How do you name your ships and planets?

from GalCiv2 Forums

I've been look at some other players' posted save games and I was surprised to see standard planet names and non descript ship names.  For a massive game, I don't know how people keep track of the dozens if not hundreds of ships and planets if you don't rename them.

For planets, I usually group them by location.  Then rename them by purpose and planet type.  So an example could be 'a Nestor II R rad'.  The 'a' refers to the group of stars at a certain location.  The 'R' means it's a research specialized planet.  The 'rad' means it's a radioactive.  I'll name by planet type if I haven't had the chance to research the extreme colonization techs yet.  If I'm looking at the civilization manager, I can immediately tell how I want to use this planet.  I can also sort by name and see how I distributed specializations within a given cluster of planets.

For ships, I first give them a name, then list the important numbers.  So an example could be 'Axe (10g 5b 4 20)'.  This is a combat ship with 10 gun strength, 5 beam defense, 4 movement and 20 hit points.  Race, resource and other bonuses will change the actual numbers, but at least the ship name will instantly tell me the relative strength.

4,039 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I find that the data displays work well enough for most things to tell me what is going on.

I name the planets for my benefit in the the planet lists. I usually name high production planets as Shipyards, Drydock, etc; and extremely high quality planets (20+) as Prime if they are not specialized. I give names such as Labs, Research Center, etc to research focused worlds. Just whatever it seems like makes sense. It also makes my galaxy feel more realistic I typically leave the star system's name at the beginning. Thesauruses are quite handy when you are bored with your usual names.

When I conquer another race that has been really bugging me, I will often rename their worlds unless it is their capital. I like to leave it with the name they gave it to remind the rest of the galaxy that the previous owners are no longer around.

As for ships, if I'm playing a small enough map I'll name my ships. If I am playing a large map, I'll just leave the default. I typically build a massive economy and only build a real military when someone declares war. I'll buy and build ships at a rate far too high for naming them all individually.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Usually I'm far too lazy to do anything, but if I'm in a really role-playing mood (and I'm using my custom race, the Crapps - with the homeworld The Bowl - and I'm on a small enough map, I'll usually come up with some scatological reference for each planet I colonize (i.e. The Crapper, The Throne, The WC). The ships (which I also design new, each game) also get similarly sophomoric names, with each larger ship geting an "er" or "est" or "est-er" (for when I ever make it to huge) on the end (i.e. the Stupid-class small-hulled ship, followed by the Stupider medium-class, Stupidest large-class, and the Stupidester huge-class).

Yeah, I'm a real immersive role-player. Now you see why I'm so popular with the RPG crowd - gotta love it when your guild is filled with 'Kendar Erenthal' the elf, 'Grim Norsayer' the dwarf, and 'Super Awesome Asskicker Baby' the hot girl paladin.

What can I say? I'm a little sophomoric sometimes.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For bigger maps, it really does help to divide up the galaxy into areas. Let's say area 'a' is the deepest in your region. You know that enemy ships aren't going to reach it easily, so you can plan according.

Another big help is when building constructors. If a base is in area 'a', then it's much more efficient for planets in the same area to feed that base. You can also build cheaper constructors because it doesn't have to travel very far. You can build tiny ships with a constructor module and that's it. Most planets can churn one out every turn.

I do a lot of planning in the civilization manager. It's just a big spreadsheet and I'd rather not have to go searching to find where a planet is located when I want to manage its production.

I saw one massive game where the player named his ships designs 'gun', 'build', 'transport', etc. I don't know how the heck he manages anything efficiently.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I keep everything as is except when i absolutely must refer to a special ship within fleets. It's strange how repetitive Stars and key-planets can actually become familiar in any given new settings. Homeworlds are easier to spot in a number of game functions or listings that way. But, that's me.

I would normally tag some ship-GCdefault-names with trailing notes like ...-B9S6 (For beam 9 and speed 6, etc) if i truly believe that reference may become helpful later on when i start to spread out more than a few in a conquering process. That has more to do with the map sizes though since it's very easy to loose track of key-items once numbers begin to add up. Thus, a few specific taggings allow for a much better micman overall.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I play on medium and large maps and I don't have trouble with remembering so much what planet is what. I have just stated renaming capitals though, especially those belonging to AI races, so i know were to send the spies and transports first. I used to always lose track of them and spend too much time clicking. Also what I've just started doing is adding to the planet's given name if i get and ethical choice and i get a bonus with the planet. So I might have a "+25 research" after the name.

As fr ships, I never seem to be able to give good names when I've tried so i just name them something like "Medium A" upgrade the design to "Medium B" when I've gotten a few more techs. If things get complicated, like all the AI's have different weapons and defences I'll add a races name to the ship name to tell me who the target is.

I don't usually have more than one or two designs in a game. I just keep adding to an existing one when i have better weapons and engines to add to it.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heh, maybe I'm just getting old and my memory is shot...or I just drank too much in college. I immediately forget planet names and before I started naming them properly, I'd waste so much time clicking, zooming in, moving around the map and scanning hopelessly for one particular planet. Then do it again and again as I forget it a couple turns later.

Maybe one difference is that I play almost exclusively in tactical view. Tactical view doesn't have planet names. It looks plain...just a bunch of icons on a black background, but the overall view is more useful than being able to see the graphical details. I can almost see the entire medium map at once on my monitor, so I constantly see the big picture and rarely get surprised.