Starting a Game Tactics/ideologies/stuff

try not to buy immediately. set spending to 100% and taxation to around 40%, and depending on whether you need to build a ship fast (in a competitive environment, it's sometims good to set military to 100% and bang out a few colony ships), perhaps leave the military/social/research sliders at 33%, 33%, 34% for a few turns. i generally build a couple of factories, the a couple of research labs, then food,morale etc. there will come a point when you don't need to build ships, so whack the points into research. fiddle about. fiddle about

My strategy varies from the above, though it may change if they implement one of the things being talked about.

I push taxation up to 100%, spending to 100%, cut social to about 15-20% and leave the other two sliders balanced, so 40 research, 40 military. I leave taxes at 100% till morale gets below 50% on my homeworld and adjust taxes a little down, then wait for below 50% morale again. The point of all of this is to expand, expand, expand. Homeworld is building only colony ships to start with. I also rush build them once they've been pushed past the 50% complete mark, assuming I have the funds (thus why the 100% taxes!).

I do this till there are no more planets within my ever expanding range to colonize. Then I'll reverse social spending and military spending.

My homeworld is generally queued to build 2-3 factories, then 2-3 labs, then morale, economy or whatever else happens to be researched. Extra space I will fill evenly with factories and labs.

New planets are always, factory, starport, lab, factory, lab, morale, embassy then whatever I decide to customize that world with. I tailor some worlds to be my research worlds, others industrial, and yet others economy. The only exception to this are worlds on the edge of another empire, which I will build several embassies upon. I've been known to build solid embassies on class 4 planets Gotta push that influence...

Also, once I have run out of room to expand, that is when I start to build a military, if I have the technology, which presumably I do by then.

And as always, there will be differences in opinion. I usually start off buying two of the first 4 improvements on my homeworld, those being chosen from my first 2 labs or first 2 factories on my homeworld, with the decision based on mood, resources, bonus tiles, etc. I'll often buy all 4 of them if I remember to return to my home world every turn. (how about letting us queue up improvement purchases *snicker*)

I usually start off with taxes of 60%. Morale doesn't seem to be very important until you switch away from an Imperial government, and by the time I do that, I've usually got my economy going along well enough that I don't need taxes that high, so early on I set my taxes to optimize my tax income. in GC1 morale was more important since the production output of a colony was based off of it's population, and factories would add a % bonus to it. in GC2, production output is based on the improvements and population is purely for tax base and influence, plus you hit the max population of the various planets much sooner anyway.

I usually start off with approximately equal sliders, though I'll go 100% military if I'm coming close to the end of the colonization phase and I'm in fierce competition for the last few planets. Once the colonization phase is complete and I've dropped one constructor on every resource I can reach, I usually drop military back to 15-20%.

None of this is the really interesting stuff, however. First, there's economy of ship design. I've learned not to be afraid to create custom ships. At any given time, I'll have at least two designs of colony ships and constructors available, with one design being stripped of all add-on life support and engines. In the late game, I'll even have speed7, range 4.? constructors, just in case someone looses a starbase unexpectedly and I want to grab the resource. There's no reason to build a regular colony ship that takes 155BC worth of manufacturing ability to colonize a second planet in a system you already have a planet in when an 85BC design will get there sooner (slower movement, but launching much sooner). Likewise, there's no reason to have any add-on life support on a constructor that will be adding itself to an existing starbase.

Second, there's the research tree. Because of fewer interdependancies, you can go much deeper into the tech tree in GC2 than you could in GC1 while ignoring early techs. I tend to focus on production/research/economy/government/trade techs, and let the AIs research the military techs. They're usually willing enough to trade low level military techs for good techs that won't hand them the game from what I'm researching. It used to be worse, but the devs seem to have downgraded the value of techs to the AI, no more getting AIs to cough up resource starbases in exchange for Star Federation It's nothing for me to be a Star Federation while the AIs are Republics (and that only because I sold them the Imperial Republic tech).

Aloriel, you might want to play with your tax sliders more. You'll find that there are sweet spots where increasing your tax rate actually reduces the taxes you collect, probably because more people are working under the table. When I've played around with it I usually I peak at about 72% taxes, with higher tax levels bringing in less money.

Again i come to offer yet a different strategy

for me i ususally set taxes to round 60% in the beggining and on my homeworld ill build two factories a reasearch lab and a couple economic buildings, when i colonize other worlds however, i usualy dedicate them to one task and one task only, for example when i first start colonizing ill usually dedicate 4-5 planet to just ship building right off the bat building only factories and a starport on them, by then my economy is begging to suffer so ill ususally build a planet with just economy boosters, nothing else, and by the time thats done my reasearch is lagging behind so ill dedicate a couple planets to just reasearch with maybe one or two factories to speed up the production of the reasurch facilities. usually ill keep the slider at around 40 military 30 social 30 reasurch in the begging but once the colonization rush is done and i cant expand anymore ill usally hit military to 0 and complete upgrading my planets and getting further ahead in military technology than the computer opponents. then when my planets have most or all of there social improvements and i have a good lead on military tech ill switch the slider to 60 military 0 social 40 reasurch and begin pumping out ships to invade my nearest nieghbor. this works out well for me because in the invasions i usually get all the social techs that i neglected to reasurch and i usually win against that computer adding 50% or even doubling the amount of planets that i already own.

