Newbie nonplussed
from 
Stardock Forums
Stardock Forums
Hi All,
I bought GalCiv the other day after reading very good things about it. I'm having some trouble getting into it, however, for the following reasons:
1. Using the interface
It just seems to me that some things do not work properly -- or at least not as expected. For example, I have several ships in play. Rather than hunting around for them, I want to use the fleets diplay to jump to them quickly. So I select a particular ship there and its stats appear on the little display at the bottom of the screen. I assume this means that the ship is selected, so I press the C key, since -- according to the manual -- this will "center on the currently selected ship." But it doesn't. Nothing happens. It only seems to work if I actually left click on the ship, which means I must hunt around for it before using the C key, which of course defeats the whole purpose. Oddly enough, sometimes when I double-click on the little Terran shield next to the ship's stat display, the screen WILL center on it -- but not always. Am I missing something? (By the way, I am aware that double-clicking on the ship in the fleet display will jump to it and cause it to execute any automatic movement. But sometimes I want to review a ship's position BEFORE it executes its automatic movement.)
2. Understanding Game Feedback
I often have a hard time reconciling what the various graphs and reports in the game are telling me with what I know to be true. For example, in a recent game, I wanted to review the level in my treasury over the course of the game. So I go to the Domestic Policy screen and click on the Graphs tab. The graph is clear, so I click on the treasury button to display treasury information exclusively. Now the scale on the Y axis switches to a range from between 0 and 25,000+ (i.e., twenty-five thousand and something --I don't remember the exact number). The line is mostly flat along the bottom of the graph, except for a large irregular hump in the middle where it actually goes up to the 25,000+ mark, then gradually back down a bit, then sharply back to the bottom. This makes no sense to me. In the first place, after all, I know for a fact that my treasury has never been anywhere near 25,000 bc's. And in the second place, even the basic shape of the line corresponds in no apparent way to the actual trends of my treasury as I know them to have been. I thought perhaps my game had been corrupted somehow, so I started another, but with similar unpredictable results.
Another example. I load a saved game, and that friendly robot gives me a summary of where things stand. I am playing a technologically oriented civilization and am pretty confident that I have got a pretty good tech lead going. But the robot reports that I have "fallen behind" technologically. I panic, thinking I've grossly misjudged my situation. But when I go to the Stats tab of the Domestic Policy screen, I am indeed ranked 1st in technology. So what's with my pessimistic robot?
3. Understanding Game Mechanics
My biggest problem here, I think, is simply getting a conceptual handle on the purpose of that "Spend Rate" slider. It would perhaps make sense if each planet had its own, but as it is they are all tied together. So if you want to make the most of your highly developed, highly populated planets by setting a high spend rate, you simultaneously raise the expenses of your undeveloped, low-income planets, often to the point that their expenses outstrip their incomes, thus offsetting the revenue generated by the wealthy planets. And to make matters worse, planetary expenses are incurred regardless of whether or not it is actually building anything. I can only assume that I have not understood something here. Unfortunately, the various explanations I've read only confuse me more. Could somebody please take a poor non-numbers guy by the hand here?
Any help would be appreciated.
By the way, in case it matters, I am playing version 1.21.
Thanks.
I bought GalCiv the other day after reading very good things about it. I'm having some trouble getting into it, however, for the following reasons:
1. Using the interface
It just seems to me that some things do not work properly -- or at least not as expected. For example, I have several ships in play. Rather than hunting around for them, I want to use the fleets diplay to jump to them quickly. So I select a particular ship there and its stats appear on the little display at the bottom of the screen. I assume this means that the ship is selected, so I press the C key, since -- according to the manual -- this will "center on the currently selected ship." But it doesn't. Nothing happens. It only seems to work if I actually left click on the ship, which means I must hunt around for it before using the C key, which of course defeats the whole purpose. Oddly enough, sometimes when I double-click on the little Terran shield next to the ship's stat display, the screen WILL center on it -- but not always. Am I missing something? (By the way, I am aware that double-clicking on the ship in the fleet display will jump to it and cause it to execute any automatic movement. But sometimes I want to review a ship's position BEFORE it executes its automatic movement.)
2. Understanding Game Feedback
I often have a hard time reconciling what the various graphs and reports in the game are telling me with what I know to be true. For example, in a recent game, I wanted to review the level in my treasury over the course of the game. So I go to the Domestic Policy screen and click on the Graphs tab. The graph is clear, so I click on the treasury button to display treasury information exclusively. Now the scale on the Y axis switches to a range from between 0 and 25,000+ (i.e., twenty-five thousand and something --I don't remember the exact number). The line is mostly flat along the bottom of the graph, except for a large irregular hump in the middle where it actually goes up to the 25,000+ mark, then gradually back down a bit, then sharply back to the bottom. This makes no sense to me. In the first place, after all, I know for a fact that my treasury has never been anywhere near 25,000 bc's. And in the second place, even the basic shape of the line corresponds in no apparent way to the actual trends of my treasury as I know them to have been. I thought perhaps my game had been corrupted somehow, so I started another, but with similar unpredictable results.
Another example. I load a saved game, and that friendly robot gives me a summary of where things stand. I am playing a technologically oriented civilization and am pretty confident that I have got a pretty good tech lead going. But the robot reports that I have "fallen behind" technologically. I panic, thinking I've grossly misjudged my situation. But when I go to the Stats tab of the Domestic Policy screen, I am indeed ranked 1st in technology. So what's with my pessimistic robot?
3. Understanding Game Mechanics
My biggest problem here, I think, is simply getting a conceptual handle on the purpose of that "Spend Rate" slider. It would perhaps make sense if each planet had its own, but as it is they are all tied together. So if you want to make the most of your highly developed, highly populated planets by setting a high spend rate, you simultaneously raise the expenses of your undeveloped, low-income planets, often to the point that their expenses outstrip their incomes, thus offsetting the revenue generated by the wealthy planets. And to make matters worse, planetary expenses are incurred regardless of whether or not it is actually building anything. I can only assume that I have not understood something here. Unfortunately, the various explanations I've read only confuse me more. Could somebody please take a poor non-numbers guy by the hand here?
Any help would be appreciated.
By the way, in case it matters, I am playing version 1.21.
Thanks.
