Questions

What is your playing level?

I found the same thing on Normal/Medium level...
I spent the entire game running away from that space shark thingie!
Why is that...

I did notice though that it starts out fairly damaged implying that you have to kill it quick before it heals...

Space Monsters can be handled two ways...

First watch where the survey ship travels an do not let the survey ship explore Space monster Eggs.

Second once a monster is released it is slower but attracked to your survey ship. Let the space monster follow your survey ship to local alien race space.

Minor races should not be too hard to deal with. If they are close to you when they pop-up take them out right away if they are undefended.

If they have a strong defence trade with them you get better deals trading with minor and major races.

Minor Races Rock 'cause you can trade with them whilst you are at war with everyone else...

When your last enemy is fairly large and you are trading with him, I found it quite useful to have the minor races to move my trade to so that when I declared war with my major race enemy I didn't lose my trade

Are you considering all minors races, or only space monsters, pirates and prisonners?

BTW, what version are you playing?

The space monsters and pirates are supposed to be weak but the official government armies got creamed by them. Why is that? And the minor races appeared to be the strongest for almost everything except research in the game. All other major races are way weaker than them. Why is this? I'm playing on the easiest one.

The difficulty level is associated with major AIs, not minor ones, whose AI level don't change. So at the easiest level, minor AIs are the strongest.

That explains a lot!

I like the minors. But you can switch them off. There is an option in the expansion "Altarian Prophecy" (you should really get it, it's worht the money!). But you can use it in stand alone version as well. To do so, edit \Data\prefs.ini and change the value of

StartWithMinorRaces=1

to

StartWithMinorRaces=0

The minor races are quite useful. I use them for trade (especially after I decide to start killing off majors) and for getting some quick cash by selling them techs. Since you don't have to eliminate them to win the game I usually leave them alone most of the time.

I like the minor races so much, for both trade and selling technologies. They are so important in my strategy that I actually start protecting them when a major wants to wipe them out.

Yip,
Me too

so the minor races' ai is so advanced!? When I'm playing at the easiest level I'm just leading the major races AI by a bit and some more in tech. I'm about equal in military to other major civs. So how hard is intellegent? At this difficulty level the major races are a lot better than the minor ones right?
And I thought that minor races can't go into space and take over planets. And why are space monsters so strong? They are supposed to be like an elephant or giant squid today that can be killed off easily.

The minor races that are in the galaxy when you start will never attack you. Don't attack them, and you'll get along great. The space monsters are supposed to be strong.

~SDC~

I know the monsters are supposed to be strong but there is a limit...

about the fifth or sixth turn inot the game I encountered a space shark with an attack of 56 or something like that!

Thats a bit much at that stage of the game.

The space monsters start at 48 ATK, and advance from there every few turns to no known limit. Early on, you'll need a fleet to deal with them.

Pirates have a lower starting ATK, but otherwise are the same.

Just make a point to avoid them, and try not to get stuck with the Space Monster Zoo or Prison Complex until after you can deal with the possible concequinces.

~SDC~

why should they be strong? they are just animals that can be killed easily, not super beings. And the prison ships, a corvette is supposed to have killed it, like a cop recaptures an escaped prisoner today.

What is your version of Galciv?

1.2

They're strong because they're friggin' space monsters. If they weren't strong they would be boring. Ditto for the pirates. If a corvette could take them out there would be no point to them. Assume that police routinely re-capture criminals all over the galaxy, and you only get notified when prisoners manage to steal a ship that's worth having the emperor of the galaxy worry about it.

~SDC~

Where can get a ship that's better than all of the strongest government ship put together? who could they steal it from? nobody in the galaxy have that kind of ship. In the expansion, can you turn this stuff off? and space mosters, it should only be like a aggressive bear that attacks people and a cop just snipes it.

Yes thats true,
They should be strong and more than capeable of destroying my Survey ship, which is why I should then hurry my survey ship outa there and immediately dispatch two, maybe three warships to go after it...

not my entire fleet!

No. You can turn off the minors but not monsters.



Again, as has been said, why bother with them? Don't explore the monster eggs and you won't unleash them. If the AI does, just navigate past them. If they come toward you lure them away, they will follow your ship. I never mess with them. You do not have to kill them to win the game so the heck with 'em.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could tell your ship to auto survey, but not to explore eggs..

Anyway, I like Techs idea...

An explore options box for each survey ship would be what I want.

It would give the feeling that you gave the survey ship captains general orders of what to do and not do.

Also I would change the sector sweeps to designated paths sweeps by making a paint like program to outline a sweep path for that ship.

~SDC~