So far the best things I've learned off of the various forums are:

1 - buy your first factory.
2 - Don't, and I repeat DON'T, make too many farms.
3 - buy your first 2-3 colony ships.
4 - set spending to 100%, set taxes to a level where your approval is near 60%, and get military spending near 60%.
5 - Anyone else have something to help the new players?

Scout rapidly. The expansion phase is fairly short and you need to get your colonizers and constructors out early to stake your claims. YOu can't claim what you don't know about.

Starbases are one of the key elements of the game. You need to think about which type and where you place them (they are all important when used correctly). All starbases should be able to fight back.

On planets that are below class 6, don't bother building anything else than research labs. The planet may have poor manufacturing abilities but the extra research will give you a great boost in tech.

I'll admit that I'm still confused about food.....you get 5 food for your main building, correct? So on class 5 or below you're done, no farms needed? Or is it a higher class yet that you don't need farms?

During the scenario, the Dread Lords are so strong that avoiding combat most of the time is required and sometimes fighting them is not even necessary to finish the mission.
Be prepared to retreat often when they invade your planets and start killing off your allies like an unstoppable juggernaut. Their ten troop landings can kill billions on your planets.


People will get angry because they are living on a barely livable planet. You might need just one lowly farm since more will just lead to anger problems.

I only build a max of one farm on a planet.(I have never settled a planet beyond class 12 yet) and I only build farms on planets were I build lots of commerce buildings. This seems to work out fairly well.

People will get angry because they are living on a barely livable planet. You might need just one lowly farm since more will just lead to anger problems.
farms don't provide happiness, multimedia centers, etc. do. A good rule of thum is one of these per planet (some planets may not need 1 though) and two or more one planets where you have a farm.

farms don't provide happiness, multimedia centers, etc. do. A good rule of thum is one of these per planet (some planets may not need 1 though) and two or more one planets where you have a farm.

I think what Blazer was getting at was that farms increase the population cap. On a crappy planet, more population=more unhappy people.

I think what Blazer was getting at was that farms increase the population cap. On a crappy planet, more population=more unhappy people.

Yes, now that I reread what he said I relize I read it wrong.

Do farms increase the pop cap of a planet? I was unaware of this. How about a farm on a plot that has like 300% agri bonus?

Could someone explain me how farms and planet size work regarding pop ? Because it says in the manual that a farm can feed 5 million people, yet I have planets with 2 billions people on it and no problems O_o

@ Masquerouge - That's exactly what's gnawing at me as well. I simply don't get the food part yet!

Apparently, your natural growth rate is +0.2Million/turn until you hit 3 million citizens. This is, as long your popularity stays below 100% and above 30%.
At 100% growth is doubled and bellow 30% growth will stop and eventually turn negative. From what i gathered from the manual, there doesn't seem to be a linear decrease in growth.
With that in mind, it seems best to increase the tax rate until you hover just above 30% approval rate.

From my experience you planet pop cap is 5 billion without a farm and 15 billion with 1 farm IIRC. I think the more farms you have the faster the planet grow but I have not confimed this yet.

increase the tax rate until you hover just above 30% approval rate.
I would try to maintain a better approvel rate then that as other things are affected by your approval rate.(don't ask me what is all affected by approval rate as I don't really know)

As far as I can tell, 1mt food = 1b people. So a farm that gives 5mt of food, adds 5b people to the planet's population cap. More people = more influence, more money, more unhappiness. Population growth is fixed at .2b/turn. Really high population is actually bad since they are more unhappy and more likely to culture flip, and in an invasion, join the other side. The only reason for high population is to get alot of income.

Could someone explain me how farms and planet size work regarding pop ? Because it says in the manual that a farm can feed 5 million people, yet I have planets with 2 billions people on it and no problems O_o

The manual is wrong. A farm feeds 5 billion.

So more pop = income which is :D
Too much pop = unhappy, ungrateful, culture flipping citizens which is :(

Thanks

Also will add plan your tiles and use them effectively. Such as put labs on the research bonus tiles. Put your factory on the manufacturing bonus tiles. Entertainment on the approval bonus. However, not all the time will there be bonus tiles or theres a bonus you don't particularly want on that planet.

Once you get a better government type, don't let your approval slide down. You'll lose your political party bonus if you do. You'll also need good approval ratings to goto war due to senate vote.

Rush buy some constructors and get those resources first.

Has anyone played around with the economic starbases yet? I found they made little difference, but maybe i am missing something.

I pumped quite a few Constructors into an Economic Starbase, but have no idea what it did for me. I really need to see tangible changes, not %s. Maybe I'm missing a screen or menu somewhere....

The manual actually covers the effects of starbases. Economic starbases increase the value of trade routes that pass through its area of effect. So a trade route that gives 10bc + 10% bonus would give 11bc instead. It makes more sense to build an economy starbase with upgrades next to a planet that has most of your trade routes going out of it.

These are just my opinion.
Military starbase - if you want to just let your ships reach farther into space.
Influence starbase - to lay claim to territory.
Economy starbase - right along trade routes.
Resource starbase - (try get these first always) for civilization wide bonuses.

Select the starbase and you will see the faint area of effect. (It is relatively small)

The way economic starbases work is by placing several of them on the path of the trade ships. You can turn a 10 credit route into 20 with multiple starbases placed like restaurants along a turnpike.

Here are some random tips:

#1 Use the left mouse cursor to grab the main map to move it around. Don't use the edge scrolling as it's not nearly as good.

