Bigger Galaxies

How can I make Galaxies bigger than Gigantic?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi there

Is there a possibility to make Galaxies bigger than Gigantic, maybe in the way of changing a file?
Would be nice if the developers or somebody else wise know how

thanks,
modding
8,823 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd also like to do this.

At present you can only create a 25%-50% full galaxy, the amount of space wasted is quite a lot.
But then again I play only MV games now. So unless this was supported by SD theres not much point to it. LOL

-J
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This has been requested a few times through various threads (if you do a search). It will be nice to be able to specify our own map size. Don't know where to send request or even if the dev can acknowledge it is something we want and whether it is implementable.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well actually thinking about it I imagine you can force the game to have more planets and stars, the devs did say that the game could host upto 3000-5000 planets.

I think the formular is such;

max 3 stars per sector
gigantic max is 15 * 15 sectors
each star can have max 5 planets

15*15 sectors = 225 sectors * 3 stars per sector = 675 stars * 5 planets per star = 3375 planets

WOW! thats a helluvalot!

might have to look into this for single non-mv games.

-J
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that would be a lot to manage, even for the obsessive-compulsive megalomaniacal micromanagers out there.

I get a little bored playing CTP2 with 200+ cities (tweaked Apolyton release, of course).

Can you imagine playing a galaxy like that in pen-and-paper tabletop format?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
LOL YEP!

Game Master: Ok turn 102, Player 1 you currently have ......... *7 minutes later and a lot of counting* ......... 179 planets, make your turn changes now please.

41 hours later............

Player 1: Ok done, oh wait did I organise my research yet?

All other players: GROAN!

Yep that would be a f**king nightmare. But let face it 3000 planets isn't that many is it? LOL! Just imagine all the ships then??????????????????? 3000 planet * 10 ships on average each!!!! YIKES!!!!! Then the economy and population?!!?!?!? Oh dear lord..... I wouldn't be surprised to see population of 10 trillion or so.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game can already use 1.5G of memory on a gigantic galaxy. You're going to run into even more serious issues the bigger you get. Also, the AI is not as good dealing with very large spaces.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How about a map with one planet only? The game randomly picks which civ gets the planet, and if it's your civ, you win! This would certainly solve a lot of issues, such as unfair tech trading, civ trait imbalances, fleet management issues, tech tree problems, bad grammar, and the like. Plus, I don't like long, drawn-out games where you know you're going to win, but you spend forever mopping up a galaxy with 5,000 worlds.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To each its own I guess.

I personally find huge and gigantic galaxies way too messy for my taste, and have settled with large galaxies as my preferred size. Big enough to build a sizable empire, yet not so big as things get whacky (as when a far away civ decides to leave you their planets on the other side of the galaxy, or when you end up with dozens of planets).
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game can already use 1.5G of memory on a gigantic galaxy. You're going to run into even more serious issues the bigger you get. Also, the AI is not as good dealing with very large spaces.


I have seen mine take up to 2.3GB on the huge map. Alot depends on the ships you are using, I think. The high detail ships that some people make are really nice looking, but they take more memory and need a better video card to handle them properly.
I have read from one poster that he used 3.4GB on a gigantic map.

Getting larger than what is already in the game, would probably cripple the game play on 95% of the machines out there.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How about a map with one planet only? The game randomly picks which civ gets the planet, and if it's your civ, you win! This would certainly solve a lot of issues, such as unfair tech trading, civ trait imbalances, fleet management issues, tech tree problems, bad grammar, and the like. Plus, I don't like long, drawn-out games where you know you're going to win, but you spend forever mopping up a galaxy with 5,000 worlds.

Or a map with one class 40 planet for each race. That might be interesting.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, I did use 2.3GB on a huge map. That was the tops though. It usually gets to around 1.6GB.

I just uploaded a new map and scenario.

5 stars, one class 26 planet each.
Played as Custom against Drengin, Torian, Iconian, and Human.
Custom is center position.
20,000bc to start.
No resources.
No starting ships, either. So the player will need to build a survey ship if they want those anomolies.

I'm not sure how long it will take for the approval process, though.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well, I just thought about a big galaxy 40x40 with not many stars, so you have to travel and search a lot to find some, maybe the devs see this thread in some days and post us if this is possible


to the one who said 3+ gb memory for a gigantic map, i didn't recognized that, i just have 1 GB Memory and it doesn't crashed or something like that...
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Anything you need over a gig will be swap file time. This game takes a lot of ram. My ram usage during this last game was over 1.8GB. You will see an improvement in game play if you up yours to 2GB.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
not seemed to me with 1GB and Geforce 6600 GT 256MB,
maybe because of my big virtual workspace + 1GB...
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, but when you have to go to virtual memory everything slows down. Hard drives are much slower than ram.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yes, i'll tell you when i get problems with my ram
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i played a gigantic map a few times, man and its actualy a bit big for me so i use a bit smaller galaxies, but 3.4 gig memorie? i only have 512 thats a bit much dont you think not everybody has such a monster pc
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have a ram drive (a "drive" that uses batteries and SIMMs to simulate a hard disk) that is 8GB, that I sometimes put a big swap file on if I need the speed, but I haven't needed it for GC2. It'd be a lot faster, but I haven't encountered any situation where 1GB RAM and a 4GB virtual memory file on a regular hard disk wasn't fast enough.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
so back to the topic : does anybody know how to make the galaxies bigger? maybe by changing a file?
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Maybe these guys could figure out how to do it: http://www.gc2builder.com/