Slow start/expansion mod

Yup, i would like that too.
i usually play very very slow games, i like it that way.
Slow start mod/option would be cool.

interesting idea, I like slow things too & started to mod some
but some things seems difficult to do without having to resort to fixed maps
for example I don't know how to remove starting ships without having to use a custom map which screws the random thingy ...
don't know how to remove the starting starport too

Yes I would like this kinda "begin from stoneage" kinda mod. The initial colony rush is too quick at the moment. In my mind that is

Me too. I am especially tired of meeting other races in a few turns. I would like to reduce the range of ships at the beginning of the game. I think anothe option ingame like Slow beginning would be great.

I like the idea of starting at a lower baseline - indeed, I'd also like a more mid-game start position, so you don't have to faff about with the same old rubbish at the start if you don't want to.

However, you can see other stars with your eyes. It's *absurd* that you wouldn't know where the stars were, and at any respectable tech level (for building FTL ships, anyway) you'd certainly be able to detect planets. Perhaps limit planet detection to a certain distance from inhabited worlds/scout ships? It's pretty trivial to observe a star and detect if it has a system.

- No starting ships
Seems to be hardcoded, couldnt find anything where this is defined at. However, with the gc2builder you can make an own map, without giving the various civs ships. A work-around, remove the ships completely from the gc2ships.xml will cause the game to crash. So no ideas yet.

- No starting technology (which can already be done with custom race but make it default)
Open the data\raceconfig.xml and just remove all techs from the various races.

- No starport on first planet
Seems to be hardcoded too. Couldnt find anything about this. But actualy, the one colony ship is not a big deal. One extra colony from the beginning is quite realistic. In the data\gc2types.xml you can define the cost and tech requirement for colony/construction pods. But be very cautious, any mistake and your game will just crash.

- No abiltiy to build starport until a certain technology requirement
Open the data\planetimprovements.xml, the first paragraph is the starport, put in < S_TechRequirement > InsertTechHere < /S_TechRequirement > (without the spaces around <>)

- Starport build cost 4x or 5x than it currently is (it's too easy/quick to build them right now IMO)
See above, just change the COST value

- Logistics begin at 0 (must research to get some)
Open the data\raceconfig.xml scroll through the variuos civs and replace the < LOGISTICS > 6 < /LOGISTICS > by whatever number you wish (note, some civs start with more or less then a 6, 6 is the terran value)

- Perhaps each type of ship (colony, scout, constructor) has separate research requirement - the first one scout.
This can be done through the data\gc2types.xml just edit the colony and construction pods < Tech_Requirement > tags

- Stellar Cartography (ability to see all planets on mini-map) moved to waaay down the tech tree (towards the end of the game). This forces you to have to explore the stars for planets.
This is not a big deal, is it? You cant see the class of the planets anyway, and it is like 90% of all stars have at least one planet.
But if you wish. Open the data\techtree.xml, look for stellar cartography and add the tech requirement tag (see answer 4) there, with the tech you wish. But dont forget to update the first sensor tech, as it is using stellar cartography to research, replace the value by xeno research or something low.

- No intital ability to see all the stars either - this ability would also require some research maybe even half-way down
Actualy in the year 2225 it would be absurd not to see stars. We can determine star location even in our dark age, so whats the problem?

PS Im working on a mod that have the most of the mentioned options (actualy all except the ones that dont work), in addition with some new techs, planetary improvements and such. But I gues I will need some sort of a beta tester, as Im a czech and never had english in the school. So I reealy need someone who checks the descriptive text for grammar and spelling errors and maybe even improve the overall descriptions, as Im not very creative in that sector.

Heh, maybe it is enough to play Civilization 4 trough first, and then start plaing galciv2.

wow, definitely some intriguing stuff....slow start could be fun I totally agree with the being able to see stars. It would just be awhile before you could get to them, since your techs are prehistoric lol.

Everything would be fine if the damn ship ranges would be far far far far FAR smaller than they currently are. But of course this might be trivial to mod in. You should probably have a base range of no more than half a sector before any life support research, and not have any life support modules available before you put in a lot of research either. Base range would increase as you research more life support stuff. The life support modules would probably also have to be larger, and give more variation of ranges. Not the current nonsense where a more advanced module gives a longer range AND is smaller than the less advanced one.

This would severly limit the colony rush in the beginning, and make for more interesting games later on, because it won't be so trivial to send your fleet halfway across the map. There should be an added diplomatic option that allows you to negotiate resupply from other civs, so you can travel through their territory without having to build starbases or equip your ships with lots of life support modules; i.e. their planets and bases extend your range. Not through the U.P. like the 'starbases assist allies' thing (which should also be a negotiable option, not a U.P. law, IMHO).

