Great stuff guys! I learned the trick in my last game to build a custom colony ship, way better than the stock ship!

I think it is obvious that as far as buying colony ships and factories goes, some do and some don't. I think it can work both ways.

Map size makes a difference

On a tiny to small map I personally don't buy colony ships or factories early on. I set social and research to 15% and military to 70% this gets me a colonly ship evrey four or five turns on Earth. All colony ships are from Earth the new colonies start on constructors.

If I don't get most of the habitable planets and nearly all the mining resources with this strategy, it is not for lack of ships or production.

I'm no GalCiv expert but from my experiences with GalCiv I, and GalCiv II, I've discovered that if you are a new player, and you have all the AIs set to normal, you are more than likely to get wiped out. Set the AI's to low, learn the basics of the game such as colonizing quickly (very important), managing the economy, boosting research, what are good techs to learn, etc. After winning a couple games on 'beginner' then set a couple of the races to 'normal intelligence'. You'll notice that these smarter races expand much faster, will grab the resources, and might try to push you around a bit. After you win a couple of those games then set all the AIs to normal intelligence.

Design a fast colony ship and design a slow and cheap colony ship, don't use the basic colony ship, it has a middle speed which is usually not what you want, if you know for sure you are going to be the first on a specific planet, build/buy a cheap colony ship...if you race for a spot, build/buy a fast colony ship and claim that planet.

I have 3 designed colony ships and also can use the default one (very rarely), each with it advantage (good autonomy and decent speed is my 3rd, you know to go to FAR away places)

great posts, I've also been having trouble with my economy on "normal." It felt like I literally started later than my counterparts, because I started with one planet and it seemed like everyone else started with two! I dunno, it was weird. needless to say, I had an awful start and I'm overcoming it now and taking out the strongest race. should my industrial rate/production always be set at 100%? cause I'm still having a hard time making money even after conqueing planets that are pretty much all developed

here's a tip for a person who is having trouble making money...sell your techs to minor civs, or to weak major civs, for money. you can make a lot by doing this while trying to fix your economy or to fund a war

It should be set to %100 most of the time. There will probably be a couple of times when you'll have to drop it back down. After the initial colony rush, for instance, you'll have to drop it to maintain the many new planets you've acquired. During that time you should try to focus on researching techs that you can sell. Then, as you sell your technologies you can raise it back up. Eventually your colonies will be able to maintain themselves and you should be able to keep your spending up (although this may not be until after your first war).

Here's my quick start guide:

Turn 1
Set 100% spending and 100% research (research whatever project you want, but engines can be very useful)
Design the fastest colony ship possible and stick on some sensors if you have room.
Buy the colony ship and one factory.
Use the flagship to search for planets, picking up any anomalies on the way.
Send the colony ship exploring for good planets (don't colonise the planet in your own system)

Turn 2
Send the new colony ship to explore some distant star systems.
Buy another factory
If you researched a new engine in the first turn, design a new, faster colony ship.
Set 100% military and start building colony ships

Turn 3+
Buy factories until your colony ships are being produced quickly.
Alternatively, go 100% social for a few turns to build some factories 'naturally'.
Once you have enough factories just keep on 100% military building colony ships for planets and constructors for resources until you think you have enough.
You'll probably be deficit spending, but you should be able to build enough ships before you run out of money!
Focus your newly colonised planets on social, so they can start building useful stuff.
At some point, you might want to design and build a fast scout ship (if you think this is more efficient than using colony ships as scouts).

Turn ?
When you've got enough colony ships and constructors, set a sensible mix of military/social/research, and try to get your economy making a profit. Researching "trade" is probably a good idea.

My first game was easy/small. I played worse than your (Topic Creator) explanation shows you played, and I absolutely decimated the map - culturally.

Easy is definitely there for a reason, especially in a game where the AI is renowned for actually trying to beat you. That's a needless distraction when you don't even know what you're doing yet.

Probably should add also that I only had about 5 ships, I had colonies going out two by two with my flagship and a custom scout with upgraded drives going ahead of them. By the end of the map I hadn't had one hostile action from anyone, everyone was close-ish despite me being neutral-evil and two of the AI's being neutral-good.

Try the peaceful game, can be fun.

[quote=Gui-Jay]1- Create a custom "Fast" colony ship. Cargo hull, ramp up on engines and some sensors (to find those cool planets)[/quote]

I'm not sure I understand how this "fast colony ship" thing is supposed to work. I haven't even played through a whole game of GalCiv2 yet, but I have read the manual, done all the tutorials, and read lots of forum posts (including this one). When I go to make a custom colony ship, I have 60 total units of space to work with. The Colony module takes 20 units of space, the Hyperdrive takes 21 units of space, and that leaves 19 units of space for everything else, like sensors and life support.

So, how am I supposed to build a colony ship that's faster than one engine? I suppose it has something to do with technology, like building bigger ships to fit more engines and researching higher speed?

More advanced engines take up less space (and each new 'class' of engine is faster to boot). You can also research the miniaturization branch at the bottom of the tech tree to get more space on your hulls. Some races, such as the Yor, start with better engines and/or some miniaturization ability, so they can make some pretty quick colony ships right off the bat.

