Newbie game Q's

from Stardock Forums
After my first few rounds of playing, I had a few questions on game mechanics:

1) Is there a way to set rally points for newly-created ships like the relocate feature in MOO2?

2) Can descriptions of improvements be found on the governor setup screen? Most times I need to go to a planet screen to read what the improvement is, then decide about its priority.

3) If the Military slider on the Military/Social/Research spending ratios screen is non-zero and I'm not building any ships, does this money actually get spent? Is it wasted?

4) On the Economy screen (with these sliders), there's a "total" amount spent on, say Military. Does this mean that I can have one planet build one thing very quickly or have several planets all build one thing simultaneously slowly? I.e. is the budget a single pool that is spread across all planets attempting to build ships?

5) What are typical populations for either colonizing or invading? (is there a good pop/troop ratio for invading?)

Thanks for any help!


979 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
#1 - No, you have to send them individually. A suggestion has been made to figure out a way to automate this.
#2 - Use this to help you decide. http://webpages.charter.net/trevorpowdrell/index.htm
#3 - The slider is for the galaxy spending rate. If you dont build anything for one planet, the resource will be distributed to the other planets that are building something.
#4- All buildings is at the same rate, unless you have build a social project that would increase the military production for a given planet. Let's say you have built Shipyard, you get a boost on the number of turns required to build a ship compared to a planet that would not have the Shipyard.
#5 - that is 2 questions. For colonizing, you have to be carefull because your future morale will depend on it. For example I colonize class 14 planets with 10-20 colonist.
For invading, usually the invader has an advantage, unless the race being invaded has research defenses. I usually try with a transport with 1000, to see what is the ratio, then I use the necessary number of combat transport.

Hope this helps. :)

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Can i design new ships in GalCiv like in Moo games ? And what the principle difference between Moo3 and Galactic Civilizations ?
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
There is no ship design in GalCiv, there is a BIG difference between GalCiv and Moo3, GalCiv is more of a Civilization type game, but in space.

/Andreas
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
So... all military units well be predefined, like in Civ: new technology -> new units, right ? And what was the reason to remove ship design from GalCiv ?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Followups to my questions:

3) If the Military slider is non-zero and *no* planets are building ships, what happens to the money? Is it moved to social/research items? There's nothing in the display that states this. (This is based on the assumption that Military funds are used only to build ships)

4) So what does the Military expense number represent? Certainly I understand that production can be enhanced on a planet-by-planet basis, but how exactly does military spending affect build times of ships?

5) I don't understand your unit measurements... for example, the first colony ship has 100 million colonists on it. Is this a wise number to use? More colonists? How about for invasions? I imagine that there's some troop-to-planet population ratio to use? (I've not invaded a planet yet; I'm assuming it's just colonist numbers like for colony ships)

Thanks!




~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Remove ship design? There has never been ship design in GalCiv, if you want to make new units you can do it by modding.

/Andreas
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Guys, while I appreciate the discussion about differences between MOO3 v. GalCiv and ship designs, I'm trying to ask specific questions concerning play experiences. Please start another thread.

Thanks!


~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
And big question, will GalCiv be a tactic/strategic military game with a lot of battles, ot it will something economic like Moo3 ? I'm Moo2 admirer, and i'm very dissapointed in Moo3, i hope GalCiv can replace it.. Will my hopes come true ?
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I belive so, the game will be as tactical/strategic as you want :)

Depends on have you play it ;)
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
From my observation,
The spending is distributed evenly.
There is NO way to direct money to a particular planet.
Every planet MUST build something or the production is lost. If you don't build anything it will not be redistributed and will not be returned, technically its wasted.
Both military and social building works like that.
Whether it is a bug or a "feature" is unknown, if it is the intended behaviour then this is simply the stupiest game design i have ever seen.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Follow-up

3) If the Military slider is non-zero and *no* planets are building ships, what happens to the money? Is it moved to social/research items? There's nothing in the display that states this. (This is based on the assumption that Military funds are used only to build ships)

You have to look at it as a bank account, if you dont spend for military, you have more for social, research or increase in your funds. Funds are not for a specific purpose. If no planets are building military project, you have more money to do other projects, and that is part of the game's challenge of how to optimize this spending to get the best results.


4) So what does the Military expense number represent? Certainly I understand that production can be enhanced on a planet-by-planet basis, but how exactly does military spending affect build times of ships?

I have not worked out the specific mechanics (formula) of this but look into the Economics about free production (or something along that line) http://www.galciv.com/encyclopedia.asp?action=showpage&page=http://www.galciv.com/docs/undocs.html


5) I don't understand your unit measurements... for example, the first colony ship has 100 million colonists on it. Is this a wise number to use? More colonists? How about for invasions? I imagine that there's some troop-to-planet population ratio to use? (I've not invaded a planet yet; I'm assuming it's just colonist numbers like for colony ships)

I just dropped the millions, too big a number for me LOL, For me the first colony ship has 100.
Here's how I start with a gigantic galaxie which is 24x24 sectors, at a speed of 2 (colony ship speed) it takes more than 100turns to cross the galaxie. the problem is you have to distribute your population as evenly across the galaxie to maximize your future production. So I send the 1st colony ship as far away as possible to a good star (>=20 class)to increase your range. the I construct a colony ship to hold 250 (25% of earth) to where I think there will be some good stars. This helps in distributing the population and reduces the potential morale problem on earth.

have fun....

~SDC~
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not sure if i'm following this well so I'll ask this. Say you are spending x amount on military. If you have 10 planets building warships is this x amount distributed equally among those planets? Likewise, if you only have 5 planets building warships and the money is distributed equally wouldn't you complete those warships twice as fast?

~SDC~
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
try the following experiment
when you start try allocation 100% to military and sol not building anything
the bank balance will only increase by what is shown as net, the amount spent on military is lost

next try colonizing another planet, have a look at how much you are spending under military and check out the planet screen, not distributed 100% evenly but it IS distributed to all planets and if your other planet is not building anything guess where the money goes
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
total is distributed to every planet
if not used on that planet it is wasted

more planet the slower you build your ships and the more dumb scout you need to add to your other planet so as to not waste the money

same goes for social buildings
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm fairly sure it's wasted, like Calvin suggests. I left all my sliders at the default 33%, didn't build any ships, and noticed that my research or social project build times didn't decrease until I literally moved the military spending ratio slider.

Annoying, but not a dealbreaker once you know about it.

Also, say for example you're spending 25 units on Miliary projects from the galaxy economy screen. I'm not yet sure what this means; if you increase or reduce this amount your military build times do change. It doesn't seem like each planet building a ship "shares" this as a pool; build times don't start going up after I kickoff other planets' military projects for example. How this is affected by a planet's production capacity I don't yet understand. I imagine each planet effectively gets the same amount of budget and that there's a cap for each planet after which excess budget is marginalized or wasted?

I hope some more answers are brought to light.


~SDC~
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Build time is not increased because money has already been allocated to that planet

Planets don't get the same amount of budget, it seems larger or more populated planets gets a larger share from the total. So everything will be distributed. Only when you don't build anything the money allocated will be wasted
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
btw it is extremely annoying
if this is not the intended behaviour i suggest a patch be released to correct this soon
the only way to play currently is to constantly build scout, i haven't tried yet but i think it is possible to trade the scout with other empire for other resources

distribute money only to planets that do build something please
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
You don't have to build scouts. In fact scouts are the last thing I would build. Build Constructors.

~SDC~
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd really like one of the devs to comment on this issue. Unspent military funds not being redistributed to the other queues really is a pain.

With this system, the sliders would have to be adjusted frequently for best result. Unless I am misunderstanding LOL