After conquering...

spoils of war

from GalCiv2 Forums
Picked up a game after five months of not playing. Excellent improvements. I like it.

Played metaverse on tiny/challenging/industrialist/6 random opponents with randomized intelligence. Very fun to play a crowded neighborhood where everybody is evil.

Minor complaint...

Why don't players get the technology from a civilization after conquering them? We get their buildings and population but not their technology. Considering how difficult it is to acquire technology through research, players should get the technology through conquest as well. It would be a great incentive to building war machines.

This should be a reward for destroying an opponent. If not, then please allow researching multiple technologies in parallel. Maybe both? Maybe introduce a third value that controls how long technology research takes with more than one project?

Another thing... I want their remaining ships.

A note...

Industrialist is a tough party for the early stages of the game but becomes incredibly useful late in the game. The bonus delivers enough to flip the war machine on at will. I won't be playing as them again though. Any suggestions for starting configuration?

Good stuff.
5,637 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There are lot's of opinions and most of them valid. I generally select the Torians for the free 25% morale bonus then select the 30% economic bonus and the 70% pop growth bonus with my 10 racial ability points and finally the Federalists for the 20% economic bonus. It's pretty clear my strategy is based on building a strong economy. I also play only gigantic so I'm not sure how this translates to tiny, but I think it should do OK.

If you play on a larger map you pretty much do get all your opponents techs as you conquer each planet. On tiny there's just not enough planets for this to happen.

Getting a defeated opponent ships is OK if it's you that get's them, but not so good when you take all their planets except one and some johnny come lately comes along and takes their last planet.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't usually sweat it, since one of my strategies is staying ahead of the tech curve by a LONG margin.
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What you call strategy, I call bread and butter
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't usually sweat it, since one of my strategies is staying ahead of the tech curve by a LONG margin.

At suicidal this is far easier said than done. I usually settle for out researching them in a few cruical areas.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can see how it would be annoying if some other civilization conquered the last planet so...

The player needs to conquer 75% to get the tech and ships. That way, even when the civilization gets vanquished, the player that did the most work gets the benefits. I've been guilty of stealing planets in the middle of somebody else's war. I wouldn't expect the technology in those circumstances.

Looking at it that way, however, I see how it's not easy to make technology one of the spoils of war.

Nonetheless, something needs to give. Research is far too rigid. Espionage is decent but takes a long time to ripen. Maybe technology possessed by a civilization can be randomly attached to planets with research facilities. That way, when you conquer a planet, you get some technology.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i just had a quick read through the posts and i always thought why dont i get the money they have   do they delete the accounts and burn the money ? it would be a nice reward to get a few bob off a civ with a couple of quid .
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You're right. Where is the money?

Personally, I'm a 12 round fighter so by the time my opponents are vanquished, they are also broke.

If your opponent has money then they will keep fighting. I'm more interested in technology.

Good point, though. Throw in the remaining funds when a civilization surrenders.

Maybe surrender is where we should get technology, money and ships. It can be done under the current code.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I see how it's not easy to make technology one of the spoils of war

I always thought that the rate of technology development should be proportional to galaxy size. When there's 500 planets in the galaxy and you get 65 of them your research base is far stronger than if there are 50 planets in the galaxy and you get 6 or 7 of them. The other categories tend to scale reasonably with size, but on technology the small galaxy gets shorted.

it would be a nice reward to get a few bob off a civ with a couple of quid

I generally don't care about this so much because that's the one area that I'm always stronger than the AI. But I do find the UK money interesting mainly because I have no clue how it works, bob, pound, quid, pence   .
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't see how you play gigantic galaxy. It took me two weeks to finish off the tiny galaxy with a cultural victory. Thankfully, there wasn't a dull moment in the tiny galaxy. Something was always ready to turn disastrous. How long is a game on gigantic?
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Instead of giving ships to the victor, how about giving them to the nation accepting the surrender?
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
With respect to research time varying with galaxy size, you can always change the technology rate in the new game screen. Before I got the game I played the demo a lot and since you're stuck with a medium galaxy I set research to very fast so I could see some different techs before the time limit ran out.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
I always thought that the rate of technology development should be proportional to galaxy size.

IIRC I read something about that. It is dependant, but linearily - bigger galaxy, slower tech rate. But the last two sizes (huge and gigantic) share the same setting.

BR, Iztok
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How long is a game on gigantic?

For me about three weeks, but I spend about 30 hours per week. I've seen some folks complete one in three days, but these guys have been playing since GC1 days. I'm hoping to reduce my time as I get better at it, but my first v1.31 game is probably taking longer than usual.

With respect to research time varying with galaxy size, you can always change the technology rate in the new game screen.

Yes you can but I'm still not sure they scale all that well. I usually use slow tech (I could go one slower) and always finish the tech tree in about 3-4 years. Most games end up taking me 6-8 years, though again my first v1.31 will probably be longer.

Still if you have to go up to very fast tech just to get research rates close to "normal" then you don't have much rage of selection left for personal preference.

IIRC I read something about that. It is dependant, but linearily - bigger galaxy, slower tech rate. But the last two sizes (huge and gigantic) share the same setting.

That's interesting. Never knew that. This is still a large variation. Gigantic abundant all loose clusters or scattered give you about 500 planets. Same setting except tight clusters give about 250 planets. Not sure about huge galaxies, but I'd guess 250 for abundant all loose or scattered and 125 for tight clusters. That's a 4 to 1 advantage for gigantic loose vs. huge tight. If it just scaled linearly with the number of planets in the galaxy it would certainly be more consistent.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was getting ~280 on huge abundant. With my current 1.31 game, it's down to ~250 (only one 1.31 game so far). So 2 to 1 is about right for huge vs gigantic comparison. 4 to 1 is probably right on if you tag on loose vs tight.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
4 to 1 is probably right on if you tag on loose vs tight.

These are rule of thumb guidelines at best. On the gigantic abundant loose I've seen anywhere from 450 to 510. I assume there's equivilient level of variation in other game sizes.