What's the point of advanced governments?

Well you get an extra 10%/20%/30% economic bonus for the different higher forms of government plus you get a 5% boost to your influence ability and a 10% boost to your diplomacy ability just for researching the tech. Dependent on your strategy a diplomatic advantage over your opponents can be huge.

However certainly if you've gotten to the point that you own 80% of the galaxy without it then it's clear you don't need a higher form of government just to win. However I would have assumed that somewhere along the way you could have gotten to the same point a bit easier and perhaps quicker with an extra econ bonus in your pocket.

Yep. You can't edit reply #1.

But you can edit the 2nd response. Very strange.

So you can *always* edit the OP, can *never* edit reply #1 and have a limited window to edit any other reply.

Of course this assumes your in a forum that allows the editing of replies, there are definitely some that don't.

Eh, I was too busy researching and trading techs to ever worry about trying to research advanced political crap. I cut out the BS and did what needed to be done.

Then as was outlined in post one, you lost 30% of your economy and 15% of your moral. Its a Strategy game not a shoot-em-up, it will nail you each time you fail to do the basics. Its a well balanced game, so the likely hood is you will still "win", but it will take you a hell of a lot longer, and be stuck at a lower difficulty level.

Your population bonus from approval comes in two steps, first at 75% (25 % population growth increase), and the second at 100% approval (100% population growth increase). If you keep it at 90% approval, you kill any benefits, keep the approval just above 75% to get the population growth, or at 100%. By mid game you should be hitting 100% approval without effort, if your not, you havent got the morale/happiness side of the equation nailed, the population is less happy, you get less productivity and cash. By reducing from 90% to 76% you'll get the same growth bonus, but you'll also get extra tax revenue.

They may be under your control, thats the easy part of the game, that will be achieved by most at some point, its just time. As in real life, if a gun is pointed at your head, you'll work less diligently and flexibly, than if you are happy bunny. The extra funds generated will enable you to survive at higher game levels. Use the same tactics as you do now on a suicidal game and see the result.


Change mindset if you want to move up the game levels, its not a shoot-em-up.

Regards
Zy

If I lost 30% economy I hate to think of how all the other civilizations did, considering I have the best economy.

But whatever. Obviously you've played alot of strategy games with 'political climates' before, eh? It's not like you have my history of strategy as far back as Civilization?

Obviously a political change is needed, as it's truly affected all strategy games before.

Obviously I have the fps mindset.

All of these assumptions you made were quite lovely. And baseless. And stupid.

I've played strategy games since the 80's. I know my way around them. Changing politics is something I don't.

I honestly don't know why it's nessecary when I'm already dominating. That's why I ASKED.

Next time, give a real answer.

Yup. Try looking at it this way - you cant do anything unless you pay for it, rather like the classic parental nagging re having the dosh to pay for it first. This game lets you have "stuff" if you have the dosh to pay for it. At present your getting there in the end during the game, and the bad guys wither away. That is always going to happen eventually, they wouldnt sell many games if the player always "lost".

The Political / Morale side of life will generate additional funds and / or better diplo relations. The latter means they are more "friendly" and attack you personally less - that gives you more space to build up and do your thing, end result you win quicker.

Now move up a level, the AI is "richer" as they are limited by the economics they can use, they get access to more cash as you go up the levels. If you dont perfect the morale/political side of the equation, they will outspend you, or at the very least spend more than the past, and it takes you longer to overcome them. By the time you hit the top two levels, you'll flat out get slaughtered if you dont generate the extra dosh so you can buy extra "stuff" over the same time frame. You will not generate the extra dosh unless you nail the "yellow" techs etc.


If you have folowed the Civ series from CivI right through to CivIV, you will have noted an ever increasing political & religious aspect. CivI was almost all "fps" like, albeit with a Strategy angle - as the series progressed more and more was built in to give Strategic choice, you could still win ignoring the new "stuff", but not at the top levels. In Civ IV, you can still "win" without those up to (say) Emperor level, but its a real drama trying to win at Immortal or Deity level without having founded at least one religion, preferably two, because you dont get the additional cash for each state religious building. Use the same mindset with GalCiv, except the "soft" bits are the yellow Techs, not Religious holdings.


Definitely, and its initially a hard mindset change if an individual has been FPS orientated - as such - in past game titles. Once you go through the "oppps" learning curve and the AI has run you over a couple of times, its just the same as FPS, you get used to what helps you and what doesnt. But without that change, the top two levels in GalCiv will be a nightmare, if not impossible.

At the end of the day your only playing against yourself (as such) so it doesnt really matter, just depends if you want to move onto the higher levels and still enjoy it - the latter will not happen without the yellow techs.

Regards
Zy

I thought Zy's answer was real. It was correct and hepful, I belive he was reacting to your assertion that 90% of your population loves you. What he is saying is that having an approval of 90% in THIS GAME does nothing for you that 76% won't do. Unless 90% is needed to keep ALL of your planets above 76%. If you did like he said you'd get the same populatuion growth but have more tax income.

