"Cheating A.I." and how to "cheat" (mostly for newer players)

from Stardock Forums
Okay...

Just need to say that I'm growing somewhat tired of hearing folks whine about how the "a.i. is cheating" just because they are repeatedly getting smoked in their games.

Chances are, you're either not effectively managing your economy or you're not using diplomacy to your advantage. I'm not expert, and I'm having some trouble with the darned metaverse, but here's what I've learned and read in other posts about helpful strategies any level up to intelligent (have yet to win on intelligent level, current game looks favorable).

-EXPLORE/EXPAND: The early game, at any map size, is a land grab. Right, no mystery there, but crank out the colony ships as quickly as you can my using the sliders. Set your military to 80, research to 20, and keep it that way until either the land grab is over or you need some quality social projects. Designate your 3rd colony as your constructor builder, and add some scouts to the mix to search for aliens and most importantly, resources.
Sliders, sliders, sliders, play with them often...Need ships? Crank the military. Need those Ultra Spices. Likewise on social. As a newbie, I didn't appreciate the importance of constantly tweaking those sliders. Don't make the same mistake.
-Don't overbuild! YOu will rarely build every social project on every planet. However, every planet should have the following: 1) Any planet quality boosters (no maintenance), 2) Any economy upgrades that will at least pay for themselves, and 3) Entertainment Networks and Stadiums (the most efficient cost/effect ratio for morale structures). As for the rest, it will depend on the planet's quality, population, and strategic focus.
-EXPLOIT:
Trade! You cannot underestimate the importance of trade. Trade routes mature over time, and realize the importance of any tech that increasing opportunities to trade.
Resources and starbases can convert a weak civ into a strong one. Grab as many as you can early game, and don't worry about upgrading them until you've "claimed" all the resources you can. Although it varies according to strategy, the best resources are, in my opinion: 1) Economy, 2)Military/Morale, 3)Research, 4)Influence.
Also, remember that a starbase can be upgraded to provide production bonuses to all planets in the same sector as the starbase. This means that if you have more than 1 system in a sector, and the resources to commit to a constructor fleet, build a local starbase even if there's no resources to claim. As a final note on starbases: If a colony has no affordable or useful ships to build, build a constructor. You can never have enough.

EXTERMINATE:
Wars are ugly but FUN. To prevent from being on the wrong end of one or repeated tribute demands, don't neglect your military in the early game. Four or Five cheap defenders in the early game will keep the other civs from bullying you. As far as I can tell, at "intelligent" level, the enemy civs will leave you alone as long as you have the top military.
Avoid huge fleets (more than 4 or 5 ships), as they will leave other areas of the front unprotected and there are no stack/fleet bonuses. And use your head, if your ships are generally better on attack, attack first whenever possible. Same goes for defense.

General Tip:
Ideally, you want to choose your strategy in the empire creation screen, pick your mods accordingly, and STICK TO THAT STRATEGY. To maximize this, try to concentrate your points in two or three areas for the most effective advantage. I find that economy/morale/attack combines for a solid combo, and that some of the civ mods (soldiering bonuses, luck, creativity) are pretty insignificant since you can research techs to accomplish the same things later.
Naturally, you will have to tailor your starting strategy somewhat to adapt to your starting position and the galaxy's balance of power, but centrally-speaking, it should remain the same.

Gah! Done.

Peace (or war, depending on your preference
;)

JD
1,055 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Oops, forgot about diplomacy!

Making it quick:
Military techs trade at a premium, so sell them DISCRIMINATELY to other civs whenever possible, and don't trade for them yourself. Also, if you trade to one civ (say 2d phasing), trade it to all civs as the prostitutes will trade it to each other anyway. Just make sure that you reserve your best military tech for yourself...

That is all,
JD
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok 1 problem with the sliders. Every time I seem to do something severe like you stated I either loose the next election to whoever is not getting their 33% or I wind up with tons to unhappy people and loose a bunch of planets.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Havo,

THe 80 military/20 research split is for the early game only, and should allow you to crank out a colony ship every 3 turns from earth. As for later, it's difficult for me to make suggestions based on what your wrote (somewhat vague--that's ok), but let's say you really, REALLY need a fleet of dreadnoughts. Furthermore, let's say that you've also pretty much built all of the useful social projects. I would set my sliders at 40-50 military/15-20 social, 25-35 research.
I don't recommend EVERY doing one to the exclusion of all else, especially since a lower social percentage seems to cost my empire income.
As for morale, remember the entertainment network and stadium are the best structures. Interestingly, over-building in your colonies can indirectly affect your morale--i.e. High maintenance costs = higher taxes, lower spending = low morale. Don't build more than you can pay for (meaning some hard choices), and you should be able to keep those taxes low and your spending high.
Don't worry too much about your treasury, but AVOID unless in the most dire of circumstances buying on credit. I usually run my spending at 95-100 percent and content myself with a 2-3 b.c. per-turn surplus.
Good luck, hope this helps a little,
JD

Also, try to build your economy around a low tax rate (33% or so). It will keep your morale healthy and by extension, your finances and research. :) :)
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I've not done intensive experiments, but it seems that getting the sliders out of the 33/33/34 balance seems to result in inefficency, at least every time i adjust them my income goes extremely negative.

If (and only if) this is true, it seems like the best bet is to keep things at 33/33/34 most of the time. Bumping research up to 60% may seem like a good idea, but the increased cost requires you to reduce the total spending, so the actual gain isn't as big as you might exect. Unless you're in a dire emergency, (or special circumstances like pumping out colony ships the first few turns) you're better off keeping things balanced to maintain longterm efficiency.

