And now for something completely different ...

from GalCiv2 Forums
I usually play the game with lots of planets ("abundant everything"), and I get the impression that most of us play that way. For some variety, I decided to try the complete opposite. I went to the largest map size, made everything rare (except asteroids & anomolies, made them abundant), with the most races possible (including maximum number of minors). It made for an entirely different kind of game, and it was lots of fun. Technologies that I generally ignore (like life support) all of a sudden became important), given the vast distances I had to travel to even meet someone. There was no "colony rush" at all. My colony ship went to my "Mars" and that was that. The first part of the game was, instead, more of "build my economy, hunt for resources, and try to find somebody else out there."

One lesson I learned the hard way: An approach that works with one type of setup may not be so hot on another. I usually play with the Torians, taking advantage of that great population growth to get a strong economy. Uh ... that doesn't mean so much when you only have two planets. After getting my butt kicked a couple of times, I finally realized that my race's "super ability" was only helping me for a short time at the beginning of the game. I changed over to Korath and made use of those great spore ships. Also, I could not afford to downplay the importance of diplomacy the way I usually tend to do. Having seven or eight major powers all declare war on you at once can really ruin your day.

Anyway, playing this way got me to thinking that a lot of our discussion here ... about play balance and which is the best strategy and which racial ability is the best ... all of this is to some degree relative to your game's original setup.

And, this variety is part of what makes this such a great game.
17,045 views 31 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I almost always play with rare or uncommon habitable worlds and very slow research. I do this for 3 reasons
a. I don't like having to deal with very many planets at once.
b. I like having a chance to use what I research before it becomes obsolete.
c. Few planets means I can play on a huge map without much slowdown.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have actually been looking forwards to playing an immense sized galaxy on TA (don't have the beta) with similar settings, to mimic "reality" in that the Milky Way galaxy is really pretty barren (though I'm only going to have two or three races against me). In DA I usually play gigantic galaxies with loose clusters, and occasional stars/planets.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The ultimate settings will always be dependant on what specific goals you aim for BEFORE any type of games. It's an adaptative context versus enforced activities through variable conditions directly caused by AIs.
Not to neglect also is the fastest victory that shows up eventually because you made a few key-choices during early turns and soon after; which all require some high level of flexibility as it compares to the, solidly sealed up at run-time, map/options selected.
Best solution(s) would probably be a question of continual fine-tuning of strategies even when familiar (or prefered) settings are used since random events (include AIs behavior in these multiple situations too!) and personal tactics do happen regularly.
In a word - versatility.

- Zyxpsilon.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I prefer Large(anything bigger lags out like hell after a year or two), common planets on occasional or common stars randomly spread, abundant anomalies and asteroids, fast tech, sometimes very fast, against four, five or six AIs and none, one or two minors. In the last few games, I disabled Mega Events and Tech Trading, as well as minors, because I felt they gave me too much of an advantage(except for Mega Events, some of those are just a frustration).
I can play anything, really, but my favorite style is a Hive, Neutral, with maximum +Research, two points in +Social and +Economic, maybe a point in Approval. Of all the super abilities, Hive has got to be the most powerful, buying Industrial Sectors for 800 bc feels like cheating most of the time.
In this playstyle, I'm usually by far the weakest race in the first 60 turns, but popping out the first military vessel and focusing greatly on economics to stave off would-be attackers buys me just enough time to complete two forgeworlds that build small armed vessels in a single turn, and everything goes downhill for the AI from there. If someone manages to declare war on me, in 80% of the cases I have already built such an infrastructure that I can start building the massive tailored battlefleet within a few turns, while the AI is busy taking down my stations, constructors, traders and other things that will be rebuilt a month after I start to actually fight.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Of all the super abilities, Hive has got to be the most powerful, buying Industrial Sectors for 800 bc feels like cheating most of the time.
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Ah, Hive. I too like this super ability. But I seem to recall paying something like 962 bc for an industrial sector (from scratch). How do you get 800?

KD
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I typically play on a large galaxy with abundant stars and annomolies and occasional planets. I use all major races and all minors.

I find that as long as I don't start at the center of the galaxy, it allowes more time to develope before the agressive races start picking fights.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I can't recall the exact price of buying an Ind Sec, but I do know they are modified by the Interest Rate(IIRC, it's different from the premade races and the custom race). But I'm just guessing here. The important thing is, Hive's pretty damn powerful.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A play large with everything set to abundant except habitable planets. I like the size but I don't like the headache of managing so many planets. But, regardless of play style and map settings, Zyxpsilon nailed the most important notion of any setup: versatility, flexibility, adaptability.

Maybe along with 4X we should refer to GC2 as 3-bility. No, on second thought, we probably shouldn't ;)
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You know, it just struck me that galaxy settings are often neglected in strategy discussions. For example, X posts a complaint about economy problems, and Y replies not understanding how X runs into such problems. Meanwhile, what remains unsaid, is that X always plays on medium maps with everything abundant, while Y plays on huge maps with everything rare. It's entirely unsurprising that these two players would develop different playing styles, tactics and strategies for their games. It's possible that all our customised galaxy settings play an enormous role in our economic, technological and military strategies, and yet are mostly overlooked when judging and comparing the mechanics of the game.

