Beginner's Strategy Question: Fundamentalists rule the universe?

from Stardock Forums
Hi erverybody. I played GC now for a couple of days and I have come into a difficult situation. I don't now if there's any point in playing the game any further if I could still win it. Also, I don't know how I could have avoided this situation to start with. Maybe you can help me? Here's the situation.

I started with the settings large and common. I left the morale setting of the major races as they were but I set their intelligence to somewhat stupid. My plan was to play a *good* game, and win simply by being more civilized, have more money and make more trade. I spent little on military but most on colonizing planets, building and upgrading starbases, researching diplomay and trade etc. For about 8 years or so it went well, I was by far the most advanced civilization, all planets on 60% morale (at least), I controlled 50% of all known resouces, I was on 1st place on all statistics, I gave presents to the other races, traded with them, had war with none of them. I had friendly, warm or close relations with *everybody*. We had an economic high, production soared, we all made money, everything was fine, I built Cultural Exchange Centers, one minor race even joined my imperium.

Then, suddenly, there was this event (? I think): a minor race called the Fundamentalists appeared. Allegedly because the morale was too bad - but my planets had a morale rating over 60% - some even at 80%, how is that too bad?!?.
Anyway from one month to another they suddenly owned about 8 or 10 Planets, because they overtook them from the other races. I lost 4 or 5 planets myself. No-one had military means to oppose them at this point and I couldn't trade any military stuff in from any other major races, because I was already leading. For no reason the Fundamentalist kept attacking me with shitloads of ships. They went to war with *all* other races, major and minor. The other major races kept asking me for help so I gave all my military knowledge and lots of ships to the other races, so we could all fight back but it did not change anything. The Fundamentalists distroyed all my starbases and all my ships in orbit. I changed production and research to military, but by the time I was able to build Battleaxes, the fundamentalists already attacked me with a seeming neverending supply of Battleships. The built all Galactic Wonders. They offered me peace a couple of times (as if *I* had ever attacked them!), I always accepted, but in the next month they would simply attack me again. I kept building Battleaxes to defend my planets, but all my planets were constantly attacked by their Battleships which destroyed every of my ships as soon as they were built.

The Fundamentalists being a minor race I cannot even destabalize them or spend money on espionage. I have no knowledge of their wealth, their military, nothing. Apparently they are superior in diplomacy so I can't deal with them, I have nothing to trade for them - apart from the fact that they can't be trusted since they broke their own peace treaty three times! - I also can't get the other major races to fight them.

So have the feeling that the game is utterly out of balance. I have no idea what I should have done to prevent this fromhappening or if there is any point in playing on any further.

Based on the sheer amount and neverending supply of Battleships which the Fundamentalists are using, my impression is that there is some glitch in the program that tipped the logic. They are not trading with anyone and they did not build any starbases on the ressouces which are now free (since they destroyed all other starbases). Were do they get the money from?
At one point - as an event - on one of my planets ancient spaceships were found. Ranger class or Frigate or something. Strangely: they found 100(!). This can only be a bug, can it not? Anyway, I thought I could oppose the Fundamentalists now, and sent 20 to each of my planets to stay there in orbit and to defend the planets. Well, only one turn later *all* these ships were simply blasted out of the sky by a handful of Fundamentalist's Battleships. How can this be?

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

Quite frustrated, Andreas

[Message Edited]
1,011 views 35 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi Andreas,

The Fundamentalist event are as far as i recall based upon morality (good - evil) not morale. You can see your own morale on the Domestic policy screen (stats tab) and the AI's on the diplomacy screen (stats tab).

