Very Basic Questions

from GalCiv2 Forums
Some of these will seem too basic, but the forums run extremely slow for me and searching them has proved too frustrating. I played Galciv 1, and some of these are leftover issues I had with that. Anyway, here they are:

1. Farming Population Cap Increases

I assume that everywhere in the manual and game where it says farming will increase the pop max cap by millions, it really means billions. I wasn't building any farming at all for the longest time thinking that the increase in pop would be something like 3 million for a basic farm, when it fact, it seems its more like 3 billion. This certainly has ruined my current game, but live and learn.

2. Unspent Resources

Let's say I have a planet that has 3 military production points, 3 social production points and 3 research points. I opt not to build a ship. Does that mean I now have 4.5 social and 4.5 research? Or does it mean that I'm essentially just wasting my ship building points (with the only benefit being the saved BC not allocated to ship construction). I'm assuming the latter. And yes, I realize this is an oversimplified example since your production points are heavily effected by what facilities and planetary bonuses exist. I'm just trying to grasp the basic concept.

3. Industrial Capacity

On the budget menu, what are most players using as their industrial capacity? It starts at 50% and I rarely have ever moved it. Should I be setting it at 100% and adjusting taxes to compensate? Leaving it around 50%? What is the "Default" capacity I should be using to function effectively. The AI at normal seems to be outbuilding me consistently and I can't figure out why (beyond the fact that most of my planets had a 5 billion population cap).

4. Pop Growth

Does it really grow at the rate of 200,000 at 99% approval and 400,000 at 100% That seems like a very strange, arbitrary line.

5. Why does the AI grab starbases that are nowhere near any of their systems or trade routes?

Do some starbases provide an empire-wide bonus v. an area of effect bonus? The military resource seems to provide an empire wide bonus, but do any others? I've never quite understood the usefulness of starbases off in some dead area of the map where no one is located, but the AI loves them. And that brings me to my final question . . .

6. Why do so many maps contain vast dead patches of space?

This is a problem from Galciv 1, but it seems that something like 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 of Huge and Gigantic Galactic maps (set to tight cluster distribution and abundant stars) will contain an enormous patch of dead space where nothing is located. I can't count how many times I've restarted because my homeworld is located in some corner of the map with three systems or less and I'm about 4-5 totally blank sectors from the nearest system. This isn't really a question since the answer isn't likely to help (you just restart those games), but I'm curious as to why the map generator creates so much dead space rather than making an effort to at least somewhat evenly distribute the tight cluster of systems. I've yet to have a game where at least one race wasn't totally eliminated from contention by their map placement.
8,157 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
1) Yes farming raises the cap by 1 billion per megaton of food the farm produces. Major typo, threw me off too.

2) For military production if you arent building a ship then you dont get charged for that production. It does not get added into your social and research. you just arent charged for it. Social production doesnt work this way though. Not sure why, no answer from the devs that I have seen. If you arent building social projects you still pay for the mp.

3) This is a harder question. I generally run it as high as I can afford. You cant raise taxes indefinitely or those pesky citizens will revolt. By midgame, unless I am evil or warlike, I can run at 100% because of my trade routes and tourism income. Remember that 100% means something different each time because as you build more buildings or upgrade what you have they cost more money to run at full capacity. In short this is a subjective question and depends on your economy and situation.

4) Pop growth appears to be capped at 200 per turn. It does seem arbitrary because you would obviously get more as you had more. Also 200 in one week? Pretty high. I think pop growth is broken. None of the pop growth boosting trade goods, race bonuses, or the political party, pacifist?, seem to increase this. I think it will be fixed next patch.

5) If the starbase is a military, economic, or influence base it is area of effect only. If it is a mining base on one of the colored polygons then it is a empire wide. If I build a mining starbase on a green economic resource or a red military resource then I get a percentage bonus to my economy or military depending on how many mining modules I have installed. These are tied to technnology. I think the industrial ones. There are morale, military, economy, research, and influence resources around the galaxy that you can harvest for empire wide goodness. I think there might be a sixth but I cant remember now.

6) The problem is you are using tight cluster distro. On that setting the stars have a tendency to be clustered together. This will have the effect of bunching the galaxy. So you will have large sections, 2 or 3 sectors, that have no stars and hence no planets. This is great for team games where you want the other team to be on one side and your team on the other. I tend to like having my star distro set to one of the other two settings.

Hope this helps.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks, very helpful responses.

I tried to use the more even distribution of stars, but for some reason the maps did not turn out very well. I still think that under tight clusters, the map generator should be able to avoid the huge gaps that appear on the map, but its not a big deal.

Pop growth should be some kind of a percentage of total population, economic growth, and/or morale. Just growing at 200,000/400,000 seems very odd to me. This is not even considering the odd switch to weeks instead of months in Galciv2 (which is a whole different issue that isn't even worth discussing; it was a mistake, but I guess its a superficial change).

The farming issue probably will force me to restart. I didn't build any farms to start and I probably am too far behind to build them now.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tried to use the more even distribution of stars, but for some reason the maps did not turn out very well. I still think that under tight clusters, the map generator should be able to avoid the huge gaps that appear on the map, but its not a big deal.


If you set it for loose clusters, you will decrease those dead zones. I generally play gigantic maps with loose clusters, normal stars, and occasional planets. If you want even less deadspace, bump the stars up to abundant(or whatever it's called) It took me several tries to get consistant maps I was happy with.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
The farming issue probably will force me to restart. I didn't build any farms to start and I probably am too far behind to build them now.


You could always destroy an existing structure to add a farm in your current game.

It's very unlikely that you'll build large numbers of farms on planets since they'd raise your population cap too high. As your population increases your morale decreases, so you need to build entertainment structures with farms and figure out a good balance (of number of farms).
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Dont forget that if you arent happy with your map you can ctrl+n it and get a new one. This isnt a cheat it is a feature of the game. To help those, like me, who would save and restart if they didnt get what they wanted.