total mp vs. actual mp??

As happens so often, once we've asked the question we answer it ourselves soon after.

Planetary total on mp: 36. Economy sliders set to Military 30% and Social 23%, thus 30% of 36 = 10.8; 23% of 36 = 8.28. Everything is rounded down, and the planet transudes a total of 10mp on Military and 8mp on Social.

Now I also realise, in the words of Wittgenstein, "how little is achieved when these problems are solved."

J.

I've come to suspect this "slider problem" and/or the "all-x strategy problem" are both things that only folks with scary math skills can seriously appreciate.

I made it to baby calculus in high school and have a social science masters' degree from a decent state school, but I'll be darned if I can muster the will to make myself understand the extenstive talk around here about this business that made Unspeakeable.Elvis speak.

I've learned to take a regular look at my sliders, accursed Espionage included, but if I was devoted to maximizing Metaverse scores, that stuff would drive me batty. I'm quite happy enough having more or less figured out how to keep sufficently ahead of the Joneses...

I think the reason for my sudden infatuation was, indeed, that the Joneses were threatening to kick my ass. After long dabbling in "merely" normal AI games, I decided to play a large galaxy on Randomized Intelligence (I couldn't find the manual AI settings), and despite my best efforts Messrs. N-1 and Embryes Draken skyrocketed ahead of me by all measures, despite my having more colonised worlds. For someone used to being the big brother of the galaxy, this was alarming. It baffled me that they could make such good use of their worlds.

I confess that I like mixed worlds, basically building a bit of everything on each world so that they're more or less independent. However, I'm warming to the idea that colony specialisation is a way to get more bang for your buck...

Lastly, it seems that the relation between mp and shields (or mp and hammers, or tp and beakers) is simply arbitrary, so that you can't deduce anything from looking at a planet's shields (or hammers, etc).

J.

These are on the Setup page where you can choose how many and/or which rivals to place on your new map. I'm pretty sure that manually choosing an Intelligence level for a rival will override the setting for the difficulty level you choose. With a random setting, you probably had your toughest rivals playing with the production bonuses given when you play at levels above Tough. Those AIs aren't any "smarter," they just have an easier time with the same map.



The appearance of randomness doesn't always mean something's random If you really want to dig into your core question from the OP, try some searches of site:forums.galciv2.com for strings like "slider problem," "flawed economy," or "all-x strategy."

did you account for production bonuses?

Hang on, so "smarter AI" only means "unfair bonuses"? Up to what level does the PC's intelligence actually improve, before they start getting help?

J.

IIRC Tough is the level where the AI is at its full potential without any extra bonuses. many players find that level still quite difficult.

I, for one

I'm still having some trouble cracking GC2. In my view, planets are the ultimate resource, so get 'em while they're hot. Honestly though, considering that everyone does a little bit of colony rushing at the start, is it more about which planets you get, rather than how quickly? What really distinguishes a "Normal" player from a "Tough" player?

J.

on the settings below tough, the AI gets "static" in its decision making - it makes bad choices from time to time. on the lowest settings, their economy and industry are also penalized.



yes and no. some will say tiles are the ultimate resources, others will say money. more tiles = more money, or it can at least.

i personally think how you handle the colony rush depends most on the game settings you prefer. when there are hundreds of planets to be had, it's not as important IMO to get as many as you can as fast as you can. you'll also need to defend them, so on larger maps i usually scale back my colonization for a bit in favor of developing some basic military and economic infrastructure.

the other thing about grabbing lots of planets quickly is that they cost you money at first. they've got small populations with meek economies, but relatively high maintainence costs for the initial colony. still, on smaller maps with fewer planets, i do generally place a higher premium on gettings as many planets as i can as quickly as i can. anomolies are an okay way to get more money (research sensors and ion drive, build a cargo hull ship with a survey module, 3 ion engines and 2 life supports, and try to crank a few of those out amidst your colony rush).

which planets you grab is another issue that's tricky. in DA at least, those low-quality planets can be terraformed to be some of the best ones in your empire. but they're nonetheless not very useful to you until you've got at least 2 levels of terraforming researched. i find the mid-range planets (PQ 5-8) to be the least worthwhile in the long run, but often they're among the most abundant it seems. ignore PQ-1 planets until you're basically out of other planets you can colonize--the AI ignores them completely.

Hi!

For quite detailed explanation of production check forums here: Production explained - how various bonuses apply.


Check wiki: Difficulty level.

BR, Iztok

Generally, a mastery of techniques to PAY for everything, while keeping the production slider at 100%.

drrider

Thanks. Excellent advice all around.



Now that's the pivot. I reckon one wants a monopoly on high-class planets (therefore surveillance), nearby space resources, very early starports, good research... and the price tag for all this is considerable. Considering that one starts with 5000bc that quickly starts going yellow, and that praying for those "1000bc" anomalies is hardly a sound economic strategy, I think there must be a reliable method for buttressing one's capital early-game, in order to cope with an aggressive expansion policy.

