HydroAC

I am playing on the latest patch. In regards to research and production, I keep up just fine. The key is to have "a strong military". I strong military requires significant research into military items. Which means that something else has to suffer. I don't want a strong military (or rather spend resources researching one). Why can't I be Canada or Germany? Canada and Germany (and the rest of the Western nations, for that matter) can get away with small

I’ve never played the Altarians before. In GC2: DL there didn’t seem to be anything special about them. In DA the Altarian AI almost always seems to do well economically and by research. The base picks for the Altarians are pretty good: +30% eco, +25% research, +20% morale. I’m not sold on the Super Organizer, since it strikes me as being pretty limited. Perhaps the good racial scores will make up for this. I decided to try the Altarians configured as researchers. My picks were +30% ec

Scout – I did build the Eyes of the Universe. But getting the Super Scouts out before then gave me a huge peace of mind to know when the Drengin were trying to sneak through Yor territory toward me – which they tried a few times. I had fleets ready to intercept them. I didn’t know about the limit, so since a sector is 15 parsecs wide that would mean a maxed scout can see all of 4 sectors. That’s still pretty darn good! First spy – I did put him on the Thalian as soon as I could since th

Thanks for the heads up. I went to Adobe and repeatedly tried to update Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash) from v6 to v9. It would simply not update, and the site’s tech help did not help at all for someone like me who is minimally competent and has no wish to be more than a user. So I uninstalled using their special uninstall tool and Macromedia Flash is now happily disabled. Now I get a tiny icon where the G4 image was on the GalCiv intro screen, and my PC no longer ceases to work wit

Krynn AAR I haven’t played the Krynn before. At first glance there is nothing special about them. Their super ability – Super Spy – doesn’t strike me as very powerful or especially useful. In most games I’ve played in DA spies have been annoying, my spies have died fairly quickly, and I’ve never gotten anything in the way of tech or even much infiltration of a faction. When I started to spec out the Krynn I noticed that they have a fairly nice set of basic abilities. In partic

In the last few days when I first open the GalCiv 2 web site I get the following message: Macromedia Flash Player 6 The script in this movie is causing Macromedia Flash Player 6 to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. Do you want to abort this script? Yes/No I’ve selected Yes. Otherwise the PC seems to freeze and I can’t do anything. Since I’ve just entered the site and haven’t activated anything I’m at a loss as to what

You can turn Mega Events off. Nothing I've seen alters the speed restriction (although I haven't seen how the starbase items work - I don't build military starbases). The Council passed a law giving Construtors a max spd of 7. Wheeee! Then I found they can only go spd 5 after all. Drat. It looks likes the Council can't repeal natural laws after all! Hydro

Note that a diplomatic victory seems to be very difficult when tech trading is turned off. In the few games I’ve played since the patch with tech trading off the AIs generally do NOT research the government/alliance tech line. If they don’t research Alliance then, of course, you can’t get allies. And you can’t gift the tech, get an ally when they are close – you have to wait for them to research it (and some never do). In my latest game almost all the AIs are Close (I’ve been a good Krynn), but

Another idea - add a scout or survey module to your freighter. Then your freighters along your trade routes will keep an eye due to increased detection on the area they traverse. As kyro said, do check the auto upgrade. I made that mistake, too. It was a big pain to have to rebuild every ship from scratch, so I'm glad a friend let me in on the setting change. Hydro

You need one or maybe two fronts, and being in the center of the map means you can't really play a defensive stance until you fix this strategic problem. Consider tidying up one front by crushing the AI until it gives up or is not a threat. Then you can turtle and no one can touch you. That is an isolationist thing to do. Hydro

I haven't had any luck either since the patch. A sleaze tactic was to grind down a power or minor, extort everything they had, and then invade anyway. I'm guessing the devs decided to restrict this kind of abuse (even if it is somewhat realistic). Note that the Drengin's super ability gives them a heightened ability to extort from weaker players. I've noticed they get fairly frequent infusions of cash from other AIs when I look at the debug.err file or get diplomatic notices during the

It's hit me many times, and it appears to be for the whole game, or at least it has never ended in any game where it has occurred. It is not a Council resolution - it just happens. Overall it certainly stirs things up since I have to revise my strategies. Isn’t that the whole idea of Mega Events? Vinraith - you are quite right (and nice SF examples, too). Any conflicts are come-as-you-are! Hydro

To have a few but very good fleets you need, obviously, very good speed, a decent offense, and a very good defense. An excellent defense is key to being able to survive the battles and then going immediately to take on the next opponent or fleet. Otherwise you’ll have strings of damaged ships that will eventually die at the hands of superior numbers. Make sure you defense is keyed to your enemies weapons, too. For instance, in a recent game I was able to hold off ~190 Drengin (!!!) tha

