Bigger planets?

Ive been playing this game since the initial release and Ive always wanted higher quality planets. Im the kind of player who like big specialized planets, especially when playing tiny/small maps. What Ive always wanted is a planet quality slider as it would make my way of playing more enjoyable.

Have I overlooked something that can enable bigger planets or is there a way to modifiy this myself? I remember back in DL I had a plannet with a PQ of 43 and it was great fun. To this date my jaw still drop a little when I see the computer with a planet in the 25+ range and I simply MUST have it.

My precious high quality planets.....

IC
13,047 views 20 replies
Reply #1 Top
43... thats amazing.

Highest I've ever seen in DA is 31, and they're usually around Pink/Purple stars
Reply #2 Top
Kinda,

Take a backup of the race's xml file in data, and save the backup to re-overwrite later.

Change all their homeworlds to 40.

Save

I like this because for me it makes sense that the home world is a really big deal for all races.

Another way might be to give each race a huge 'Planet Quality Bonus' Like the 20% you can get with your free points, but instead make it 300% or something, then every planet everyone gets would be in the 20-50PQ range. However, this I have not done myself, and I'm not sure what exactly you need to add to the XML to make it work.

Reply #3 Top
True 'planet quality' only exists in galciv1.

DL or DA all have the same planet quality with the same number of tiles. The only difference is that developers are too lazy to build anything on various tiles because of various lame excuses - and they call it planet quality??
Reply #4 Top
I had a Class 33 and Class 29 planet in my recent Arcean game. The Class 33 started out as Class 15 Thala, baseworld of the Thalan Empire. A Precursor Device doubled it, after which I captured the planet in a 1-turn war and eventually got it up by 3 tiles through Neutral-automatic terraforming.

The Class 29 was a lucky find in a Rare-everything galaxy, but the Drengin outraced everyone to grab it(started as Class 26). The Drengin soil-enhanced it into a Class 27. Later, I culture-flipped it by capturing the neighboring Class 15 Jessuins homeworld and then auto-terraformed it from a Class 27 into a Class 29.


Kinda,

Take a backup of the race's xml file in data, and save the backup to re-overwrite later.

Change all their homeworlds to 40.

Save

I like this because for me it makes sense that the home world is a really big deal for all races.
End of quote


In 1.8, homeworlds ARE a really big deal. The Civilization Capital building has been made far more powerful in comparison to the Initial Colony building. It supports 16 Billion people vs. 6 Billion, gives a 40% Morale Bonus vs. 5%, and gives 24mp and 24tp in industry/research output vs. 12/10 for the Initial Colony, and has no maintainance vs. 12bc/wk, and also gives an influence bonus which I can't remember at the moment.
Reply #5 Top
True 'planet quality' only exists in galciv1.

DL or DA all have the same planet quality with the same number of tiles. The only difference is that developers are too lazy to build anything on various tiles because of various lame excuses - and they call it planet quality??
End of quote


Would you care to elaborate on your flame? I'm not sure I'm seeing the same thing you are.
Reply #6 Top
Bwahaha! My class 72 still takes the cake!
Reply #7 Top

Bwahaha! My class 72 still takes the cake!
End of quote


If you get the Dread Lords Mega Event, capture the Dread Lords homeworld of Armalda without decreasing it's PQ, and then get the 60% PQ bonus event, you can find yourself with a Class 72 even in a Metaverse game. Other events and race bonuses mean that theoretically, even higher PQs are possible, but you will never be able to use more than 72 tiles because the other ones will be out of sight.
Reply #8 Top
The highest PQ the game will generate naturally is PQ 26. The highest you can get, barring any mega event, is 34; by having a (base of 26) + (20% Race Config PQ Bonus) + (3 terraformed tiles) = 34. The only way you can get higher than that is a Mega Event (like Pesky described above), or by cheating. The highest you can get including a mega event, assuming you don't find yourself with a Dread Lord's homeworld to invade, is theoretically PQ 54 [(Base 34) + (60% PQ Mega Event Bonus) = 54].
Reply #9 Top
I recall your class 72 Feud, and i saw it too. What a planet, personally i have had mid 30's but that's about it.
Reply #10 Top

Kinda,

Take a backup of the race's xml file in data, and save the backup to re-overwrite later.

Change all their homeworlds to 40.

Save

I like this because for me it makes sense that the home world is a really big deal for all races.

Another way might be to give each race a huge 'Planet Quality Bonus' Like the 20% you can get with your free points, but instead make it 300% or something, then every planet everyone gets would be in the 20-50PQ range. However, this I have not done myself, and I'm not sure what exactly you need to add to the XML to make it work.


End of quote


I checked again last night, actually its custom planets xml you want. After the *starsystem* tag the first planet is usually the homeworld, those you can change to whatever takes your fancy.

Or if your looking to change them all i think its *planetquality*0** or something like that in the races xml file. again change each race you want to affect.

