A few gripes..

from GalCiv2 Forums
First off, I want to say that I think this game has a lot of potential, but I do have a few gripes with it.

I have the german version, updated it by copying Data/English to Data/German, but I now uninstalled my game and am downloading it via SDC. In the future, please give us the option if we want to install the game in German or English. The german translation is unbearable, plus I usually play all my games in English, if possible. (Same reason why I can't watch Futurama or Simpsons in german, translators seem to not be able translating humor into another language.)

Regarding the game:

Every game I played until now has been more or less the same. Starting out, I concentrate on colonizing, economy, and research. Military gets disregarded until a civilization declares war on me. (And this will happen). At that point I am usually so far along in research and industry, that my Industry-planets produce the most advanced ships in a few turns. I proceed to slaughter the attacking civilization, and then go after the others. The game usually ends with an allied victory, as I become so powerful other civilizations prefer allying themselves with me.

I notice no particular difference in the civilizations. Altarian, Torian or Drengin, one of them usually declares war on me, starting off my conquest of the galaxy. This should be changed, as the much touted "different AIs" all seem to be aggressors-in-waiting. AIs should take into account the industrial potential of other players, and act accordingly. What I would like to see is AIs forging alliances before declaring war on a much stronger player, and then declare war together on the same turn. As it is now, the AI is no challenge for a human. Yes, I could turn the difficulty level up (I play on tough), but I want a good game when the playing field is equal, and not artificially crank up the AI economy.

Further, it seems impossible now to bribe a civilization into war with another, even one much weaker than them. Even if I give them all my advanced tech, trade goods, and all the credits I can spare (usually around 10k, as my military uses up a large portion of my income), they just refuse to do it. This should be unnerfed to some extent, as I enjoyed watching 2 civilizations battle it out.

That's it for now.

Cheers!
27,954 views 60 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You're wrong. You HAVE to bump for it to show. Your fault, not forum. What difficulty are you playing on? The AI's are very different.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hrm, didn't know that. I play on tough, like stated in my first post. And I don't notice a big difference in the AIs. One of them WILL declare war on me Early-Mid-Game, it doesn't matter who.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One of them WILL declare war on me Early-Mid-Game, it doesn't matter who.


Thats because you're weak. That's not weak AI, that's common sense.

Oh, and as for battling, you have to bribe the stronger one into attacking the weaker one. They don't want to die, no nerfing occured here.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Posts do show up on the forum. It just takes a couple of minutes.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Read my first post. Yes, I am weak, but the AI should know that I have the POTENTIAL to create fleets in no time, conquer it, and then the rest of the galaxy. And this is how all my games play out. I get war declared war on me, after which I crank out state-of-the-art ships in no time, then proceed to conquer the attacking civ, and turn my attention towards others, as my industrial planets produce ships non-stop. The game forces you to be a warmonger, even if you'd like to be the equivalent of Sweden in WWII. And if the AIs were truly so different... the Torians for whom the fluff states that they'd been enslaved by the Drengin, should be more reluctant to start a war of conquest on other civs, for example. I really see no big difference in all the AIs.

And like I said, even if the AI has a stronger military, it seems to be impossible to get it to attack a weaker one.

I like this game, but these things should be fixed. I'd really like the ability for AIs to forge alliances and attack a much stronger civ added to the game. Should make things more interesting.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Read my first post. Yes, I am weak, but the AI should know that I have the POTENTIAL to create fleets in no time, conquer it, and then the rest of the galaxy. And this is how all my games play out. I get war declared war on me, after which I crank out state-of-the-art ships in no time, then proceed to conquer the attacking civ, and turn my attention towards others, as my industrial planets produce ships non-stop. The game forces you to be a warmonger, even if you'd like to be the equivalent of Sweden in WWII. And if the AIs were truly so different... the Torians for whom the fluff states that they'd been enslaved by the Drengin, should be more reluctant to start a war of conquest on other civs, for example. I really see no big difference in all the AIs.

And like I said, even if the AI has a stronger military, it seems to be impossible to get it to attack a weaker one.

I like this game, but these things should be fixed. I'd really like the ability for AIs to forge alliances and attack a much stronger civ added to the game. Should make things more interesting.


