stupid crap

from GalCiv2 Forums
they need to say why you're being attacked! i get attacked way to many times! just because my military sucks, doesn't mean that the AI should attack you automatically. what the crap is normal difficulty? its the hardest difficulty i've ever played in a strategy game before. normal should not be where within 100 weeks your being attacked. also, the ai cheats with its techs. you go to trade with them, thay have laser 5 technology, along with about 20 other high techs, soil enhancement, etc... its ridiculous. in civ 4, you can see why other civs hate you. they ought to do the same here. and normal difficulty ought to be way easier, when you're attacked, it should be because you've had a low military for a long time, but instead, they attack you after 100 turns, not a very long time in the game. another thing is that there is no LAN multiplayer! WTF! is it that hard just to allow you and a friend to play multiplayer. most good games that come out have some form of multiplayer, like civ 4, half life 2, and a host of other games. this game needs it. so to the developers, make this game more friendly to casual gamers, not nerds who spend hours at the computer, and who could beat this with their eyes closed!
19,018 views 37 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A few suggestions that may help:

1) This game is designed to be challenging, and it takes a while to learn the mechanics. I started on Beginner level, on small and medium maps, until I got a feel for it. Then I worked my way up. Don't be surprised if you're getting whipped by jumping straight into the medium difficulty levels.

2) To avoid early attacks, try to maintain a military strength that's at least close to the stronger factions in the game. Alien factions decide who to attack based on several factors, but the main one is how strong or weak you are, militarily. As soon as you can afford it, put at least one ship in orbit around your colonized planets, even if it's a low-level fighter. Undefended planets are juicy targets just asking to be invaded. Notice how the AI will defend their own planets this way. Another thing that will help prevent attacks is establishing trade routes with the more powerful and/or dangerous races.

3) The game never advertised a multiplayer function. It may eventually show up in an expansion pack or future version, but this is the game we have. It can be fun if you meet it on its own terms, instead of wishing it was something it's not.

4) Learn to capitalize. It will make your posts easier to read.

I hope this helps.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game actually does tell you why other civs hate you. It's in the report for each civ in the relations screen.
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There are low level difficulties available. You sound like a beginner. That would be a very fitting place for you to start int his game as the above poster said.

There was a whole post by the developers why multiplayer was not put in. The reasons where that about 1/3 of all gaming costs go into mutliplayer and about 5% of gamers only use the option, I believe. Not only that, but with that much money going into multiplayer, DEV time from the single player game would be taken away, thus we'd have a game like Civ IV in the single player sandbox mode.. bland and not that interesting.

Hold on.. you're posting on a message board about a game with aliens, space ships, lasers, technology, and science.. and you think you arn't a nerd? Eep.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for your suggestions, but when all you have are defenders, your military strength can't go up high in later parts of the game. When I customize a ship, it takes around 20-30 weeks to build, so it more productive just to build crappy ships that die immediately then to spend 20-30 weeks to build a good one. Also, about capitalization, this keyboard stinks, and the shift key is stuck, so I have to press cap locks every time for capital letters. Thanks for your advice, and I probably ought to rename the title of the post, but still, this game gets frustrating quicly. It also managed to permenantly screw up my laptop, so that makes me even more angry. Thanks again.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First calm down and play at a lower level. I agree that the computer seems too militaristic. Sure that might be ok for the evil races, but the good races commiting genocide as soon as they see their friendly neighbor is weak seems a bit much. If the computer is that far ahead of you in tech, you need to expand faster at the beginning and start trading tech earlier.

There's a cheat that you can use to get hotseat multiplayer capability. Although it would be nice if were built into the option menu.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It depends where you build your ships. Your best bet would be to customize a ship with no defenses, no engines, no sensors, no life support, and just a weapon system. This would keep cost production down a lot and you'll get your military rating up.

Also, play with your sliders. Don't be afraid to crank up your social slider real high, build a factory or two on a planet with a star port, then slide up the military slider up nice and high to pump out a few fighters to get your rating up. If you ahve the spare ash, don't be afraid to buy ships from the computer either.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hold on.. you're posting on a message board about a game with aliens, space ships, lasers, technology, and science.. and you think you arn't a nerd? Eep.

