noob confused, botf veteran

test... post not showing up in forum, whats with that?

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test... looks like these forums are severely broken...

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Hi MOM

nothing geez

I see this post, so you can stop posting now...

I'll get to answering your questions shortly.

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Your posts are showing up just fine; how is it that you are not seeing them?

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If you played with the default settings, you're probably on common/common habitable/planets or lower...I don't remember exactly. In a large galaxy, and with DA's extreme environments planets requiring different techs to colonize them, it wouldn't surprise me if you went a good 10-15 turns without seeing a colonizable planet. 30 is a bit excessive, but may well have happened if you happened to pick random and got a rare roll.

Though, I have to ask, what about your PQ3/4 in your system? Did you not colonize that? Although, I have to admit, now and then it doesn't show up ingame.

One other thing that seems obvious but you may be doing is attempting to colonize planets with scouts. That simply won't work; you need to have a colony module on the ship in question.

These forums are a little quirky and it can take awhile for the recent posts to update.

1. The default ships are not that great. Try designing your own custom ships. I suggest you use a cargo hull as a base, and then install some engines, life support, and sensors.

2. I recommend that you send your ships to other stars so you can get a look at them. Alternatively, you could try to use your scout ships to scout as much as the map a possible, making sure that every par-sec has been seen by sensors. It might be time consuming, but a thorough search might find you some resources.



I'm not sure I can help you there. There have been many improvements in this game to inform the player when an event happens (Icons to the right of the screen for instance). You're going to have to figure out what would be a reasonable amount of stuff you need to get done.

For the record, I've beaten large maps in less than 5 hours on tough, and reguarly beat tinies in less than 2, so you might be trying to do too much.



All maps are randomly generated in such a way to give all civs different advantages, yet remain equal. So if you can't find any nearby planets to colonize, you might better be looking for nearby galactic resources. Alternatively, you want to consider your position from a defensive point of view, since if you can't find nearby planets, other civs might need to make some effort to attack and invade you latter.

In the very beginning you will have to check everything, but after that I just click turn repeatedly and watch the GNN; if anything noteworthy pops up I can do whatever I need to do, otherwise I just click turn again.

One other note-it helps to have Stellar Cartography (planets will show up on the mini-map orbiting their stars, though habitable/uninhabitable is not designated). If your race didn't start with it, it comes after Xeno Research (in DL and DA), which has a base cost of 20TP, and Stellar Cartography itself has a base cost of a mere 25TP. Basically, you should be able to very nearly get either one of them with just your homeworld in one turn regardless of tech rate.

Yeah in the galaxy set up, change habitable planets/number of stars/number of planets up to abundant and see if you like that better. Or try a medium sized map...

I'm old school, I come from Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. I'm a god in that game. I'll take on anyone, any race, any starting level, I'll whoop yer a$$, I still play it

Ok, I'll be the Federation starting on level 5 and you can be the Romulans starting on level 1. I would like to see you kick my a$$ then.


Seriously, GalCiv is a very different game and it will take some time to get used to.

Greetings, Drokmed! From one BOTF player to another, I welcome you.     


If you've not done so already, I would definitely follow Piznit's advice to start on a new map -- this time making sure to set stars, planets, and habitable planets all to Abundant. I would then choose the Large map size, as this should give you roughly the same number of planets to colonize/conquer as you would star systems in BOTF. (Of course, you can always play on the bigger maps to get an even more epic experience -- I know I certainly do.  )

Also, as others have said, micromanaging isn't as necessary in GalCiv 2, as the game takes care of a lot of stuff for you. For example: When a planet's building queue is empty, or your current research project is completed, or you've received a diplomatic message, or a ship has finished being constructed, you will receive a message informing you of that fact -- you don't have to keep checking those things to make sure they tell you. If you've researched Habitat Improvement or Terraforming, your planets will automatically upgrade any previously unusable tiles without you having to tell them to. Your colonies will also automatically upgrade your existing basic structures (factories, farms, labs, etc.) if you've researched a more advanced version of them.

There's still plenty to do in in this game, but a lot of the simple stuff has now been taken care of for you.   

Thank you all for the great feedback! I can see it's going to take a while to absorb everything this game offers... and that is a good problem to have



LOL how brave of you You can be fed 5 and I'll be Rom 4. You would have a very hard time winning that one.

Thanks again everyone, I'm reading up some more before trying it again.

I'm wondering if I should focus on cranking up morale/research first, at least a bit, before focusing on raising production.

Is there a trick to growing people faster (increasing population)? How long does it take a newly colonized planet to reach max pop?

BOTF was a excellent game that I played for quite a while...great to see some more fans. They really should have made Cardassians much better than they were (although the Dominion mods really amped things up for them later), and the Ferengi were much better than I had expected them to be: In addition to making gobs of cash, their warships were quite good....cruisers had loads & loads of torpedoes.

I did like playing Klingons, even though they werent very good.

Sentient species taste better...

There are a couple of "tricks" to growing population faster. First and foremost, launch each colony ship with the full 250M colonists. Secondly, ferrying further colonists to low population planets from your homeworld (with a specially designed colony ship consisting of 2-4 colony modules, or transport modules if you've got 'em) helps significantly, but is not strictly necessary. Thirdly, Xeno Biology unlocks Xeno Medicine, which gives an additional +10% population growth. Fertility Acceleration after that gives another +10%, but is typically not worthwhile enough in the early game. The latter also enables you to build Fertility Clinics, which increase the planet's growth by 19M or 25% of the base growth, whichever is more (and base growth tops out at 75M with a pop of 2.5B, so the most you'll get out of one is 19M). If I remember correctly, Fertility Clinics do have the population growth bonus applied to them, but I could be wrong.