The Fundies allways turn against anyone who is evil. Your morality is controlled by your choices on the different events (mostly the colonization events)

Since i allmost always play goodie-goodie then i can't really help you on how to deal with the Fundies.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmm. Sounds more like you found corvettes. No chance against battleships. Fundies are an interesting event. They can own a game, as you have obviously found out. The most likely planets to flip are ones from evil empires, but neutrals and lower morale planets will also follow. The trick with dealing with a hostile Fundie is a strong offense. Get some frigates or battleships and make sure you are always on the attack. Offensive warships of similar caliber die when caught on the defensive. Guerilla warfare is required against an overwhelming enemy. Strike first and strike hard, but remember that the only ship that cannot ever get through your lines is a transport fleet. Pull back from planets and seek to keep the transports away until you can field an offensive fleet with some transports to take out a Fundie planet or two. Get a star system advantage (in numbers of systems owned) and a military advantage and you can keep them at bay. They keep attacking because they think they have a large military advantage! Equalize that, and you gain some respect. (Though it may be hopeless, get Grav Accels and Eyes of the Universe to ensure speed and intelligence advantage, then pick them off when you can.) There is Gerakken's disjointed advice this night. :)
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, I always selected "let my people live how they wish" or "Let's evacuate them", etc, always at the cost of losing money, never people's morale or even lives. I never had war with anyone, I was warm and friendly with all races, made presents, I have no idea how I could have been seen as evil!
Also, that would mean, ALL other races are evil too, since the Fundamentalists are at war with ALL of them.

So this can only be a mistake, a bug.
Just like finding 100(!) spaceships. My goodness!

Are there known glitches an bugs like this in the game?

And even if I had been evil: what on earth could I have done to oppose them? Abondon the game, start a new one?
If this was the case then the event is one simple gamekiller.
Sorry, but this utterly destructive randomness is really not the kind of fun that I was looking for.
Especially for a fist-timer like me. I had all AI settings (for the major races) on stupid (or likewise) to make it a simple game.

As to your suggestion, Gerakken, thanks, but the Fundamentalists are so incredibly advanced that I can't build any spacehips withouth them being destroyed in the next round by Battleships that surround my planets. I only got Battleship technology a couple of turns ago and I would take me years to build them. But if I don't use this time to build smaller ships like Battleaxes to defend my orbits, I am going to loose my planets.
At the end of the day I am completely stalled with constantly building up cannon fodder for their constant attacks.

:(
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Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
If you click on the Domestic Policy Screen and choose Stats. In the upper corner to the left, should be some stats - if click on society you will be able to see your morality (basics is that a number less than 50 is evil/chaotic evil and larger than 50 good/chaotic good).

If you arent Evil and some of your planets turned to the Fundies it sounds like a bug (unless of course they culture flipped).
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Andi the situation changes from game to game, in the beginning I also got wooped by the Fundamentalist, until I realized that my alignment of evil was the cause of the Fundamentalist hating me, so change your alignment and they should not bother you, also as soon as they show in your map, open bussiness relations with them, trade exchange techs or sell techs and they will not bother you too much, also if you can build starbases around your planets and close to their planets to lower their cultural influence and increase yours, that also helps. You could research the tech tree and develop battleship tech right away and use the most powerful ships such as combat transport and Dark Knight to spank them really hard. Read my post about the fundamentalist my friends, if at the beginning of the game you set some of the AI races as evil the fundamentalist will go after them first before bothering you.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
And by the way if you are looking to join an empire, the Jedi Republic is accepting applications for new Jedi's who desire to walk the path of The Force. So come and join us and learn how to use the light saber ;)
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
See if you can get any bribe any of the other races into attacking the Fundamentalists, it might take some of the heat off you long enough to build up a military presence.

...and a shameless plug - feel free to join the Republic of Aldar.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Alignment... darn: I WAS NOT EVIL!
I was absolutely good, pacifistic, high on morale, everything, yet they distroyed everything I owned, all Starbases, all Starships, stole half of my planets, offered peace a couple of times and broke their own treaties afterwards...

No way I could beat them military: they are overwhealming and stall me. No-one else wants to attack them either.
They are higher in diplomacy, at 100% morale, built all Galactic Wonders...

I tried bribing as suggested, of course: No use. All other races have less military than I have (although I gave everything away for free to them so they can fight their own wars).
On a scale of 1 to 10, I am at 4, everyone else is at 1 or 2 and the Fundamentalists are at 10.
No, nobody cares to attack them, although everyone *IS* under attack by them.