As far as your basic question; in the game you change government types, not political parties. The War Party is what you are keeping througout the game. But as you reasearch you are discovering better govenment types. Where better means a better economy and better relations with other civs. Its like having certain political views but the discovering tht democracy is a better government than say communism. You keep you political party views but change to democracy and get a better economy and better diplo relations. So, why would you want advanced governments? Answer: more money.

***************************************************************************************



I'm glad we got all that straightened out, any other questions? Funny post Mumble, thanks.

I'll add to it - dont ask questions then totally change the original post like you just did adding:

""

Its not "necessary" at the level your playing if your only objective is domination. That will happen at every level except the top two without the yellow techs, its only a question of time. If you want to dominate the top two levels, you will need the yellow techs to do it. If you dont want to move to those levels, and not everybody does, then its a non issue, stay as you are.

Regards
Zy

I'm not sure how morale got into the discussion, it's 10% diplomacy and 5% influence for each tech not 5% morale. However it is certainly true that there's no benefit of keeping approval at 76% versus 90% except it's each planets individual approval that matters for pop growth rate, the only thing that your global approval does is allow you to win elections.

However, that wasn't were the conversation went. It basically broke down into the statement that it wasn't necessary to use a higher form of government to win on one side and the idea that a balanced approach is superior. I believe both points to be true. Sure there are many things in the game that you could not bother with and still be able to win. In fact there are so many ways to win that there are many different portions of the game that could be completely ignored dependent on your particular strategy.

For example, I can personally conquer the entire galaxy without ever researching, or trading for, or ever aquiring by any means, planetary invasion. However true this may be still doesn't change the fact that to be a good player you need to have mastered the ability to slog it out and conquer the galaxy in the conventional manner.

The point about balance is that when you've mastered all styles you have many choices of how to play and can deal with many different game settings than you otherwise could. Also I'm convinced that you would also win sooner and score higher by knowing "all styles" of play. Besides making you a better player in the end this also makes the game more interesting because it's not just one game but many different games.

Anyway that's just my personal opinion.

As far as the stuff in reply #2, I had just discovered that you can't edit the first reply of a thread and I picked this particular thread to which to reply mainly because I could be the first to reply and test out my theory. I does indeed turn out that reply #1 cannot be edited. It's no real big deal but it is of minor interest.

Well put, a good summary - I agree totally

Regards
Zy

Well the last Civ I played was Civ3. I'm actually unaware of the political thing in Civ4.

I really didn't play too many strategy games with political changes.

Sorry for getting upset, but I didn't know.

And I probably got upset at the fps mindset thing (Just waking up didn't hurt). I figure, you start changing politics and it'll be like washington. Sometimes things work better, sometimes nothing gets done and people just fight.

I say ignore that political stuff, and do what ya need to do. Get the job done, no matter who is in charge.

I dunno. You could improve, get alot of money, at the same time, another civililization beats you with tech victory while your researching useless politics (That actually happened to me last game)

It may help, but I already have a booming economy due to being the biggest trade capital in the universe.

Anyway though, next time I won't answer when it's 6 am and I haven;'t had coffee  :NOTSURE: 

And I must mention a few things:

We're a saintly race, highest morale in the universe (Not when we just wake up and are grouchy though   )

All we defeated was the drengins. The other races died when people went to war and we stayed out of it.

We didn't build a military AT ALL until the drengins started attacking us. I usually use the beginning to get as many planets as I can in the universe, and colonize them, then make colony ships and constructers, and build economy starships.

That's part of the reason why we own 80% of the universe. Even when all the races were around, we owned 40-50%.

Because of our economical might, we suddenly had the biggest military in 10 turns.

Sorry about getting upset again, it was 6 am and you told me I had an fps mindset  :NOTSURE: 

I was asking so I could plan to possibly change parties next game. Not to be told how I'm playing, esp. given that I plan every game I do to the smallest detail.

I wanna know if theirs ANY change at all with new political aspects. Not this BS please.

Graphs, numbers please. Like, if I change to a republic or a federation, would I suddenly have +15 in morale?

After reading over the posts again, I stand by my original words.

I asked about political changes. Not knowing how I actually play, some idiot comes and tells me I have an fps mindset. Not being helpful in the least with my real question, just judging the way I play.

Oh but I agree. I have an fps mindset. Here's a glaring example of it:



Oh yeah, with all my strategy, sim, rpg, and rts games, that 'fps mindset really gets used alot (With what, alpha prime and Unreal???), doesn't it?





This was insulting. Whoever thought he answered well needs to figure out how to answer themselves.

This was a random judgement, and it wasn't even what I was asking.

Well whatever, but if you ask me, considering your randomly judging people, maybe you have the fps mindset?

Honestly, screw you and your fps mindset. I want a multiplayer galciv2 game now. We can play together, with the rest of the loud-mouthed people who answered the topic.

