Nutrality Strategy

How I got myself waxed by going Evil

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have no issues admitting I'm a new and inexperienced GalCiv player. I started playing again recently, worked myself farther through the campaign than I ever did before (and without using cheat codes), as well as doing more regular galaxy games.

I started on cakewalk, and worked myself up every time I won a game...larger universe, more opponents, etc. However, I always played a Neutral terran.

This weekend, I decided I wanted to try something different, and decided on the Yor. An Evil Yor, and on Normal which is the highest I've played so far. I was suprised by how much the game changed--I didn't just get a 'new skin' and some different bonuses, playing the Yor really seemed different even as I tried to execute the same strategy. It seemed that my economy was always poor, or near the bottom of the food chain, which made it hard to research stuff and build any significant military force. I tend to be a late-game dominator, doing as much as possible to avoid early wars and dominating in the end with better tech than the other guys.

Well, that wasn't going to happen. The other civs were outmatching me in every category, I was lucky if I was a close second, and often I was a distant 3rd or worse. I had a decent number of colonies, and I killed of some minor races just for thier planets, but it didn't do me much good. I had better military tech in some areas, but my economy sucked so bad that it didn't make much of a difference. The Altarians got a bug in their butt and declared war on me out of the blue (said with an innocent look--I mean, how could they feel threatened by a few frigates pre-positioned at some of thier larger planets? And those troop transports? Nooo, those aren't troop transports, those are for having...uh...tea parties! Yes, that's right. It's a Tea Party Transport. Care for some crumpets?). The first round of the war I captured a few of their better planets but it didn't make much difference, it was only a matter of time until they wore me down and marginalized me. Even tho I switched several planets to pure economy planets, it was too little too late. My population wasn't high enough to provide a huge high-tax boost on short notice.

So that ended that game. Seeing as I only play on the weekend, I decided to try a new game this morning with the Terrans again, on Normal, same galaxy specs and opponents as my Evil Yor attempt. Except this time, I persued my normal course of Neutrality. And it worked, as it should--or I should say, as it has in the past games I've played. I study for high trade and diplomacy, trade for techs, and build a massive economy with which I can simply buy some super ships and build lesser ships realatively quickly. Once and awhile I'll end up with a couple massive production planets, but not always and I don't worry about it much. I use influence and cultural conquest a bit to get certain planet, especially away from allies. Right now I'm in first, or a tight race for first with the Altarians who have been last for most of the game but somehow got a huge population explosion. I'm guessing thier taking those low PQ planets that I spurned had something to do with it (most of them are in my territory, and the Altarians have enough influence that thier citizens aren't revolting easily).

I haven't had any civs decide to attack me, even tho I went from a first place power to a 3rd (I don't have a military to speak of--just alot of constructors and freighters), and I've been able to trade quite a bit with the other civs. The only war right now is between the Altarians and the Drenigan, and that seems to be going nowhere.

So it seems that a neutral civ with a focus on a huge economy seems to be the way to go for me. I'm still suprised at how different the game plays on a different civ w/ a different alignment however.
strategies
35,893 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I sort of had a similar history of gameplay...traditionally the fun-loving neutral Terrans. Then when I went for my racial victory medal I had to play all of the races and tried to stay within the race's starting tendancy (ie, Dregnans I play as evil as I could get).

And I loved playing evil, particularly now that I am focusing more on winning through military means. I still try to lean somewhat neutral and still sometimes go neutral if it suits me. But I'm liking evil--I like some of the moral decision bonuses that evil gets (the 50% PQ bonus on a high PQ world is rare but neat when it happens).

Evil also means never having to say you are sorry.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That is the beauty of GalCiv2.

Unlike a certain RTS game,,where the Alliance and the Horde are basicly the same stuff with different names,,the races here have their own distinct flavour.
This mean you'll have to adapt your playstyle with this in mind.

I'd also recommend that you go up to at least Tough as soon as you've learned the controls as you otherwise (naturally indeed) will aquire habits that simply won't work on the higher levels,,and tend to ruin the game for you.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd also recommend that you go up to at least Tough as soon as you've learned the controls as you otherwise (naturally indeed) will aquire habits that simply won't work on the higher levels,,and tend to ruin the game for you.