also i do that ship designt technique that popup target does, sometimes making a completely new design to reach one planet or starbase that is really far away or extremely close to the enemy then once i have finished using that design deleting it so that my ship list dosnt become unmanageable

Civ3Fanatic, true. In GG1, I had two categories of colonies. 1) planets that I would be creating the core of my military from, and 2) everything else. Planets in group 1 got every production/ship quality improvement available, planets in group two got the cost effective production ones. Group 1 usually consisted of my 6 highest PQ planets. This way, I got a steady stream of high quality combat ships without a too-oppresive maintenance cost.

In GC2, things are much different, and my colonies tend to be much more likely to be specialized. Planets in the PQ 6-9 range are my tax base planets. These get econ bonuses, and for the larger end of the range, a farm and morale improvement or two. Planets in the PQ 5 or less range are dedicated to research. Planets in the 10+ PQ range are usually split between manufacturing and research and the occasional wonder/trade good/etc, with three exceptions.

My highest PQ planet, unless a different lower-PQ planet got a good ship quality colonization event, usually gets my manufacturing capitol and all ship quality improvments. It's mostly dedicated to factories, and can usually pump out my latest ship designs in one or two turns. Sometimes I'll grab a second planet to set up this way if I think I'll be needing more ships than that, though I won't get the PQ bonuses since both the Omega Shipyard and Starship Foundries are one per civ.

My second highest PQ planet, again unless a different lower-PQ planet got a good research colonization event, usually gets a few factories, and the balance is labs, the technological capitol, and the omega lab when I get that far. This planet usually pushes out several hundred points of research per turn by late game.

My home world starts off as a split between manufacturing and research, with enough morale to keep the people not revolting. Then, once I get Trade Centers and I have enough colony-based research going on, I rip out the research improvements and replace them with Trade Centers and my Economic Capitol. This is because this is my only planet that has both the PQ and enough food to create severe morale problems. As long as I have to deal with the morale problems from the population, I might as well get the financial benefit of the larger population.

Wow That's solid advice! That will help a lot.

I'd like to ask your strats on morals (or lack thereof) do you advise good or evil or stay neutral ? Also starbases, huh what are they good for! How many do you use? Where and what kind ? I know if you have a resource nearby you can start one and 'mine' it and you should get it before your neighbors do. But do you build econ bases at places other than the home world ? if you have a star system with say 3 pq 5 or 6 planets where you're doing research would econ base do anything for it ? Does anyone use military starbases as part of their strategy for defense ?

I've tried influence bases and at present they won the game before I was ready to win.

I've had fun testing the game so far but I still have a lot of "am I doing this right' syndrome.

I don't have a strong feel for the good vs evil balance of GC2. My general experience so far has been that unless you take every good or every evil choice, you'll wind up neutral, so as long as you pick and choose which events to go evil on, it shouldn't be a problem at all. I've never been so good that it provided much benefit or so evil that it caused much grief, but that may be because I would rather avoid extreme evil for the time being.

Mining (resource) starbases can make or break a so-so starting position. So much so that my first target if I find myself at war is the enemies military resource starbases. It's amazing how much more willing to negotiate the AI can be if you take out enough of those at the same time to make it feel like you just blew away half his military. One Econ resource is good, as is influence, research, and morale, though more is better. You can never have enough military resources. Those things stack quite nicely.

Interesting side note: the current AI doesn't seem to know how to build attack or defense modules on starbases, so they're easy kills for just about anything.

I haven't experimented much with econ starbases, but they seem to follow the same formula as the econ modules in GC1. That is, they improve the amount a freighter earns while the freighter is within its area of influence, and they increase the manufacturing (both military and social) of any planets within their area of influence. Both of these were quite useful in GC1, not sure how useful they are in GC2, but I'd guess that the usefulness hasn't changed too much. If they had modules to improve the tax revenues or reasearch amounts, they'd be more useful, but I'm not going to suggest that until I get a feel for whether or not they're in balance in GC2 yet. So no, you can't improve research with anything but a starbase on a research resource.

Summary of that part: You can use starbases to improve your trade routes or manufacturing abilities, but not your research or tax income with econ starbases. If I find a system with 2 PQ 18 planets, I'm very likely to make that my ship production area, and drop an econ starbase or two in there to pump out the ships blindingly fast.

Starbases as part of your defensive strategy: Absolutely yes, but only if you only expect contact at only one or two points, and you expect the contact to remain at those points (you don't plan on taking or giving any ground). Since military starbase modules are a little bit in need of tech requirement adjustments, currently you can build a starbase that will add something like +12 to +18 to the attack value, and +2 to the defense value of all ships in their area of influence. This is at a time when an 8 attack ship would be considered a heavy hitter. If you've only got one system that the enemy is coming at you through, drop one of those near the system, build up it's own attack and defense values so that it isn't a soft target, then build up its assist values, and you'll have a nasty bastion. Throw in a second starbase if you feel like overkill. That will probably take about 16-24 constructors each, more in the later game.

