Hi Dr Ben!

Welcome to the forum! I'm rather new to the forum community, but everyone here is most helpful and there is a lot of talent here. I expect you will get many more helpful responses to your question than mine, but I'll give it a go....

Anyway, it is a terrific idea, and one that I will try, too. You haven't said how long you have been playing GCII, so don't know to what degree you understand the game mechanics, etc (how well you play). Nonetheless, IMHO, I can't see why it would not be possible, at least on the normal level (or perhaps the one below that). I think I would research the diplomacy tech ASAP to begin with. You will play only with planet Earth, then? It's, like I have said, a very interesting idea, and possibly quite do-able. Let us know how it goes. I'll give it a shot, too.
BTW, I expect the best to hope for might be a diplomatic victory, but that is still "winning," and you will have a fun time trying.

Cheers,

Helo

PS,

An after-thought: Now I am wondering what will happen when Mars is colonized by another civ. You may want to build an influence star-base encompassing your world that will, of course, include Mars. Trade will be very important, too. Read posts on economics....they are quite good and you may glean something there. I expect many more ideas forthcoming, so will keep this brief.
I'm not savy enough to know wthther or not the suggestions I gave you would be considered exploits.... I just read one of the developers posts, and "diplomacy/starbase" was mentioned as an exploit. I even thought about just deleting this post, but what the xyz, I'd rather leave it and if anyone has a problem with it, I'll learn from their feedback.

It was certainly possible (and enjoyable) in GalCiv1. You could even do it by conquest with DeathStars. One of my fav ways to play.

I've not managed a single planet in GalCiv2. The nearest was a slight fudge of a One Sector Challange on Large/9 races/Tough. I further fudged it by hitting Ctl-N until I got a crowded sector. I inhabited the one sector and never left until I achieved a diplomatic victory. (I think this is the only realistic way to win). It was helped by a PQ26 planet in the sector, which helped me keep my influence high enough for long enough.

Obviously 4 max-out production starbases are a must. (Although I did allow myself to build influence starbases outside my sector). Spin center is also a must have, as your navy will be very weak in comparison to most, and you need to hide the fact. Then it is just diplo/infuence techs all the way. Establish trade with the races that don't like you too much. Choose neutral to boost your PQ and relations.

I did have to some planets in another sector at one stage when the drath surrendered their planets to me. I just gave them to the weakest civ I could that was on friendly terms.

For me I won without the game really "getting going". I never fired a shot in anger. As an experience I did not enjoy the game and I wouldn't try it again. Too much hiding and not enough fighting. Not my style.

One thing you must remember to do to avoid early invasion is to build a navy of some sort. At least without the initial planet rush you can focus on other stuff.

Ben, I've tried it in GC1 but never in GC2. The only reason I did it in GC1 was to stop getting cultural victories, that was before you were able to disable them.

It would appear possible. If you allow yourself invasion. I have played on suicide on gigantic and started with only 6 planets )which would be like starting with 2 or 3 on a smaller map).
If you allow yourself to invade and take over other planets it could work. If you limit it yourself on invasion I think it would be harder.
Actually, lately I have been starting with less and less planets. I used to go for as many as possible but ended up with a lot of small planets that the ai said thank you as they landed with 1000 troops and took them away. When I moved to less planets the ai has more difficulty taking them which allows me to save a planet that before I would of lost. At the earlier part of the game I have a few planets and then when I start to build ships I can easily take over all the little ai planets.

A few high PQ planets in a tight cluster can become a major production/research powerhouses when combined with stacked economic starbases. For example, 4 maxed out economic starbases would give 132% bonus to production/research and half of that is free! If the planets are located near a corner (where 4 sectors meet) you could have 16 economic starbases for a 528% production/research bonus!

The Iconain Refuge and Thalan Empire have good starting planets.

Nah, you could mod the transports to only hold 1 citizen ever, give the defender a +100 bonus to invasions or something, make information war an impossible option, and then you would never win an invasion. But you could asteroid bombard the other guy into oblivion.

From what I remember about OCC, it would be permissible to invade a planet as long as you immediately get rid of it. I would reccomend invading with the tactic that does the most damage to PQ, and then destroying the colony, leaving the planet empty. Eventually an opponent would recolonize, but they'd have lower quality to work with, and have to start from scratch.

I can't believe I never realised you could destroy a colony. I guess i've never had cause to go looking for the option.

Yeah, in that case, conquest is possible, you'd just have to raze every planet you come across on the turn you acquire it.

You'd probably want to use the Thalians, who start off with the higest PQ starting planet. Add a PQ bonus to that and you've got a great starting planet. If you're lucky, you might find one of those really high PQ planets (like 25+), you could colonise that and raze your home.

Wow, thanks all for your comments and suggestions.
So to start at the top;
I got the game just after release so I've been playing awhile, I think I have a reasonable grasp of the way it works.
Always room for improvments though hey?
@No118 (I only just got that when I was typing it then, I'm dense I know) I remember reading your AAR when you posted it, Probably what got the cogs turning.
When I first thought of it, I was just thinking of starting a normal game and not colonizing anything or keeping any planets I captured. Then I thought about it for a little bit and decided trying to conquer the galaxy from a PQ 11 home world would be quite difficult.
A tech victory with at most 12 or 13 NLCs would probably take awhile too!
I read somewhere that when you destroy a colony it lowers the PQ quite alot, I've never tried it though so I dont know.
I think I'm going to go with the Thalans and try for a conquest victory, being the last race standing over largely destroyed galaxy.
It could be a nice twist the Thalans being the thing they came back to save the galaxy from? Shouldn't play with time travel.
Anywho, I'm sat at work now itching to get home and start. I'll do so as soon I do in the morning and I'll let you all know how it goes.
Thanks again for the replys.
Dr Ben.

I read somewhere that when you destroy a colony it lowers the PQ quite alot, I've never tried it though so I dont know.

Yes, this is the case. If you wanted to destroy a captured planet permanantly, you could build lots of colony ships with one colonist, and just send them to the planet, destroying the colony every time it is established. You'll need one colony ship for every 2PQ, unless PQ drop gets higher for larger planets. Eventually, you'll drop the PQ to zero. This is what I'm going to do with those annoying class 4 planets I always seem to have lying about my empire that are completely unprofitable to colonize.