LOL...I'm having a somewhat tough time on Normal. Well, I can't say that...this is the first time the AI civs are keeping up with me technologically and economically, which should make for a more intresting game.

It seems that if you can stay ahead population wise, everything else falls into place. Is this accurate?

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nooo, those aren't troop transports, those are for having...uh...tea parties! Yes, that's right. It's a Tea Party Transport. Care for some crumpets?).


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Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My guess (and I don't know enough about your style to be sure) is that your problem is population. Even with lots of stock markets, you need high pop to really have a healthy economy. I, like many others here, perfer to start with taxes set low enough to get 100% approval early, even if it means loosing money. 100% approval gives pop growth bonuses and getting that jump start early pays off later. Once the colony rush is over I increase taxes (but try to keep 75% approval if possible). Even so, I often have an economic crisis where I have to reduce spending for a while until my pop. catches up.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Keeping approval at 100% for double the population growth is key to winning at the higher levels. I'm trying my first game at suicide. The big thing I notice going from Masochistic to Suicide is the AI offers less and asks for more in trade deals. In past games I was able to keep approval at 100% because money anomalies and trading fueled my economy until my base morale was increased enough to raise my taxes to the point were I was in the black. In my current game playing at suicide I kept my approval at 100% for the first 8 months but in Sept. was forced to raise my taxes. However, in this game for the first time I played as the Torians and selected the 70% population growth bonus so my population is still 3 times my closest rival (recall at suicide the AI gets large bonuses in many attributes, I don't know if this includes pop. growth).
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As far as playing Neutral goes I've noticed Neutral has the big early advantage of giving you all the tiles for all your planets Right NOW. Essentially I've been colony rushing, then tech to it, then bammo, huge planets to play with. Neutral seems pretty good really, especially with the best tech centers in the game. Evil has some major advantages too, it's just Good that seems totally pointless to me.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As far as playing Neutral goes I've noticed Neutral has the big early advantage of giving you all the tiles for all your planets Right NOW


Yep...and you get to save that whole tech thread for planet improvment and put it someplace else. I'll usually research the first one (Soil Enrichment?) since it's cheap, early, and faster to research at that stage than Xeno Ethics. I agree that is a big advantage.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My guess (and I don't know enough about your style to be sure) is that your problem is population. Even with lots of stock markets, you need high pop to really have a healthy economy.


Well I'm not sure what my style is. I try to keep a high approval rating, usually 80s-90s. I tend to dilute my planets unless they are very opportune to specialize. That way each planet has some industrial base, some research, and some tax. I tend to specialize smaller planets towards tax or research, while large planets are mostly industrial with maybe one research, one farm, one happy place, and one economy booster. I'm not sure if this is effective or not compared to a pure planet specialization strat but I guess I'll find out when I get to higher levels or play more. I tend to research economic and political techs first, going after military techs later, after I've become a Neutral civ with a pleanty strong economy. (Usually late enough that a 1 week miltech will get me most of the way through that tech--studying lasers and getting Lasers II, III, IV in the same turn kind of thing).

Since finding out about the population as it relates to the tax rate I've worked on getting my population up. What else does high population contribute to? It seems to make everything fall into place. When I first started playing, I could hardly progress even on cakewalk, I was definately playing all wrong, but now I seem to be 'on to' something.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Another piece of advice that hasn't been mentioned is to research Xeno Ethics and choose Neutral as early as possible. One of the biggest benefits of being neutral is the 10% bonus to approval. This results in an immediate 10% increase in taxes while keeping the same approval rate. Also research the morale techs as early as possible and build the morale trade goods (Harmony Crystals, Ultra Spices, Virtual Reality Modules, Frictionless Clothing).

In this game Morale is money. There's really not much in the game that globally increases income except economic resource mining. But between the morale techs and trade goods, there's a lot of global morale benefit to be had. Make sure you get it early and your income problems will be over. And don't forget morale resource mining is just as important economic resource mining.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Rogueldea:
I tend to specialize smaller planets towards tax or research

It makes no sense to specailize low PQ planets to income generation since tax revenue is based on population and low PQ planets have a low population cap. It makes more sense to use these planets for research.

Mumblefratz:
There's really not much in the game that globally increases income except economic resource mining.