From what I read so far the message is:

Got the Fundamentalists? Sorry pal, bad luck for you, anti-jackpot, you pulled the Arschkarte as we say in Germany, fun is over, so is the game.
Start a new one.

Too bad GC (or at least this event) is out of balance in such a manner >:(

PS: If there is a way to exchange save-games I'll glady supply you with an early save-game of this desasterous game. Maybe anyone finds a way out?
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Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Were you good? Because if you were Neutral you will get slam too by the Fundamentalist. Try to start another game and see what happens, or hit CTRL-N and you will get a new map and start all over from zero. ;)
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I might have been neutral, although I *felt* good... well I guess you could also be a really bad guy and feel good too LOL

Nevertheless, I feel that the Fundamentalists event is a real spoiler. Especially for an inexperienced player. :notsure:

I already decided to abandon my first pittyful performance...

CTRL-N ? A new game with the same inital settings or even with the same map but different starting location?
Got to try it...
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
If you visit the section for screen shots you will see some of the pictures of the good ones, there are 3 robots one for good, it is almost white looking, one for the neutral, kind of greenish and one for the Evil all red. So that way you can know your alignment.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Andi, although I have not experience what you did with the Fundies, with the latest version (1.11) the "minor" AIs have been programmed to "expand" some. We have not received information of what this means, BUT, I have had problems with the Independent League when they show up. The bottom line, is that they feel so strong compared to you that there is absolutely nothing you can give them to declare peace!!

I offered all of my planets to them and they still wanted to continue war - very frustrating. The difference for me was I got dragged into a war because of an alliance rather than them outright declaring war. :-/

This was all at Painful difficulty - and it was.

~SDC~
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Andi5000,

Sorry about the bad luck... this game can occassionally beat you (I can still lose after 5 months of playing and that's one of the reasons I still enjoy playing it so much...)

If it makes you feel any better, the bad luck tends to be balanced by good luck. It seems like events like the I-League happen more when you've good a lead. Other times, the Fundies wiped out the Drendin and Yor right before they can wipe me out -- and I've been bailed out a lucky Tech Swap UP vote on more than one occassion.

Best of luck with future games -- remember, the people on the forums are always happy to give you advice just as the game is starting to get out of hand.

Happy Raiding,
Cypher
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Andi5000,

just to answer one of your other questions, getting 100 Corvettes is not a bug. It's a lucky event. Getting 100 Rangers would be a bug, because Rangers are high-end ships that can beat almost anything else. Corvettes are good cannon fodder and military rating boosters, but they don't actually do much in the later game.

Also, as long as there are no transports coming in toward your undefended worlds, you can go ahead and take the time to build tougher ships like the battleship. Without transports, your actual planets are in no danger.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
I usually build a 'paper tiger' fleet of Corvettes right off the bat to keep your military rating up. The ships usually never get used, but the appearance of a strong military usually keeps them off your back. They make excellent gifts towards the end of the game.

I would be interested in having a try at your saved game, send it to [email protected]
[Message Edited]
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Andi5000

Some of those random events are really difficult. The fundamentalists can be unstoppable if your morality alignment is not good.

You can try the usual things to butter them up like a peace treaty, trade, tech swapping, gifts, and so forth but it may not always work. If those don't work and military is a must, you might try to capture some military starbases, get dreadnought tech, and build lots on anti-matter missles at your planets. This will boost your military rating and may make the fundies more willing to negotiate. You really need your ranking higher than their ranking for this to work.

Finally, don't feel bad about losing a game. All of us have been severely whipped, especially in the beginning. You can always write one off, learn from it, and start again. If the fundies are too spooky, you may have to play good morality and keep morale closer to 100% but there are still random events that can turn a game upside down. The game wouldn't be too fun if it was too easy but you will get much better.

