a few newby questions

from GalCiv2 Forums
i just bought my copy today and i must say im a little diapointed with the ease of use of the game. it took me 3 hours to figure out i needed to click on green tiles to que up production. it would be nice if they had a tutorial that gave you an example game. any way here are my questions.
1) how do i build a strom trooper ship? i tried reseaching planeterary invasion but no ship for colonizeing enemy planets cam up. i assume that there is someting else i also have to reasearch but what?

2) what exactly do starbases do? i tried building a economy starbase and a military star base right off the bat but saw no noticable increase in ship production or income rate. do i have to upgrade them, and if so how?

3) after reaseching a weapons/ armor upgrade, do my ships that have already been produced automatically get that upgrade, or do have to manually select and upgrade them? what about new ships that i produce?
as you can see i'm having some diffuclty understanding the game. it would be nice to have some sort of build guide that tells you what you need most, like they do in civ 4.


2,607 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is a tutorial. If you've used Stardock yet, you'll see that you can download tutorial videos. Those are decent.

And go to the Databanks link on this very galciv2 site, on the top left corner of the pages, just under HOME.

Also, read faqs, which exist for this game.

Also, read the manual that I'm sure you got with the game. It's probably .pdf format in the same directory as GalCiv2.

Also, search this site for basic strategy guides.


The reason there's nothing by the devs about what you should build first, is that it depends entirely upon your strategy. So, you can do research as I've proposed, or you can learn by trial and error (as I myself did). Start at lower settings, try to get up to normal/tough/challenging, and you'll find that you can get the hang of it in just a couple of games. At least the basics.

3) after reaseching a weapons/ armor upgrade, do my ships that have already been produced automatically get that upgrade, or do have to manually select and upgrade them? what about new ships that i produce?


For this, you need to go to Starport, and design new or upgraded ships. I'd start with a new ship, picking your hull size (looking at hitpoints, size, and cost), then putting what you want on the ship. Then name it something unique. Then choose to build that ship in a planet's starport. Your ships won't automatically integrate what you research. You have to do that by designing it. The look of the ship is irrelevant to how it performs, by the way.

Good luck!

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For your first question, once you research "Planetary Invasion" the ships you use to invade are called "Transport". That's the generic one, assuming you have the other required techs for that core ship. As CornhuskerMac said above, building your own ships is usually the best way to do it.
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i tried building a economy starbase and a military star base right off the bat but saw no noticable increase in ship production or income rate.


That's because they have no effect on those areas. Economy starbases, after the first upgrade, will increase your overall production, it won't have any effect on your income. There are modules you can add that will increase your trade revenue but they do anything to your basic finances, only production. And military starbases have nothing to do with ship construction, they simply give your ships within it's radius combat bonuses and provide weaponry to help in some battles that take place near it.

These are things that are explained in the manual BTW. And there is a button in the main menu labelled Tutorials in case you missed it.