Help a Civ veteran / GalCiv newbie

I will try to help. I use a custom race to make things easier for me. Make a custom race with good diplomatic skills, moral, economy, research, etc but thoughs are good ones to get ya going. Yes you want to grab planets, research the right stuff too. Also be a neutral civ first. Because no one loves you and no one wants you dead. So you can last longer. Its a little harder to get alliances well kinda of it depends but, build a small military slowly so evil races wont rape you for being weak, every one will will be neutral or more friendly with you. Trade with other races for techs. Open trade routes too that helps alot with relationships with other races. If a race likes you give them gifts it always helps experiment with this. Try with easier difficulty first and with medium to large map first too or the opposite like smaller to medium maps(i like bigger maps). If you see like a spot on a planet with boosts to research maybe you want that planet to be your research capital. Make sure your people are happy ie moral between 70-100% taxes have a role with that an over population too. Lower you money in the beginning to development its set at 65% of you cash flow drop it to to what ever you need to to make a profite but dont drop it below 50%. You can increase taxes in the beginning or lower them your choice but in the long run lower them. Makes your people happier and population growth increases. Put one to 2 farms on planets... here is a wierd thing though i will say sometime if there is a production boost for farms some reason my moral on that planet drops if i put a farm on those boost and even more so on my homeworld. If you dont know why moral is low on a planet keep it with 1 farm only it helps. Colonize world with classes 9-15... later on 16+. 8-5 are ok worlds. read the bonuses of building to get idea what they do. Also build galactic wonders buildings to. Look through the menus to learn new and easier ways to play the game. To the experts at this game i know this isnt the best describtion but its a good start. Hope this helps

Up the difficulty level

If you have the highest military rating the other civs will most likely leave you alone. So you need a difficulty where it is hard for you to obtain that.

Also star bases too they are helpful just try it out. Yes i am rambling. Kyle i swear to god if u bitch about this your dead. good luck sdevet.

i was neutral in my last game with good military and everyone loved me. What a shocker too.

If you want the game to be tougher, play on smaller galaxies. What I have found is that in larger games, the computer tends to feel less threatened by you and therefore is less aggressive. In smaller maps, everyone ends up cramped together, and the AI deals alot better with being aggressive.

Also, make sure you've set your difficulty higher. Disabling tech trade also makes the difficulty sky rocket as you can no longer use that bargaining chip for peoples favor!

Lastly, choose aggressive opponents, everyone has their preferred ones, I recommend something evil. I mean, they are evil after all.

Anywho, have fun.

What's am I missing?

Maybe the fact that you have 4 ways to win:

1. crush all major AIs (military victory)
2. crush all major AIs that aren't allied with you (diplomacy victory)
3. research a specific tech (technology victory)
4. have your influence zone on 75% of the galaxy (influence victory)

It is up to you do decide what kind of win you want, the military victory giving the most points and the diplomacy victory the less. And getting the diplomacy victory or the technology victory can be done achieved without being involved in war.

 

And as you may have noted, the AI won't initiate an attack:

1. if they are already in lots of war
2. if you are the military leader unless the fear factor appears (ie you have a history of destroying races)
3. if they aren't persuaded by other races to do so (through bribing or through an established alliance)
4. if your are in good relations with them

 

Put in several good races and play evil, or vice versa

Also, the AI will get paranoid and declare war on Intelligent and above if he notices you seeding his borders with influence stations, or parking invasion vessels close to him.
And if you want a challenging game, definetly enable the Yor, Drengin, Arceans and Altarians. Those 4 are the most powerful military civs in the game, and cover all alignments(Drengin evil, Altarians good, Yor evil/neutral, Arceans good/neutral). Another pain in the B-Hind are the Torian Confederation. You'll notice them controlling half the galaxy within the first 20 turns. Try not to play against the Terrans or the Thalans, as they both suck very much. And lastly, the Iconians, Korx and Drath are something of a wild card, they can be really weak, or really powerfull.
I usually play on a Large Abundant all galaxy with 7 opponents, and it sure as heck gets fun. There was this one time where I was good, in war with the Drengin who were evil, and almost at war with the Yor, who were also evil. And then, by some odd twist of fate, the Altarians turned evil too, and pretty soon it was me vs the 3 most powerful militaries in the game. Fun times.

Try not to play against the Terrans or the Thalans, as they both suck very much. And lastly, the Iconians, Korx and Drath are something of a wild card, they can be really weak, or really powerfull.

This is not true as of 1.3. Frogboy put alot of work into the Terran alliance AI, so they now play a much better game. As the Iconian Refuge, Thalans and Drath r subsets of this AI, they too r much better now.

if you want an interesting time at not to high a difficulty level, for my first game i completed i played at normal difficulty, with star systems spread out, not in clusters, a small map, and 9 opponents, with 10 races duking it out, it didn't take long for there to be a war (drengin got wiped out in the first 3 years of gametime) and eventually it devolved into war, peace, war, peacce, war, war war war war... and then i won

I would up the difficulty. I'm familiar with the genre, too, and I played my first game at Normal and thought it sucked. Above Normal the artificial intelligence gets better and better, which makes for much more interesting games. At Normal it kind of feels like you are playing against space retards.

At Masochistic with all 9 races enabled at incredible intelligence, it's all you can do to keep the out of the pandomonium that is the universe. At low difficulty levels, the AI is pretty retarded, which is good if you're learning the game, but not if you're looking for action. For that, you need to play at a high difficulty level with all races enabled and "randomize intelligence" unchecked. You want them all at the smartness your difficulty level sets.

Peace and warfare tend to come in very long waves in GalCiv2, unlike "classic" Civ (where there's less time between war and peace). The computer players are more content with peace in GalCiv2, but when war does flare up (sometimes due to a random event), it can last for quite a long time.

Even if you aren't keen on peace for too long, take the time to build up your planets and starbases, as you may not get the chance later. Build your military up, or you'll become the target of choice. Also, be careful about declaring war; the computer players tend to form systems of alliances that can quickly pull you into a much larger war than you had anticipated.

As mentioned above, if you want a more exciting game you might want to try more crowded maps; I currently play on Large with seven opponents, and it's moderately crowded, with warfare breaking out regularly. Playing on a Medium map with nine opponents will be about as busy as anybody could care for.

The easiest way to get involved in wars is to enable minor races and work to make alliances. If you are strong, you are almost never attacked, but allies will constantly drag you into wars.

BTW I love plaing sim-empire games where I almost never get into wars and expand my empire by infulence.

Personally, I like that you arn't constantly being dragged into war. I use gifts of ships (and old, old techs) to induce other civs to go to war, thus lessening chance I'll be attacked, plus generally weakening my enemies.

You can also use that trick to make all of your opponents ships to go to the wrong side of their civ right before you attack.