#2 You can use the left mouse cursor to grab the background of the tech tree screen and move around the techs there too.

#3 If you right click on one of the notifcation icons that drop from the right, you can activate whatever the event was.

#4 Early on -- don't over expand. The colony rush that people who played GalCiv I try to do isn't the ideal strategy. Instead, build up your colonies a bit, you can rush buy factories and research centers and such.

#2 - that's a huge help. ;)

The economy starbases can also be used to speed up production on the planets in their radius.

Use Ctrl-N to regenerate the map until you get a Precursor mine(700% manufacturing increase) on your home planet!

:D

Seriously though, map regeneration is so quick in GC2, you barely have time to blink.

That's sooo wrong. Anyways wanted to pipe in about Starbases. They stack.
Econ bases give a boost to military, social and research. So I put a few down around my capitals. Any planets doing trade, I also build econ base to increase trade revenues.

Just careful cause at some point, based on logistics its going to cost you an initial fee to build more starbases.

I've been also using military bases and loving them for the extra oomph they give.

Precursor's things is so imbalanced! Both mines and libs, they should be removed cuz even single planet with PerMine can swarm others with tonz of ships, and when you add ManCap one planet can fight whole galaxy( - I did that - I won war on attrition with Dreadlords(!!!) in campaign with single planet with PerMine - just spammed rather simple ship design with overupgraded MilBase(Constructors are pumped with one in two turns ratio). Persecutor things should be removed from game for sure or replaced by 400% bonus and still be ultra-rare.

I just started using Brad's tip #1 and that is waaaay easier, but it seems completely backwards at first when you go to move.

And Ctrl-N should have been the first tip I listed in post 1. :D

Do economic starbases have to be actually on a trade route or just near one?

Do economic starbases have to be actually on a trade route or just near one?

No idea, but a starbase's range of influence is fairly large so if you place them around a good planet of yours you should do okay.

I just realized that if you think you have enough transports or attack ships for a war then you'll most likely need a few more. :) Plan ahead and have enough ships since it sucks having 1 too few transports or 1 too few attackers to finish the job!

A nice bonus to fighting someone with more tech than you is that when you capture any planet, even the crappy ones, you get a free tech! :D

Here is the deal about farm:
A standard planet can sustain 5 bil people.

If you want to have more population you have to build farm (farm *only* increase the population cap)

Let's say you have a XENO Farm which if i'm not mistaken provide food for 6 milion people then 1 planet (whatever quality doesn't matter) with 1 Xeno Farm will have a max population of 5+6 = 11 milion people

If you plant 2 xeno farm you'll have 5+6+6 = 17 milion

As a rule of tumb each time you build a farm build also a morale boosting structure.

As for the 'food production' tile i haven't got the exact math behild but i guess if you have a planet (5 bil people max as usual) and you build a xeno farm on 100% food production you'll have 5+6+6 = 17 milion.

In general the more people you've on a planet the lower the morale will be (for that the need of the morale structure) , of course the more people you've the more taxes you'll gain so is up to you ! :-)

Generally especially on very high level planet is better not to increase population too much but to build economy structure.

Here are some layout you may work in for a class 10 planet with soil enrichment (11 tile usually) and the order in which to build them. (the first tile is the initial colony)

Industry planet
Factory -> you should rush build this one and set to social focus
Factory -> If you can rush this one too
Factory -> If you can rush this one too
Factory
Starport
Factory
Research
Farm
Morale
Economy

Research planet
Factory -> you should rush build this one and set to social focus
Factory -> If you can rush this one too
Factory -> If you can rush this one too
Starport
Research
Research
Research
Farm
Morale
Economy

High tax planet
Factory -> you should rush build this one and set to social focus
Factory -> If you can rush this one too
Factory -> If you can rush this one too
Starport
Research
Economy
Farm
Morale
Economy
Farm
Morale

Thanks acantoni. That clears things up.

I think what I've been getting hung up on is that in Civ you need pop to work a tile. In my mind I was seeing a class 5 planet which meant your pop was capped at 4 to work the tiles! Now I can see that this is a major difference between the two games. I've been equating class with pop cap. :( Do planets have a pop cap?

Indeed they have and that depends on the planet quality :
Usually as a rule of thumb you don't want to build a farm on planet lower than 8 (which you wouldn't do anyway...)

Here is the detailed info (taken from the wiki)
# PQ 4 = 2.6 b.
# PQ 5 = 4.3 b.
# PQ 6 = 6.9 b.
# PQ 7 = 10.4 b.
# PQ 8 = 14.6 b.
# PQ 9 = 20.2 b.
# PQ 10 = 21.6 b.
# PQ 11 = 34.6 b.
# PQ 12 = 44 b.
# PQ 13 = 55 b.
# PQ 14 = 67.6 b.
# PQ 15 = 82 b.
# PQ 16 = 98.2 b.
# PQ 17+ = 100 b

Here is the short version which in many scenario will work :

PQ < 8 0 Farm , maybe 1 morale structure depending on your tax rate
9 <= PQ <= 12 1 Farm 1 morale structure
13 <= PQ <= 16 2 Farm 2 morale structure
PQ > 17 3 farm 3 morale structure

It is important to note that the PQ you see at the beginning of the game isn't the real PQ of the planet. With Soil enrichment + habitat improvements and/or alignment bonus in most case you can raise PQ of a planet of 1-3 points (so 10 PQ at the beginning is likely to become 12-13 in the end game)

That's an excellent little short version. Thanks!

acantoni, you are mixing billions and millions in post #32.

do economic starbases have to be on one of your own trade routes or any trade route?

and to work they need to have thier range of influence touching your planets for them to be useful?


thanks!

what is the difference between DELETE and OBSOLETE in the stardock?

if i want to get rid of a ship forever I delete i would believe (which is what ive been doing) but does obsolete mean that I just dont want the ship on my current games stardock because the ships are no longer usefull to me? will they show up in my next game though?

what is the difference between DELETE and OBSOLETE in the stardock?

if i want to get rid of a ship forever I delete i would believe (which is what ive been doing) but does obsolete mean that I just dont want the ship on my current games stardock because the ships are no longer usefull to me? will they show up in my next game though?

