Need tips

Hi everyone.

I bought the game a few days ago. After playing on the beginner level and small galaxy where nothing was happening, I decided to play humans on "normal" difficulty and "huge" galaxy. That's where my problems started.

1) At first, I allocated my fund to military, social and research equaly. However, after a while, I started noticing that other civilisations are overtaking me in all those aspects. Why does this happen? Did they have advantage over me when we started? In any event, to catch up, I started directing all my resources to one area, keeping it there to a while and then moving to some other area. Is this the way to do it?

2) What's the best way to make money? I have heard that taxing at 80% does the trick. Do I need to wait for advanced entertainment structures to be able to do it?

3) Space ships. I see that the AI develped such ships as "escort" and "frigate", while I still can only produce the original 4 ships and the transport ship. I have already researched massive hulls, so I actually can produce quite powerful spaceships, but is there any way to get those pre-designed ones?

Any advice will be welcome!

Cheers,
Vlad

PS I love AI in the game. Like when other civilisations feeling "hostile" towards me when I was weak military and becoming "warm" when I built a strong army. Those hypocrits...

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Welcome to the game!

I'm fairly new myself, so I have just a few tips.

First of all, if things are obviously going wrong, the game is trying to tell you something. It's a 'learning experience'.

Learn from what it's showing you! Figure out what went wrong, and do it different next time.

In anything but the smallest galaxies, it's important to 'colony rush'. You've got to get the good planets before the computer does. A quality 26 world with a bunch of juicy specials like research, approval and manufacturing bonuses could be yours, or it could be the computers... it's whoever gets there first.

So figure out how to get a lot of colonies started. That's rule number one.

Second, you've got to get your colonies happy, because if they aren't happy, they will 'flip' over to the other civilizations, or won't get good population numbers quickly. I try to colonize, and then build in this order: Factory (hopefully on a 100% bonus manufacturing tile, NOT the 700% bonus tile... be careful of that one, it'll suck your money dry!). I build the factory first, then a 'morale' building (Entertainment Network), then, if there is room, Factory, Factory, Spaceport. On Mars I build Factory, Entertainment Network, Spaceport, and I'm done.

Most every planet gets 3 factories and an entertainment network (morale building) started building as soon as I colonize.

One reason you might have fallen behind the computer is the SPENDING slider... It's under your Domestic Stats screen. At the top is Taxation, then under that is Spending. As of this version, it sits at 66%... you are only making things 2/3 as fast as you could if it's left at it's default position. If it doesn't run your economy into the red, keep that at 100%!!!

So, get as many colonies as possible. Scoop up the choice worlds before the computer gets them! Then get them off to a good start by getting some manufacturing ability (3 factories) and keeping good morale numbers (by getting an Entertainment Network building).

Once you've got that as a base, learn something from every game you lose.

In the last few games, I learned:

Don't neglect logistics! The computer attacked me early, he could build fleets of small ships and I couldn't... I lost even though I had equal weapons tech to his because he got bigger swarms of small ships... of course it was mostly because I hadn't gotten enough colonies started, and his economy was so strong that he was pumping out tons of those little ships...

Trade technologies for profit! I usually research rush to get better engines so that my colony ships can get more colonies than the computer players. Then once I have colonized everything, I trade the propulsion technologies to every other race. Trade for other technologies, and then ask for money on top of what you are trading... or trade just for money. I don't care how fast their ships go once I've scooped up all the good worlds, and the money helps me jump start my new empire. This really shows the value of the diplomacy techs, because you can sell off lower versions of what you are researching for a lot more if your diplomacy is good.

Trade routes! The computer showed me this... build as many trade ships as early as possible and get them out there making money for you. Trade frigates are worth the cost/time of building them early.

The computer also showed me to build Economic Capitols as early as possible. Money helps.

Keep playing. You are going to lose some games. But if you keep learning from your defeats, you'll get better and better. It won't be long until you are winning regularly.

Good luck!

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The one thing I learned in my early games which most helped was the power of designing your own ships! In early game when you are trying to grab planets, design and build the fastest colony ship you can given your engines. You can make them significantly faster than the core colony ship you get, so you can expand your empire much quicker

.
To a lesser extent this is also worth doing with constructors (might get you that extra resourse before the AI gets there) and freighters. Also you can make more powerful ships than the core ones usually.

Besides, designing cool ships is fun

Use the sliders wisely in early game too, put spend rate to 100%, and maybe focus 100% on tech to get impulse drive for quicker ships, then 100% on military for a while and pump out some colony ships quick.

otherwise, thonnarals advice sounds pretty good, cant think of much else to add.

One point - I dont agree with avoiding 700% manufacturing tiles! they can allow you to pump out colony ships v. quickly in early game, and allow you to quickly build trade goods/acheivements to get them before the AI. yes you would have to watch your spending, but you can always put that planet to idle if it's taking too much of your money away from other planets, but they are far too useful not to use!

last thing - dont neglect building a few scouts once you have a few colony ships out - theyre very cheap and you cant grab those all important resources until you know where they are!

Hope this helps. Happy Gal-Civing!

Mark

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Thank you for advices to both of you. I am sure they will help me to improve my game.

I actually did put my spending on 100% at the beginning. However, by now I had to bring it down to about 40%, since I am losing lots of money.

Could you maybe just clarify about those frigate and escort ships that I saw the AI has? Does only AI get them?

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Could you maybe just clarify about those frigate and escort ships that I saw the AI has? Does only AI get them?

What you are seeing is the AI's custom designs (yes it is smart enough to design its own ships!

) the AI just uses bland generic names.

As for my advice: do not neglect diplomacy! Use a civilization with the bonus and research those diplomatic techs! With a formidable diplomatic advantage, the AI will be less likely to beat you up and you can get great deals on trades.

Trade those techs! The AI does it, why shouldn't you? If you can trade technology with one race then you can turn around and trade those new techs with another race and then keep that cycle going. With enough diplomacy you can become a galactic tech broker and rocket yourself up to #1 in the technology race.

Exploit minor races! The pathetic fools have barely any technology and no hyperdive. You can trade what techs they have for worthless ones you have had for months (just don't trade any engine techs). Try to give them research and economic technology so they can come up with more stuff for you to trade for. They will also pay large sums of money for worthless techs so keep them well supplied! Then after you have had your fun and they have built up their homeworld, crush them and take their stuff.

Just watch out, they love military techs.

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You can design your own ship by going to the shipyard (F7). There are some default designs too, but you need to research all requirements for them to show up. For example, Starfury needs tiny hull and mass driver. So if you research beam weapons you will not get it.

In GalCiv 2, you need a sufficient economy to support your industrial/military might. I think if you cannot put spend rate at 100%, then you either have a problem with your economy or you expand your industrial capacity too fast. A lot of happy people = a lot of money. Don't neglect farms that increase your max people on a planet. Also don't forget to build entertainment center for them too. A ration of 1 farm/1 entertainment is a rule of thump. Try to alternating research between farm and entertainment. Don't just rush through one path.

In the early game when you rush for colonies, you will usually run into serious deficit. This is because most of your colonies have so few people to pay tax while having a maintainance of at least 12bc (for the first tile you get for free) plus whatever you spend on industry+research there. Do not worry. Try to keep 100% spend rate even though it's -60bc per turn for you. When you people grows you will get more money. The game starts you off with +5000bc for this reason. You can build market to help stem the negative cash flow too. And get those trade routes going. The early game is the investment phase, keep spending at 100%! I usually sit through -80bc a turn for almost 30 turns before seeing green. Now I have about 400bc surplus when my people fill the colonies and with 6-7 trade routes.

Have fun

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