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Help and/or flame the Galciv2 n00b

thungrim

Join Date 06/2008

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Help and/or flame the Galciv2 n00b

(or just help) :)

Hey Galcivers,

A few years back I lamented the loss of my favorite genre of game when I wasted hard earned money on Master of Orion 3. Given that MOO2 was one of my all time favorite games, the epic and immeasurable FAIL of MOO3 just broke my heart. Until someone told me about Galciv, which I quite enjoyed.

Fast fwd a few years. I played a couple games of 1st release Galciv2 lent to me by a friend and I love it. I just bought the Galciv2 Ultimate Bundle yesterday so I can experience the expansions I started my first custom game of ToA yesterday and I figure its about time to get some of my nagging n00bish questions sorted out.

1) What's the purpose of farms? Before you laugh, I know they increase the max pop, but what is that good for? Tax revenue? Feedstock for transports & colony ships? Production capacity for various buildings?

2) Fighter Swarm or Capital Ship? In base version of GC2 it seems my fleets of small/tiny ships would lose consistantly against a single larger vessel with similar type (not quantity!) of armaments. I've allready factored in the rock/paper/scissors of weapon/armor combos, so I know its not a case of bringing a knife to a gunfight. So is it better to build a swarm of fighters or a single behemoth?

3) Upgrading ships? In base version of GC2, when you upgraded a design a really confusing screen came up. On the left hand side was a list of the currently built ships of that "class". Along the right is different cost options. You couldn't select more than one left side ship at a time. Is the cost the proposed cost to upgrade all existing instances of the class to the current spec?

4) Do starbase speed modifiers affect freighters? I remember putting stellar wake and interdictors on military starbases to increase the speed of friendlies and decrease speed of baddies in the control radius of the base. Does this work on freighters?

I'll probably have a bunch more as I dive into ToA, but thats all I have for now. Well, one more, but not strictly game mechanic related. I've been searching all over for people's custom race builds but I can't seem to find any good threads on it. Could anyone provide a link to any discussions?

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11) Economic Treaty? (bracing myself for "RTFM!") Am I understanding this correctly: If I start an Economic Treaty with Arceans, they get economic payolla equivalent to 10% of my economy, yet I don't actually "lose" that money myself? That seems like a "free lunch" to me, so I must not understand it.

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In answer to 9) 'Fast freighters':

Once a trade route is established, all freighters get replaced by a generic, speed one freighter. So fast freighters only help to establish those routes faster.

10) Spies:

Yes, it makes a lot of difference. Spies also DISABLE the building they are placed on, meaning you can target economy, research or production of enemies and allies alike. During an invasion, you can also steal technology, in fact, that's more reliable than waiting for spies to steal them.

+1

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9) Fast Freighters? When a trade route is established it gives you a "per turn" income correct? In essence, the freighter going back and forth is just animation and has no impact on the money generated, correct? So... all things being equal, do faster freighters generate more trade revenue, or does having a fast freighter only help to get you to the destination faster the first time?

The freighter moving has someimpact on how much you're making, but once the route is established, that minifreighter is limited to one movement point a turn regardless of how fast it was before. So yes, basically a faster freighter just gets you the route sooner.

10) Spies like us. Does it make a difference what kind of building your spy infiltrates? Are there technologies that spies simply can not steal? (There's a unique building or two I wouldn't mind finding!) Can you gain tech from conquering a planet?

I assume Spies Like Us is part of the campaign? I haven't played that yet, so I can't tell you if which building you hit makes a difference for that. In general, though, which building you hit is extremely important. Disabling a factory on a bonus tile is more valuable than one that is not. Same with research buildings. Various capitals and one-only buildings are also good targets. Disabling farms before an invasion will kill off large numbers of defenders for you - or disable their entertainment buildings and use information warfare.

There are some race-specific techs in TA that cannot be stolen. Which ones, though, I can't tell you. Yes, you can steal techs by invasion - again, some can't be stolen.

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11) Economic Treaty? (bracing myself for "RTFM!") Am I understanding this correctly: If I start an Economic Treaty with Arceans, they get economic payolla equivalent to 10% of my economy, yet I don't actually "lose" that money myself? That seems like a "free lunch" to me, so I must not understand it.

No, you understand correctly. It's a bonus for playing well with others

The downside is, you take a significant diplomatic hit for attacking someone you gave your economic or research treaty. You do not take that hit if you attack someone who gave you theirs.

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In answer to 9) 'Fast freighters':Once a trade route is established, all freighters get replaced by a generic, speed one freighter. So fast freighters only help to establish those routes faster.

If I've armed my freighter, does its attack and defense values transfer over to the "generic mini-freighter"?