The only resource with the capacity for squaring the bill, it seems to me, is your population and the taxes they pay. This becomes a problem, however, when you're basically redistributing Earth's 8 billion inhabitants across eight to ten worlds in the early game. One possibility is an astronomic tax rate; I'm wary of this because I understand that poor approval limits one's population growth, which might be defeating the purpose. Another is a very early rush for Xeno Medicine, Fertility Acceleration, and the Aphrodisiac trade good. I'm not sure how successful these strategies would be and, indeed, whether there isn't a better way that I haven't considered.

What's a good way of getting around this?

J.

it's a short term solution, and sometimes your luck is indeed bad. but don't underestimate it. pretty much all players experience the "early-game economic crash." those anomolies can help push that back in game time, allowing you to colonize more planets and perhaps even develop some kind of economic infrastructure.



population grows absurdly fast in this game. by mid game (2 game years or so), it's not uncommon to have most of your planets up to a population of 13 billion, your taxes set potentially as high at 80%, and approval in the yellow range. once population starts to max on most planets, there's no reason to keep your approval above, what 42%? something like that. you just turn taxes down the week of an election and you're fine.

but to be clear, while your population is still growing, it's wonderful if you can keep approval above 75% on most planets; if you can get 100%, the population will boom (especially if you play a super breeder).

I don't know if you're planning on getting the TA expansion, but it's been tweaked to slightly reduce the effect of the economy crash during colonization. Basically, you get a little less cash to start with, and they're bumping up tourism income as a steady buffer. IIRC, tourism income is related to the percentage of the galaxy you control, so it's independent of population size/taxes. In the TA beta games I've played so far, it does help smooth out the crash a little, but it's still going to be there if you expand aggressively.

There are different ways to cope with it, which makes the game interesting. Some players build extra surveyors, hoping for those cash anomalies. What I do is rush-buy two or three sensor ships (cargo hulls with one engine, and crammed with sensors) to send out ahead of my colony ships and survey the neighborhood. In addition to scouting the best planets, I'm hoping for contact with a minor civ, or one of the main race neighbors, so I can start selling tech for cash. That's my main income buffer for the colonization crash... I'll sell just about everything, since few of the early techs are strategically valuable unless you're playing on a very small map (which I never do) that can lead to early conflict. Any cash anomalies found by my surveyor are just gravy to fund another colony ship. Since I depend on tech trading/selling in the early phase, I make sure to play with at least 3 and usually 4 minor civs in the game. So that's just one approach. And obviously this works best if you're high in Diplomacy skills so you get better deals.

As Dystopic said, you don't need to keep approval higher than 42%, because (IIRC) population grows at the same rate between 42% and somewhere in the 70's, so you might as well milk the population for max taxes, except for the week right before an election when you fake 'em out with a low tax rate to boost your approval.

Apart from that, minimizing the crash is just a question of not over-extending; knowing which planets are most important to colonize, and which you can leave for later and risk being grabbed by an opponent. Sometimes that's a good thing, if you're sure you'll have enough influence to flip it easily. The AI isn't very good about avoiding risky colonies deep inside someone else's zone of influence. So you don't have to grab everything in the neighborhood. It depends on how you've set up the map, if it's a "fast" game on a tiny map, or a longer-term buildup on a huge map, what other races you're facing and their likely strategies, and so on.

Hi!

I did some testing in this problem (check Playing with lots of planets - how to financially survive first year?). In DA is the easiest way to play as a Super Breeder, and hold approval on most planets at 100%. Playing this way you'll NEVER experience econ crunch in any galaxy, but the one with very small amount of habitable planets.

BR, Iztok

Good thread, thanks. However, reading so many opinions and strategies actually made me realise that the thing I want is some good hard numbers: X bc in tax per capita, population growth rate is Y at approval of Z%, changing to A at B%, &c. The premises set, all the rest will be simple calculation; in this way one would literally be able to colonise perfectly. The question is, where can one find these stats?

J.

Hi!

Check wiki page on GalCiv-2:Galactic Civilizations Wiki. I've updated quite some "hard numbers" there. However you need to be avare that those numbers and formulas are from testbed games under "controled" conditions. GalCiv is so intertvined internally that those hard numbers aren't valid for every situation that can pop-up in your game. Every now and then you'll get somewhat different results as you'd expect, the worst case being the tax revenue from a particular planet.

BR, Iztok

it's out there, and Iztok is probably the best person to shed light on such numbers. if you click on his user name and go to "find posts by..." i think the post in particular is called "DA - producing money". you can also check out galciv.wikia.com for some of the fomulae used, but that's not kept very up to date.

i would however caution you against thinking that there is a perfect method to colonize. or to do anything in this game, for that matter. the closest thing to perfect comes when you have flexibility and an almost intuitive understanding of game mechanics. knowing numbers can help, but there's enough randoness in this game that it won't make or break your success.

There is another "Colony Rush" that I don't think many people are aware of. In the second half of a game (after you've developed some extreme terraforming skills) you can bring up the "Planets & Ships" screen and select the uncolonized planets tab. You should see many Class 1 planets (especially ones that have a terraforming icon) that no one really wants.

If you colonize these planets, you will find that they are actually Class 16-18 and quite valuable. Normally the best planets are the ones that are most opaque, but these secret planets will appear on your main screen as hollow with a "1" class. Most alien races seem to have no interest in these planets - ever!

Do yourself a favor and grab these great planets.