That is correct. When you osolete a ship it doesn't show up in your current game anymore but it will be available in your next game. When you delete a ship you remove it completely from the game.

Always check your relationship with other races. If you see your relationship with another race go down from Neutral to Cool and you have a weak fleet, chances are you're going to be invaded. Prepare for an attack. Start building up your fleet and set up military star bases in strategic areas.

A war can still be averted at this point (if that's what you want). Just build up your forces. Once the AI sees you're capable of putting up a fight , it will back off. Check the stats and graphs to see how your military compares to others.

So far the best things I've learned off of the various forums are:

1 - buy your first factory.
2 - Don't, and I repeat DON'T, make too many farms.
3 - buy your first 2-3 colony ships.
4 - set spending to 100%, set taxes to a level where your approval is near 60%, and get military spending near 60%.
5 - Anyone else have something to help the new players?

I'd stress that #4 is the most critical (non-obvious) thing you need to do at the beginning of a game (obviously you need to scout and colonize) - set your industrial capacity to 100% otherwise you're not realizing your full research and production potential. You may tweak capacity over the course of a game for financial reasons, but in the beginning you want to be at 100%. It's good to know how industrial capacity works since it's a concept you don't find in Civ.

I'd add that you'll want to design your own ships even early on. You can advance your propulsion tech early on (amongst other things). The first drive upgrade can come very early and can boost all your core ships (colonizer, constructor, scouts) from 2pc/wk movement to 3pc/wk - a 50% gain that helps you explore and expand faster - which can be huge early on. Personally I always go for propulsion first but opinions vary, of course.

You get some "stock" ship designs along with techs over time, but generally speaking your custom designs will be superior. Designing ships can be a bit daunting at first but once you (quickly) get used to it it's both fun and addicting.

Design ships to fill your exact needs, particularly early when maximizing/optimizing is most critical. If you're going to colonize that class 4 world right next to your home world you don't need a colony ship loaded with drives and life support. Conversely if you're racing an AI to reach a juicy world that's a ways distant, then you want a colonizer with all the drives you can fit and probably need adequate life support modules to reach it at all. Even in the early game a small tweak to a ship design can have a big impact.

Fairly early on via tech you'll get a few "capital" miniwonders (every race can build em) you can build. For example, manufacturing capital, technological capital, economic capital. Each one requires a planet tile to build. Each one gives a nice boost to it's relative concept. It's usually a good idea to build them on planets specialized to their concept. A fat industrial world with lots of factories and a manufacturing captial, for example, will crank out ships (kinda like a mine-rich city in Civ with appropriate structures and wonders will crank out units). You will also pretty much always get these miniwonders even with specialized research, so plan ahead for where you want to build them.

As population increases morale/approval decrease - which is why you don't want to go crazy with farms (can easily overgrow population and crush a planet's morale). Find a balance of farms and +morale structures that works. There is usually no point in building a farm at all til a planet is near/at it's pop cap. Build factories, labs, and econ structures first to get your production, research, and economy going. You can get farm techs to increase their production (rather than build multiples of them). A common "rule" some players write (and that I use myself) is that for every farm you throw down you also build an entertainment structure to keep morale balanced.

The resources on the map affect your entire empire if you control them (by building a starbase on them, and ideally improve them with lots more constructors). These resources can have a huge impact. It's a good idea to grab as many as you can and make them priority targets in war. ;)

1.espionage, do it early.
2.Starbases are your friend.
3.Trade.
4.Balanced Fleet.
5.Custom ships.
6.Know your enemies before starting war. (strengths/weakness etc)
7.Know that when you can fight a war you could end up without anything imperialist tacticians be careful.

I think Ascatoni beat me to the punch on econ worlds. There's just one thing... bonus farm tiles *shudder* My only complaint using them is not enough tiles to build enough improvements to keep large pop. happy. One xeno-farm on a 300% farming bonus + default colony food output = 29mt/wk. 29 Billion people! Devoting the entire planet to morale/banking was worth it. It was my highest money planet. Plus on the flip side, if it became war time you can always land several assault landers and fill em up and send off real quick

I don't know the exact formula, but it seems that finding all of your neighbors seriously helps out early game with tourism cash. I always overexpand and end up stifling my industry until freighters, but the little extra that tourism generates is vital for my survival until then.

heres a super big one expand extreamly fast
i mean fast if u get stuck in a area where u only have like 10 planets yr screwed

Could someone explain me how farms and planet size work regarding pop ? Because it says in the manual that a farm can feed 5 million people, yet I have planets with 2 billions people on it and no problems O_o

ok, first of all its billions probably and not millions :)

If it said millions, it must have been either: You just started the colony and they haven't grown yet, you made tons of colony ships or troop transports ( 500millions pr core ship) or you just have been invaded and there has been casualties.

