Brad's "Did you know you could do this" thread

Tips, tricks, and more

By Frogboy on February 22, 2006 10:17:05 PM from

GalCiv II Forums

Frogboy

Chief Executive Officer

Join Date 03/2001

+962

Welcome to another (or first) edition of "Did you know..."

Standing in for a dialog with a "show me more tips" checkbox is your host, me with a series of fairly random but hopefully useful suggestions that might make your gameplay more fun!

#1 You can "grab" the map with the left mouse button and move it around by holding it down. You may never want to edge scroll again.

#2 You can RIGHT-CLICK on the ship built block notifications that flow down on the right and your ship will automatically be launched.

#3 On the planet screen, you can put your mouse over the approval and influence and it will explain where that number is derived from.

#4 In the Diplomacy screen, you can RIGHT-CLICK on tiems to bring up a dialog that gives info on that item.

#5 You can play a quasi-Hot seat game with someone by loading up the game as GalCiv2 cheat (use the cheat parameter). Then when you set up the game, you let the AI play out a few turns and then have your friend pick one of the races they want to control. Have them select that unit and hit CTRL-SHIFT-Z.

#6 CTRL-S is the quick save.

#7 You can double click on planets and various other items to take the place of having to place, or install or build or go to their screen.

Is there a way to get a transport to automatically launch with 1 passenger? I hate dragging the scroll bar all the way to the left and then having to go back and click the other side of the scroll bar to add 1 passenger. If one passenger is the minimum required to launch, then the scroll bar should only go down to 1, not 0.

Nope you can't auto-launch with one passenger, it's either full or partially full - if a full transport would remove more than one quarter of the current population, it instead auto-launches with however many are represented by one quarter. At least that's the proportion that I think is used.

However you should note that with manual launching the mouse wheel does work on the scroll bar, so that can be a click saver.

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I've got a few how-to questions regarding Twilight 1.96:

a) when a dialog appears stating that Mining Base X197 thinks you suck and wants to give all their stuff to the culturally superior Daleks or what have you, is there any way to instantly go to that mining base from that dialog so I don't have to scroll all over my empire looking for that one base?

when looking at a planet's available buildings, is there any way to ensure that each main building type (economy, farm, influence, morale, production) always appears in a fixed location, or to assign a building a hotkey so that when I press it the game queues it up to be built? It gets really annoying trying to find any one building type because, due to their name changes, they move all over the list during the course of the game (e.g. sometimes it's Xeno Farming conveniently at the bottom of the list, and sometimes it's Intensive Farming right in the middle). I waste a bunch of time on a planet scrolling about trying to find the one slot upgrade I want; multiply that by several slots per planet, by 20+ planets, and by several hundred game turns and you have a lot of wasted time.

c) is there a ship upgrade option that *doesn't* completely wipe all modules from a hull when you select it? I almost always just want to modify an existing design rather than reinvent the wheel, all the while keeping the same general module placement locations for thematic purposes. It would be much faster to just be able to take your Mauler I, slap on two new Photon Torpedo launchers, and call it the Mauler II, rather than also having to add back all the old stuff it already had while trying to remember exactly what hardpoint had what.

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C - Go to options, click the interface tab and you'll see a Ship Designers section. You'll see an option for removing functional component from your ships when upgrading, uncheck it and when you upgrade all the old components will still be on the ship.

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Only thing I see under the Ship Designer heading after hitting the interface tab is the selection for rotating parts.

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Here is a screenshot of where the option is. Using the latest version of Twilight.

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It doesn't show at the lower resolution of 1024 x 768.

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FROGBOY,

Thanks for the multi-player tip.

PANDAPATCHES

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Is it possible to eliminate the popups stating that such and such mining base is leaning towards another empire, and the ones that state later that said mining base has defected to another race? I really don't care that the Thalans are on the verge of losing bases to the Iconians when I'm the Terrans on the other side of the map. I usually don't even care to get those notices for my own bases, let alone those of other powers.

Using Twilight, latest version.

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1 Ethics important for diplomacy. races favour their own alignment.

the good races: altaran, torian, iconian, drath

neutral: thay krynn terran! arcean

evil : drengin korx yor korans

2 planet specalisation build research planets on low quality. manufacturing on middle. economic on high(usually initially your start planet)

3accidentally giving all you money to a race on trade screen = bad

4 if going for a diplomacy victory or such sell techs liberally to aligned races at start making money and boosting your alignments side in the galaxy

5dont build scouts. buy. deprive enemy

6 if culture hugging planets (i build three inf bases in orbit for toughest planets)buy influence points off victim

7 use inf bases to provoke enemies into wars "we know what youre doing"

8 making "evil choices" when they come up doesnt effect your alignment as much as you'd expect

9 buy colony ships with all of your start money

10 missles are the best weapon line generally speaking good and evil aligned race get special bonus techs here defence and attack respectively

11 look at trade windows to see what weapons races are building and counter

12 defences powers drop to their square root against mismatched weapons eg ecm vs lasers so one ecm is still one strength

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Actually that Colony > Constructor thing could be extremely useful, I didn't even think of it. For whatever reason, during the "expansion phase" of my games, I end up either having too many constructors or too many colony ships when I need the other. Thanks!