Then you're a fool if you see no difference. The Torians are always at the Drengins throats. The Altarians usually go for influence victories. They use their ships differently, and have different strategies. The Drath pay others off to fight for them. The Korx try and use a big economy.

If you can come up with a way for the AI to check for potential, please do. It needs espionage which it doesn't have at the beginning of the game. They forge alliances, this is the main thing in 1.1, the ganging up on oppresors (Allies versus Germany) code that has been written in.

You're leaving yourself open to attack if you haven't got a strong enough standing fleet. The things you have mentioned are all untrue.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am not talking about these differences... sure, they use somewhat different playstrategies. I am talking about how the AI plays against the player. It will declare war on me on some point, effectively turning me into a Warmonger, since I now have the ships, then I might as well use them against others.

Funny there, Marcathonas. It needs espionage to tell the potential of another player, but knows the number of ships I have at any time?

And why am I leaving myself open to attack? Sure, I understand that evil civs might consider me ripe for the picking, but good ones? Please, play a game with all the good races in the galaxy, and play the way I do. Then come back here and tell me how it ended.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yep. I've beaten a few games that way, but I've also ended up getting killed by not advancing my fleets early enough. I've also gotten (strong or weak) AI races to attack others in many of my games. I like to play the puppeteer with them and make them whittle each other down while I act benevolent to all and build my strength. I also find it fun to take a poor AI race that is getting destroyed by the same powerhouse AI that's hitting me (usually torians or arceans) and give them some really good techs. Its a good way to get an alliance with them and it gives them the ability to fight against the big enemy (thus buying time for me to recover).

Just remember that the computer AI is a computer program and that it doesn't think -- it responds. If you give it the same inputs every time by using the style of play you describe in the original post, of course it will respond in the same way every time. That's common sense. Just start varying your strategy and you'll find the AI responds very differently.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, I am weak, but the AI should know that I have the POTENTIAL to create fleets in no time, conquer it, and then the rest of the galaxy. And this is how all my games play out. I get war declared war on me, after which I crank out state-of-the-art ships in no time, then proceed to conquer the attacking civ, and turn my attention towards others, as my industrial planets produce ships non-stop.


One of the biggest weaknesses of the AI is that it generally doesn't attack when it declares war. It declares war and then shows up some weeks or months later after the player has had ample opportunity to prepare. This issue gets more problematic the larger the galaxy. If the AI fough war more like human players fight wars your current military rating would be a more accurate indicator of your warfighting ability.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Funny there, Marcathonas. It needs espionage to tell the potential of another player, but knows the number of ships I have at any time?

And why am I leaving myself open to attack? Sure, I understand that evil civs might consider me ripe for the picking, but good ones? Please, play a game with all the good races in the galaxy, and play the way I do. Then come back here and tell me how it ended.


Yes, it uses the same information you do, so knows the attack and defence power of your fleet at any given time, as you know theirs. You don't know how fast they can churn ships out however, and neither do they. Evil races conquer and enslave you. Good races conquer and enlighten you. Build relationships up properly. I have played many games with a weak military and powerful potential, and the good races left me well alone because I had trade with them, neither of us were militaristic, and a lot of things.

Anyway, in 1.1 Military strength doesn't affect relationship unless they could crush you. I do play like you do, and I don't get attacked. The last one ended in a tech victory.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One of the biggest weaknesses of the AI is that it generally doesn't attack when it declares war. It declares war and then shows up some weeks or months later after the player has had ample opportunity to prepare. This issue gets more problematic the larger the galaxy. If the AI fough war more like human players fight wars your current military rating would be a more accurate indicator of your warfighting ability.


Hasn't that changed with the latest beta patch? It's a common complaint, and the developers have said they are going to make it play more human i.e. sneak attacks. I haven't played very much with the latest patch, and I'm always the aggressor anyways.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@cerve: The game forces you to one playstyle, and that is crank out more ships than them. And if I have these ships at hand I might as well put them to use. What use is a huge military if I don't use it? I usually place 1-2 defenders in orbit of my main planets, and that should be enough if I would like to pursue a more peaceful strategy.