Initial colony is 5 billions, how many u want on a planet u decide by making farms, by making more farms and more peoples on ur planets makes it harder for enemies to take over a planet since u have more troops to defend them.

Also when u have more peoples on a planet and build economic buildings u get more income from that planet since more ppls pay taxes.

Basically u decide how many ppls u want on any planet, its totally up to you (5 billions pr farm)
after the few initial planets you want to make some specific planets that does something special depending on what you need, for example if u happen to need more money as you feel you dont have enough to finance your ship building u make planets with lots of farms and economic buildings. same with research and construction planets. (contruction planets should also have additional ppls on it if u plan to make alot of troop transport and colonyships)

If u get a planet with alot of ppls not happy about you, just pop up a entertainment building, or if they'r very angry and almost at riot before u notice it, just buy one.

I think one thing which might be confusing people about figuring out the relationship between farms and pop is that all buildings (including farms) upgrade as you research stuff. So farms eventually produce much more than they originally did by the end of the game.

Another confusing thing is that in Civ you get a number next to your city with the population in it representing number of tiles you can work. Finding you pop in GC2 takes a little searching and I never even think to look at it except by accident.

First grab every planet in sight, then one word: TRADE. Trade with your allies and don't ever attack them, make them your allies, and just TRADE. Trade makes money, money buys ships and buildings, ships make an empire. Simple.

Echoing Tboy - The minute you declare war you had better have cash stashed away. It's amazing how much money is lost by losing trade/tourism with just 1 civ!

About warfare,surgical strikes can save a lot of headaches.Meaning prepare the required number of fast transport and good number of attack ships. Though it can be expensive and take quite a while to build all those ships.The general idea is to strike your enemy down in 3-4 turns.

Once you have space superiority,position your attack transports around their planets.Invade most of their planets in the SAME turn.This is important,because it prevents them from surrendering lots of planet to another civ and making your life harder.Fast ships help a lot.

Don't let anyone (except yourself, of course) own an Influence mine. Seriously. Go to war as soon as possible and take it out. Really.

Woodelf, thats another point worth making. Build strong trade links with ALLIES, or at least people who won't attack you. Otherwise all those years of research and building are lost.

One of the first things I do is build new scout, colony, and constructor designs with as much engine power packed in as I can. The default designs are slow slow slow; a fast colony or contructor can make all the difference in grabbing that nice PQ 17 world or that military resource. Also, *do not* use auto explore. I've found the AI to be pretty dumb when it comes to exploring (very similar to Civ4 in that respect). Send those fast scouts to planet bearing suns, not auto-exploring some empty sector...

It's amazing how much faster your ships go with Impulse drives. Of course by the time I get them into my Colony Ships all of the habitable planets are gone! :eek: Once you get to a high enough diff the AI is a colonizing machine.....

Can anyone give a little help here please...?

I could understand that many factors might influence your choice in doing this, or not, but is it possible to have certain planets for certain tasks, rather than having a 'balanced' planet...?

For instance I colonise a size 10 planet and apart from an entertainment network I then decide to build a lot of basic labs and select the priority to be social until some are built and then flip the priority over to research. Would this give me an 'optimum' research type of planet...? I understand once the population gets to 5b then I would need a farm tile and maybe another entertainment network.

Would there be a flaw in developing planets with an emphasis on manufacturing, research etc etc etc.......?

Second point is if I build an influence starbase and it pushes my cultural borders to bring a neighbours planet within my influence enough for it to flip over to me, indicated by the skull above the planet, and I feel that the starbase is no longer in an optimum position have I got no choice in moving the starbase, is it 'fixed' in position...?

It's amazing how much faster your ships go with Impulse drives. Of course by the time I get them into my Colony Ships all of the habitable planets are gone! :eek: Once you get to a high enough diff the AI is a colonizing machine.....

I didn't realize this at first, but if you put additional engines - even low-powered ones - on a particular hull, you get increased speed. The tradeoff, of course, is that they use more hull space but that is not really a consideration when all you're carrying is a colony module. So I just pack the engines in until I'm out of available hull space.

I also like to send my scouts into "enemy" territory as soon as feasible. Grabbing a nice planet or two in their backyard is a heck of a lot more fun than having them to the same to you!

My initial few turns usually go something like this: build X factories on my homeworld. Rush buy the first, so that it can help build the next few. Build 2-3 fast scouts (depending on how the map works), buying each one. Send flagship to nearest star system toward an enemy border. Same with scouts. Send initial colony ship to nearest "safe" star system. By the time I get a look around, I'm on track to build fast colony ships and/or a constructor if a particularly nice resource shows up. Expand expand expand until I've gobbled up most decent worlds in my area. Always nice to have a crappy planet to trade away, though.

Start building constructors - I usually have at least one world dedicated to this purpose. Research my initial weapon system, then and only then go down to things like the universal translator (but I'm playing for a military victory, so YMMV). I like to have my economy, factory, and research to level 2 as early as possible.

Trade techs with the minor civs like there's no tomorrow! For some reason these little buggers are always way ahead of me and the other majors. I won't trade good stuff with the majors, but I'll give anything to the minors to gain techs. Also, sell techs for needed cash, especially if it's a tech that isn't military, to everyone. You can get enough for another colony ship or constructor easily. :)

So far, I've just played the campaign, but I'll try to steer clear of tips which are obviously specialised for the rather unique play-style necessary to deal with the Dread Lords.