Reply #11 Top
For the first time ever I actually started out a game near the corner of the map with a PQ 25 planet closest to me. So far I am yet to see any resources near me though. It seems like Stardock did a pretty good job of balancing out these types of maps.
Reply #12 Top
My lord! I've never even had a 30 rated planet I don't think....

Dunno how you guys are getting that high quality of planets..


(I'm still on 1.5) waiting for the new ExP to come out before updating... CAN'T wait!!!

When's it coming out? Like 2 months innit?
Reply #13 Top
In my current game the Colony rush had pretty much come to an end and I was just mopping up all the planets you had to research for (Heavy water, Barren etc). Then I got an event which add 10 PQ to every non-inhabited planet for 2 sectors. It was more or less focsed on Terran space but I was in a good position to capitalise as my influence is crushing them atm so I started colonising all those planets which used to be PQ 0.

Unfortunately for me, the Terrans took issue with me nabbing Mars and Jupiter and declared war. Unfortunately for them I totally outmatch them and I've just noticed a PQ 34 (must have been PQ24 originally) in their space which I'm the only civ capable of colonising. I have the lucky attribute so there may even be a chance of me getting more bonuses on top when I colonise it

That was by far the best event I've had yet though. I'm just lucky it happened close to my space. If it'd had happened on the other side of the map (playing large) then the other super-power (Arceans) in the game would have gained a massive advantage.

Reply #14 Top
Would you care to elaborate on your flame? I'm not sure I'm seeing the same thing you are.
End of quote


It's not a flame, just an observation.

All planets have the same number of tiles, but x amount of tiles won't be allowed to be used and x amount of tiles can be terraformed to be usable.

Now if i am not mistaken then the unusable tiles are still actually part of the planets surface, still sitting there with the sun shining down and yet nothing can be built there?? Now basically the only thing preventing building there is economic viability which translates to developers being too lazy to develop the land or sea - and that is the basis of planet quality!

It might be interesting to make all tiles usable on all worlds, but the remaining tiles can be increasingly more expensive and time consuming to develop. Also perhaps actual planet size can affect how many tiles (usable and unusable) show up in the planet screen?
Reply #15 Top



Now if i am not mistaken then the unusable tiles are still actually part of the planets surface, still sitting there with the sun shining down and yet nothing can be built there?? Now basically the only thing preventing building there is economic viability which translates to developers being too lazy to develop the land or sea - and that is the basis of planet quality!
End of quote


Well I think more relevant considerations are game balance, and saturation if you want a RP answer.

The game developers could have added on features just for the hell of it and turned GC2 into a bureaucratic nightmare where every possible sideways expansion into the game is coded in, but if they ever managed to actually release the game would it be fun? Probably not.

I was'nt sure if when you described the developers as lazy your talking about the game developers or hypothetical planet developers. If you did mean the game developers then go code your own damn game, much less actually try and earn a living for your household doing so. These guys have done a great job and made it possible for us to mode the game ourselves whenever we want.

If you meant the imaginary planet developers running around on Kora or wherever, then the PQ thing answers that. If the planet is low quality then it has mountain chains, chasms, swamps, tar-pits. And yes after having researched the teraforming tech you can dry out that swamp, but you still can't build your factory on the side of that mountain, it will fall off.

Reply #16 Top

The The highest you can get including a mega event, assuming you don't find yourself with a Dread Lord's homeworld to invade, is theoretically PQ 54 [(Base 34) + (60% PQ Mega Event Bonus) = 54].
End of quote


No, because mega events stack, and can happen more then once. Like I described I saw Kora double twice in one of my games to get it up to 41. There was no cheating going on. So if the planet was a 20+ to begin with and it doubled twice you can get higher. Its just astonishingly unlikely to get that mega event twice and to the same planet.
Reply #17 Top
If you meant the imaginary planet developers running around on Kora or wherever, then the PQ thing answers that. If the planet is low quality then it has mountain chains, chasms, swamps, tar-pits. And yes after having researched the teraforming tech you can dry out that swamp, but you still can't build your factory on the side of that mountain, it will fall off.
End of quote


yes i meant imaginary developers. And yes you can build on the side of a mountain if you cut and terraced it. It is not impossible as the game would imply, just difficult. I see no reason why more expensive terraforming options could not eventually open all tiles for use?
Reply #18 Top
Unfortunately for me, the Terrans took issue with me nabbing Mars and Jupiter and declared war.
End of quote

You think?! heh.

Reply #19 Top
You can get planets up to 80 something but you have to edit the game.

In your program files go.......Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2
\Data\English\Custom Planets.

You can edit all the star system planets for the major races.
But back the file up first cause if you make a mistake the game will srew up.
Reply #20 Top
you know when you start a new game, on the screen that allows you to adjust planet abundance and what not, I think a great new feature would be to have a slider bar that adjusts the general planet quality of all planets.