Colonies screen questions

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi all. In a large galaxy, I find I do a lot of my colony management from the colonies screen under the Civilization Manager. I have a few questions about it though:

1. All the way to the left in the first column are what look like little planet icons. Not all my colonies will have them though. What is the significance of these?

2. Is there any way to go to the colony (on the main map) from the colonies screen? I.e., double clicking just takes you into the planet management screen. Any way to get to the planet? I forget where a lot of them are.

3. Is there a better way to set a rally point for the ship produced by a colony than double-clicking to get to the colony screen, clicking on build ship, clicking on rally point, and then exiting the screen to get the popup? Seems pretty awkward.

Thanks for any and all replies!
4,490 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok, nevermind #2. I discovered an option that makes the map scroll to a planet when you select it on the list.

Anyone for 1 or 3?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Many "Features" are undocumented in this game. For many of the subtle icons I recommend that you click on them to see what they do. Regarding your questions...

1. I too have wondered what these planets do. I suspect that they have something to do with terraforming.

2. Exactly what "list" are you talking about? Clicking on a planet or ship on the Planet/Ship screen will scroll the screen to the selected item. In the Civilization Manager the leftmost tab is for colonies. If you select a colony from this list and then click on Done to close the window, you will be taken to the last selected colony.

3. These things have been mentioned before, but I'll repeat: Rally pts can be changed easily inside the Civilization Manager in the Governers tab.

From the main screen you can do this: Select the colony who's rally pt you wish to change/add. There will be a picture of your colony at the bottom of the screen (with a View button below it). To the upper-right of your planet you will see a gold circle icon with a downward pointing arrow. Clicking on this icon will bring up the Rally Pt list for you to select. Note: nothing will happen if you don't have any rally points created. Once you have selected a rally point - the gold rally pt icon will be blue to show that there is a rally pt selected.

There is another Rally pt icon of interest. When you have a ship (or fleet) selected, you will see your race icon on the bottom of the screen. To the lower-right of this icon is a small ship icon. Clicking on this ship icon will bring up your rally point list to select a destination for your ship/fleet.

On a related note - there is another icon on the main screen (when you have a planet selected) just to the left of the words "Ships in Orbit". This is the Launch Direction icon for the selected planet. This icon can (and should) be used frequently during a game. It can save you 1 or 2 moves with each planet launch - which can mean getting somewhere in time or not. After you have set this flag you will see a launch-direction symbol whenever you select the colony.

A word of caution: the "hot spot" on the selector arrow works just like the rally pt selector (the top half - not the arrow on the bottom). After you have set the launch direction, test it to make sure that you did it correctly.

Happy Gaming!
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For #1 i believe that its JUST a picture of your [planet and its a bug or something that some don't have it.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the replies!

For #2, it turned out that I had to check "Move Camera to selected colony in colonies list" in Options before the map would move (it's unchecked by default). My bad, I should have looked for something in Options first.

Regarding #3, what I was looking for was a way to set the rally point of produced ships from the colonies screen on a colony-by-colony basis, but I suppose this really isn't necessary and setting a rally point for a whole class of ships from the Governor screen is really good enough.

Thanks for the information about Launch Direction, I hadn't noticed that little icon.

Great game, if a little quirky in places. :) 



Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another button many people are not aware of is the tiny down-pointing triangle at the top of the mini-map. You can click on it to maximize the main screen.