As I recall, there was a Star Trek the Next Generation episode where warp speed had to be reduced to avoid tearing the fabric of the universe. I think the devs must have borrowed that idea. The speed 5 event does radically change the game. For one, it makes propulsion techs completely pointless after Warp (and the +2 bonus). Since your ships are slow you can fit more stuff on them, like weapons, defense, transport modules. Also, in large and huge galaxies ships are obsolete by the time

What is really annoying is when the AI calls you up and wants a juicy tech (Impulse 3), and offers something utterly worthless in return (new propulsions, which my races skipped since I started with Ion). Then, when you take the same one-sided deal and offer it back just to see what happens they tell you to get lost! Examples like this and the Group AI Tech Research are why I'm strongly leaning toward turning off tech trading. Hydro

Yes, it is now much more difficult to trade tech - or anything else, for that matter. The diplomacy of trading has been completely overhauled in DA. My guess this was done to pinch 'tech whoring', where a player would do serial trading of a single tech and walk away with the store (even without Super Diplo). Now the AI will generally never trade for weapons tech, and especially advanced weapons tech or any extreme colonization tech. Any trade you do get will generally be to your disadv

First, the Starport is needed to construct ships. Strategies vary, but I put them on every single planet I have except the very smallest. Why? Because I hate to not be able to build a defender, or perhaps a transport, constructor, scout, or survey ship. Every planet needs to help in propagating my empire, and space power is a key to this. The guidance states that population growth at `100% morale is 2x normal, so this will really count up over the long term – even if on the short term

if you have played star fleet battles you will know what i am talking about all of the parts are the same size on all the ships except the two fighters I played SFB for years, and it was a fun game. The welded-wedge Tholian ships were always challenging to play. I wonder if it is possible so have 'smooth' welded-wedge Tholians in GalCiv2? Have you tried NeoTholian designs? Hydro

I am certainly not the most gifted player, but you may want to consider reading some of the After Action Reports (AARs) I’ve posted for the Korath (AAR: Korath), Yor (AAR: The Yor), Terran (Terran Diplomacy AAR), and Thalians (AAR: The Thalian Hive). The Thalian AAR is in character and reads as a story, but the others are more conversational and explain what I’m doing and why at snapshots during the game. The snapshots are about every half year or when something major occurs. I’ve included scree

Well, playing as the Krynn with their 50% espionage bonus and a Luck pick I’ve been able to get 3 techs from the Thalians, the only one that mattered was Advanced Toxic. It is now 2232 and I’ve had High infiltration for ~4 years, and have had one or more spies continuously in place since 2227 or so. Overall I’m not impressed with spying or Super Spy. The above takes considerable effort to keep continuous infiltration since the spies keep on being knocked off, and the bloody things acc

Playing without tech trading is a different game. I’ve found that the AI doesn’t advance nearly as fast technologically since it can’t engage in rampant AI tech trading (if you don’t believe me check your debug.err file – you’ll see). Granted, I haven’t observed much weapons tech being thrown around, but they’ll trade pretty much everything else. Even diplomatically challenged races (Drengin, for instance) can get some pretty sweet deals. Without tech trading the AI’s seem to follow th

I’ve beaten off 180 (!!!) Drengin ships, most of which are Dominator class, at one research resource starbase. The resource was freed up when I conquered one of the minor races, and I had a constructor nearby when it was open to claim it. When the Drengin declared war I set up a scratch cruiser defense force. The first wave of 95 ships came in a single week in December 2230. My cruisers and a few other odd ships did well, but they also died since my early cruisers didn’t have any armor.

It's not really that difficult, you just have to research down that one line. Though it might not be as easy now with the tech trading. When I won it, it was just a case of hitting Enter turn after turn. Any techs I needed for other things I just traded for. Really quite boring. Perhaps 'easier' was the wrong word. The right word is tedious. The game is wrapped up, anyway I can see that it might reduce micromanagement, as long as you have a posi

Good and evil are in the eyes of the beholder. But if you look beyond self perception and toward outside actions you’ll see what the GC2 game designers are looking for – deferring something that would benefit you for the benefit of someone (or something) else. That is their Big Picture definition of good, and it is an interesting one. So while roasted Torian baby livers as an aphrodisiac might be a novel Drengin cultural phenomenon, it is unlikely to be viewed favorably by the Torians.

I've never had the patience for a tech victory since other victory options seem so much easier. How long did it take? Hydro