The disadvantage of using starbases for defense or the offense is that if the front shifts, they become useless, and that's a lot of manufacturing capacity to spend on something that can become obsolete so easily. I've considered using military starbases in the offensive role, but I've never found a target hard enough to need it in GC2. Happened occasionally in GC1.

Aloriel, you might want to play with your tax sliders more. You'll find that there are sweet spots where increasing your tax rate actually reduces the taxes you collect, probably because more people are working under the table. When I've played around with it I usually I peak at about 72% taxes, with higher tax levels bringing in less money.

Yeah, I know. First couple turns that sweet spot is literally 100%. Believe me, it goes down pretty quickly after that.

I've never been able to play deeply into a game, due to crashing issues. But I never build the default ship types. Everything is custom (I wish you could make the built in ones obsolete). I usually make one with tons of speed, one with tons of range and one with more of a balance, depending on what I'm trying to do. It will be great when upgrading works, because then I can spend time making the ships look cool, and reuse the same design.

I can't speak for long term strategy, but I generally go the high tax, high military, colonize everything route in the beginning. Gradually I put more & more into research and go for military techs since I found the AI won't trade them to me for some reason. This way, about the time the AI gets belligerent, I can start building ships with decent weapons and speed. The AI is usually willing to trade non-military techs for military ones, and as long as I stay a few steps ahead of them, I do all right.

I set one or two planets to build constructors as soon as I've expanded enough to crank them out without slowing down colonization too much. I nab as many as I can. I've seen dramatic results from econ resources.

I haven't gotten into much combat, so I can't say how well my military strategy works, but I go for diversity. 3 types of defense ships (strong weapons & defense, no speed or support) and attack ships (strong weapons, at least one engine and no support, whatever defense will fit). I imagine next are attack/defense invader ships (either strong weapons or defense, enough support to get there, whatever defense/weapons will fit).

I haven't gotten much into trade either.

On planets I build factories first, then research, then econ, then culture. If people are grumpy, I build entertainment. If the planet fills up, I build a farm. I always try to keep a few squares empty for entertainment & food. If a planet really sucks, sometimes I'll just make it a research base, with no starport.

For diplomacy, I try to keep at least one AI friendly, with gifts if I have to. It's nice to be able to buy your friends.

Aloriel, not sure if you're doing this, but just to make sure, don't look for the sweet spot by starting at 100% and moving down. Two reasons.

First is the fact that there can be multiple sweet spots. I'll usually see a time when tax revenue peaks at about 72%, suddenly drops one percentage higher, then gradually increases to the next peak, usually at about 92%, suddenly drops again, then gradually increases to the next peak, usually at 100%. When I've seen this, the 92% peak often isn't bringing in more taxes than the 72% peak, but you'd never know the 72% peak is there if you stopped at the 92% peak on your way down.

Second, I've noticed a bit of a quirk. I'll be clicking to go up 1% at a time, I'll hit a peak (but not realize it), click it up one higher, the tax income suddenly drops, but when I click back down that same 1%, tax income doesn't go back to where it was. I suspect that what is happening is that on the way up, the peak is where it is because of morale. It would then follow that when you go past the peak, morale drops, moving the peak lower, meaning that if you approach the peak from the high end, it will be lower than if you approach it from the low end, even if you've never actually charged the higher rate. Apparently the question in our public opinion polls "If the tax rate were to hit, oh, say, 97%, just as an example, would that cause you to grab a gun and head to the nearest clock tower?" was a little too revealing. You won't see this in the earlier game, but it becomes quite pronounced at points in the mid game (basically any time you have both morale and taxes in the 60-70% range, it seems).

The first issue is why you sweep the entire 50-100% range looking for sweet spots, the second issue is why you look for sweet spots by raising taxes rather than lowering them.

Thanks Popup! Last game went soo much better now I that I do things more efficiently.

I've noted econ starbases don't have a direct affect on research, like you mentioned. just boosts production and trade plus you can add defenses and weapons. Extra revenue is not a bad thing.

Re: Trade of Techs - Yeah its wierd like that. Near start of game when you like have 0 military the AI is like "we're afraid of your empire you're so powerful! We'd never dream of trading another weapons tech to you " ROFL

I was like "aw come on, Stellar Cartography isn't that intimidating! Pretty please, with Universal Translator on top ?? "

I think it's a sin to ask for planetary invasion. The responses are funny that way too.

I also thought of a strategy thanks to your 'stripped constructors'. It's about the minor races and rushing influence to culture take over. The point is its going to happen sooner or later and why not make sure your empire gets those worlds instead of the AIs. So I use the constructors and rush a influence base near an area I want to take over and voila
several turns later you can see the skull & crossbones only a few more before they flip and you get control.

You're right with the alignment. Arceans love neutrals, nearly everyone else the alignment was a turn-off
If I got any props it was either diplo skill or military might. So far I've not seen any 'out of the blue events' just the ones that occur randomly when colonizing.