1. Scouts? Stellar Cartography? Piffle. You can see where the suns are; send one colony ship to each sun which you think you can get in your rex phase, and colonize the planet you find there. No planet? Then try the next sun. More than one planet? Buy a starport immediately, and then buy a colony ship, and next turn you have that planet too. When hopping from planet to planet like this, design custom colony ships with just enough engine on each to reach the next planet in one turn.

2. Hammers go to waste if you aren't building a social project on a planet, so late in the game, when you don't have so much improvement to do (especially if you don't have the techs for building upgrades), it is probably worthwhile setting social spending to 0% and just using socail specialisation on planets that still have stuff to build.

3. Remember that you can demolish improvements and build new ones. This is useful if, for example, your planet ends up less happy than you planned for, and you need drop a lab or factory in favour of a morale building. Similarly, you used factories to build all those labs on your science planet, but as you run out of room, start switching those factories over to labs too. Maybe your specialist science/tax planets don't need starports either.

4. When your economic sliders are in a relatively stable state, you will find that your factory planets all tend to hit the same number of shields, so design your ships to meet some multiple of that shield cost, to make military spending more efficient. Well, actually it is a bit more complex, as the number of shields per planet is a factor of the number of factories you could fit on it. So you get several planets all doing 76, several doing 87, and several doing 98, or whatever. But the principle still holds.

5. Don't waste a fleet's hard points on sensors; just have a tiny-hulled escort that flies with each fleet (or armada of fleets) which is loaded with sensors and nothing else (apart from whatever engines and life support are necessary to keep up). You could also drop all the life support and just bring some constructors along for starbasing, although you risk your armada being stranded if the starbases fall. A military starbase is, in any case, a fairly efficient way of beefing up your fleets' firepower.

6. If you subscribe to the theory that the best defense is a good offense then you must be a Civ player. And you'll probably want to skimp on ships in permanent orbit around your planets. But maybe it is still worth leaving a naked tiny hull up there just so that no one can take your planets 'for free' with just a couple of fast troop ships. Or put your smallest weapon on that tiny hull, and you can kill any unescorted troop ships which do come snooping around.
But if you subscribe to the theory that the best defense is a good defense, then you will want to have some beefy ships in permanent orbit around your planets. Remember that these guys don't need engines, life support or sensors.

7. When you design your own ships, make them look really hard. It gives you the edge in combat. No really! ;)

2. Hammers go to waste if you aren't building a social project on a planet, so late in the game, when you don't have so much improvement to do (especially if you don't have the techs for building upgrades), it is probably worthwhile setting social spending to 0% and just using socail specialisation on planets that still have stuff to build.

This is helpful, thanks. I know I've been wasting hammers!

Fantastic tips PaperBeetle thanks! :goodjob: Tip 1 was particularly helpful, in my first game every planet I got to was already taken, only had about 4 planets and no more there to colonise :(

I appreciate the helpful posts so far, but I still have some questions I haven't seen answered specifically.

When starting a new game what is the best ratio of factories to labs on your home world and initial colonies?

Is it a good idea to make small low level worlds into research planet? Build one factory and 3-4 labs? Or is it better to have all of your worlds with a mix of factories/labs/trade?

I've played several games so far and ended up losing all of them eventually. During my most recent game I focused all my research strickly on non-military research. So basically anything to do with ships (with the exception of engines) or planetary defense was ignored. It was a small map, so all the races had 2-6 planets each. I had 4 planets. I loaded all of them up with labs. I figured since I wasn't fighting anyone and focusing on building up my planets and influence, I would end up with an extremely strong economy/tech tree and therefore be ranked pretty high against the other races. That didn't happen. I ended being ranked last. I know I didn't have the military to stack up against other races, but I should have been kicking their butts when it came to all other areas. Has anyone else experienced this?

I'm interested in hearing some of the different strategies people use to win.

I hate this unrealistic tweaking on beggining (expansion) in other to stay in game. Only Civ IV had it somewhat balanced: too many cities= you can't support them.

7. When you design your own ships, make them look really hard. It gives you the edge in combat. No really! ;)
My ships always look like toys. So, that's why I'm losing all the time. If I understand correctly, I don't have to fit more weapons on my ship, just make them look thougher. Thanks for the helpful tip :lol:

Seriously, your tips look really usefull. Will sure try them out

Right :thumbsup:, but also bear in mind that adding weapons does make ships look tougher! In fact, when you do add guns to your ship, remember to set the scale slider as high as it will go. Bigger guns definitely get better results than small ones.

Bigger guns definitely get better results than small ones.
The funny thing is, that would actually make some sense in real life, but not in the game :crazyeye:
Sometimes, when I don't find a proper place for it, I make the engines as small as possible, so you won't notice them in my ship design.

If anyone would talk about their thoughts on whether to specialize planets or balance them, that would be great. So far, I am experimenting, and it seems to me that you generally want to make at least some specialized planets to make use of the Capital structures.

One of the things I like a lot about Galactic Civilizations 4 is that planets can be individually quite strong, even in a Huge galaxy. It's not nearly as much like Master of Orion 2 or 3 where planets are individually fairly worthless if you play with just 'occasional' abundant planets; the result is that that research capital is of extreme strategic importance in GalCiv 4, while in other games (Moo series, Civ3, and even Civ4 to an extent) it would be a nuissance but not nearly as much of a hard blow.

I build 3-5 factories on every world I colonize, with my homeworld and PQ 12 and up getting 5. Less than PQ 12 get 3, unless they have a manufacturing bonus. My homeworld, and nearly every other planet, then gets a starport, an approval buliding, a farm, and a stock market.