In shameless recruiting style, you are also welcome in the Lord of the Rings empire too. http://www.galciv.com/metaverse/empires.asp?id=329 :D

Good luck and hang in there. :)
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
It can be surprisingly difficult to be considered truly good, especially if you mix "good" and "neutral" choices on the events that occur. If the interface hasn't changed since the beginning of the game, you're basically neutral. If suddenly the main screen is mostly white and silver, congratulations, you're good! (Though you can be close to that and still get a listing of "chaotice good" when you submit a game). If everything goes red, then you must be evil today.

If you want to know exactly how good/evil you are, click on the "Domestic Policy" icon, then on "Stats" and "Society". It will show your morality, and where on a zero (concentrated evil) to 100 (Mother Theresa) you fall.

If you can, capture a couple of key planets, hitting them with every strong ship you have, then offer peace--at a price, using your huge fleet of corvettes to give the illusion that you have a truly strong military. Get some serious cash, and a planet or two if you can. Then they will find it quite difficult to support that huge military, and suddenly won't have cash for anything else. LOL
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry if someone already mentioned this but I read that ships in orbit give a higher military rating than ships not in orbit. And, the military rating is more effected by attack factor than defense factor. That is why corvettes in early sub-maso games can really ramp up the military rating. By mid-game and in maso it is better to go for the anti-matter missiles in orbit to ramp up the military rating because they have such a high attack factor.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, ships in orbit have a higher attack value, so orbiting a bunch of corvettes is a great way to build a cheap paper tiger (cheap support). Another thing you might try (I, luckElee, have not seen the Fundies yet) but when they appear, build a combat transport at each planet, launch it fully loaded, and if the planet flips, recapture it.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Fundamentalists event is a real spoiler
End of quote


Wait till you meet the Draginol then.....

Alex


~SDC~
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
If you lopk at the diplomatic screen on the minors tab find the one for the fundies.This will give you a rating for their military but not on the graph like the majors.Also instead of getting the majors to fight them then try to buy their starbases that affect either military or influence.Also try buying/trading for ships from the majors.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Also instead of getting the majors to fight them then try to buy their starbases that affect either military or influence.
End of quote


You can't buy ships from minor races.

~SDC~
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Andi5000, you can know your alignment by looking at your stats (one of the thumbnails in the econ window).

When I get the fundies event, I usually rush them: Immediately stop everything you do, build ships and transports and take one of their systems. Do this before they build (many) ships. They start with 0 ship, so that is the time to strike.
To me it doesn't look like they were overpowered, but that you didn't react fast enough. Of course, their taking twice as many planets as anyone had made them very powerful. But I once saw them take half the galaxy and recovered, despite a bug which gave them a HUGE population on some planets. You could check if they have a planet with a population over wnything vaguely reasonable. This would be a bug. Otherwise, they are just an aggressive bunch.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
The reason the Fundies turned on you despite your neutral alignment is probably because their military rating is so much higher.
Other AI's do that as well - they will turn on weaker civs like a shark smelling blood. Both on you and on other AIs.

I don't know why the fundies had so much of a military lead compared to all the other tho. Did they take over the major planets of other civs?

It *could* be that they (being a minor) are set to a fixed (avarage?) intelligence level, as opposed to the Majors which you set to a lower setting.
In which case the Fundies simply outplayed/outproduced you...

Probably superfluous, but when you are in a major war you might want to set social and research spending to zero (this putting mil on 100%). And increase you overall spending as high as you can.
Even if that means running a deficit.

Let us know if you can upload the save-file somewhere; I'm interested!

von Schmidt
Reply #25 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks for all the good advice everybody - you are probably right, I just did not imagine that some - especially *minor* race - could actually be a threat. I envisioned a peaceful galaxy, I just couldn't imagine that they would attack me although I was friendly to everyone. At the most, I thought, they would stop attacking at some point. Or at least after they offered peace. But neither was the case. Until I realized that they would *actually, really, really* destroy me and everyone else no matter what it was far too late to keep up with their speed and military...
In case someone is interested in the save game I'll upload it somewhere and post the link here.

Thanks again for everyone!