Best way to play for Conquest Victory?

from GalCiv2 Forums
This weekend I decided to witn a game going for a conquest victory out of the gate using the Drengi which I customized to make them a military juggernaut. I started out colonizing as fast as possible making most planets for production of ships on the boarders and the obes further back for research. I was doing great at first. I learned not to go evil too fast as all the other races declared war on me. But I forced them back and they paid me to have a peace treaty. My main problem was money.

I was in the red for almost the whole game which hurt my approval rating. It wasn't till near the end of the game that I started having some excess cash. I had 1 ship per planet so they couldn't just capture with transports and then a medium size fleet of ships. The reports said my economy was lowest in game and tech way behind but I was focused on all tech stuff for war. But the lack of money was stalling ship building and stalling planet development and stalling research. People say that conquest victory is easy.

How do you afford fleets of ships early in the game and still have some money since you have to stay focused on researching weapons and ships to stay ahead.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
People = Money.

The easiest way to get more money is to have more people which in turn pay more taxes.

As with everything else in this game it's all about balance. I know it sounds counter productive but don't expand faster then your economy can handle. This sinks more people then anything else. During those beginning turns you should be focused more on building your economy then you are building ships.

Once you've gotten to the point where you can run your economy at 100% spending with somewhere around 35%-49% tax level and 80% or higher morale then you are all set to start your wars.

The reason people say Conquest is the easiest of the victory conditions is because in general it is the easiest to understand. Also it doesn't take very many game turns after your economy is stable for you to start cranking out massive fleets and showing the galaxy your particular brand of whoop ***.

My suggestion would be if you are having economy troubles try getting to Xeno Economic Theory quickly and upgrade all of your economy boosting buildings. Also build one or two per planet along with at least one farm and one or two entertainment buildings if morale starts to be an issue from the slightly higher population. Continue to mix in the economy techs as you research weapons. They are very cheap compared to most of the other tech advances and since you have to pay to maintain your massive fleets it is in your best interest to continue to grow your economy as your fleets expand your empire.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try having less production planets and more econ planets (that is high lvl planets with econ buildings, farms and entertainment centers). Really you only need 2-3 maybe 4 really good dedicated production planets, make sure to cover them with 4 fully upgraded econ starbases and you'll have all the military production you'll need. All the rest of the planets should be research and economy.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah you don't need that many production planets, but make sure the ones you do have are fully geared towards production.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It sounds like you are too much in a hury.
I spend most of my early time researching - first the research acadamies, then Xeno econ and industry, then planet defenses, and last of all weapons tech. Once you get the research up to par the weapons tech goees really fast. And by then I have money rolling in and industry that can crank out huge ships very fast.

In fact, I usuallky wait until war is declard on me before I even start to design and build my ships, while all along the others have been building up slowly. So by the time I build I am using newer tech and my hip really rock. And by watching which tech they are using I can research more effective weapons and defenses.

If you get the Shock Troops tech and then build the Quam somethingorother for better troops you will never fail to take a planet.

And if you align with Neutral you will get the Neutrality Learning Centers, which are the absolute best research facilities in the game. You can still win by conquest, no matter which way you align, and the extra research ability can gain you higher weapons tech than the evil alignment gives.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
OK, I see my error.

I thought I had seen people saying to win with conquest you had to attack fast. I see that was wrong and that was my problem as I attacked before my economy could support it. Plus having every other race declare war on me didn't help at an early stage of the game as then I needed a larger military to handle it.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To be honest, I am really jealous of those that are having a difficult time playing. My last game on Obscene was proof to me that chances are I will not lose this game before 1.1 is released. I played on a large map, and managed to only get three planets to my name after the initial rush. Earth mars and one that was like an 8 I think. To make things even more difficult, I chose to align with good from the beginning. Evil just makes things easy. Given the huge production advantage the AI had over me, I began getting threatening messages from the start. Of course I looked weak!!! Anyhow, my strategy was to wait for one of the ignorant computer players like the Dregin to declare war on me. So I just built up some transports in preperation. Also, I built as many decent fleets as I could before the inevitable. Sure enough, it came. I managed to take over Dregi and then make peace. Wash wrinse and repeat. They declared war on me again, I then took over Kona, and one other. Then they made peace again. Now that I am thinking about it, it would have been much easier to use that planetary bombardment tactic that was just posted. I hadn't thought about it before, but boy would it make invasions easy, and doesn't even risk damage to the planet if done right.

In the mean time, tech trading is a virtual gurantee of victory. This was my method. Any tech that I had that was also owned by at least one other civ, I would sell to everyone (especially minors). I figured that if anyone is going to get money from the sale, it should be me. I would also purchase techs, and then turn around and sell the tech to everyone else for a profit. I did this untill the only techs left were the ones that I owned exclusively. I was bringing in insane amounts of money. I then turned around and purchased mining starbases from other races. Usually for enormous prices, but what the hell I had the money. Soon my influence was through the roof.

Then the Aceans delcared war. They had eight planets I think. It took many turns to defeat them, but not because they put up a fight. In fact, I made a special point to never enguage their fleets in combat. They were too slow, so that was easy. I only attacked to clear orbits around planets, kill transports and kill defenseless starbases. I captured every one of their planets except their home world. The cool thing was they never even though about surrender because they still had this incredible fleet (which they did nothing with, how dissapointing). Before I took their homeworld, I opened the diplomacy screan to see what they would say, "you are the leader of a semi powerful race...." Give me a break. It was incredible to see all those yellow ship markers just dissapear in one shot. Good thing I didn't waste my ammo. Also, other races seem to think I am in a losing situation because of the military comparison. I would get some of the AI's "finest ships" on several occasions. Much to my suprise, these often inclueded influence and economy starbases!!!

Anyhow, after this the Torian borders dissapeared because they were located between me and the Aceans. The Dregin borders were long since gone, and all the others were in corners. It is just too easy.

In my experiences, the AI has never put up a fight. For some reason, they just don't make any attempt to put up a real fight. They send transports after me, but they are virtually undefended.

Wow, I am rambleing. Anyway, I guess the point is that along with the less game breaking tactics mentioned above, money is easy. And the military is even easier. Remember, you will always seem weak to the AI. But the solutions is simple, don't fight them in space. Just take their planets.

I sure hope 1.1 can help out those nine plus idiots that oppose me. Otherwise, with 1.1 I think the only way to get a chalenge would be to not use tech trading and not have minor races. This is unfortunate, because I don't think this should be necessary to have a chalenging game.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When I started playing, I colonized more then 20 planets in 30 minutes, not one of them was defended by a fleet.
It's very important to discover new technology's and to build the tir-quan training. those ships should be used to attack other planets.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How did you get planetary Invasion so early in the game?