Do Civ4 strategies apply in GC2?

I've come from Civ4. A great game. But I've always wanted a "Civ4 in space" kind of game. Galactic Civilizations II is definately that game. I'm having a blast.

However, I'm looking for some advice on my strategies. I thought I could directly transfer my Civ4 strategies into GC2. It didn't work well at first, but I'm starting to improve.

The resources in the two games are different. In GC2, as far as I can the 3 resources are production (both social and military), research, and commerce. In Civ4, the 3 main resources are commerce, production, and great people.

In Civ4, I would highly specialize my cities. Each city would have a specific purpose. It would either pump out high production, high commerce, or high amounts of great people. Generally, depending on the size of the map, I would have 1 or 2 production cities, 1 or 2 great people cities, and then the rest would be commerce cities.

I attempted to directly transfer this strategy over to GC2. On a huge galaxy, I grabbed about 8 or 9 planets before I was surrounded by the other empires. 2 of them were made into production planets ( 1 of them had the "precursor factory" special on it, increasing production on that zone by 700%), 2 of them were made research planets, and the rest were all turned into commerce planets.

This didn't work. I was number one in commerce by far, having 4 specialized commerce planets. I had money out the wazoo. So much I couldn't possibly spend it all. However my research was abysmal. I was keeping up in technology simply by purchasing it from other races, but I was never able to get a technological edge, because I couldn't research fast enough. Every time I'd research something, the other civs would already have that advance, plus 2 or 3 more.

In retrospect, I evaluated my strategy and found 1 large flaw: In Civ4, commerce = research. The more money you have, the more money you can devote into research. In GC2 however, commerce does not = research. Research = research

So to only have 2 specialized research planets I was a major flaw. In Civ4, the more money you have the more advanced you can become in research. But in GC2, having loads of money means that at best you can only stay even with the other civs through trade, but never pass them in tech.

I started a new game, and things seem to be going much better. Once again I've grabbed somewhere around 8-10 planets from the get go. 2 of them are production planets (though I didn't get the precursor factory this time... man that thing was sweeeet), but the rest I evenly distributed between commerce, and research planets, instead of having just 2 research and the rest being commerce.

I've found that most of my time is spent trying to balance my research and my commerce. I try to keep myself researching at my max possible rate, while keeping my empire afloat economically.

Now, all of that being said, here is my main question: It seems to me from other threads I've read here that most other people don't specialize their planets as much as I do. They tend to make jacks of all trades, but masters of none. For example, I never have starports on anything other than my production planets. If it's a research planet, it's entirely dedicated to research, and keeping the population happy. If it's a commerce planet, it's entirely devoted to commerce, and keeping the population happy. Production planets are entirely dedicated to production, and are the only planets that get starports.

So what's the best plan? High planet specialization, or making highly self sustaining planets?

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I specialize like you do.
Call my planets Factory Planet 1,2,etc. and Research Planet 1,2,etc.
However I do have some mixed planets with something from from both sides, so if I lost a specialized planet, I wouldnt be so crippled.

So all in all, your strategy is fine IMO.

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I don't do staight commerce planets - they get too unruly. Instead, I take my largest worlds (PQ11+) and devote three squares to commerce (two farms and some entertainment, or three farms if the planet approval stays high enough) and then use the rest for factories. That way I get decent production and a good population level in case of invasion. I usually use my smaller worlds (PQ < 10) to do research. PQ10 worlds (like my homeworld) I tend to generalize.

Of course, I'm only on game four, so my strategy will undoubtedly evolve from here...

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Now, all of that being said, here is my main question: It seems to me from other threads I've read here that most other people don't specialize their planets as much as I do. They tend to make jacks of all trades, but masters of none. For example, I never have starports on anything other than my production planets. If it's a research planet, it's entirely dedicated to research, and keeping the population happy. If it's a commerce planet, it's entirely devoted to commerce, and keeping the population happy. Production planets are entirely dedicated to production, and are the only planets that get starports.

Just so you know, I have played Civ since I was a wee kid, so I know what strategies you are talking about - and particularly Civ4.

I would say that the best bet is to make *some* specialised planets. These are best done where there are existing resources to boost the areas. That way you get your Manufacturing, Research and Financial planets set up and driving the core areas of the game. The larger percentage of your planets should be balanced imo. This is important for a number of reasons.

First, losing a core specialised planet when you only have specialised planets can spell End Game.

Second, a really focused research or manufacturing planet is going to drain your economy which can be alleviated by specialised Finance planets... but having many specialised Manufacturing and Research planets will make it necessary to have relatively more Finance ones.... thus you kind of end up stalemating yourself by having to focus planets rather than doing so by choice.

Third, having 10 planets capable of producing spaceships (no matter how slowly) is still better than having one all powerful planet (you can still have the all powerful manufacturing centre as well!)