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Hey Brad, nothing really to comment here that's related to the topic. I just wanted to say that what you're doing, along with the company and how you're approaching the game industry is excellent! You're doing a great job!

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Thanks for the tips!

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this:

a) when a dialog appears stating that Mining Base X197 thinks you suck and wants to give all their stuff to the culturally superior Daleks or what have you, is there any way to instantly go to that mining base from that dialog so I don't have to scroll all over my empire looking for that one base?

Thx for a great thread

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Quoting KCanute,

reply 25

But then what's the "Demolish" button for?

Another instance I've used demolish. Enemy placed an agent on my efficiency center. I was six turns away from getting an agent, which at this point was really expensive. It was faster and cheaper to demolish the center, then rebuild it on another vacant square. The enemy agent sat on an unoccupied square, doing no harm, until I had a spare agent of my own to get rid of him.

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You can do more than use planets to speed you on your way. If they are right next to each other, (or just one space away), you can transport people from one to the other endlessly.

Seems to me that entering or leaving a planet should take up one movement point, but... Oh Well.

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Did you know that you can get two Xantinum Hull Platings? I conquered a world where it was already half way built, placed another on a blank tile and it built both of them and each time it said "no additional may be built" TA v2.03

I wonder if it works on other trade good super projects!

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!

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Quoting tetleytea,

reply 55

particularly, to those newly-conquered planets that only have 100 million population.

The standard Colony Ship will allow a 250m population to be carried around. However, the one we get when we freshly start a game has only 100m in it, but you can safely move it back to your homeworld without losing any point of speed, and fill it up to 250m...

Well, donno where the point is that it starts out with a limited number of people, because usually the basic homeworld is filled up with people, so maybe this could be changed for GalCiv3 ?

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Quoting AzualFallen,

reply 68

I'm pretty sure the trade doesnt become yours, they already have a monopoly on it. It you get a trade good from another race it means you use it (and get the benefit) but you dont control its distribution.

Yes, I think so too.

But strange is that the Trade good doesn´t show up as mine even after I conquered the planet on which the Trade good is produced. At least, at that point, it should be mine!

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Quoting jpinard,

reply 87

If you launch a colony ship or a transport this way, you will get an empty ship. Strangely enough, GC2 will not launch a colony ship or transport without at least 1 "passenger" any other way.

You must have an issue with your copy of the game. I luanch all my transports and colony ships this way, an as long as I have enough people on the planet - they're filled to the brim. I even make Super transports that carry a bakillion soldiers, and they launch full. Now if you double-click them from the planetary screen, they will launch with just 1 person.

True, if the planet is crowded enough the transport are full to extent.

But if I launch manually a dialogue will open in which I can determine the number of passengers, isn´t it?

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Quoting Blackrook,

reply 94

Can you use a colony ship to add colonists to planets that are already colonized? I should think you should, but I've never tried it. I've been fearful of losing my people if the game should decide not to allow it.

You can safely do that. You can also colonize a planet with a ship that holds only one Colony Module, but also some Advanced Troop Modules, that way will give your new colony a much higher population right from the start. But if you don´t find an empty planet you might also invade an enemy planet with such a ship, the 250m people from the Colony Module will fight also in battle.

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Quoting V1m,

reply 100

The demolish button is to strip a planet you know you're going to lose to the enemy.

Would it also be possible to use the "Destroy Colony" option? I´ve actually never used it, but if it does also destroy the Colony Module/Capital then even better, for an enemy Troop Transport won´t be able to invade, it might need a Colony Ship for that then....

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How does "Guard" and "Sentry" and "auto-Retreat" work? Sorry, I coudn´t figure it out.... I place a ship over a base and press "Guard" but when an enemy ship attacks the base is targeted, and not my defensive ship.... Any ideas?

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On "Guard" - what has happened in my DA games is that I am given a chance to attack the enemy unit/fleet with my unit/fleet set to "Guard" BEFORE the enemy can attack the base.

If i do not attack, the enemy can go ahead and attack the base.

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Quoting LTjim,

reply 174

On "Guard" - what has happened in my DA games is that I am given a chance to attack the enemy unit/fleet with my unit/fleet set to "Guard" BEFORE the enemy can attack the base.

If i do not attack, the enemy can go ahead and attack the base.

Is that done then during the auto-turn? like, an enemy ships arrives for the starbase, the auto-turn halts and gives you time to choose the enemy ships to attack with your guardship?

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