colonise a local planet that was a base of operations for a smuggling ring.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 09:17am

I really suck at the ship designing: I pretty much whack on some guns, shields and engines. Maybe a light or and some antennae or spoilers, but nothing like the excellent stuff other users have made. Turns out you can make a damn good B5 Omega with the basic bits.

EDIT - I did try to make a vaguely insectoid-style cruiser for my photonic torpedoes and railguns, though.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-09 09:22am

Stark wrote:I really suck at the ship designing: I pretty much whack on some guns, shields and engines. Maybe a light or and some antennae or spoilers, but nothing like the excellent stuff other users have made. Turns out you can make a damn good B5 Omega with the basic bits.

My first scout looked like the obese lovechild of a B5 Victory and that ringship from nBSG. I wish I'd taken some screenshots before deleting it.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2006-03-09 09:30am

I finaly bought this game.

And I got the LAST or so they say Collectors Edition

Now I must learn how to play this.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-09 04:27pm

InnocentBystander wrote:I had a good laugh when one of the aliens told me that they knew what I was doing with those massive fleets hanging around in his territory. He even admitted that he couldn't do a damn thing about it, but he did know, which is cool. I like an enemy who can appreciate the concept of doomed.

Are you sure he wasn't admonishing you for playing a low difficulty level? The AI does that if you play at total pussy levels like Sub-Normal.

(<-- Plays at Normal/Challenging himself...)

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-09 06:03pm

It was normal. I'd just crushed his navy.

Funny thing; Luck is an amazingly useful thing. Rangers are great ships; to have 4 or 5 of them can really... make a difference. Esp if your enemies are used to fighting ships that don't use mass drivers

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-09 08:05pm

Draginol wrote: It's been decided that we are going to do a 1.X.2 release. Don't know when. But there's little tweaks and changes we want to make. The team fixed some glitches that have been reported on the forums.

But for me, it gives me a chance to start having some fun with the AI.

Stupid AI

At lower levels, I want the AI to play stupidly. I don't want them to just be super smart but economically starved. There are a bunch of APIs in there for the AI that will cause it to make "newbie" mistakes. But I want to do more of them.

Smart AI

Yay! They're making me an UpgradeShip API for the AI players. Now I can really bring hell down on people. Whohaha. I also have a few other ideas too.

I've got a bunch of other stuff in mind as well. Will have to make sure it can be done without slowing down the game. One of the biggest things I want to work on is having the AI be more effective at controlling their territory militarily.

Stay tuned.

Amazing that the AI is so good they're trying to improve the AI by making it play stupid at low levels.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-09 08:16pm

I'm now more interested in this game. GC1 was incredibly forgettable, and the lack of tactical combat is really irksome. But is this game any good? Compare it to MOO2 and SEIV if possible, with of course MOO2 being the personification of perfect 4x space gaming.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 08:32pm

Take it from me - GC2 is much better than GC1. I also found GC1 worthless and forgettable. Whatever the important element in 4X games was, GC1 simply didn't have it. By contrast, I'm not playing Guild Wars anymore and find myself thinking about new strategic ideas while I'm doing other things.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-09 09:09pm

Stark wrote:Take it from me - GC2 is much better than GC1. I also found GC1 worthless and forgettable. Whatever the important element in 4X games was, GC1 simply didn't have it. By contrast, I'm not playing Guild Wars anymore and find myself thinking about new strategic ideas while I'm doing other things.

But how does it compare to MOO2? A lot of things are better than GC1.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 09:42pm

LOL true. I consider MoO2 less 'strategy game' - since it's arguably quite primitive in that regard - and more 'starship battle simulator'. Everything in MoO2 exists to provide ships, technology or goals for the tactical battles.

