A newb in need of enlightement

I think your grammar is better than many native English speakers'. However, I only forgive poor grammar, not just any old grammar   .

1: Bribes and gifts used to work for alliance purposes. Now really the only way to get an alliance is to have a military rating that is much higher than the other faction's military rating.

2: It would be nice, but you can't, it is just not an option. You can extort from them, though - if your military rating is higher than theirs, go to the diplomacy screen and ask them for money without offering them anything.

3: Research advanced troop modules and the miniaturization techs. Toward the end of the game, I can usually mount three ATMs on a cargo hull for a total of 3000 (billion) troops. Or mount one ATM on a tiny hull for a vastly cheaper ship. The best way to invade, of course, is by spore, if you are a Super Annihilator race.

4: Influence victory is really just an unfinished military victory. You will probably need to conquer at least some planets in order to spread your influence far enough to win the game, especially in larger galaxy sizes.

5: When the populace is threatening to rebel, build a propaganda center if your are evil. Beefing up the orbital garrison helps a little, as well as building cultural centers on the planet. Building your own influence starbases nearby also helps, and is the only thing you can do to help a mining base. The surest way, of course, is to conquer the other planets around the one in trouble.

6: Both sliders and factories - the sliders represent how much of your potential factory production you are using. If the planet is not building any improvements, all production given by the slider will go to shipbuilding. If you are building improvements and ships at the same time, the ships will build more slowly unless you put all or most of your production (non-research) spending into military production. There are several good discussions of production stretegy on these boards - try using the search at the top of the page for 'factory', 'production', and other related terms.

7: There is NO rule number seven!

8: On higher difficulty levels, the computer will get a little ahead of you no matter what. Try not to let it get too far ahead in weapons and miniaturization both, or you will start to have a very hard time of it. You will have to find a good balance between building early warships to keep up your military rating and pouring as much as possible into research to try to keep up with the AI at the same time. It just takes a bit of practice.

I hope that was helpful - bon chance!

Hi!

You need to cover 75% of the whole galaxy with your influence (area painted in your race's color), and not be in a war. To do that you need to:
- get lots of planets,
- breed LOTS of population (13B+) on most planets,
- research all the tech that gives influence bonuses,
- build buildings on a planet that give bonuses to influence,
- mine influence (blue) resource(s),
- plant lots of ANY kind of starbase in empty space where no race has it's influence.


- build buildings on a planet that give bonuses to influence,
- increase approval on that planet (will take longer to rebell),
- breed/transfer more pop on/to that planet,
- research more techs that gives influence bonuses,
- upgrade SBs mining influence (blue) resource(s)


Factories. The more you have, the faster you can build. Don't build too many on all planets tough, better have only some planets specialized in ship-building.

BR, Iztok

Thanks all. That's really halpful

the previous answers were correct but i'd like to maybe add a little:

1- Getting an alliance requires "close" realations. Gifts might get you to "friendly" but thats it. The best way was mentioned as having a great military, but you also should have trade routes with the potenetial ally, no past agressions, treaties too. On the Relations screen you will see +'s and -'s that tell you how your realationship is being figured. Of course you have to make sure the AI has the "alliance" tech. i usually make that one of the gifts i give them. Or i trade for it. Also, all those influence starbases might hurt your chances of close realtions. AI players get nervouse about very high influence values.

4- the influense starbases need to have additional mudules to get more of a boost. the maximum is +337. You need to research a few techs to get all those modules. The closer they are to an AI planet the better they will work.

6- besides the factories and the power plants, you can boost ship building by focusing a individual planets production. you will of course loose some in the way of research and social production.

8- I too am usually behind in my military. As i've only played up to Touch so far its worked for me. I keep an etye an my relations and concentrate mosrtly on research and socuial production. By the time an AI is declaring war on me i have the smarts and the industry to out gun and out build him. I usually dont even start a real military until i have medium hulls. I will build like one stock ship just to keep in orbit to avoing haveing a lone transport take my planet. But the Ai is pretty crappy at the soldering techs anyway.