Just a thought. Back to our scheduled programming.
J.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I played on Huge with rare/rare/rare stars/planets/habitable, five opponents (Drengin, Arcean, Yor, Torean, Altarian for that classic feel) and had the most fun I've ever had in the game. Part of it was that I had incredible luck with bonus tiles - one planet had two 700% research tiles, and another planet had one 300% and one 700% manufacturing tile. The first planet effectively catapulted me into a permanent research lead.

The other thing I did was accidentally leave it on 8 minor races, which provided 8 additional worlds that I could colonize with extreme prejudice if need be, and both the Vegans and Dread Lords arrived later. I ended up going for an alliance victory after the Arceans got their stupid "They touched the Telenanth and will become gods" event, because declaring war on them meant every other civilization declared war on me, which cut my trade income to nothing. I should have used my awesome diplomacy to keep everyone at each other's throats, though.

I did wipe out the Drengin, sort of. I had transports right on top of their worlds when they decided to surrender to me. I was on the verge of wiping out the Yor when the Arcean event happened.

What I noticed: Having an awesome research world did as I noted above. Having an awesome industry world meant I could build some fairly expensive ships fairly quickly. The other races were much more limited in what they could accomplish due to a lack of that much luck in early colonization. The minors were a huge resource in terms of everything from tech trading to expansion. Life support and starbases were very important for enabling me to get anywhere.

I'd do it again, although the early colony grab is really frustrating.

Also, difficulty was set at normal with randomized intelligence. I need to move up to the next level, I think. :)
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This thing of the AI surrendering really takes the fun out of a grudge match (at best)!

J.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, true. Most often, I find friendly races surrender to their (my) enemies, and the unfriendly races surrender to my enemies to spite me.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The number of habitable planets and galaxy size can really change the way the game is played. I mostly play gig/abun and it's a long game, but I play a quick game with only a few habitables per race every once in a while. It's totally different. There should be Metaverse categories for particular game settings, but I guess that's what the Tournaments are for. Haven't gotten involved with any of those yet.

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There should be Metaverse categories for particular game settings
End of quote


The AltMeta has 6 different ranking lists. There are posts around here and at the Galactic Core that explain how the categories work and how scores age differently than they do in the official Metaverse. Try searching for AltMeta at site:forums.galciv.com and site:thegalacticcore.com.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This thing of the AI surrendering really takes the fun out of a grudge match
End of quote

In DA you can disable surrending in the game setup. Surrenders can really mix things up and add an element of chance to the game, but I mostly play with it disabled. Also, when speaking against good alignment, people always neglect to mention the Hall of Empathy that doubles the chance of an alien race surrendering to you. Although I don't play good alignment anymore, I played it a lot when I first picked up GC2. I can tell you it does work. With good alignment, I've had games where just about every race that surrendered did so to me.

Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is true - when I've had a hall, I've had several surrenders to me, and when the Torians had the Hall in my last game, they ended up owning half the map because of the number of surrenders to them.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Part of it was that I had incredible luck with bonus tiles - one planet had two 700% research tiles, and another planet had one 300% and one 700% manufacturing tile.
End of quote


Was it luck? Or perhaps bonus tiles are more concentrated when there are so few planets.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do find more bonus tiles on rare than on abundant habitable worlds, but I rarely find two +700% tiles on a single world. I've played rare habitable a few times since, and it hasn't happened again, at least not in my favor.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Part of it was that I had incredible luck with bonus tiles - one planet had two 700% research tiles, and another planet had one 300% and one 700% manufacturing tile.


Was it luck? Or perhaps bonus tiles are more concentrated when there are so few planets.
End of quote


Absolutely not. I play Rare-everything Huge maps regularly and do not get extra bonus tiles. I've only once seen a Precursor Mine and a Precursor Library on the same planet. And never 2 Precursor Libraries. I have, however, seen 2 Precursor Mines on one occasion. But these were just one-off cases of ridiculous luck to either me or an AI race.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My favorite is when 90% of the bonus tiles I get are +influence.

Yeah, like THAT'S what I wanted.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yea, the precursor mines and libraries are real goodies. I hope they increase the occurance of those in TA. I seem to get more libraries than mines and I think the mines are more useful.



Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It depends on the map!

Having a class 18 planet with two precursor libraries gave me a permanent tech lead against all the other races, which helped my entire empire. The one planet with the +700% and +300% industrial tiles was able to build my huge-hulled ships faster than any other planet, but all of my planets including Mars were able to put them out fairly quickly, so it didn't matter as much.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I almost never see Precursor anything. Heck, I've gone thirty colonies without getting a single bonus tile of any sort. Playing the latest DA build, can't understand why I never see them and everyone here is always talking about them.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had a +300% industry and several +300% research tiles last night. I haven't seen a +700% tile in a long time.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Only one time have I had the +700% and a +300% mine on one planet it was a class 30 too. I won that game. Current game I got a Class 7 planet with one +700% mine and a +700% libary on the same planet. Yah know I think I would of just liked the mine there and not the libary.

Whats really werid is that I have mega events on and nothing has happened. No pirates, no peacefleet, no spys, no nutthing. I expect soon I will have a game on turn one Jagged knife will pop up and take my home planet now.

Duh