I think one of the key factors that doesnt translate from Civ is planet quality. You said "I have 8 or 9 planets" - that does not equal having 8 or 9 cities in Civ. The quality of the planet has tremendous effect on the overall balance you can try to achieve. The more I played, the more I realised that you needed to build starports. At first I did the same as you (from the sound of it) and only built starports on high PQ planets with significant manufacturing potential. In a later game, I decided that anything PQ9 or above was getting a starport, even if there was only one factory there. These planets can increase my overall ship production capacity significantly over the long run and let my Manufacturing capital focus on say building the Big Guns while they build the little defenders or Constructors.

Planets Higher than PQ9
I personally try to achieve a manufacturing capital on a planet with at least 2-300% natural bonus to productivity. It gets a couple of factories (not too many!), is always focused on Military building (setting on planet info screen), a farm (this not only builds up your taxable population, but makes it significantly harder for enemies invading - especially with a few points in Soldiering) and entertainment zone and a couple of tax enhancers (to try to offset some of that spending) - most of the spaces get left to build Galactic wonders.

Research focus is more of a priority for me. Anything that has a native ability (i.e. Colonisation event or resources) will have a majority of labs on it. I will still put a starport, farm and entertainment centre there and probably 1-2 tax enhancers. My technological capital follows the same build order.

Any really high PQ planet (15+) becomes a Finance centre. This gets - 2 factories, a starport, 1-2 farms, enough entertainment to get the morale high (higher than 75%) and the rest are banks. The financial capital simply goes on the highest PQ of these.

ALL other PQ9+ planets get a varying mix of the above. I try to ensure that they generate slightly more income than they spend so that they pay for themselves. This tends to mean 1-2 factories, 1 farm, 1 entertainment, 1 starport, 1-3 labs and the rest as banks.

Overall, this means that the greater part of my planets pay for themselves AND contribute both to my fleet/constructors AND to my overall research, while I have my few specialist planets that are paid for by my financial planets. It seems to work well for me, I can keep up with the AI in all areas on intelligent, and as I tend to focus quite a bit on economical abilities, I tend to research a lot more research enhancement techs. Approximately 1/4 of the way through the game I will be average militarily, higher than average financially and my tech rate starts to really kick off and I pull away on tech for the rest of the game.

As for lower PQ planets (8 or lower) - I generally make them fully research planets. These guys get a factory and all labs.... with the occasional bank on the higher end ones. For some reason, it seems these are the planets that always discover the Lucky Rangers in my games!

In summary (in case you got bored and skipped to the end!!

)..... Have a few dedicated planets but try to have a large number of Jack of All Trade planets that can help you in all areas of your civs development; and *build more starports* - you'll thank me later when you up the difficulty level!

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Well, I just finished my first game on a huge galaxy. Took me 4 days of hard work, but it's done. Won an alliance victory in the end, but I could have won a tech, influence, or military victory if I wanted to. I beat the other civs like rented mules. It was only on Normal though, I'll be trying challenging next.

I played it the way I layed out above, I specialized every single planet. In the end I had 70 planets. 5 of them were geared to production (2 of them could churn out my massive Huge capital ships in 1 turn, the rest it would take 2 or 3 turns before they were done) 30 of them were geared to research, and the rest were all put towards commerce, to keep my absolutely MASSIVE military funded.

If I had it to do over again (which I will, since i'll be starting my next game shortly

I would have a couple planets that were generalized, and had a limited amount of production capability, instead of having only the 5 mega production planets. The reason for this is mostly due to military transports... I found that one major problem for me in military expansion was getting enough military transports produced quickly. With only 5 production planets, I was severely limited in my ability to churn out high numbers of transports when I was gearing for war. Plus a LOT of production was wasted when I would devote my mega producer planets to building teeny tiny transports for a couple turns on end. I think it would be beneficial to have 5 to 10 more planets with at least 1 factory and a starport, so they could put out a steady stream of transports.

Had a blast in that game. I doubled, or trippled every other civ in every aspect by the end. Like I said, I could have won in any way I wanted to, but I was eager to start a new game with what I had learned, so I took the easy out of the alliance victory.

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I tend to have a lot of *general* planets in the early game (mixed development in a four way balance between farming, research, manufactoring, and miscellany/creature comforts, such as multimedia centers, a starport, and two squares of planetary defenses) for smaller planets, and for the larger planets (especially class 15+), I'll add more manufactoring, research, farming, and planetary defense (in that order for inner worlds, and in reverse order for outer worlds) regardless of method of acquisition. It actually lets me build up a trade SURPLUS without needing to have a lot of economic or influence starbases (because the other civs actually sought ME out because I had quality goods cheap). In the midgame and endgame, I load more on both defense and research (especially if I'm still running a heavy surplus) where possible, but if I wind up getting worlds via revolt that are good farm worlds, I'll take them too (I am usually in the position to win a trade war). Following this strategy lets me be a *culture vulture* (even as the Yor) and simply compete the other civs into the dirt. It's a rather old, but time-tested strategy (I first developed it with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) but it works just as well with the Civ series and Rise of Nations (pretty much any RTS where you can win a tech or culture victory). I play as the Yor, but a democratic *good* Yor (the only sort of *empire* I'm building is a *trading empire*).

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