I rarely ever colonize anything less than 10. The AI will grab them, and I can flip them later.

After those basics are out of the way, it's specialization time, with at least one world becoming a manufacturing giant, one getting as many research facilities as possible, as well as a Technological capital, and one getting as many approval buildings, farms, and stock markets as it will hold, along with an Economic capital and Political capital.

Manufacturing capital may be built on my homeworld, depending on whether I think it needs the boost, or on a border planet that I think may need to pump out ships.

Each of the heavy manufacturing worlds supply warships, all other planets build constructors, except the farm worlds, which will also supply troopships when needed.

I hate this unrealistic tweaking on beggining (expansion) in other to stay in game. Only Civ IV had it somewhat balanced: too many cities= you can't support them.
The same thing will happen in GalCiv if you expand too rapidly. Your economy can easily crash with all those planets sucking up social/military spending before they start showing a profit.

Best tips:

1. Don't play Human, or if you do tweak their starting techs so that you have Stellar Cartography. So many discount this tech or say "piffle" and blindly send their colony ships out on fools errands - personally I can't stand starting a game without it. It allows you to see planets on the mini-map, which tells you in advance what direction to send your colony ships. Why waste 10 turns only to arrive at a star and find 1, class zero planet? KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

2. Starbases starbases starbases.

3. The starting ships are the only "stock" ships you should ever have - everything else you should design yourself. You can already design a faster colony ship on turn 1 - do it.

4. Starbases starbases starbases.

5. Build queue on planets size 10 or better: Factory, Factory, Factory, Multimedia Center, Starport, Market, Market, Research, Research. Even if there are spare tiles after this I won't put anything else into the queue until these are all done. (This queue order presumes no tile bonuses to screw things up) Leave other tiles on the planet alone for now and when all this is built you can decide then what you need more of.

6. No farms on planets size 9 or smaller. No starport on them either if you can avoid it. 1 Factory, the rest Research - maybe a cultural center or two if I need the influence boost.

7. Starbases starbases starbases.

8. As soon as construction of a starport is finished, get something building there! A defensive unit, a constructor, freighter - anything. Even if it says its going to take 30+ turns because your planet focus is Social -get it building-. Never EVER have a starport building "nothing".

9. After you complete your first engine tech, design a Cargo hulled explorer. Don't bother with the stock "scout" ships, and certainly don't design or build a "small" or "tiny" scout ship of your own. Use a cargo hull and pile on the engines, sensors, and life support.

10. Starbases starbases starbases. When in doubt, build a starbase. When in doubt about what ship type to build at a starport, build a constructor - which will allow you to build or upgrade a starbase. Upgrade modules early, upgrade modules often.

Oh and by the way... anyone mention starbases yet? :crazyeye:

do economic starbases have to be on one of your own trade routes or any trade route?

and to work they need to have thier range of influence touching your planets for them to be useful?!

Two types of Starbases. Resource starbases (built on a resource glowy polygon thingie) and free-standing starbases.

Resource Starbases provide their bonus empire-wide... so an Economic Resource Starbase the moment you settle on it grants a 5% economic boost to all of your planets, everywhere in the galaxy.

Free-standing starbases you can build anywhere. They have an influence radius of 8 parsecs (so the entire area-of-effect is a 16 parsec diameter). Any of your trade routes or planets within the area-of-effect receives that starbase's bonuses. If you have Allies and the UP vote has held that Alliance starbases must also provide bonuses to Allies then your Allies starbases provide bonuses to you - and vice versa.

Positioning: Your constructor ship has a faint colored circle around it as you move it around. Zoom out a bit to see it all. This is telling you the area-of-effect of the starbase if you were to build it there. A much brighter and more obvious area-of-effect can be seen if you select an already built starbase. (Should see a very bright circle around the base - this is its area of effect. Remember that starbases built upon resources apply their effect empire-wide)

Remember to upgrade them like crazy any time you get a new Starbase module!

The part that still bugs me is that the AI doesn't seem to have the same problem overexpanding. The player can get 4, maybe 5 planets before getting crippled economically. The AI, however, even at low diff levels seems to have way more pop and planets.... :(

The part that still bugs me is that the AI doesn't seem to have the same problem overexpanding. The player can get 4, maybe 5 planets before getting crippled economically. The AI, however, even at low diff levels seems to have way more pop and planets.... :(
I can expand as fast as I can crank out colony ships (6 turns or less per ship - usually at 2 or 3 planets) without dipping into the red.

There are some key techs that you must research ASAP (some of these you may have at the start with some races)

Xeno Engineering (Social +10)
Xeno Economics (Economy +10) <-- Huge boost
Planetary Improvements (Social +10, Military +10, Research +10) <-- Another nice boost
Impulse Drive (Speed +10)
General Life Support (Range +20)
Sensors (Sensors +1)
Interstellar Republic (+25% Economy, +25% Industry, +25% Research)

Obviously you can't research these all right away, some have pre-requisites, others will be too time consuming to research immediately. Once any of these key techs falls into the 10 turns or less category to research I beeline it.

Impulse Drive, General Life Support, and Sensors you should bag just as fast as you possibly can because those three combined will do BIG things to your expansion efforts. Your ships all go (generally) 1ps per turn fasters, can all see 1 parsec farther, and have longer range - and these bonuses are applied immediately to all ships as soon as you research the tech, you don't even need to upgrade your existing ships to take advantage of those bonuses.