Hey all europeans have better grammer then most americans do so dont worry about it and that is funny that you dont think you guys have good grammer cause for me writings the worse lol.
1. Theres a lot of ways to make alliances in GalCiv2. Though sometimes it can take a while and a little luck it just might happen. One way is trade ships. You can get other civilizations to like a bit more you either get 1 + or 2 + depends. I you look in the menus you can read out how other civilizations like you or hate you. Trade money, influence(harder to use in trade to affect other civilizations into liking you), trade tech, planets, ships, etc... if you trade a lot you get a + from them, though you have to trade alot with them. Gifts start out small with a tech or 2 to give them. Then make the gift bigger and bigger over time cause if u give them small stuff all the time they will know your just kissing their asses so they will like you more. If you have the expansion pack then economic and reseach treaties will also help. Once their relation meter says close they really like you and if you researched aliance you can ask to form an alliance. Some times you got to add a little trade in it to seal the deal. Also try to ally with races of the same ethics too. Cause in some cases of huge galactic wars they make break the alliance.
2.I wish you could slap the neighbors around to threaten them but ya can't. I guess have a huge fleet or influence starbases.
3.Transports can get better. Do research in planetary assault, the advanced transport modules, you get to hold double the space of 1000 soldiers and it doesnt take up as much room. Also when you get large hulls or bigger place multiple advanced transport modules on it or increase research in miniaturization techs. It helps out a lots and you can have lots of soldiers and a fast transport that can go anywhere and if you really need too defend itself.
4. Influence victory is easier on smaller maps you need to extend your influence to 75% of the galaxy, so planets, starbases, are important. On larger maps it takes more time and is a lot hard to pull of. And to get the victory you cant be at war with anyone when you get 75% influence.
5. Well for mines leaving you make sure you have your planets closer to the mines then the other civilizations planets do cause miners love the quickest way to deliver which is most profitable for them and will leave ya. For planets keep moral up with entertainment structures. Keep research new ones cause the also ups your moral by a little each time. Also carefully balance taxes and funding out In the beginning you might need to increase taxes and lower govenermt spending, later you can increase spending and lower taxes. See I use moral +15% benefit and +20% economy. It takes a load off work off. Yes Influence starbases help. Also when a population gets to 20billion so some reason the game works this way the aproval rating gets harder to control. So dont use the population benefits tiles ie dont put farms on them. Only put 1 farm down per planet on normal tiles. But if you know how to control huge population planets well then go ahead its just a little harder. And homeworlds are a little harder to control too sometimes.
6.When making specific world have some planets with lots of research facilities and increase its science slider to get massive increase in research. When starting out building worlds sometimes increase the social slider get the planet up and running faster. Then for worlds with lots of factories and a starport do the military slider so you can build ships faster.
8. Well you can be real man and don have a military for a while and focus on building a strong empire for a little while in the beginning of the game. Evil empires might get some ideas a little later about conquorering you. But it kinda helps. Or you can slowly build up a military so other empires won't look down on you. Now for the AI getting ahead of you here is their weakness they grap so many planets they got real no developed planets and they are in the hole with money. Go get worlds that are classes from 7+ well 8+ but you get the point you can build lots of stuff on them. And develop a few worlds at a time. Cause you can have worlds already building ships, researching, or getting you important stuff way before the ai, while the ai is getting worlds and has really developed nothing and is getting his money flushed down for the planets not making any money. Trade with the each ai get a few things from each ai and you will come out on top with technology. It takes a lot of practice.

ADDITIONAL TIPS! If a race is about to go to war with you and you really dont want to go to war. Pay other races to got to war with them. Trade for it they really like weapon trades. Also evil civs will like you more for this. Try out the galactic wonders some of them are really worth it. Try out different civilization bonuses. Or try out different race special powers. Try with different governments too. I will add more later. I hope this helps.

If I want a civ to go to war with onether how can I make that happen?

Anytime I see in the menu attack, the optionsis always a minor civilization...

Is there another way?

I'm not certain of the exact mechanics, but from the couple of times I've gotten an AI to go to war with another:

- they need to like you
- they need to not like the target
- you need to provide, um, "incentive"

I'm not sure how relative miltary strength figures in, but I wouldn't expect to get someone to attack a more powerful race.

All said, I'm not sure how enthusiasticly the war will be prosecuted.

I haven't seen wars that were lobbied for lasting too long, but it's a great method to sew chaos in their area. There have been a few times I've seen the #1 and #2 militaries civs duke it out for enough time for them to loose their top spots on the charts.

I either do it as a pre-assault tactic, something to sew hatred between two civs for further wars, or to buy myself time with my weak military or help leverage a peace agreement with them. If they are busy in a massive war, they aren't generally willing to send a fleet my way...

I try to pay 1 or 2 wars off between the races I see as future "top dogs" so that I can ensure they'll never ally against me A xenophobic universe makes for easy pickings.

1-pretty well covered already, large military, trading, and gifts with another civ to get them to "close" relations, then you can ally.

2-you can't. however, I have noticed that those kinds of threats don't seem to have a large impact; if you have a competent military, don't worry about them at all. you can demand money or techs as tribute, if you have a high military.
speaking of demanding tribute, one thing i do is right before i attack a minor civ, i will demand as much resources as possible and trade them some of my techs for as much as i can get from them. i then promptly invade and they cant implement the techs i gave them in any way, plus i got a lot of free stuff.

3-you just add more troop modules to your ship designs. each normal module adds 500, advanced modules add 1000. I usually have 2 advanced modules.
also, and this is important, research soldiering techs. i tend to avoid war and build my technology and production, so by the time i invade my troops are worth 5x more than theirs, plus i have good invasion tactics, so my 2000-man troopship can easily handle 10,000+.

4-influence victory occurs when you have 75% of the galaxy and have no wars. you can either just conquer until you have 75%, then make peace, or you can try to incite rebellions. this will require influence star bases with the maximum influence-enhancing modules, and a high influence rating from techs and mining stations.

5-see #4. they are doing that to you, using influence star bases to incite rebellion. just increase your own influence.

6-it is factories. if you look at colony management you will see military production at the top. more is better, it is increased by factories and your sliders.

7-oops

8-i usually dont worry about military early, even if i am planning on conquest victories. i prefer to research and build advanced ships that my enemies cannot damage, so i will usually end up with the lowest military rating in the game, but my ships kick everyone's butt. the only downside to this is you are more prone to being attacked, because they will think you are weak, and their numbers might overwhelm your ships, and you cant really make allies, because your military is lower than theirs.


inciting wars is one of my main tactics, to suppress or just divert militaristic civs. as i usually have a high diplomacy rating and can do this cheaply. things to consider though:

-if you plan on attacking another civ, have them attack a civ far away, so their ships are moved out and you can do a lightning raid and take many planets quickly without even fighting sometimes.
-remember that it is cheaper to convince the civ with the larger military to fight a smaller military
-be careful, if one civ easily overpowers the civ they fight against, they will now have a significant advantage in planet resources. if you forsee this you can use diplomacy to arrange a peace treaty between warring nations as well.