empire development

The difficulty of the game is determined more by the intelligence of the aliens than it is by the advantage factor. The advantage factor simply determines how many bonus points you get. The AI, no matter what level of intelligence that they are, have 10 bonus points, which you get at the Cakewalk advantage factor level. Also, the political party that you choose determines what other bonuses that you get, which you can check by clicking on the little buttons with question marks that are next to the party names. The Aliens also build things like Love Mushrooms, which gives them populations bonuses, the ship yard, which increases their ability to put out ships, etc. You can open you your .IMP files and read the descriptions there to get a better feel for what improvements could help you early in the game.

The first thing you need to do in this game (and the most common tactic missed by those new to GC) is to expand and acquire as fast as you can. Productivity in construction and research is based partly on the population of your empire, but more so on the number of habitable planets you have colonized. The same is true for the aliens, and they know it. They also know where all of the habitable planets are before you even begin to expand beyond Sol. So if you are not trying to expand your boundaries as fast as you can, if you are not trying to colonize as many good planets as fast as you can find them, or you are not trying to win the race to the most, best planets in the galaxy, you are going to loose. This principle strategy is mentioned in the preamble of the game, as can be seen in the "Encyclopedia" accessable by the left button at the top of this forum.

Try it, and good luck.

I think I got it now. The key to rapid development is in shifting the "Income Distribution" to 100% at one of the 3 areas. First I did 100% Military, then after a few turns, 100% Social, then after a few more turns I made 100% Research. Things seem to go much faster this way. Also, the approval rating skyrockets. I was able to push Tax Rate to 70% and still got over 50% approval. And when I was doing 100% Military or Social, I could set Government Expenditures to 100% and still have positive cash flow. But when I did 100% Research, Net Income jumped into low negative.

I haven't tested this enough tho, gonna play a few games like this.

'And when I was doing 100% Military or Social, I could set Government Expenditures to 100% and still have positive cash flow. But when I did 100% Research, Net Income jumped into low negative.'

When your pushing building, you're still producing things, which eventually cycles part of the expenditure back into tax income. Or at least that's how things work in real life. Whether that's modeled by GalCiv or not isn't entirely obvious.

Pure research tends not to produce much.

I think I have discovered a loophole strategy playing, but I don't want to say

Well I will elaborate for game balancing...but I don't think that is entirely done yet, so possibly fruitless at this point.

It is most definitely a bad thing for the computer to do though, guarantee win really after a certain point early in the game.

Cain,

I have heard that there are some things yet to come that will guarantee that a win is NOT assured by how you play at the start of the game. These "events", from what little I have heard, will be, well, earth shaking (as in the demise of the dynosaurs).

check out the beginning of my massive invasion!
ftp://64.60.177.194/tmp/inv.bmp

by the way, the AI is definitely cheating, at least in begining of the game. Can the developers explain how the AI cheats?

I'm playing with all AI being "genius". I got 72 planets and my population is lower than that of Drengins who got only 3 planets!

an alien can colonize a class 10 planet and get more production out of it than I get from class 20 planets.

'by the way, the AI is definitely cheating, at least in begining of the game. Can the developers explain how the AI cheats?'

There is only one advantage the AI has over you at the start of the game.

They have been sending unmanned probes through the galaxy for longer than Man had been walking upright (possibly exaggerated, but basic premise remains. They know where the good planets are, it just took the invention of superphotonic flight, which humanity did just before the start of the game, to be able to colonize systems acceptably.

Otherwise they operate under the same conditions you do.

The apparent difference is because the AI currently focuses strongly upon combat related advancements, most of which have requirements that have a noticable improvement in certain fields, and upon improvements that increase production directly (apparently, again, with a preference toward military production).

The AI almost always runs at a slight deficit, which means that they have higher spending in one way or another.

As for your lower population, the AI almost allways colonises high-class planets in range first. If you're trying to compare 70 class 10s to three class 24s or 26s, it's usually going to take time for raw population to catch up. The low class pmlanets have lower morale (and thus lower production and population growth) and lower taxes (which indirectly lowers production by restricting your spending options).

And your comment about production cannot be accurate. The AI never colonises anything below class 15.

Arturus Magi said "And your comment about production cannot be accurate. The AI never colonises anything below class 15. "

While this is true an instance can occur to make you THINK they have. The "good guy" choice on the earthworms event will REDUCE a planet's class. So a class 15 planet can be reduced to as low as a class 9 (15 - (15 * .4)).

'While this is true an instance can occur to make you THINK they have. The "good guy" choice on the earthworms event will REDUCE a planet's class. So a class 15 planet can be reduced to as low as a class 9 (15 - (15 * .4)).'

Only good races would (or should, that is)make such a decision, and as far as I can tell, morality settings other than neutral don't work right. *glares at the Altarians, whom are now somehow 'Demonic' in his current game*

I haven't seen any AI with a planet below class 14 that I didn't give them, and that class 14 was back in beta 1E.

With that, it seems for some reason that when you set a race to "good" they get a "demonic" morality in the game, while those you set to "evil" are given "saintly" morality...

The logic would be.

If you are Good and All the Aliens are Good then everbody Allies and the game is over.

If you are Evil and everybody else is Evil then they will not gang up as a group against you. You can pick off Alien Civilizations one at a time with out worrying about a united front against you.
A win by conquest would be just a matter of time.

I think the morality tends to be opposite from you to make the game harder to win.

No, I think Wyrenn was referring to the morality of the alien race, not humanity. I've noticed that, too...I'll set the Altarians on "good", and some time into the game they'll show up as "demonic" morality.

--Mark

I wonder if the starting settings for the aliens are just that, a starting setting?

But in most my games, it's like that at first contact... I wonder if it's a bug? I don't know why all the aliens would switch to the opposite end of the morality spectrum before I even meet them? And the races I set to neutral do stay neutral...

It could be just the logic of the AI working its way outward. You set up initial conditions and rules for a particular good or bad AI, except you don't count on the fact that when the computer actually works the rules out that you have given the AI's they wind up the opposite of what you think they would be like.

I guess you probably learn a lot about the way you think when you program one of those things.

'I wonder if the starting settings for the aliens are just that, a starting setting?'

I doubt it. I have never seen any morality other than neutral come up right, and neutrals always stay neutral.

In the OS/2 version, the hardest way to play was to play as evil against all good aligned players.

They'd unite against you. Evil civilizations don't work together.