@Vanir: Last game. before uninstalling and downloading from SDC, I had the Yor declare war on me and within 3 weeks they were in my territory with 3 5-ship fleets. Unfortunately for them that planet had just finished building my Plasma-PD Corvette, and my other ships I had just finished building (!) were on my way. I beat them back, and conquered them. At that point I had State-of-the-art battleships. My military rating still was rather low, however. (Does the military rating only reflect number of ships?) At that point the Altarians declared war on me. I beat them, too. Afterwards, I quit as I could see that this game would end in another victory for me.
But this is not the point I was trying to make. I am saying that the game forces you to be conquering warmonger as it is now, because it forces you to maintain a stronger military than others, and once a race is conquered, I, as a player, will put my military to use. This is probably how the AI goes about this, too (Big military -> conquering modus), and this just doesn't seem right, at least for the good civilizations.


@marcathonas: Then having ratings instantly available should be fixed. They had this "feature" in Hearts of Iron 2 too, and it bugged the hell out of me. I was able to see how many divisions (and what kind) a given country had at any given time, and could plan accordingly.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@marcathonas: Then having ratings instantly available should be fixed. They had this "feature" in Hearts of Iron 2 too, and it bugged the hell out of me. I was able to see how many divisions (and what kind) a given country had at any given time, and could plan accordingly.


Absolutely not. It doesn't give any actual information, just a military rating. There is literally no reason for the change, as it's how players gauge their ability to attack someone. The idea to remove it is pointless.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played a game just yesterday, with the 1.1 beta 4 patch, in which I bought one armed ship in the entire game, which I used to take out a single mining starbase of a minor race. I took over the entire galaxy with influence bases instead.

However, that was on normal difficulty, which I'm sure made a considerable difference to the AI's behaviour.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Absolutely not. It doesn't give any actual information, just a military rating. There is literally no reason for the change, as it's how players gauge their ability to attack someone. The idea to remove it is pointless.


Exactly. It's how the AI measures its ability to attack the player. If his current military rating is low, it will attack. That's what I'm complaining about. Evil civs, fine. Good civs?
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Exactly. It's how the AI measures its ability to attack the player. If his current military rating is low, it will attack. That's what I'm complaining about. Evil civs, fine. Good civs?


If they let the evil civs attack, then the evil are more powerful. The good civs try and make sure this doesn't happen.

OR They wish to correct your world view, and bring you into the path of light.

Basically, if they think you're weak, they'll kill you. Stop moaning, because it won't be changed. It would make good civs weak, and that shouldn't happen. They have every right to attack you for their cause.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First, I am not moaning. I am stating my view of the game as it is now, and hoping that the devs will consider doing something about this in a future patch.

Second, your reasons are illogical, to the extreme. According to you, Britain should have attacked Poland, when Germany invaded, to prevent Germany from becoming more powerful. That doesn't make sense. And if good civilizations attack me for their cause, they're not "good". For whatever reasons, an unjustified attack on another civilization is not "good". Or it's just my view of the world that is a bit slewed, eh?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Second, your reasons are illogical, to the extreme. According to you, Britain should have attacked Poland, when Germany invaded, to prevent Germany from becoming more powerful. That doesn't make sense. And if good civilizations attack me for their cause, they're not "good". For whatever reasons, an unjustified attack on another civilization is not "good". Or it's just my view of the world that is a bit slewed, eh?


Good and Evil don't exist, so real world metaphors are useless. To many people In germany in the 1930's, Hitler was a wonderful man. We learned he was insane and twisted, but some still thought he was worth fighting for. One countries freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Don't bring real world into black and white concepts, because they don't exist. Good will attack weaker, but they ARE more leniant. I have had many messages from the Altarians saying "we're happy with you, but the evil races will probably kill you if you don't become stronger". Good should not have a disadvantage.

