RBGC1 - Galactic Civilizations Succession Game

[Zed-F]

Hmm, not much left to do here.

January: I trade Cultural Maximization and Cultural Conquest to the Altarians for an influence SB to try to speed this up a tad. I also trade them to the Drengin for Cloaking and Advanced Battle Armour. Redirect a few constructors headed to military and economic SBs to influence SBs in anticipation of getting 4D phasing (Extraction Center Zeta).

February: We get the message that we have 90% culture acheived and need only wait 1 year. Ok, still proceed to build up culture anyway just for the heck of it.

March 2194-March 2195: Watch lots of planets flip to us. Build a bunch of improvements we don't really need. Build up our influence SBs even more. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Ultimately, we flip just about every Drengin world and are making inroads on the Altarian core systems before time runs out. I suppose I could have bought the remaining Altarian influence SB, but Icouldn't be bothered.

End game save...

Good game, folks! Overall score is 11K metaverse points. Probably won't do much for anyone's rating at this point.

 

[JaxomCA]

Congratulations to the team for an entertaining view into the Galciv world, kudos!

 

[Bam-Bam]

Great work, folks. I know that this game rocketed me up the difficulty chart. When we started, I had not yet beating Maso, and now I have 11 varied maso victories covering every map size, every party, and every victory condition (though I replayed the tech win to an alliance victory for more points ). Now I just have to pick up each habitability condition and star formation type with each map size Thanks for the great reporting, play and usual RB comraderie.

What's next? Shall we play the first RB Maso SG?

 

[Sirian]

Good job, team.

I suppose we could talk about the next game here in this thread. Anyone interested would surely have stayed tuned in through the entirety of the game. CariElf still has not indicated timing for the expansion and the 1.2 update to the base game. We could probably fit a whole game in there if we keep it moving along.

I'd say Maso if we're doing the same team. I'm open to lower difficulties to bring new people into the experience, though. And I am definitely looking forward to the expansion, when the saved games will be one file, not a zip-n-unzip process involving multiple folders and dozens of files.


- Sirian

 

[LKendter]

And I am definitely looking forward to the expansion,

Well the beta is out! Stardock let me download a beta version.
Haven't looked yet as to busy playing e-mail games of Axis and Allies.

 

[Physicist]

Great job, guys. Highly entertaining and informative reports (as usual ).

- Physicist

 

[uglyduck]

Thanks to the team - I learnt a lot from this game and the reporting was excellent!

Thank you all very much

 

[Zed-F]

My suggestion is that we bring it up on the main GalCiv board as well as here. That way we could get a number of SG teams going together from the same start. Some possibilities:

- each empire could submit players for their own team (or multiple teams) for an inter-empire competition
- in the interest of furthering inter-empire relations, we could randomly assign people from different empires into teams
- create teams for a variety of different win conditions (all would be enabled but each team would shoot for one in particular)

These could all be done with each team working from the same start, if desired. For teams starting with different starts, we could have SGs run at more than one difficulty level, for instance.

 

[chenglian]

Nice win!

Whatever's decided for the next succession game, I'm interested. I've played through some maso games, and although I haven't played any galciv games recently, I can pick up the techniques quickly. So, sign me up for some sort of game.

 

[Kabuki]

Well Done,

I'd be up for a game as well, at Maso I'm not sharp enough. But as long as I'm not no. 1-3 in the rotation everything else should be doable. I find my starts and early timing to be my biggest weakness.

If you guys run another with the same group I'll stick to reading them. I really enjoyed you write-ups.

PS. Forgot that I have a different nick on this board.

- WalkerintheMist

 

[Sirian]

I think Zed has a good idea. So I'm going to open a discussion thread over at Stardock.

- Sirian

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Very cool game- I just read through it recently, have now downloaded the demo of GC. I don't quite see how it's worth buying, though. The demo has a very strong feel of "colonize worlds, sit around building stuff", essentially Civ3 without the combat, and a rather SimCity-like experience. after the phase of "build colonies, build wonders, build constructors?"

Where's Stardock?

 

[Zed-F]

Check out www.galciv.com for their official website. There is also a RBGalCiv forum over at the RB site www.realmsbeyond.netfor more info.

I have not seen the demo but IIRC it restricts you to the easiest difficulties, while IMO the game is a cakewalk at anything less than the hardest difficulty, or maybe second-hardest if you get REALLY unlucky. It is quite possible to win with little to no military forces on the hardest difficulty, but only if you know what you are doing diplomatically and don't suffer bad luck on that front. Otherwise, you will have to know how to handle yourself in war.

 

[LKendter]

@Erik Mesoy

Wait to you get your first war and the AI slaughters you. It happened my first time when the game went long enough. I have gotten in enough fight to know war exists.

 

[Roach]

Thanks alot for the posting the game.

I have learnt a lot of management techniques (research especially) that I never considered before.

Blueroarch

 

[Zed-F]

SG link at galciv.com:

http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=127933

 

[uglyduck]

I assume, because of the ease of posting images etc, that the turns will be reported here on Civ Fanatics?

 

[Physicist]

uglyduck: Yes, I think so. Quoting Sirian from the first post of the "SG Q1..." thread over at GalCiv.com:

"Each team will have its own thread at CivFanatics [...]"

- Physicist

 

[uglyduck]

Originally posted by Physicist
uglyduck: Yes, I think so. Quoting Sirian from the first post of the "SG Q1..." thread over at GalCiv.com:

"Each team will have its own thread at CivFanatics [...]"

- Physicist

Thank you

I missed that bit somehow - was busy getting the wife out of the door and to work!

 

[Sirian]

The demo has a very strong feel of "colonize worlds, sit around building stuff"

Avoiding getting into wars is the surest way to win in GalCiv. That is because the game balance is tilted crushingly toward the attacker, therefore if you are playing high difficulty and get into an early war, you are quite probably toast.

Let me put that another way. Civ3's AI's are specifically coded to let weak players hang around, as if they are too unimportant to bother with. Once there is blood in the water, the chain reaction alliance may line up a pack of civs against one weak target and ensure their doom, but as long as you don't botch the diplomacy and become that target, you're fine.

In GalCiv when they come demanding tribute, they demand a lot. Like, several techs and all your cash, and if you aren't rich enough to pay that, they'll demand your best star system (which may be the same as demanding TWO OR THREE cities in Civ3). And you can't always buy them off. If you are too weak, they're coming for you anyway. Because GalCiv is just the opposite of Civ3. The AI's specifically target the weak to elinimate them as quickly as possible. If you play a variety of situations, you are bound to end up in some where a "runaway AI" outgrows you (and all the other AI's) in the early game by a wide margin, and attacks as soon as their science advance gets them up to the next generation of ships beyond what anybody else has. AS SOON AS THEY HAVE AN ADVANTAGE, they're gunning for somebody. As LK said, if you become the target, you may be doomed.

If you can manage the diplomacy and trade artfully, you may be able to avoid this problem in many games, and win without war, but it depends on the map and your ability.

Invaders in the early game may have as much as a thirty to one advantage, and usually about eight to one. This means a single small transport that gets through to land on your planet may take over the entire planet. And there is no defensive advantage. Quite the opposite, there is an offensive advantage, but you'll have a hard time capitalizing on it if your space navy is a fifth the size of your enemy's force.

GalCiv's aggressiveness blows Civ3's out of the water. Oh, and you can't buy allies on the cheap. If you want to buy an ally, be prepared to give up an arm and a leg. VERY pricey.

There's more, but if you aren't sold by now, then you should stick to Civ3.


- Sirian