minor races and trading techs for cash (warning possible noncheat game-exploit)

there are no minor races its official I know for a fact because I cheated and removed the fog of war

from GalCiv2 Forums
I was watching my friend play at his house and he bought Advanced Minituarization (or something) from Arcea for 645 and sold them mass driver theory for 765 bc.

This makes no sense. By the time he researched mass drivers (to trade), it only took him one week to research it. There are some serious flaws in advance-value ratios.
So, since every one else could research these little advances in a week or two themselves (most players weren't much smaller than he), he went around selling beam weapon theory, armor theory, mass driver theory, etc, and took everybody's cash. All of it. That should not be possible. Next thing you know, he's got over 10 trillion credits in his bank. Of course, these credits are then used to buy starbase modules . . . . . . .


Now, about minor races.

I can tell you for a fact that there is a serious problem with minor races. How do I know for a fact? Because I cheat. I removed the fog of war. I looked at foreign planets and who owned them. Some games had 1-3 minor races, some had none. Ended my turn. Everyone makes contact with me. No minor races, except maybe 1-3 on some games, other games, none.

I knew I should have waited another year to buy this game. It's going to take at least that long to work out the bugs. I was playing version 1.0 for weeks and that was better than 1.31 (went straight from 1.0 to 1.31)




6,693 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't have any problem with the minors. Minor races can appear in the game as it progresses. There's a random element there. Either way, it's not a big deal because as the name implies, they usually don't have a big impact on the course of a game. Just like many random elements, the advantage of selling techs to minors early may or may not be available.

Personally, I've found I'm usually on the short end when it comes to trading techs. Even if basic techs do command too much cash, that's a limited resource. Also, your friend may have been playing with a heavily modded game. Unless you're playing metaverse, there's nothing keeping you from changing game mechanics however you like. Most characteristics can be easily modified through the many xml files that control them.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First off, Im sorry you were unable to avoid buying a game that obviously you have been unhappy with.

Second, Im not sure what exactly you think is wrong with minor races. Again their appearance is random, and they are not meant to play like the najor races do.

If your unhappy with the results of tech trading there is an option for you to turn it off. The value assigned to a particular tech is not exact, it changes depending on who you are, your diplomacy, etc. If a race does not have a particular tech, no matter how low it is on the scale it will consider the tech valueable. If this is a true deal breaking issue with your welcome to adjust how the AIs value tech!
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It disturbs me to hear everyone crying 'bug!' every time they see something they don't like. No wonder so few developers participate in their own game's forums.

What you have described is not a bug; it is a mechanic of play, and one which has existed in every 4x game which features a tech tree. Knowledge is power, and power can be traded. I see no problem at all with selling tech. It is a viable strategy which occurs in the real world.

Many times I've had an AI opponent luck up and become a super-power. And the only way to bring him down was to go to war with him while selling tech to the smaller guys. They fund my war effort, while I keep them from being gobbled up. It's a fair trade. In addition, it doesn't last forever. Eventually you'll drain the smaller races dry. Because they are small, they lack the funds to sustain long-term tech purchasing. To make matters worse, if you sell them planetary improvements or weapon technology, they immediately begin building which drains their bank accounts even faster.

Also, I'd be willing to bet your friend wasn't playing the higher difficulty levels. Start a 1.31 game above Tough difficulty and try selling tech to get rich. Don't get me wrong, it helps... you might survive, but you won't get rich. Since upgrading, I find I'm typically on the losing end of the bargains (note that this only occurs in the rare case where I'm actually ahead in the tech race).

I knew I should have waited another year to buy this game. It's going to take at least that long to work out the bugs. I was playing version 1.0 for weeks and that was better than 1.31 (went straight from 1.0 to 1.31)


Then reinstall, don't upgrade, and be happy.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Since 1.31 i have played maybe a half dozen games. Right up untill the current game im playing i had not seen 1 minor race in any of those games, not one, but in this game the 6th id guess since 1.31 i have,

The Scottlingas
The Dark Yor
The Andians
The Akillians
The Paulos
The Vegans
The Jessuins
and the pesky little Snathi,

Now thats all those games played on the same size map (gigantic), the same difficulty (tough), and with the same number of races (5), and i only got minors 1 in 6 games.

It is purely the way the game is structured, sometimes you get them others not, it can be quite one sided at times as to how often you seem them, at times you will have the minors appear in every game for over 10 games straight

So as for it being a fact that therre is a serious problem with the minor races, id say you need to play a bit more, theres nothing wrong with it at all.

And as for waiting for the bugs to be worked out, tell me

1) What game do you know of that has no bugs, and
2) What other developers give as much time to eliminating their bugs as they do here.

Think about it for a bit and i think you will be quite happy with your purchase and be happy playing for quite some time.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh I'm enjoying the game. In 1.0, there were the same number of minor races in every game. Is there a file that I can change to make it so they are always there?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not that i am aware of. However if you set all the options to 'Abundant' it does seem to produce more of the minors per game.
Never tried this myself as i am happy keeping it random as its more interesting that way.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm tired of people taking away our diplomatic abilities calling them exploits or bugs. These are not EXPLOITS or BUGS its called using diplomacy to your advantage. I swear if Stardock takes away one more diplomatic ability because of you crybabies....
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i havent been able to bring myself to raise the difficulty above challenging yet, but it seems like if i'm ahead in the initial colony race, the computer will drop minors in my way to slow me down, which is good for balancing, but SOOOOO annoying, it even happens when i click the button to disable minor races
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't know either people. Playing on a gigantic map with everything abundant at second to last diff. I think I've seen just about every minor race in the game on this map, as well as all nine major civs. Wars everywhere but no one has been eliminated yet. I've never had a problem with the minors showing up. I think every game I've played has had a few minor races appear. Do people really have this issue? What puzzles me is that it seems like we all have different experiences with the same game when it comes to running on our systems. Why? And before anyone says it, yes I know that OS's are all different as far as hardware and software running but still...
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I know you been ripped left and right in this thread about the Minors. So I won't get into that, one thing I might mention that you might not understand.

Weapons in game are the most Valuable Item to trade in game.. So that is one reason your friend traded a little higher then Advanced Min.

Second if your friends Diplomacy was much higher this can also cause Things like this to happen. If he has Diplomatic Translators then he is almost certainly going to have things like this happen.

Hope this helps. I do suggest you actually look things up on forum though to help you out next time. Not everything is a bug.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The thing about Minors is, the more cramped the map is, the less minors you get. If you play a gigantic map with scattered planets, you're going to get a *lot* of minors. If you try sticking all 10 races on a large galaxy, there isn't going to be much room for minors.

How you set up you galaxy makes an amazing difference on your gaming experience.