Your forgetting the techs that let you change your gov't type from dicatorship to varying levels of democracy boosting your economy by 25%, 50%, or 75!

Neutral was clearly the most powerful in v1.2 but changes have been made since to balance things. In v1.3 the cost of the NLC was increased from 300 to 500 (I think 400 would have made more sense). I've read that in DA the yellow and red planet tiles are only made available after the appropriate tech (e.g., soil enrichment) is researched.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've read that in DA the yellow and red planet tiles are only made available after the appropriate tech (e.g., soil enrichment) is researched.


Seems like they're making alot of good changes in DA. I especially like the terraforming stuff so not all the planets can be colonized in the first year (or whatever) of play. Of all the stuff that bugs me about GC, that is definately at the top of the list. I think it could be cool to play a race that colonizes only certain (somewhat toxic) planets--gosh, they're no threat to anyone... That is, until they run out of room and want to expand...and they've got orbital terraformers...and one is parked over YOUR planet...heh heh. I think that kind of play would be pretty cool.

Anyway, back to the topic. So, low PQ planets for research and larger ones for taxes. Ok.

What about the various capitols that can be built? Mfg; tech; sci? I tend to wait until I find that super planet that is perfect for these capitals--the huge industrial planet; the plant with that 300% mfg bonus square, a pair of 200% mfg bonus squares (a natural for a mfg capitol)...what are the ideas in this area?
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Your forgetting the techs that let you change your gov't type from dicatorship to varying levels of democracy boosting your economy by 25%, 50%, or 75!

This is 10%, 20% or 30% and has been for some time. The documentation in the government screen wasn't changed to reflect this until v1.3. But, yes of course, these are a good source of economic bonus. Also, I didn't mention the 10% economic bonus you get from Xeno Economics and the 5% from Xeno Bank Construction.

The point I was making is, Morale is Money. Clearly, Money is Money as well.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
no, YOU'RE money, mumble.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
no, YOU'RE money, mumble.

Er. Thanks (I think) Clint, I mean axhed.

I have difficulty reading your posts and not thinking to myself "Well, do ya feel lucky punk".   
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your problem is economy. I ALWAYS win with Yor on Maso diff level.(No tech trading, since it makes the game too easy).

The importance is not the number of colonies, but how many people in total you have. Thus you must research Habitat Improvement as fast as possible (ie ASAP), since it let you build aphrodisiacs which gives you a 50% pop boost.

Raise your taxes. The pop growth bonuses are 25% with 75% approval and 100% with 100% approval. thus whenever your approval is 72% or 42% doesnt change anything. Thus put your taxes so your approval is around 45% (Note at 40% your pop stops to grow. you need to avoid that).

Do NOT build any economic buildings (except economic capital on your home planet) in the beginning of the game. In fact i usually build nothing but galactic stock markets and this ONLY when my pop is at least 10B. If not they are basically a waste of moey.

It is better to have an extra mining ressource then a colony. early on focus to build up some ships to explore. If you get 1 economic and 1 moral ressource, the game will be pretty easy.

Take buildings upgrade slow.I usually do not upgrade a building till the majority of my planets are full.

Get basic trading fast. As soon as you got it build, get as many freighters as possible. By the time they get to the planets you would have advaanced and neutral trading. Also with bsic trading you cna build economic capital on your main planet.

Once you have habitat improvement and trading research Neutrality. The crystals would boost you morale which will enable you to rise your taxes.

Once your economy is pretty ok, build several economy starbases to get cheap production. Note i usually do not build an economic starbase for less then 4 planets.

Finally research influance branch. Using influance to capture planets is good since it enables you to get planets AND PEOPLE!!! More ppl, more money !!. You need a pretty low military for that.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Do NOT build any economic buildings (except economic capital on your home planet) in the beginning of the game. In fact i usually build nothing but galactic stock markets and this ONLY when my pop is at least 10B. If not they are basically a waste of moey.


Economy buildings don't have any upkeep cost AFAIK, so cannot be a 'waste.' If you plan on building them, then earlier is better because they cost the same to build regardless of when you build them.

Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looking at a Stock market they have maintenance of 1 bc. Eariler built is better as Rockoon said.