Galactic Civilzations II: 21 Feb

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-03-18 06:39pm

looks at most recent designs

afirmative.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-03-18 07:32pm

MKSheppard wrote:Question; is ship building actually interactive in this version, IE you can actually build ships with weapons, and suchlike; rather than the stock ships of GalCiv 1?

Yes, you can customize how the ship looks from a set of "extras", like wings, pods, etc.

And then you can add however many or type of weapons, defenses, modules, engines, whatever.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-03-19 02:23am

Okay, this game officially sucks. I'm playing somewhat like Space Israel; albeit as the AMERICAN EMPIRE: and I've always been 6% of the galactic population, and it's the endgame; everyone's declared war on me, but i'm #1 in technology, yet I cannot get my Space Dreadnoughts to bomb enemy planets into rubble as a deliberate scorched earth strategery; that I utilized so many times in Moo1, Moo2, and SEIV when I couldn't afford invading planets; I would deliberately despoil them; but apparently you cannot do this unless you actually invade the planets, which means building expensive troopships.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-03-19 02:28am

MKSheppard wrote:Okay, this game officially sucks. I'm playing somewhat like Space Israel; albeit as the AMERICAN EMPIRE: and I've always been 6% of the galactic population, and it's the endgame; everyone's declared war on me, but i'm #1 in technology, yet I cannot get my Space Dreadnoughts to bomb enemy planets into rubble as a deliberate scorched earth strategery; that I utilized so many times in Moo1, Moo2, and SEIV when I couldn't afford invading planets; I would deliberately despoil them; but apparently you cannot do this unless you actually invade the planets, which means building expensive troopships.

The solution here is to build a class of cheap troopships designed for such a purpose. Tidal waves can do awful things for your enemy's economy

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-19 03:42am

yet I cannot get my Space Dreadnoughts to bomb enemy planets into rubble as a deliberate scorched earth strategery

Yes, I wish they added that too. It'd be a great "incentive" for other races to give up some of their tech ("Ion drive now or Earth gets it's tectonic plates rearranged !").

But as said above, just go for tidal waves or core detonation with a cheap troop ship (cargo hull+engine+cheapest troop module). Sure, you'll lose half a billion troops, but that's life

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-19 03:59am

Just take the planet and destroy the colony. Easy.

But Shep says it sucks, so clearly we're all mistaken

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2006-03-19 04:50am

build the superbig warship "Badyear Blimp" not only do we terrorize you from orbit, we're sending logos and propaganda down on you from orbit.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-19 09:06am

WOW. The Yor discovered a Precursor artifact on some shithole planet that turned every planet in the galaxy not already colonized (in other words, every useless Class 0 planet) into Class 12.

With my massive advantage in industry, planets, and influence, with the exception of a few planets, I snapped up every new planet in the galaxy in a short matter of turns, and for my trouble, got a Precursor Ranger and a pair of Precursor Corvettes. The Ranger has an attack of 24 (don't remember what weapon)- pretty significant.

The few planets that the other civs managed to grab have quickly given in to my influence domination. If Influence Victory was active, I would've won the game by now, but I'm glad it's not.

With all these new star clusters under my possession, I'm working on setting the planets in each star cluster to a mix of research, money, and production uses- one planet devoted specifically to each (within reason- every planet needs some of the other stuff- especially factories, to be able to build shit in a reasonable amount of time). I need to build up a massive military force, currently I'm spread thin, though my Quaestor III-class Medium Warships are unmatched.

Duckie · Post by **Duckie** » 2006-03-19 01:45pm

They really need to make Precursor Ships rarer. I've seen two races in two seperate games now that have multiple fleets of Precursor Corvettes, and several Rangers per game.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-03-19 01:57pm

Stark wrote:Just take the planet and destroy the colony. Easy.

Not so easy when your entire population is only 6% of the galaxy, and your industrial rating is just 48; it's kind of infeasible to mount invasions of every planet, considering that your landing ships are used up each invasion; I've used the "scorched earth" strategy in every 4x ever. Just bombard the planet to knock down it's population, industry, and value; then move on to the next planet to blunt an enemy's attack.

But Shep says it sucks, so clearly we're all mistaken

Yes, a gameplay feature that's been in 4x games since Master of Orion THE ORIGINAL isn't critical.

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2006-03-19 02:13pm

Oh, screw my cheap-assedness - I'm going for it here and now, god dammit! Collector's Edition download, here I come!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-19 02:16pm

Hilarious. It's the game's fault you lose now?

I mean, maybe you'd notice that the descriptions of the weapons indicate that they aren't strategic yield, so even their missiles wouldn't do shit to a planet? Even at highest tech, you STILL fire asteroids at planets as your 'most brutal' attack. So what are you complaining about? 4X games without planet bombardment? Hmmm... Master of Magic? Alpha Centauri?