Oh, and Britain would be a neutral. They aren't actively working towards their own expansion and message (By 1945 at least, pre-1918 they probably were "good"). But they were into the war to stop the Germans. That sounds neutral to me.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good and Evil don't exist, so real world metaphors are useless. To many people In germany in the 1930's, Hitler was a wonderful man. We learned he was insane and twisted, but some still thought he was worth fighting for. One countries freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Don't bring real world into black and white concepts, because they don't exist. Good will attack weaker, but they ARE more leniant. I have had many messages from the Altarians saying "we're happy with you, but the evil races will probably kill you if you don't become stronger". Good should not have a disadvantage.

Oh, and Britain would be a neutral. They aren't actively working towards their own expansion and message (By 1945 at least, pre-1918 they probably were "good"). But they were into the war to stop the Germans. That sounds neutral to me.


Oh wait, so you are saying that the premise of the game, the battle between "Good" and "Evil" civilizations, is a farce. Stardock lied to me?
Notice the quotes around "Good" in my previous post. I know they are black and white concepts, but in this game they're not supposed to be.

I used the WWII example of Britain and Germany, because they WERE on two different sides. (Actually, Hitler had hoped to get the British to join the Axis, but that's another topic.) Axis-Allies, Evil-Good, you get the point? And I understood your previous post wrong. What you actually said was, to use a real-life example again: Britain should've attacked Poland before Germany did when it became clear Germany was preparing for war. That would've prevented Germany from becoming more powerful. Way to go!

In this game the civs are portrayed as Black and White, and they should act accordingly. Good civilizations should not start a war of conquest by themselves. They should attack if they're aiding another good civilization, or attacking an evil civilization that has started a war of conquest. Bribery is a part of the game, so that should be okay too.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Just because a race is "good" does not mean they do not have a military agenda. Good and Evil are all just how you look at it. Evil civs attack to enslave you. Good ones attack thinking they'll be making life easier for you because they're way of life is so much better. Think US foreign policy for the last 30 or 40 years. Just because they are a kind hearted civ doesn't mean they don't think you're a slobbering cave man who is better off under their control. Ranting is fun.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I used the WWII example of Britain and Germany, because they WERE on two different sides. (Actually, Hitler had hoped to get the British to join the Axis, but that's another topic.) Axis-Allies, Evil-Good, you get the point? And I understood your previous post wrong. What you actually said was, to use a real-life example again: Britain should've attacked Poland before Germany did when it became clear Germany was preparing for war. That would've prevented Germany from becoming more powerful. Way to go!


No I did not say that. I said, if you wish to see it in black and white, that's one explanation, the pre-emptive strike. This has no bearing on the world, so stop using those metaphors, they're just plain wrong. Good civs simply shouldn't do what you suggest, because that would unbalance the game. They are determined by philosophy not action, if you notice how the Torians always slip to neutral by mid game due to evil choices, yet pick good. I rarely see good civs attack other good civs on their own. They dislike neutral and evil, and attack them for ethical reasons.

Go play a beta game as a good civ, come back, and tell me you were attacked by a good civ, with screenshots for proof. Unprovoked good v good is an issue, everything else is correct even in your world of black and white.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Poland is a bad example because they went to war because Germany attacked Poland.They couldn't have invaded Poland even if they wanted, and even if they could it wouldn't have done any good.

Britain didn't respect Noways neutrality, and had actually planned an invasion, but thought it would cause Sweden and Norway to join the Axis cause. If they knew far enough ahead of time that Hitler was going to go ahead an invade they probably would have went ahead and invaded first.

Britain did attack Vichy French colonies, and sank most of the French fleet to make sure it wouldn't fall into Axis hands. Before D-day British and American air forces heavily bombed the French transportation system to make sure Germany couldn't use it.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's easy to get through games without turning into a warlord. One just has to focus on diplomat techs for a while. Combined with a reasonably good economy, you can be a galactic puppeteer, bribing civilizations to attack one another. If you're a good diplomat, it won't cost you a day's income.

Oh, and you don't need no stinking army if you have a silver tongue.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Go play a beta game as a good civ, come back, and tell me you were attacked by a good civ, with screenshots for proof. Unprovoked good v good is an issue, everything else is correct even in your world of black and white.


Ok, I will set up a game with good only civilizations. I usually pick the neutral choice, but this time will choose only good. It it's as you say, there should be no wars at all.

Is there a screen capture function in the game or do I have to download a tool?