LOL. If only we could have sigs here.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Breath bro.. BREATH.. yes that its, inhale, hold it... exhale.. wow, now don't ya feel better?
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
20-30 weeks to build a new ship? build some factories and crank that mil slider up
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can you imagine what mu;tiplayer would be for this? waiting 45 minutes for your opponent to design and ship, nd move their stuff about? Huge galaxies already take about 5 days to conquer.
And as people have said, the learning curve isn't friendly. . Forgboy himself said this. I used to get trashed on beginner, and now intelligent is a guaranteed win. And remember, factories=good
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Clearly daver33, and I really genuinely mean no offence.... but you totally suck at this game!!

No, the game's not outlandishly difficult.
Yes the game has the same basic idea as Civ4 that the races have a reason why they hate you which you can read in the report. Just the same as civ4, if you are a total military weakling you are going to get killed and eaten.

Obviously it is you doing something wrong and from the sounds of it you dont understand the need for maintaining a military - to use Civ4 terms, you are keeping your cities protected with archers while in the modern age.

You also dont understand production - have you looked at the industrial capacity slider? And your Military/Social/Research sliders? Have you built more than one factory on a world? Have you seen any production enhancement tiles? There's no way that it should take 20-30 turns to build any ship from your main production planets.

The multiplayer things has been flayed to death - put your opinion into the thread on the main page here.... it was clearly advertised as a SP only game. In truth, I dont know why you want more people to play with to hand you your ass!!

Suffice it to say, you need to learn more about the game - that definitely does not make it stupid crap. You really should change the title of your post because it is offensive. After reading your post it is more telling of you than the game. Learning in games is half the fun - maybe more. If you want help with understanding the game - ask question on this forum but dont, please, start bitching just because you dont understand something.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've found the single most useful function in boosting production on a planet to planet basis is the focus button.

Very handy little button in the planet screen next to the production displays. It's saved my skin plenty of times. I find it especially useful for boosting my military production as I usually only have one or two planets dedicated to production.

You have to keep an eye on your spending however (which is why it is best used on only a few planets at a time in my experiences).

The AI doesn't cheat with their techs, but they do trade them with each other shamelessly, allowing all of them to climb up the tech tree quite quickly. Your best bet (until the 1.1 release anyway) is to do the same. Keep a hold of your diplomacy techs though, as the higher your diplomacy ability compared to theirs, the more you can get in the trade.

Oh, and remember, if you sell a tech to one race, sell it to everyone else as well otherwise you'll be out of pocket when the race you traded it to decides to do it itself.

I hope that this will help make your game as enjoyable as I find it.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What an incoherent, trolling post. I think he's telling the truth - he really isn't a nerd. Ever seen a troll wearing glasses?
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Don't kid yourself man, you're a nerd. Its okay though because so is everyone else here.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heck yeah we're nerds. I'm damn proud of it too
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I know i'm a nerd, but I mean the people who play day in and day out. Those are like, UBERNERDS!
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Reading this post made me, at first, want to rage against Daver33 for being a fuckeroo. But then some other fellows put him in his place, so I am just gonna lend my support:

Please learn to play the game, and if you can't...find another game to play. 20-30 turns for a customized ship? It sounds like you haven't even clicked into your planets and BUILT ANYTHING to support your hapless colonists. Sucks to be them.

Blaming the game when you lack the talent to play it is rarely a valid action. It just makes people who have learned to play the game kinda upset.

Thanks.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Some food for thought...

Citizen daver33 what you are complaining about are design choices not "stupid shit" which inherently implies something has no logic behind it and is something of a matter of happenstance. Furthermore "good" is a highly subjective and vague word so it should be properly qualified. In addition application functionality as expressed in terms of loaded social language will likely only alienate you further from your intended audience.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It definately shouldn't take you that long to build ships. I recommend checking out the Databanks link to the left and reading the basic strategy guide and game play examples sections.

Some important things:

Production slider- starts at 50%. Try to crank it to 100 move one and keep it there the whole game.
Factories- are your friend. They let you build stuff faster.
Social, Milit, and research sliders - also your friend. Good to change them around often as your empire's needs change.
Tax Rate slider - Keep it as high as you can and keep your citizens happy.

