Hello from a new player.

PeskyFly

Join Date 08/2007

Hello from a new player.

Hello,

I'm new to Galactic Civilizations and have only known about it for two weeks. After initially hearing about it, I looked into it and was impressed. I've ordered a copy of Gold Edition and will be getting it in early September. Meanwhile, I've thoroughly learnt the game concepts by reading these forums and the DL-centric wiki, and reading every Game Example and non-story AAR I could find. I've got a strategy for my first game planned out:
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Dark Avatar
Sandbox Mode - Large map, occasional everything, fast technology
Terran Alliance, Challenging difficulty( yup, Challenging )

Going for influence victory by conquering at least 75% of the galaxy.
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I've already designed some perfectly usable ships for DL and DA, taking miniaturization and component size multipliers into account. They are either Missile/Point Defense or Missile/Armor ships.

Initially, I highly preferred DL over DA since DA's extra complicity, espionage system, and over-blown huge hulls scared me. However, when I found out how easily spies can be nullified, learned about the asteroid-mining system, saw the improved graphics, and designed my own huge-hulled ships, I began preferring DA. Two things I still don't like about DA are the nerfed, over-sized engines and cheapened defense systems.

Two things I've noticed and want to ask about:

1. Why are beam weapons so popular, when missiles are so powerful?

2. Why do people keep writing long, flared-up stories in their AARs, which I'm sure stands for After Action Report?

3. In ship combat, when a defense rolls 0, the attack gets 'deflected'. What does this mean?

I've come to know about the new expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, which I'll be getting in November(not pre-ordering). I've got a few ideas about how to use the new components:

1. Atlas and Fortitude can be fitted on dedicated-support craft to fill in the empty logistics points left by fleets of large ships, so that the fighting ships themselves don't need to waste space.

2. Should Terror Stars be fleet-compatible, players can build 'tug boats' by attaching Driver components and life support onto cheap hulls, and then use these 'tugs' to 'pull' the Terror Stars at high(er) speeds. However, I don't think Terror Stars will be fleet compatible, but we'll just have to wait and see. If they are, they'll probably occupy some 50-odd logistics points themselves.

Also, has anyone tried these ideas in DL and DA? If yes, how did they work out? :-

1. Play as a Neutral race with Super-Diplomat, buy lots and lots cheap core ships at discounted prices, and then sell them to other races for a profit. For eg. a Missile Boat costs 89 bc, the Neutral discount should take a few bc off that price, and then if you'll sell it at 110 bc, you'll make some profit. And what happens if the ship you've sold is outside of the life support range to the customer's nearest starbase/planet?

2. Build up your treasury, research HyperWarp drive, and build a military starbase loaded with 20 Interdiction Beam modules. Then surround that starbase with 8 tiny, extremely cheap drones. I hypothesize that such a starbase will be invincible to all craft with a speed less than 20 pc/wk, since any enemy ship which enters that starbase's influence will get stopped dead right where it is. The 8 drones mean that any ship which attacks the starbase itself will have to get past the drones, and will thus get frozen upon destroying one of them.

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Thanks. Can this be used if the comp with the game is not connected to the 'net?

well you neet to download the mod, but you can get it into your PC with a thumb drive/ CD/ whatever. i don't think the file's very large. the machine with the game doesn't neet to be connected for the mod itself, though i think that'll make patching a pain in the rear personally.

So can updates be transferred in a similar manner too? Thumb drive transfer won't be a problem.

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WOW! CraigHB, how did you manage that? The maintanence costs would be off the map. Your population would be drained, and as I saw in the screenshot, none of your planets are defended. Just WOW! Your(no pun intended) Combined Navy into one Armada!

Yes, that is the key, you need the economy to support that many fleets. Planets get a lot of stock markets. There's also a trick to load that many transports without draining your population. As far as defenses, I don't need any. With each attack fleet having 53 moves, I can intercept enemy attack ships before they can do any damage. Also, each trasport fleet has 107 moves. I can safely stow them pretty far behind the line and still be within reach of enemy planets.

Your game settings are far from what I'd consider fun for a casual non-Metaverse game. I like my settings to be realistic to some degree: Large empty spaces between stars to simulate the emptiness of space, few stars, and hardly any inhabitable planets, since that seems more realistic.

Yes, well, I was just giving you my perspective for your edification, not to imply that everyone should play that way. The options are vast and the idea is to play what you enjoy. In my case, that's the game I like to play. I play the same way even when not playing Metaverse. It's just what I like. Once you really know the game, you'll find it's not all that hard to manage with 500 habitable planets in the galaxy. At first, it's quite intimidating. I wouldn't be as interested by a sparsely populated galaxy. I like the colony rush to be very hot and heavy. It's one of my favorite parts of the game. I also like the challange of managing such a massive amount of resources. Unfortunately, Dark Avatar is much more resource intensive than Dread Lords and due to performance issues, I'm unable to play a maxed-out game. I'll be using less abundant galaxy settings with that one.

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