Iconians

Iconians

from GalCiv2 Forums
i started a game on tough and after playing an hour or so i find myself in the position that the Iconians are completely dominating the game in all catagories, normally this would just mean i would go for tech or alliance victory...but i turned those off to increase difficulty. I NEED to win by conquest but none of the other races are even willing to fight the iconians. And from previous games in know that the iconians somehow always manage to beat me in a 1on1 war (maybe something to do with my race settings) and now they got a BIG advantage. So if any of you have some sort of strategy i can beat them with i'd really appreciate it. P.S. I also turned off influence vic
5,973 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you're playing beta 4a, then soon the remaining races will realise the danger in the iconians and gang up on them (hopefully). If not, just buy everyone's ships, and try and wait the iconians attack someone, join in to weaken them, and see if anyone else is willing to help.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Races can't be bribed to attack others whose military is too much stronger than theirs.

The solution? Bribe the Iconians to attack everyone else. The effect is the same as all the other races ganging up on them.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Races can't be bribed to attack others whose military is too much stronger than theirs.

The solution? Bribe the Iconians to attack everyone else. The effect is the same as all the other races ganging up on them.


nice one, haven't thought of that, i'll give it a try
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Post-sniped by justkevin...


I'm playing a non-1.1 game, gigantic galaxy, few stars, tight clusters, tough difficulty, as the Arceans.

I paid the dominators (who i was at war with at the time) to attack the weak, forcing them to join the war on my side. (Find the civ with the most allies that they'll attack.)
Also, wiping out any of their undefended mining or other stations with a fast cheap ship was helpful.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In theori the solution sounds simple, I havent had much luck buying other civs ships without tremendeus overpay.
I am playing a similar game in masochistic huge common stars abundant planets and abundant habituable, where I am Neutral. I could maintain peace until the AI started to research influence too. After that the Torians have taken the lead and are controlling half the galaxy. At this point they are hostile and wont make any deals and the other will not sell any ships except for 10 times the value. My only hope is that i will have a modern fleet ready, when they attack, because my best planets are in the frontline.
I should have buildt troopers so i could have participated in the war and occypied the best planets.
Now my only hope is conquest until they realize they are mistaken. Their fleets are a totally mix, and most are slow moving. they only have 2 allmost modern fleets
It is fun to see how a game can change in a few turns and become more than challenging - speed rules!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have an idea, for what it's worth: if you turn off all victory options but conquest....it might be a fairly good idea to build some warships, since you have no other hope of victory from turn 1 on. Since you've left yourself no alternative but to fight, if you're not ready to fight when war comes...you should take a well-earned loss and learn from it.

If the Iconians are the most powerful group, it probably means you've given them too much time to get developed because they often go several years before even starting to ramp up their military...and they spend those years expanding massively, with huge fleets of transports--many of them headed into your space, to snatch lower-quality planets that you've "left for later"--which they then try to use for an influence advantage (if you leave that option on).

If there is no option but fighting, concentrate on building & upgrading research labs and military tech early--including the expensive Planetary Invasion tech--and try to take out your main opponents while they are still small and weak.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here are the Iconian starting techs:
[Tech]HyperDrive[/Tech]
[Tech]Xeno Engineering[/Tech]
[Tech]StarshipDefenses[/Tech]
[Tech]XenoIndustrialTheory[/Tech]
[Tech]XenoEconomics[/Tech]
[Tech]Armor Theory[/Tech]
[Tech]StellarCartography[/Tech]

And they get a 10 Economic bonus and 20 in Research.

They will do good at research and economics and they have a jump in Xeno (which is key to building ships fast), which means they will research techs faster and have more income. A higher income means you can increase production and research and still maintain a profit. Research takes the most $$$.

You said you went with Neutral, which is smart. You will need quite a few Neutrality Learning Centers to keep up with them in research.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
hire the minor races XD

i believe the main people will still go after the minor ones, thus leaving you with less to fight against.
every bit helps
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I used to put a lot of racial ability points into Research, but I didn't think it was working very well - then I did some reading and realized that the Research bonuses from racial abilities and political parties only yield half of the stated value. I quickly gave up on that and put those points into Diplomacy, instead. By itself, high Diplomacy will improve other race's relationships with you. It also lets you buy or trade for their techs more cheaply, and it's easier to convince them to do things like attack each other.

Soulcatcher, are you a fan of the Black Company books? Or did you get the handle elsewhere? I once had a custom race leader named Croaker - unfortunately, that's what I did in that game...
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Soulcatcher, are you a fan of the Black Company books? Or did you get the handle elsewhere?


I've been using it as a handle for so long that I guess I just kind of eventually made it my own. But it was also the title of a book by Frank Herbert, which is where I got it.

Why do they only yield half the value? I didn't know that.

I bet you can win a conquest-only game with influence too, by absorbing everyone then attacking the final planet for the win. But you'd have to time it juuuuust right, lol.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try creating an all out galactic war. If any of the other major civs are allies, get the Iconians to attack one of them bringing the whole alliance against them. I did this to bring down the Arceans who were by far the strongest military and were pretty much top in everything else. So they had a sizeable empire, when i set the Torian-Drath-Altarian alliane against them to keep them busy, i launched surgical strikes to open them up. If your Iconian rival is pretty much top at everything its likely they will be a sizeable empire, get the other major civs to be cannon fodder while you rip them to shreads.