Additionally, you could try investing racial customization points into population growth, though the maximum you can gain that way in DA is 40%. Personally, I've been using the Universalist party a lot lately, as it grants +10% populaton growth-though I've been using it more for the +25 luck aspect.

But, other than getting the population to 2.5B so base growth becomes 75M, the main thing you can do to get your population to grow faster is lower taxes so morale is 100% on the planets in question. At 75%, you get a 1.25x factor to overall growth (after factoring in racial bonuses,etc), whereas at 100%, you get a 2x factor, for double the overall growth. You'll lose money in the short run while your population grows, but it'll get to the point where it'll make you money faster.

However, as your population grows, you're going to notice they're becoming unhappy. A morale resource or two helps, and depending on the map size and your luck (real life, not game stat) you may have more. But the primary thing you want to do to counter that is research the entertainment techs. Xeno Entertainment alone gives +15 morale, and is cheap to boot. The buildings themselves aren't that useful, except early game, but the innate bonuses help loads.

Oh, and do keep your population down. The civilization capital is up to 16MT food now, capable of supporting 16B people, and there's really no good reason for a planet, any planet, let alone all of them, to have more than that. They just get too unhappy. Personally, I'm trying an 11B cap on my non-civ capital planets (minor races are tasty) at the moment, as it just feels right, but to each their own. Just...watch that approval.

Wow!

Sole Soul, that is valuable information! Many many awesome tips! I think I'm on the right track with the population/morale issue.

Thanks!

Huh? At tech level 1 they are weak, not as bad as the romulans or cards. Once Klingons get that cloaked scout 2, they are extremely powerful. At tech 5, Klingons are by far the most powerful race. I love playing them, they are the most fun.

The ferengi are over-powered at every level, too easy, not very fun.

There are lots of "right" ways to play the game so you don't have to play a certain way, but here's one example of how I typically start a game. Hopefully this will be helpful.

Galaxy setup is everything abundant except asteroids on common. Tech rate is very fast.

Pick a race with good starting techs and good free bonuses. Yor, Thalan, Torian, Krynn, Korath come to mind.

Put bonus points in economy, morale, and military production. Select Federalist party for economy bonus.

Finish setup and start game.

Click on mining ship and click on automate in console. Click on flagship and hit "a" for auto-survey (or double click on ship then select auto-survey). Click on colonizer then right click on home planet to put colonizer in orbit.

Click on Domestic Stats button in console. Set spending slider to 100%. Put taxes on 59%. I jocky all the sliders quite a bit throughout the game, but in your case, leave spending and production sliders full to the right for now.

Double click on home planet and put a few factories then labs in the build queue. Take advantage of any bonus tiles.

Start taking turns with some basic objectives.

All of the races (except Terran I believe) start with the stellar cartography tech. This makes the viewing of stars and planets available in the mini-map. Click on the small mini-map icons to display stars and planets. Use the mini-map zoom. Launch your colonizer and direct it to the closest star systems to find a habitable planet (click on planet then select launch in console, put a full load of colonists on it). You can direct ships by right clicking on the mini-map as well as the main map.

Obtain the first sensors tech and Ion Drive (if you don't start with it).

Once you have Sensors and Ion Drive, use the ship editor to create a custom survey ship (needs one survey module) and a custom colonizer (needs one colony module).

Alternate building the custom colonizer and survey ship on your homeworld. Send colonizers to star systems and use the "a" key on survey ships to put them in auto-survey mode. Personally, I don't use scouts at all. If you get enough survey ships out there, they'll clear enough fog to see most of the local planets. Survey ships investigate anomolies which provide important benefits and they clear fog in the process. Use the - and + key to zoom the main map in and out for viewing planets.

Once I have a handful of survey ships out there, I switch to building colonizers only.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but that should be what you need to get started.

Thanks Craig, I love the idea of using survey ships instead of scouts... makes good sense!

You're welcome. I tried to avoid confusing things with too much detail and I expained things at ground zero so apologies if that seemed patronizing. In any case, there's lots more that can be said just about starting a game alone. Post any more questions and I'm sure any of use will be more than willing to answer.

BTW, I should mention that I don't build scouts per se, but I do put survey ships in auto-explore mode mid-game when they're faster and anomolies become scarce. If you take to the bigger maps, don't neglect the "Eyes of the Universe" special project made available by fully researching the Sensors branch. It gives all your ships a huge sensor range. This one is wonderful for scouting the big maps, but is not as useful on the smaller maps.

I have found that there are more ways to play and win this game than any other game I have tried, mainly due to the different styles of play.

I usually play smaller maps so I hardly ever build scout ships. I use the surveyor on auto to uncover everything and occasionally build more survey ships if I happen to be playing a bigger map. On a tiny to large map I build all colony ships on the home planet so I can usually max out the colonist. The rest of my planets build constuctors except when I am gearing up the military.

As an influence peddler, I usually colonize as many planets as possible, stay out of wars as much as possible and scoop as many mining resources as possible. As a matter of fact, I don't recall ever losing a game where I had the majority of mining resources.

Be sure to study the bonus abilities carefully, I see others having economic and morale problems that I don't have and I am pretty much convinced that econ, influence and creativity bonuses trump anything else. Speed is a great bonus but it is too expensive and eats up all your points to get a significant boost.

This has worked well for me but would not be a popular strategy for others. the vast majority of my wins are culture wins with just enough war to have some fun with it.

I find military victory to be a long and tedious process since no one surrenders to you (they surrender to your other enemies) and you must take every planet. I usually wind up taking any victory option to avoid this tedium. I know that others have mastered the ability to plan military victory so well they can apparently pull it off more efficiently than me. So there you go, sauce for the gander, etc, etc.

In the end though, winning is mostly about real estate and money, of which you will have neither without a high tech rating, so keep the research slider as high as possible always. With money and influence you can choose your path to victory.