Is there something i'm missing out on? Or is this generally correct?
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
"If (and only if) this is true, it seems like the best bet is to keep things at 33/33/34 most of the time. Bumping research up to 60% may seem like a good idea, but the increased cost requires you to reduce the total spending"


Increased cost? Those are pcts of your total spending so it shouldn't have much effect, if any. I *regularly* bump my sliders around as the situation dictates.

My big problem is that there is no feedback when adjusting the sliders, so I'm constantly refreshing the planet list or re-checking the tech screen whenever I adjust them.

The "months remaining" from the research screen should also be on the economic sliders screen.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
33/33/34 is very inefficient. You will find that you will run out of social projects to build and you will be behind in the military and research fields. Also you will have a massive maintence cost for all the social projects you have built. Social spending between 10-20%will be more than enough to keep you civ's happy if you are selective in your builds.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
thongor: Changing your production ratios away from roughly 33% in each category apparently reduces the overall efficiency of your empire. If you set your spending so that you're breaking even or spending a few bc per turn less than you make (i.e., you're making a couple bc per turn) while at 33/33/34%, then change to 0/0/100%, you'll end up losing money. This is particularly obvious when your economy is large.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
In current game I'm running fat and happy with 61 colonies, most of which were grabbed in early expansion by running M:80/S:0/R:20. This ensured a very steady stream of colony ships. By the time the early expansion was over, I had researched/traded techs to enable building all the important early game social improvements. Enabled a governor, increased social spend and the rest was clock-work, often with 10-15 planets getting a certain improvement simultaneously LOL

So in other words, didn't notice any inefficiency... rather the other way around actually ;)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I can confirm that constant econmic slider adjustment is the key to this game right now. Of course part of the reason is because of the "lost" productivity for planets with nothing in queue. See this thread: http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=26410

I put my military on 100% for the first few turns to grab the yellow stars ASAP, plus it give me a boost on getting another survey ship out the door plus a couple constructors. That way when I find resources I can grab them immediately, often within the first 20 turns.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I have noticed income loss when moving the sliders around, especially in larger empires. Perhaps it depends on how your economy has developed over the game, and how the sliders have been arranged during that development.

All guesses, to be sure. But I'd rather run 33/33/34 at 100 spending than run some other ratio at a lesser rate of spending due to income loss. For me, that loss seemed greatest when I reduced the social element...

JD
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I am new to gal-civ and I am playing it like moo2, do I need to change my thinking. :sniff!:
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Ok, just checked on the income lost. It's not actually lost. It's something funny with the calculations tied to the sliders. I can't really explain it well, but the money is still there, it's just getting reallocated strangely so that it looks like your money is getting lost.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
why do you need another survey ship? I have seen rival survey ships go right past or otherwise ignor anomolies. They will be there when your single ship gets around to them. Unlike the race for planets and resources, anomolies dont appear to be coveted by the AI.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I've found it far more efficient to run two things at 50%, changing as needed, or one thing at 100%, than to run three things at 33/33/34. Stuff just comes in faster, and the end result is more techs/ships/projects in less time.

~SDC~
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
wampyre: I noticed that on the easier levels, but on the higher levels it's less true. They still don't pursue them as agressively as I do (though I wait till I can pop out a few StarHawks or Rangers to hunt with multiple ships).
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
only thing you should ever run at 100% is your tech, and thats if you fall behind technically cuase that's what really gets you into trouble :( I may be wrong, but this is my experience.

~SDC~
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
My initial game economy settings (I prefer medium-ish sized maps) go like this (note that I'm usually a peaceful economic minded player and haven't tried going offensive early on):

- Tax rate to whatever keeps me over 50% (but still finding that "sweet spot" where I'm not getting less income).

- Spend rate to 100%... I burn through the initial 1000 cash but to me that's what it's there for. I *don't* need to lease anything so the cash needn't go there. If my deficit gets extreme (-30 or so) I'll cut back spending a bit.

- Cut Social Spending to 0%, splitting Military and Research 50/50. There's simply no social project I need to build right now, but colony ships and constructors are much in need. Earth pumps out a few colony ships, while new colonies start working on Constructors. Earth switches to Constructors when/if the good planets are all grabbed.

- Focus research to get to Trade, along with the other opening techs... but I can often trade Translators and Diplomacy to other races to grab those if need be.

- By the time Trade comes up I've usually got a handful of colonies and a few constructors, and enough social projects have appeared that I'm now interested. I stick with lots of military just long enough to build a few freighters (to fill up my initial trade routes), then put all of it into social while the early game stuff (Manufacturing, Banking, Research Centers) build. After that, I'm usually OK keeping 20ish% in social with the rest split, depending on impending war, between military and social.

By this point, your new colonies, improvements, trade routes, and moderate technology sales should have pulled you out of the cash nosedive that 100% spending rate has put you in. Usually happens for me when I get to around 200 or so left in the bank... but I'm pretty much self-sufficient after that, even with high spending rates.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
More production-saving tips for social improvements...

You should reach a point where your social slider is set to 0% because you don't want every improvement on every colony. However, some of your newer colonies will have not yet built improvements that you want.

When you get to a one-colony-only improvement you *definitely* want to build (like a trade good or a capitol), set your social slider as high as you are comfortable and let your best planet build it as quickly as possible.

This will create a brief window for all of your other colonies to build any improvements that they have fallen behind on.

And if there is nothing you want to build in a colony, go ahead a select *anything* too big to finish that you might conceivably want later (like a planetary defense). That way, you can at least queue up production in the item so that it can be built more rapidly when you *do* need it later.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
This issue will never be resolved until a reveal map cheat is available. Then we can prove whether the aI is taking liberties with the rules.