Interstellar Republic will take the longest to get to, but it's the one that once I get to where I can complete it in 15 turns or less I'll beeline it.

Republic literally flips your entire empire around from losing money to making money and once I have it I never again have any expansion or economic worries.

OH! Other tip: Be wise with your research. Know -when- to research something and when not to. Don't beeline to Invention Matrix if all your planets still have Manufacturing Centers on them, becase the higher tech buildings take far more production to make - and lower tech Factory buildings can't handle it. Research your production buildings first, get them built, THEN research a higher tech building type like markets and banks and research academies.

OH! Other tip: Be wise with your research. Know -when- to research something and when not to. Don't beeline to Invention Matrix if all your planets still have Manufacturing Centers on them, becase the higher tech buildings take far more production to make - and lower tech Factory buildings can't handle it. Research your production buildings first, get them built, THEN research a higher tech building type like markets and banks and research academies.

Good tip! Actually it's quite obvious but I tend to forget that when I'm making research choices. So I end up with planets that are upgrading buildings at the extremely fast rate of 1 every 50 weeks :crazyeye: :rolleyes:
Note to self: memorise this tip!

2. Hammers go to waste if you aren't building a social project on a planet, so late in the game, when you don't have so much improvement to do (especially if you don't have the techs for building upgrades), it is probably worthwhile setting social spending to 0% and just using socail specialisation on planets that still have stuff to build.
I don't think that is right. If you look at a planet that has nothing in the social catagory, but is building a starship, notice the arrows by the number of hammers. The mouse over says that the unused production is being applied to the starport. At least it did last night on my game (I'm using 1.1 Beta 4)

Follow-up to my "Starbases starbases starbases" mantra... recently completed a Huge map on Challenging. Had 80+ planets total, and had more than 60+ planets building Constructors almost non-stop.

Went back and reloaded a save and took some screenies to show why. One is a resource starbase the other is a military starbase showing the total +attack and +defense it was adding to ships within its influence.

Needless to say when the Torian's declared on my ally and sucked me into a war... it went badly for the Torian's :cool:

Build those starbases. Watch as enemy fleets crash against them like ships on rocks :lol: (Nevermind the massive boost the economy and resource bases give you!)

some of those tips could be helpful in the demo, even though the demo lasts about 2 or 3 years, which is still time to do plenty of stuff, although does trade work in the demo? because I've gotten the trade tech a couple times and managed to get something that I could possibly use on a trade route, I can't seem to make a trade route.

I've gotten the trade tech a couple times and managed to get something that I could possibly use on a trade route, I can't seem to make a trade route.You have to build a Freighter (a ship) and send it to a foreign planet.

Trade goods (if this is what you mean) can't be used on a trade route, they give you civ-wide bonuses and you can trade them in the diplo screen.

well by the time I get trade and the frieghters, its prob too late to get one established. I could try though.

well by the time I get trade and the frieghters, its prob too late to get one established. I could try though.
It's never too late to establish trade routes, although you do want to do it as early as possible. Usually as soon as I finish researching Trade I'll either buy or build a freighter immediately and send it off.

Initially they only bring in maybe 5 to 9bc per turn, but with additional Trade research and Starbase upgrades plus careful planning of your routes you can get that up to 50+bc per turn. (And with further Trade research you can have 15 or so trade routes)

The biggest bonus to trade is that it improves your relations with the AI you trade with (and since you can have so many routes you could set up at least one route with each AI) Both sides benefit from a trade route - you earn money and the AI earns money from every route - so the more routes you have with an AI the better they like you and the less likely they are to attack you.

Yes, if you check the details of their relation towards you, I think it's the Report page, you'll see that it gives you "++" even with only one route, so it improves your relations greatly.

1. Playing on tough in a huge galaxy with max AI opponents with the first 5.000 gold you cash-rush 3-4 colony ships and colonize asap. You put the military slab to zero for obvious reasons. You put the social production slab and research slabs at max possible with spending allocation at 100%. It is of paramount importance to focus on social production at first so as to build the planetary improvements asap. Playing with a custom civilization I choose it +30 social production and Industrialist political party (+20 social production). There is just no reason or need to cash rush a factory at firts because you'll be building social improvements at a crazy speed. Even in the "tough" diff level you'll outbuild improvements faster than any other AI civ.

2. It pays well researching all the diplomatic techs so as to get an edge on diplo tech trades (you'll get away with more money in every tech trade, be sure to build the Galactic bazar and research the governtment techs). Once you have the Diplomatic Translators commodity (which you don't trade, in fact any commodity or trade good you build don't trade it If it's not for another trade good so as to deny the AI the huge benefits they produce,think Aphrodisiacs for example...). Forget researching any military tech, concentrate on the diplo techs first, economy, industry,types of government techs and farming techs.

Once you have the diplo techs you put the research slab to zero and trade every couple of turns techs for money or for other inferior techs. Although you'll be losing money every turn (due to 100% spending allocation) you can make it up for it trading cash in exchange of your techs. You become a "galactic tech broker". Trading inferior techs for cash to fuel your deficit due to massive social spending on planetary improvements. As you'll be more skilled diplomatically than your AI oponents you can get away with more cash in each negotiation which helps to finance your cash deficit whilst you build up your planetary improvement infrastructure very quickly. You ought to be cranking out planetary improvements every 3-6 weeks.