Hello guys,

I'm new in these forums. I have found this topic really helpful.
So thanks a lot about these tips!

But I'm wondering that meaby some of you little bit experienced players could share me information about the balance between the "money planets" and the "production/research planets".... Just in general, how many money planets you generally need to back your economy?

I have only played the Dread Lords campaing so far. And mostly my economy is on the negative side all the time.... I know that it is ofcourse hard to back my industry when my population is just some billions and still I have for example 7 planets in which four I have ship production going on. Is the waiting of population to increase only way to get taxes up? Or could I speed up the growth some way?
But in this scenario when I have 7 planets, four is producing ships. Should I fill those three remaining planets with farms and market centers? And how many factories I should build on the "industry planets"? Now I have tend to have only couple of factories on one planet. As my industry spending is 100% and cash flow quite hardly on below zero, I have not had balls big enough to try building many factories on one planet.....

Well, I hope some one will answer this topic still....

Hi Ghost Glove

To answer your question about balance, I personally tend to use a 3:1 ratio, that is 3 economic-based planets to one industrial and/or research world.

Generally speaking, due to the way morale works in both DL and DA, one doesn't need to have more than 1 farm on any planet since populations above 21 million are very hard to keep happy, basically it becomes cost ineffectual. Also most veteran players do not use the gold 300% farm bonus tiles, but depending on the situation they may still use the green 100% farm bonus tiles.

More people is the easiest way to get more money (more people=more taxes coming in), but there are a few other abilities and technologies that can help your economy:
Economic Ability: Either as a starting ability or through technology/improvements such as banks, this ability increases the amount of income per person that is received. Economic bonuses are one of the best ways to increase your funding if you have limited space to grow population (like in a tiny/small map)
Trade: Trading with other races can really help a struggling economy and trade income increases over the time that a route is intact. An added bonus is that races that you trade with have better relations with you, thus helping to prevent them from possibly going to war.
Morale: A double feature here- you can tax your citizens at a higher rate with less drawbacks with a high morale, and also where your morale sits affects the rate of population growth. At 100% morale you have double growth, and then it goes down from there at certain intervals where at belove 40% you can have negative growth (losing people, BAD!)
Population Growth: A higher growth ability means more people, faster and more people means more money.


One of the big issues that gets players into troubling is over-spending, especially early. Every manufacturing point or research point costs money, and so if you have every planet trying to research, and build infrastructure, and build ships, you can quickly fall into debt. Also be careful with leases; that cheap 500BC and 20BC/week may sound tempting but doing that repeatedly adds up REALLY quick and can kill your economy.

As far as planets are concerned, I usually define their need, and then fill with money. Planets with bonus tiles are built with the necessary structures to utilize those bonuses (exception: don't use farming bonuses). If I need a manufacturing planet, I build 4-5 factories, a power plant, and a starport. Research planets get a few research centers and the coordinator. After building what I need, any left over tiles are built in the following order: farm, bank, morale center, and cultural center, though I never go over 2 farms, and I will also build trade goods or super projects first if I don't have them yet. I also try to save space (but don't always) for the Counter Espionage Center and the Fertility Clinic. The Clinic is particularly important for manufacturing worlds, so when I pump out troop transports my population is able to quickly recover for the next ship. Personally, I have found that I need very few research planets to actually be competitive, and more often than not I dominate galactic research levels with less than ten research worlds (on a Gigantic map).

Sell some techs early in the game to supplement your coffers, but don't sell all of them, particularly your diplomatic and weapon/defense techs. Keeping diplomatic techs means you can squeeze more value out of any trade you make, trading them away now means less money in the future. If you pay any attention to your enemies you will research the proper weapons to counter them, don't trade away that advantage. Finally, remember that ground combat is affected by both your soldiering AND your overall tech level, so if you've just sold someone all your techs and they make war upon you, you don't have that technology edge and your planets will be creamed. For this reason I usually try to trade tech for tech; trading for money is only a last resort.

Again very useful tips. Thanks again.

But what are the power plants or the coordinators millertime335 above mentioned?
Most likely I have not yet to discovered such a techs...but just checking.

So if I have one industry and one research planet I should have 6 economy planets and in total 8 planets.... Quite high I think, at least in campaing scenarios...

And is it right tactic to not build infrastructures simultaneously on every planet? Or did I get it wrong? Of course this will depend on your starting treasury too...

But in general is it good way to go like having let's say those 8 planets at start and choosing two best suited for industry and reasearch worlds and focusing all the infrastructure development on those and let the other planets grow on them selves?

And have you build one or more factories on economy planets? Or starport at all?
Or should I fill the economy planets up with the market places?

Again mainly questions but try to cope with me...

haha, its ok, we understand. We can help give you an outline of ideas but just see what works for you.

Yes, the power plants and research coordinators are improvements found with later techs.

Campaign games require a completely different way of thinking and managing your resources, in all honesty, even some of the best players on here could have trouble in the campaign because it is different from the sandbox version. Almost all the tips you find are helpful in gameplay but may not be directly applicable to whatever mission you currently are playing.