When starting you might find it useful to quick buy a few colony ships and/or a couple factories to build further ones faster.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can understand your frustration. I played my first game on a high level and got absolutely creamed. Then I read here that the game might be flawed and you need to colonize like buggery to even stand a chance of winning. But that's rubbish. In my last game in a large galaxy and at normal difficulty I had just two worlds for over half the game anf NO military until the last third. Perhaps this little maxim will help:

"Know yourself and know your enemy and you won't be defeated in a 1000 battles." - Sun Tzu

I was amazing at trade + espionage so I played to my strengths and even managed to reduce my tax rate to ZERO!
Everyone loved me. Everyone wanted to trade. When war broke out (as it inevitably does) - I stayed out of it until I exploited my neighbours' crippled militaries. My empire doubled in size, my own military was improved and I finally won by allying with the survivng super-power.

SO look at your strengths - PLAY TO THEM Undestand your enemies - EXPLOIT WEAKNESSES.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
...large galaxy and at normal difficulty I had just two worlds for over half the game ....


That, imo, is map/settings dependent. My last game, I ended up with around 5 planets. Large galaxy, normal difficulty, but I had the planet/system setting on occasional. I moved that up one for my current game and hab planets are all over the place. Some systems have 4 habital planets. I already am up to around 12. Same thing, large/normal map.

I am fairly certain that if I had only two planets, I would be getting creamed (on this map).
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've only been playing for two days and at frist found the normal to be really hard. Reduced to one bloody coloney that was repeatedly attacked. HARSH!

Play on the lower diffculty and try for a larger universe with wider star clusters. This gives you more time to research good techs. Diplomacy is fine, but it pays to research weapons and defence before you meet other races. And don't forget the universal translator.

Some races will 'donate' technology to you for free if you try to take it!!!!

When possible, place a starport on every planet, you can then have a different type of ship at a certain planet. Create fleets to defend planets and dont forget that your colonies are your lifeblood. Take care of them and they'll show you all the rewards you deserve.

GalCivII rocks!!!!
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, the first time I played this game I got my rear handed to me. But I learned quickly. I am usually like to out research the computer and I almost always succeed. However, before anyone thinks I am a FrogBoy incarnate, I should make it clear I never go past normal. I am just not that good. However I love the game.

I find the normal setting right in between other games I have played. For example, I usually play Hearts of Iron 2 at a higher setting. In contrast, I have to play DIsciples II at easy or I get mauled. I find that 'normal' setting even harder than GalCiv2. I am sure there is a paper just waiting to be written how two people can end up doing well at normal setting in two different strategy games and finding the other persons game horribly difficult.

One of the best things about GalCiv2 is that you can change the difficulty on the fly during the campaign. I love that. It reduces the frustrations and keeps the fun level up. Three gueses on that level I endedup beating siege at (and the first two guesses don't count).
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is also flawed. My military power is 15 percent the strength of the weakest nation and 5 percent of the strongest. The problem! Well when the map spawned I noticed my isolated spot on a huge galaxy with 10 opponents. I started all the way on the left center of the map. To get to my closest neighbor to the north and not adding life support required 3 starbases to get there. To my south 3 starbases. And to my right another 3 starbases. So what happens with my weak military strength. Every race declares war on me. Quite a few realize there only option is a ceasefire because they could never muster up the life support needed. The ones that do get there with such weak ships due to the extra modules needed get picked off easily. And while I'm slowly working my way towards them I have 50 billion troops in reserve for when I can finally get in range for invasion. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet revenge.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I read the forums a bit and the basic strategy guide before my first game (large map, 4 AI's, sub-normal intelligence). It was a cakewalk...2nd game too. 3rd game I move to Normal intelligence, gigantic map and 6 ai's. That's when I really started learning how to play the game.

The first couple games was spent learning how things worked, where they were, etc. I didn't know everything (was third game before I knew how to build a non-resource starbase), but I was able to stay alive long enough to keep the dominant race off me. Eventually I won a diplomatic victory.

Start at a lower level and work your way up as you learn the game.

Most people enjoy a challenge from a computer AI. Do you really want to spend money on a game that you can beat during the opening credits? Those are the games I end up dumping in the trash.