3. You'll notice that after 2 years or so you'll be 20 techs ahead of everyone (you'll also be the most affluent). You stop trading techs in exchange of cash to finance your spending allocation deficit and concentrate in the Economy. You play around with slabs so as to level off your losses.

4. You can build 4 starbases in every parsec. So in the key galaxies where you have your manafucturing, technological, economical capitals you can build 4 economic starbases whose effects are cumulative it seems.

5. In the planet where you have your Economical capital don't build stock exchanges as much as farms (research the three farm techs). Remember: more population=more tax revenue, or so the IRS says. A healthy Economy is the backbone to Galactic Conquest.

4. You can build 4 starbases in every parsec.
Methinks you meant to type "sector", not parsec.

In the planet where you have your Economical capital don't build stock exchanges as much as farms (research the three farm techs). Remember: more population=more tax revenue, or so the IRS says.
I wouldn't go farms-only though because a) tax income is the root of the population - it's not proportional - so it's a case of diminishing returns and b) morale problems.

New tip (although me being a Starbase Freak this should come as no surprise)

During times of intergalactic peace, park a Constructor within one turn of every AI owned resource starbase.

Eventually an AI is going to go to war with another AI - when they do they make those resource bases a priority target, but neglect to bring a Constructor along with them before they attack. They're fast tho - someone is gonna have a constructor plopped onto that resource within two turns.

You being smarter than the AI planned ahead and parked a Constructor right next door. :p Watched the AI this morning stomp another AI's Military Resource, Influence Resource, and Economy Resource into space dust and I vulched all three right out from under both of them when they did. :D

Here's a very odd thing that I do when conquering the galaxy. At first, I problems remembering the location of all my planets. Somewhat hard to plan attacks when I didn't even know where my own troops are. So, I devised a system to help me.

I look at my homeworld as the center of America. From that point, I divide the map into 4 sections (North, South, East, and West). Then as I conquer them, I give them names of big cities. If that section is huge, I go to countries. For example, if I'm going East, you'll see Philly, Boston, and New York on my map. If it really extends, you'll start seeing England, France, etc. This way, I always know where every planet is without looking.

Odder still, if I snag a lower level planet (7 or below) for Research, I give them names of smaller towns. So for example, if I'm going North and I get a great planet and a smaller planet, the first is Chicago, and the second is Lansing (a small suburb where my parents live).

I find using this system has really helped me in coordinating attacks and in planning on what goes where and when. :)

New tip for post 1.1 and the changes to population growth play:

I used to buy a factory on my homeworld on turn one if I had a manufacturing tile bonus. I no longer do so. Doing so really tanks your economy because that high-production tile costs a buttload to operate each turn while your population is low due to colonization efforts and your approval is low which slows growth.

Now? Now on turn one I always buy an Entertainment Center - which immediately puts my approval at 100% (double population growth) Even better, an E-Center is cheaper to buy than a factory. Now your homeworld can sustain your colonization efforts a lot easier with that 100% approval.

Related note: Never ever build a factory on a Precursor Artifact (700% Mfg Bonus) on turn one. Just don't do it. Trust me on this one. ;)

Firstly:

Trade routes are an important part of the game. Even at the start of the game with no trade bonuses whatsoever you can rake in upwards of 100 bc per turn if you max out your basic trade routes. That's a whole 'nother planet's worth of taxation right there.

If you're Human and are Mercantile with advanced trade tech, you can rake in 2000 bc per turn in the mid-end game with trading. In many of the games I've played, my entire profit per turn was so dependent on trade that I fluctuated between deficit and bonus depending on where the ships were on that turn.

Secondly:

Economic management is everything. You can't just build Research planets all over the place, nor Manufacturing Planets. The moolah you'll spend on them has to be coming from somewhere, so you need population centers to tax for revenue. If you can't run your spending at 90-100% most of the time, then you're just wasting tiles - factories and Research facilities that could be running at 100% are running at 50% and you have nothing to show for it!

Better to halve the spending buildings and build morale and pop boosters in their place - you won't lose industrial steam, since you weren't using the capacity anyway. That's a basic thing that one has to realize about GalCiv2 - buildings are only capacities, not actual production. The actual production comes from bcs, which comes from taxes.


Relating the two points, trade routes can push your GalCiv into a more powerful Civ than you otherwise would be by adding revenue. Unlike in MOO or Civ where trade routes only impact revenue which could be spend on potential buildings and job shifts, money in GalCiv pours directly into production. The extra 50 bc you earn in trade can be used to directly fuel more infrastructure building on your worlds.

This means that early trade earnings are important because they accelerate your industry in all ways that are important. In addition, Economic Starbases you build in center sectors give your ships added range and enemy ship movement intelligence.


If you think you can get Trade fast, you can queue up a Colony or other expensive ship to prepare for it and crank out a Trade Ship as soon as Trade is researched. Make sure to get it the best engines you can buy. This, in turn, can help to dig you out of the potential economic headaches of expanding too rapidly.


IMO, the most important techs you can have right at the start are New Propulsion Techniques and Universal Translator. One provides you the drive to meet other races, the second gives you the means to trade techs. After Universal Translator, Ion to Impulse Drive are good investments because they speed up colonization, trade and exploration, and because you can trade them off for very handy gains.

After Impulse Drives, I generally go for weapons tech and diplomatic techs immediately. There's only so far trading techs will go and the AIs typically refuse to give you relevant weapons technology. Planetary Improvements you can buy, Planetary Invasion - not so much. Plus, weapons technology on a diplomatic advantage can be leveraged into an unbeatable technological edge.