GC2 is far more *flexible* than MoO2, has *much* better AI, and looks *sexy*. However, there is nothing similar to the stats-based, repair-unit whoring tactical combat of MoO2. You should try it out, I guess: EB lets you return shit. I find it a very satisfying game.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-09 10:00pm

The next step for GC is to include tactical battles- preferably in an expansion pack to GC2, if possible. I loved all the options you had in the tactical battles in MoO2- the black hole generators, the photon torpedoes, the massive missile swarms (did anyone notice that 5th Element had Xeon Missiles?), the point defense lasers, the assault shuttles, the cloaks and phase cloaks, all of it.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2006-03-09 10:09pm

Just finished completely crushing the AI on a "tough" (all AI set to intellegent) level game- seriously, it wasn't even remotely close. I went for a diplomatic victory, the others were easily achieveable but they seemed too tedious to waste my time on. At any rate- here are some strategy tips/ideas for you guys.

1. When you design your own custom race pick traits that are maxamized- and reinforced with your politcal party choice; then run a strategy based on those traits.

For example- I went with an "high HP" model for my human "Galatic Empire" civilization-
Warparty +25% HP
+30% HP Race investment

I then teched to get the "Xinthum Hulls" trade good as soon as was reasonable - which gave me an additional 15% to HP.

So- 70% to ship HP- this affects HP gained through expirence as well; eventually I had "tiny" fighters with around 70 HP- while standard built ones had 6 and battleships have around 40-50. Needless to say- a huge advantage.

This is just one example- you could do the same with any number of other traits- such as production, research, economics, etc. The point is that specialization is more useful then generalization.

2. Choose the area that you want to progress most in- and then set your production sliders to high levels in that area. I prefer a 100% approach to funding myself- as it lets me get the benefits from investment in a given field as soon as possible. Ships, buildings, and techs don't give benefits until they are actually built/researched; as such if focus your efforts- you reap the benefits of completing a given "project" sooner and you can use those benefits while your efforts are focused on another area.

3. When invading- don't use anything but traditional invasion or information warfare. The cost of a transport ship is trival compare to the benefit you get out of capturing a fully fuctional planet. It takes a long to rebuild a planet with the other combat options, and with some of them (such as mass drivers) the planet will never return to its fully productive state.

4. As far as I can tell, being Evil provides MANY more benefits, in terms of events, then being good does. So, unless you're role playing the good/neutral guys- go evil. And besides, the evil GNN robot looks WAAAY cooler then the good one.

5. Multiple engines make a craft go faster. I didn't realize this until recently and believe me, its worth the investment sometimes (like troop ships that can outrun enemy fleets for example).

6. Economic builds work on a %increase- as such it makes sense to build "money making" worlds that specialized in... making you money. Build nothing but a factory, and economics buildings on these worlds. 1-2 farms helps increase the tax base on these worlds as well- I'd recommend more farms, however- the population of a world seems to be capped and they cannot rise above a given level. I believe, but am not entirely certain, that this level is determined by the quality of the given world. Ie- a level 10 world can support a maximum of 10 billion people.

7. Starbases are a huge investment- however they are definately worth it once you have enough modules installed on them; espically if you can get their effects to overlap on multiple worlds.

8. In games with multiple AIs try to keep any given AI from becoming too much larger then any of the others- and becoming a threat to you. Pull a Lando Molari and deal with small problems while they're still small.

That's it for now- I'll post some more tips/strategies when I have the time/inclination.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 10:20pm

Using starbases is an excellent way to get obscene bonuses: four or five eco starbases with good tech can easily provide 200% bonus to everything planets nearby are producing.

Being evil has major disadvantages: evil empires get ganged-up on. Blkbrry didn't have this problem since he whored out a hp bonus which gives him a great advantage on the military rating, but don't try it if you emphasize trade or influence.

As Yor, with only 80 tech rating, I had soldiers with 120% bonus. One transport could conquer 15,000b worlds. Sticking to one element and ramping it up is definately the way to go.

Diplomacy rating is super-important. Get diplomatic translators first, and never trade them to anyone. This gives you a boost while denying it to others - as Yor, I had people declaring war on me due to my uncivilised nature all the time. My high-speed transports would immediately take half their colonies and I'd offer them peace with one of them back.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2006-03-09 10:32pm

Only good civilizations constantly attack you if you're evil. If you're good, then the evil civilizations will constantly attack you. I didn't really notice much of a difference, in terms of war declarations, either way. And I say this in the context that for most of my game I had a pitfully small military rating.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 10:39pm

No, I find evil civs that aren't allied with you will attack you if they're stronger militarily. As good - which I can never manage to play as - I imagine other good guys give you a break and neutral guys have better things to worry about. I also constantly have a suck military, which makes it harder than it has to be.

