Question about Planet Quality

from GalCiv2 Forums
I've been playing this game for about a month now, and it has quickly become one of my favorite games ever.

As I understand it, choosing the Neutral alignment makes all upgradeable tiles instantly usable. Building the Orbital Terraformer achieves the same effect. But, I'm still quite confused about some things even after searching through the forum and wiki. I find that if I research the terraforming technologies (Soil Enhancement, etc.), not only does it make the unusable tiles usable, it also improves the planet quality. For instance, let's say my planet has planet quality 10 with 1 yellow tile, and I research Soil Enhancement. The yellow tile becomes green, and also 3 orange tiles appear.

Basically, my question is does choosing a Neutral alignment have this same effect? It seems to me that the terraforming technologies improve the planet quality, but does Neutrality (and Orbital Terraformer, but I think that project is a waste) achieve this same effect?
3,789 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
Planet quality reperesents the number of usable tiles. So when you make new tiles usable with building terraforming or with neutral's instaforming, the PQ should also rise.

BR, Iztok
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Also, I want to point out that Neutral alignement auto-terraform the planets up-to the tech you have in the terraforming branch. I.e.: You still need to research the techs for the effect to be full.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, Alex, the effect of Neutral alignment that the OP describes is correct for Gal Civ 2: Dread Lords. Neutral Alignment choice in DL makes all tiles of all planets immediately available. It makes a quick research run to Xeno Ethics and Neutral in DL VERY powerful.

Clearly the OP is playing Dread Lords, because the situation that he describes with a Class 10 planet having 1 yellow tile, then becoming a Class 11 with 3 orange tiles cannot occur in Dark Avatar. In Dark Avatar, a Class 10 planet will have 1 yellow tile, then when that is terraformed, it will be Class 11 with 1 orange tile, never more than that.

Santa,
In Dark Avatar, the Neutral alignment effect on terrain is nerfed down a bit. If you have researched Xeno Ethics and chosen Neutral, you must still develop the technology to improve each class of tiles. However, once the technology is available you do NOT have to spent Social Prod effort to individually convert each tile; they automatically become available for buildings(turn green).

BTW, the Orbital Terraformer IS useless for a civ of Neutral Alignment; but it is very valuable for someone playing Good or Evil.

PQ# always improves to match the number of usable tiles, no matter how the tiles are made available. When PQ goes over 10, the planet does get the 10% Morale boost.

drrider

drrider

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey thanks everybody for your help! Becoming a Neutral civ has been pretty much the only way I play because of the "instaforming" thing and the uber-strong Neutrality Learning Centers. And yes, I am playing only Dread Lords, so I guess I'll have to change my strategies a bit when I get Dark Avatar.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In DA, NLCs are still the megaliths of Research, but the economy is much tighter so its really work to establish a whole planet of them. You've got to have 2-3 big all economy planets to support the effort. Of course, if you do get it all balanced out and start stacking up those econ SB's to inflate the output even more, you can eventualy create a single homeworld that is cranking out 5000+ research points per turn. Yum.

drrider

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
PQ# always improves to match the number of usable tiles, no matter how the tiles are made available. When PQ goes over 10, the planet does get the 10% Morale boost.


there was a bug in early DA where the PQ number didn't update after terraforming.

Demon Santa, if you're experiencing that and you haven't done so yet, you should make sure you've updated your version of Dark Avatar through StarDock Central.