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2006-03-19 03:19pm

...er, the direct download version *does* count as the collector's edition, right? Someone mentioned it earlier, but I can't find any confirmation on the site (and the forums just seem to be a mess).

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-03-19 05:31pm

I mean, maybe you'd notice that the descriptions of the weapons indicate that they aren't strategic yield, so even their missiles wouldn't do shit to a planet?

Oh yes, because we're in the 2200s, we will somehow completely forget how to build 50~ megaton nukes that can erase a city from the face of the galaxy!!!!!

Space Empires IV, a game SIX YEARS OLD nowadays did it right; your standard ship weapons really weren't optimized for planet wrecking until you got to absurd tech levels; but you always had "planetary bombs" at low tech which were optimized for wasting planets.

More to the point; since troop transports are the ONLY threat to a planet being destroyed or wasted; you can go light on the defenses and don't need to keep large fleets in your space; because if you pop the troop transport, you've defeated the enemy's entire offensive.

This reduces the strategic depth of the game SIGNIFICANTLY.

Stark wrote:4X games without planet bombardment? Hmmm... Master of Magic? Alpha Centauri?

Both taking place on a single planet, so they can't really be termed 4x.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-19 06:32pm

I agree with Shep- bombardment without invasion was something I did constantly in MoO 2, and it's absence is missed here. You shouldn't have to bring troops to invade a planet to bomb it.

But, it doesn't affect the game significantly IMO.

All the same, I think it should be added in the next patch.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-03-19 08:01pm

When you have only 6% of the galaxy's population, it's damn hard to do near ANYTHING. (or you should've built more farms)

And just build the cheapest transport possible, and load up nearly zero troops when you launch them, and then go about mass drivering enemy planets.

But it's so much better to actually take their planets then to go blasting them to rubble, really.

More to the point; since troop transports are the ONLY threat to a planet being destroyed or wasted; you can go light on the defenses and don't need to keep large fleets in your space; because if you pop the troop transport, you've defeated the enemy's entire offensive.

Popping troop transports is a bit hard when the enemy has half a dozen fleets running rampant throughout your territory, obliterating your space forces in a blink of an eye.

So oh yes, keeping ships throughout your territory certainly is important to fight off those fleets, and the transports that come soon after.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-19 09:12pm

The modifiers for your invasion tactics are only applied on victory, so technically even using tidal disruptors or mass drivers will have no effect until you actually win. Oh well?

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-19 10:25pm

It's too bad I've done so well in my current game that noone will dare to attack me. The surviving three races (Yor, Drengin, Arcean) do nothing but repeatedly send me gifts of money.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-03-19 10:43pm

Stark wrote:The modifiers for your invasion tactics are only applied on victory, so technically even using tidal disruptors or mass drivers will have no effect until you actually win. Oh well?

Actually, it seems like the newest patch fixed this. I might be wrong, so correct me if I am, but I tried that and I found that the planet I just conquered had only two buildings out of like ten tiles left, IIRC.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-20 12:26am

Vympel wrote:It's too bad I've done so well in my current game that noone will dare to attack me. The surviving three races (Yor, Drengin, Arcean) do nothing but repeatedly send me gifts of money.

This is why I don't really mind influence victories. It's low-conflict, but if your influence controls 75% of the galaxy, you've won in all but name anyway. When I turn IV off, I find myself deliberately stretching the game to try new technologies, etc, because the enemy can't do anything to me.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-20 04:48am

Vympel wrote:It's too bad I've done so well in my current game that noone will dare to attack me. The surviving three races (Yor, Drengin, Arcean) do nothing but repeatedly send me gifts of money.

I've had that happen too; you can't even provoke a conflict because the Senate will vote down any war on a far weaker, friendly species.

You can try handing out planets and technology like candy to even the odds, maybe then you'll get your war.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-03-20 05:17am

Can't you just leave the United Planets League and go on a rampage afterwards?

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-20 06:20pm

I might, but first I have to build up a massive military- currently I have little more than planetary defense.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-03-21 02:14pm

I

the ship designer

Has anyone tried the mod that unlocks all hulls as jewelry ? I'm thinking about trying it but the readme says it'll slow down the "extras" tab to a crawl...

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2006-03-21 02:27pm

Bounty wrote:

I the ship designer

Has anyone tried the mod that unlocks all hulls as jewelry ? I'm thinking about trying it but the readme says it'll slow down the "extras" tab to a crawl...

I use it. It just makes the Extras tab take a while to load the first time, but I like it. Tiny Human hulls are great for filling out spaces in your big ships.