Hm. Good idea with the ranges, I gues I will work that in

I can help with descriptions
you can talk to me through here or wiki if needed : Link
(wiki is better if you can as I recieve emails more regularly whether or not you choose to email me through it)

-no starting ship
I didn't know about gc2ships.xml.
I think it might be possible to tone down starting ships instead of removing them completely
(remove almost all modules from the ships, that way starting ships will be able to make only poor (very slow) scout ships) the bad news is that core survey/colony ships won't really work anymore but that's not really too much of a problem

-range
if that can help you I modded up to -200 range and still range is quite important in a gigantic galaxy
see this thread if you wish Link

-also all additional starting techs should be pretty straightforward so as not to cripple AI too much by complicating a task

-I think you will need to mod starting planets because obviously if you are stuck with only your homeworld for a few weeks then the advantage of higher PQ planets is too great (Iconians for example) edit: and 10 PQ might be a little too low for starting, I don't know, testing would need to be done

-also it might be interesting to make a single starting tech for everyone with a cost of 200 (all other techs would need this one to start) that way, a player designing a custom race will only be able to use its 200 technology points on this particular tech

is there no other chance to contact you (icq, irc, regular email) ? to do it through wiki is quite fiddly/awkward...

I would really like the ability to turn off the starting survey ship. It makes no sense... you can't build survey ships at the start of the game, so why would you have one? Plus I think it would make the tech race more interesting because you'd actually have a need to build exploration ships.

WOW! Thx for the postive feedback guys, and particularly the ones who are helping on such a mod.

I've just tried some direct changes to 3 files within the English folder but when I started the game, it appears to have ignored my changes. Why?

Ok, the only thing is appears to have ignored is me changing the "customized race" - setting logistics to 0. It also appears to have ignored me removing starting techs. But...I removed research points from the main city structures and WOW! That works! Now you have to build a research lab before ANY research starts. I also changed custom planets to have a class 1, a class 2, and a class 3 instead of useless class zeros and that worked too! I also moved Stellar cartography until after "sensor3" but I don't know if that worked or not.

Question: if I load saved games, will that then pick up the new xmls or are they saved with the old configuration?

ok, i figured it out. u have 2 go into the galciv directory within my games within my documents and remove the race configurations. Now the customised race has 0 logistics! The increased cost of the starport worked too. Still get starting ships (even with no logistics) and it still builds a starport. But getting there...

the initial starport and the two ships are "hardcoded", you cant remome them from custom- new games, you have to make your own scenario/map in order to start without.

I jhaven't been able to find the editor on my hard drive. Is it just on the disk somewhere?

Anyway, one thing I'd like to see is a "Nomad" option. All you start off with is a colony ship. You need to search for a home planet.

Meanwhile, in my experiment with modding, I've cut initial industry to 1/4 of what it was, and also cut back intial farm output to 1/5. This means you have to make hard choices about building factories, farms etc earlier on.

I've also dropped the capital influence points from 25% to 2%! This is to make you need to build embassies. However, there's another interesting twist to this. I've given 1% influence to other colony bases (formerlly there was none). And all planets in home systems that were class 0 are now class 1. This gives a little extra strategy. You can choose to colonise around your home system for the extra influence or you can "invade" another civilization's system by colonsing the class 1 planets there for the influence if you think you can afford the maintenace - remember they'll be non-earners, though you may be able to terraform them a bit further down the track.

You can modify the starting ships, its just a bit annoying how to do it.

Basically it uses the Colony Ship and Sensor Ship from GC2Ships.xml. If you change the data in there you can cahnge it so that you start with two scouts for example (just copy the information under "Scout" to both the Colony and Sensor Ships.). You still get the same names (Flagship), and you can't remove them entirely, but of course you can change them to whatever you want.

Of course, this messes up the core ships for these two, but come on, nobody uses the core ships (not even AI), do they?


You can even remove Core ships from appearing on the ship builder by giving everyone the tech requirement "ImpossibleTech" (see the "Starbase" entry in GC2Ships.xml for inspiration).

Im done with the first step of my mod, including slowstart, so if anyone want to betatest. Up to now gc2 didnt crashed ^^

Sweet. The game is MUCH more interesting without starting survey ships. I researched it first and currently have 3 survey vessels (built on cargo hulls) zipping around trying to nab all the anomolies before the computer decides to catch up. I never build survey ships in the normal game... this has added a whole new exploration phase.

The colonization part was interesting too without that fancy ship you can't even build exploring everything for you. The computer focused on little scout ships to find the good planets, but I think working on the survey vessels has paid off. I think I'll play like this from now on. It should really be the default.

or at least optional

but I encountered a small problem in my mod-testing game. The Ai is not building survey ships at all.... I also made colonization quite slow (very expensive cargo ships and colony pods, tied to life support techs, so nothing from start) and the AI is very very slow at colonizing, actualy it never was, I had to do my best to keep up... MhhmM

Well if the AI isn't building ships with survey modules, it's probably because it's assuming it has one from the start, but also this proves my point. If you start with one, there's no point in building any. This is the problem with the current set up. The AI never builds them, the player never builds them, and all the anamolies are gone by the time you can actually build the ship. Oh, on top of the fact that you start with a ship you can't build. It makes no sense.

one civ build a survey ship

I always build like 2 or 3 extra survey ships, because the AI is so fast at picking up the anomalies and I couldnt match it with just the one slow flagship