Just think I have a fps mindset, and I can use that a poker face while I win with technology victory.

And one last thing. Pick your words carfully when you respond next. You said I was trying to dominate and kill off the galaxy, and I showed a close at hand tech victory.

I've long put a high value on the advanced governments b/c I favor research and economic strength. DK2k8, you might be interested to know that (at least until 2.0) the Twilight Iconians and Korx do not have advanced governments in their tech trees. Maybe playing them with tech trading and stealing off will be more the kind of fun you want from the game.

The "better player" talk in this thread only matters if you are interested in Metaverse scores. I got the habit a while ago, mostly because Mumble recruited me for the old Metaverse Council. If I wasn't enjoying being a humble member of the mighty Gerontocrats, I'd probably be back in the sandbox and finally getting into the mod scene.

The important thing is not to score big, but enjoy the game. If a big score does that for you, fine. If it doesn't, tell yourself whatever stories you like whilst grinding the foolish Star Democracies into the dust.

p.s. To Cap'n Yar: Depending on your political stripes, communism *is* democratic, and pure democracies can vote themselves into an authoritarian command economy situation at will. The Cold War history in the US has left most folks equating communism with Stalinsm, which is just wrong for many Marx-Engels fans. It also left us with an overly simplified and idealistic concept of "democracy."

No problem. Certainly I believe that everyone should play the way that gives them the most enjoyment. No one has a right to say the way you play is wrong and the way they play is right, but I am suggesting that gradually expanding your methods of play will in the long run make the game both more fun for you and result in you becoming a better player.

When I started out I always turned off tech trading because I wasn't very good at it and I felt that the AI was taking advantage of me in both the trades made with me as well as the trades they made between themselves behind my back. I had to force myself to play with tech trading enabled and gradually got the knack of doing it and found that some basic research in the diplomacy techs payed very high dividends.

Now I can play very effectively with tech trading on or off and this makes me a better player. No matter how effective your strategy is you will sooner or later encounter situations where it won't work. If you have multiple ways to play and win you have many other options you can try when for some reason or other your favorite doesn't happen to work. This can only help you find even more ways to play and enjoy the game since you can allow the game itself to dictate the style you play and so you play a different game each times greatly extending the playability of the game.

If you simply play the same style over and over you're obviously going to become bored with the game far sooner.

Herm.

I guess then I'll unleash the biggest surprise of all:



My yellow tech tree.

I've been debating whether or not to change to something else, as it doesn't doesn't seem usefull when I hve 90% approval.

And tech trading is great. Trade with the small civs, you can trade them doom rays, don't really matter, their too small to attack

Can we get back on subject? Should I switch or not?

This topic kinda makes me feel sad. All it needed was a definitive answer on whether another political party helps, and all that ended up happening was people arguing and fighting over fps mindsets  :NOTSURE: 

Absolutely. GW

Maybe change communism to monarchy in my other post. Or just make it anarchy.

Does the game have socialism? In the future socialism could easily work, with everyone having what they need, and not turn into the bs that is communism.

Now that's one government I'd switch too.

This is partially true but by no means totally true.

By a "better player" I mean one that can win under a wider variety of conditions and against a wider range of misfortunes that can radomly occur to you within any particular game.

If score is how you measure yourself then fine, if not then still fine. I really look towards what we do in the metaverse league (MVL) as what tends to develop a "better player".

Basically in the MVL we play a monthly game where the galaxy size and all the planet and anomaly abundancies are randomly selected. Also any other settings such as tech trading, etc along with the specific victory condition to be achieved are randomly specified as well. You'd be very surprised at how a strategy that works quite well for one victory condition under one set of settings can work very poorly under a different set of conditions.

We all tend to get into a groove of playing a style and game that we're comfortable with and based on that begin to think that we're pretty good at this game. However try that same thing with someone else's game settings and you may find your strategy du jour will fail miserably.

That's what I mean by a better player. Bum Phillips once said that a good football coach is one that can take his players and beat your players and then take your player and beat his players. Once you can beat everyone at their own game, only then can you claim to be a good player.

Yes! An extra 10 / 20 / 30% economy is always worth it. Maybe pointless late in the game, but getting them early helps with getting your economy in the green - essential to being able to compete with the AI at the highest difficulty levels.

So something like a star federation can add 10/20/30% economy?

Thank you. Someone finally answered my question.

I'll change to a star federation next game.

Finally? I gave you exactly this response in the first sentance of the first reply.  :NOTSURE: 

Lol, sorry, I answered that post early in the morning and skimmed over what you said, then I spent the rest of the topic fighting over fps mindsets.

I screwed this up as good as pyro trying to take down 5 sentries in Team Fortress 2.

There ya go. FPS mindset   

You answered me. You did it first. I'm sorry I missed it

Also, I kinda said thank you as a way to end the topic. I kinda want this topic to end.

I could never imagine why................................

Post deleted, DarkKnight posted as I was typing...

...and darn it, it was really funny.