Playing GalCiv II since Feb. My basic strategy: I try to build a money making planet, usually the home planet, a research planet and a super production planet (40+ shields).
My problem: I can’t win on the challenging level. I’m always behind tech-wise, even with the tech slider up to 60%. Other races have photons torpedoes while I’m researching laser III’s. When I end up in a war, my freighters get destroyed, I run out of money, and any competitive ship I try to build takes too long to construct. After running at 100%, suddenly I’m losing 100-200 bc per turn. I have to reduce the slider to 30% or lower, just to stay in the green, but only by 1 or 2 bc. Morale, that’s fun too, tax over 49%, and watch it plummet. By then my defenders, with shields and inferior attack, can’t stop attackers with powerful beam weapons. How can the computer have a frigate with 27 beam attack? I can only manage to build one with an attack of 6 and shield defense of 6. Transports show up one after another, wearing down my planetary troops in a couple of turns, goodbye planet. I’ve played other games on normal level where I had to put the slider on zero, had taxes over 50%, and was still losing money every turn. Part of my empire rebelled and I lost several planets. Perhaps too many factories on a planet use too much money for maintenance? Is it bad to try to use all the squares available on a planet? Should I avoid planetary improvements for industry and trade?