I usually don't have all my planets building at once early on, I usually reserve that for higher PQ planets (11 and above), I let my lower ones grow, maybe add a farm and some markets but thats really it. Thats just me though.

You don't want to completely sideline your 'minor' worlds, but the infrastructure on them will probably not be as intensive as your 'core' worlds. Early on at least.

Also, your research path, your production slider (I keep mine at 100%), your ethical choices, all will impact your economy, production, adn research...also, if you are playing Dark Avatar, what Super Ability you have will also, possibly greatly, affect your gameplay.

EDIT: WOOT WOOT! I had written this and when I had hit "post reply" it had disappeared and I got sent to the Forum Page instead. When I had returned to this thread my reply wasn't there so I went about and checked some of my other threads. Eventually, I decided to try and use my "Go Back" button (and go back over 15 pages) and there was my reply still in the Text Box. Thank goodness I use a good browser.

For sandbox games, you can generalize your planets or specialize them. Either way works. I build mostly econ buildings, followed by factories, then labs. Your economy is going to dictate most of what you do in the game so that needs to have the biggest emphasis. You want enough factories to build the ships your economy can support so there's a balance there. It takes a while to get it dialed-in and how you find that balance depends on how you deal with your planets. Personally, I specialize my planets between production and economy. The higher class ones get mostly factories and the lower class ones get mostly markets.

Hope that helps

I'm glad this post exists because I look at people with the "Obscene" medal and think "How the heck did they get that!?"

The medal I have comes from 2 games: the 1st was me vs 2 races on a tiny map on "Cakewalk" difficulty (I won). But the second was me vs Yor collective with another race set to friendly. That was a short battle because the difficulty was set to "Suicidal"! But I lost that one!

 

My problem used to be a weak military but then I found out about the domestics screen and my military problem transformed into a money and approval problem!  

My race is a custom race that specialises in soldiering, research, planet quality and a bit of moral.

 

What I used to do when I first started was just research ship components and design ships for the fun of it!

Any way! Back to my origional question: HOW DO I BEAT ENEMIES ON HIGH DIFICULTIES!?

Also, how do I get my medals to show up when I post?

There's lots of little tricks you can discover that allow you to beat the AI on high difficulities.  It's what makes the difference.

Here's an example; Instead of building big expensive colonizers to travel rather large distances to colonize remote planets, build one fast one to get to a solar system.  Once there, buy a starport on the empty planet then build a tiny or small hull (depending on miniaturization ability) with only a colonization module.  Use those to colonize the surrounding planets.  Check the military empahasis on the new planet so the tiny colonizers build fast as possible.  Don't build anything on the new planet.  That can divert military production.  Alternatively, you can buy those tiny colonizers using the long-lease if your economy can support it.

Here's another example; Build your military hard and soon.  Use the Spin Control Center.  Get your rating up way above the other races.  Start a war and negotiate peace as soon as possible.  Provided your military rating far exceeds the opposing race, you'll find you can negotiate for a number of their planets in the process.

Here's the most extreme one and it's what I use.  Start the game with all races in a state of war with you.  Build small hull fighters with one weapon as soon as possible.  Create a perimeter around the area you think you'll be able to claim.  Blast any enemy scouts and colonizers that trespass on the stake you've claimed.  Build Eyes of the Universe ASAP (use the long-lease), otherwise you can't see them.  This tactic gets tricky and can be hard to pull off because the AI will soon come at you with powerful gun ships and transports.  You have to be in a position to negotiate peace before that happens (high military rating using the Spin Control Center).  I fight them off for a time doing upgrades on the little fighters, but at the high difficulties I can't do that for long.  I have to negotiate peace before they over-run my perimeter.  But, in the process, I've colonized easily twice as many planets as I would have otherwise.

Until one gets to the very highest difficulty settings, there are many ways to win and there is margin for error and inefficiencies.

At the highest setting before the AI gets bonuses, one can simply outdo the AIs by careful research choices, better colonization choices, and weapons/defense research based on the most likely first enemies.

Go up a few settings, and one can still win by going after diplomacy techs fairly early and getting all the AIs in at least two wars before the colony rush ends.  I've even won at Suicidal that way.  If you look at the statement in the "report" on alien races which notes +'s and -'s on what the current relationship factors are with another race, you'll note that being "too busy" is one.

At the highest settings, the Spin Control Center becomes important because the AIs will declare war on the weakest empires, and you do not want yours to be one of them.

At the highest setting, I concentrate on research for 10 - 20 turns, then shift to all factories and keep all the AIs warring in at least two wars.  The time to get worried is when peace breaks out.

Welcome to this great game! For new players I would suggest to first visit the Galciv2 wiki , which is a very good source of information. In addition, I would go the strategy part of this forum and read some of the excellent posts there. Perhaps go back in time a bit to see discussions when the game was just released to see how everyone discused the beginners issues. In addition the developers have also written some pieces with advice. They shouldn't be so hard to find. Finally, there are some great after action reports (AARs) that could give you some advice, if not plenty of inspiration. Have fun playing the game and share your experiences here!