10) Spies:Yes, it makes a lot of difference. Spies also DISABLE the building they are placed on, meaning you can target economy, research or production of enemies and allies alike. During an invasion, you can also steal technology, in fact, that's more reliable than waiting for spies to steal them.

DAMN do I ever wish I asked that sooner. I was just placing them for the sake of placing them. I'm surprised how quickly they were nullified given my races espionage advantage and the # of Espionage Effort anomalies I picked up. Anyone else feel this way too?

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12) Where did those planetary bonuses go? So I've been trying to capitalize on all the evil choices I made when colonizing worlds. The problem is I can't remember which ones got the ship building bonuses. Is there any way of finding out, or should I have been scribbling on stickynotes?

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DAMN do I ever wish I asked that sooner. I was just placing them for the sake of placing them. I'm surprised how quickly they were nullified given my races espionage advantage and the # of Espionage Effort anomalies I picked up. Anyone else feel this way too?

IMHO if you are going for the crippling hit on them via spies, hit them where it hurts. The pocket book. Shut down econ capitals & econ buildings. Their rate to gain spies is just like yours, directly tied to a % of their income. Chop their income and they can't get spies to nullify yours fast enough. Once you hurt them enough to take them to -500bc, then you've also shut down their research/building/ship productions. 4 birds with 1 stone eh?

BTW espionage bonuses only help you gain spies faster, not the speed the gain intel.

12) When you're looking at your planetary level, check out what the Summary and Details buttons do in the bottom right. I think you'll get some insight there

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If I've armed my freighter, does its attack and defense values transfer over to the "generic mini-freighter"?

Yes. If you really care, once you establish the trade route, you can upgrade the minifreighter to a maximum combat ship - it doesn't need engines or life support any more, so you can scrap them for more weapons and defenses. You DO need to keep the freight module, though. You may not want to do this until you get large hulls, as cargo hulls can be upgraded into any ship design with a large hull. Just realize that any money you spend on arming the ship cuts into how much you're making from the route. Trade is too close to break-even to be worth it in most cases.

12) Like Loupdinour said, hit the details button under the planet's build list. The box on the right will show all bonuses that apply to the planet. Use the buttons at the top right to scroll through your entire empire until you find what you want. It's tedious, but worth it.

Alternatively, when you colonize the planet, immediately rename it to something that reflects the bonus. Sure Hoth IV - ship bonus looks stupid as a name, but it beats scrolling through your empire!

As far as placing spies for strategic reasons (as opposed to pre invasion), it's usually better to save up and drop 6-8 minimum at one time on the same empire. The AI doesn't usually keep that many on hand, so some of yours will survive at least a few turns.

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I wonder if minor race influence affects major races. There was a minor race that had 3 influence starbases in my sector where the Torians were located. I had been trying to flip the Torians for a while with no luck. I tried an experiment. Even though I am playing a ‘GOOD’ race I decided to declare war on the minor race. ***side note – why are all minor race planets 15 quality?*** I built a fleet and some transports and attacked everything the minor race had, including their home world and literally wiped them from exsistence in one turn. I tell you that was fun, logistically annoying, but fun. Well the very next turn the Torians flipped to my side. That experiment makes me think the minor races have more influence when it comes to major races then I first believed……Thoughts anyone?Also: is there a 'combat view screen'? I think I read that but I cant find itUnless you reloaded a saved game and repeated that, I'd call it a coincidence. Influence overkill does NOT increase the odds of a planet flipping - a planet at 4.0 has the same probability of flipping as one does at 80. So if you had the Torian planet above 4, it could have flipped at any time. It's a random event, though, so it can take a year or two to flip a planet, or happen the first turn it gets over 4.Minor races rarely colonize or invade, so the planet they start on is generally the only one they get. It makes sense to give them one somewhat better than a typical capital planet, as that planet has to do everything.Combat viewer - open the options menu, the check the box that says "show full battles" - or something like that. You can also set it so only fleet battles are in combat viewer.

The odds of flipping I understand. Say the planet I was trying to flip had 20 inf. I would need 80 to flip it. Well, if there was a minor race that also had 80 inf in the sector would the Major race I was trying to flip be influenced half by me and half by the minor race? That was really my point and question. It makes me think that. It would make sense if that were true because when I eliminated the minor race the race I was trying to flip would only be influenced by me and no one else. Hence, they flipped the next turn.

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Minor races don't produce influence auras, nor are they affected by other's influence auras...when it comes to flipping. So that major race wasn't affected one bit by that minor.

If you took out hat minor race and then the major flipped, that was due to you having more stake in that area, not the relinquishing of shared auras.

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