Thanks for mentioning the HP bonus, btw: I didn't know it was cumulative with xp bonuses, and the Drengin driving around in 50hp small hulls was starting to bother me.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-09 10:43pm

I started up a test game with the Yor, and I found evil Civs to be quite amicable to me.

Within just a few months, the Altarians declared war. The Drengin and Korx counterdeclared war for me, and the Terrans jumped in because of trade income issues to try to steal one of my colonies.

That's just one test, but the Yor are a War Magnet and I suspect they often occur on ideological lines just ebcause Evil civilizations are more friendly with other Evils and that applies to Good, too.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-09 10:49pm

I love the Yor. I just can't stop playing as them - +25% miniturisation! Robots! Evil! Green! They sure are a war magnet, however: perhaps I'm just unlucky, but in my experience evil civs are simply predatory and attack whoever is weakest... usually me. *And* I'm the Yor, so that just makes it worse.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-09 10:54pm

Stark wrote:I love the Yor. I just can't stop playing as them - +25% miniturisation! Robots! Evil! Green! They sure are a war magnet, however: perhaps I'm just unlucky, but in my experience evil civs are simply predatory and attack whoever is weakest... usually me. *And* I'm the Yor, so that just makes it worse.

Maybe in your universe, but in the standard the Yor are Fruity Purple (r).

I like Custom. My two favorite races so far have been "Dip+Research" and "Military Production" specialized races.

Large Maps seem to kick my ass. I never expand fast enough. Despite, with the Yor, having 4 parsec/week colony ships and buying one every week until I ran out of planets, I still only gained 4. By then most races had 7 or so, and the Terrans had like 10 (!) planets based on their dip screen.

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-03-09 10:58pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:6. Economic builds work on a %increase- as such it makes sense to build "money making" worlds that specialized in... making you money. Build nothing but a factory, and economics buildings on these worlds. 1-2 farms helps increase the tax base on these worlds as well- I'd recommend more farms, however- the population of a world seems to be capped and they cannot rise above a given level. I believe, but am not entirely certain, that this level is determined by the quality of the given world. Ie- a level 10 world can support a maximum of 10 billion people.

No, that is not quite how it works. The amount of food you produce determines your max population. For example, if you produce 13 MTs of food (what you get with one xeno farm and an initial colony), you can support 13 billion people. I don't know if it affects your growth rate.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-09 11:01pm

Dominus Atheos wrote: No, that is not quite how it works. The amount of food you produce determines your max population. For example, if you produce 13 MTs of food (what you get with one xeno farm and an initial colony), you can support 13 billion people. I don't know if it affects your growth rate.

Growth rate is dependant primarily upon approval rating, IIRC. That's why low Approval ratings actually cause negative population growth.

And he is partially right, there is a cap for population based on Planet Quality. However, you'd need like 3 or 4 Xeno Farms to even reach it, and it starts in the 10s of billions and rises to 100 billion by the time Class 20 is reached. There's almost no chance of hitting it.

Anarchist Bunny · Post by **Anarchist Bunny** » 2006-03-09 11:33pm

MRDOD wrote:
Stark wrote:I love the Yor. I just can't stop playing as them - +25% miniturisation! Robots! Evil! Green! They sure are a war magnet, however: perhaps I'm just unlucky, but in my experience evil civs are simply predatory and attack whoever is weakest... usually me. *And* I'm the Yor, so that just makes it worse.
Maybe in your universe, but in the standard the Yor are Fruity Purple (r).

I like Custom. My two favorite races so far have been "Dip+Research" and "Military Production" specialized races.

Large Maps seem to kick my ass. I never expand fast enough. Despite, with the Yor, having 4 parsec/week colony ships and buying one every week until I ran out of planets, I still only gained 4. By then most races had 7 or so, and the Terrans had like 10 (!) planets based on their dip screen.

Thats odd, in all the games I've played the Terrans haven't been able to expand out of Sol and are constantly begging me for help.