Fleabitfox -- Constructors, colony ships and starbases are meant to be nigh-unbuyable in order to prevent cheese such as buying off that colony ship that's about to grab a PQ26 world that you want. It'd be nice if they instead worked it so that worth factored in proximity to target, but there'd still be some probable cheese methinks.
There were also reports of stacks of 70+ Precursor Corvettes attacking and losing to single ships, which really shouldn't happen if their attack values were added up; even if each additional one only gave a slight bonus, it'd still be anomalous.
Yeah, it's a rather comical concept. "Enjoy our frighteningly good party... or DIE!" It does work, 'tho, and can nicely boost a cultural win if that's what you're going for.
moonmood -- The Drengin might be allied with themselves. I've seen this on 1.03A57. It's pretty goofy, but as far as I know, harmless.
Weird. I'd argue that shipyard bonuses SHOULDN'T be retroactive, since the ships were already built. It's fewer bookkeeping bytes this way, I guess.
...and by the time you run into Excaliburs, attack should be just about everything (base 80 ATT, 20 DEF for a huge 4:1 ratio) barring a multi-world system with Planetary / System / Omega defense systems (not sure if same systems on multiple planets in the same system stack... or even quite what Plaentary Defense ability applies to). Swarming with weaker ships doesn't work too well in GalCiv, since there doesn't appear to be a bonus for attacking with a fleet. If your ships individually
Is it defended? It's harder to turn a defended world, although still possible. In addition, by default the Drengin are evil; perhaps they've got Secret Police, Re-education Centers, Pain Amplifiers and their ilk, to increase cultural resistance. At Normal, I did end up converting just about the entire Drengin empire, including their capital, but then again I had three Party Palace Terror Stars roaming their sectors, often two in one sector at the same time... ;)
To get allies, you need them to be Close or better. Generally, this seems to mean that - You're doing significant trade with them so that a fair part of their economy depends on you. - Relations have been peaceful with them, at least recently, and you haven't been abusing them (e.g. destabilizing...). - There's no serious alignment problems; if you're Demonic, the Good AIs will tend towards hostile, but the Evil AIs might send you messages about how y'all should work together t
Skornflakes -- Heh. My suspicion is that, depending on your play style, small maps may be HARDER than larger maps. For instance, in this genre I tend to play as a builder / researcher early... and therefore I'll tend to lag militarily early on. In a small map you're more likely to run into neighbors fast, which means that military parity becomes more important. On the other hand, if you're a blitzer by nature, small maps may indeed be easier -- although in GalCiv, since it t
Hmmmmm. I'm not certain that the aliens would be broadcasting the locations of their most-used shipyards just so that they'd become targets... I was also under the impression that shipyard bonuses are not retroactive when it comes to adding a facility to a world, while technology and resource bonuses appear to be.
In 1.03A57, I did manage to get the Altarians to give me all their money -- for fifty turns; worse, it mostly was money that I'd given them several turns before ;) and not something their economy could readily replace -- but I chalked it up to it only being Normal-difficulty AI. It basically took them out of the game (e.g. when it's literally at -50,000 BC there's not a lot it can do.) No matter how much the gap between AI and moi, that probably was a bad deal for it to take. If they'
Hm, I just finished a game on Huge/Tight/Common, all AIs on normal, and the game was basically in-hand for most of it except the early stages. I used Federalist, max Econ bonus, rest on Research if memory serves. The first phase was exploration / colonization. Spending needs to go to 100%, military needs to be emphasized to crank out colony ships until the supply of unavailable "nice" planets (say, PQ15+ early) peters out. Survey ship ignored anomalies at first, to maximize spee
Ah, for a Garden of Eden Creation Kit... but a terraformer device should be VERY expensive, as improving a planet's atmosphere and ecosystem would take an incredible amount of effort in addition to substantial bio-engineering skill and climatology.
bonkku -- It's not just common sense, it's also about the ability to recognize the circumstances of your situation and adjust accordingly. For instance, there's no recipe that'll work for every game, because of the randomness involved in everything from who your neighbors are to what random events occur. Do you push hard for the trade goods early and risk wasting substantial social production if some wealthy minor pays its way to one first? Do you crank out defenders early, in case the Drengi
bonkku -- Needing to have everything handed to you says a lot about your ability to plan. Hell, GalCiv as it is gives you far TOO MUCH information to be realistic, and too much power to act on that information. Does any leader *know* exactly what technologies can be developed? No; research is a risky business where "negative results" aren't unusual. Does any leader have precise information on the location and state of all his assets, or the fine control over him that GC gives you? No. If i
And even if you give 'em away... it's the recipient that has to pay the maintenance cost now, so you may still come out ahead.
Stardock Forums
The manual hints at nasty effects for losing a home system, but it's unclear on what they are. Anybody know? I'd guess that a morale hit would follow, and perhaps penalties to econ as well (organizational disruption), but... ?
The current way seems rather realistic to me. After all, while we can -- to some degree -- refit equipment, it's not like you can take any number of Sherman M4A3s and turn them into modern battle tanks, any more than a patrol boat could be "upgraded" into an Aegis-equipped cruiser.
1. Ships on auto-survey might do this, perhaps to give you a chance to change your orders for them before they use up their movement points. 2. Not sure. Perhaps it simply hasn't updated yet, or the production costs the planet is using -- for production is mostly not free -- offsets the income? 3. It's using resources in the more familiar way, not the "Precursor artifact that gives you bonuses" way. For resources to be devoted to production, you must (a) have a treasury of
Sure that it's a 30% bonus to population, or even a 30% bonus to maximum population, and not merely a bonus to population growth rate?
I'm not quite sure where I found it (manual or browsing English.str), but I seem to recall that it's supposed to affect how much you're overcharged when you opt for a long-term payment plan in exchange for rush-building.
You can use the "download and archive" option with SDC, which nets you a .zip file that can be installed on the final destination machine via right-click and 'install'. Mind you, that'll redownload the entire item -- e.g. ~89MB for the base game -- and not just the update.
It's not only the empire-wide bonuses, but with their range you'll be in a better position to find resources and tasty planets earlier. You also want to find likely enemies before they find you. ;) But for attack, stick with the conventionals. A Dreadnought, built on a world with good starship bonuses, doesn't need to hunt for ship junk to become powerful. I did have a survey ship with truly bizarre stats once -- a single-digit attack, IIRC, low teens at most, but def > 70. "C'mon,
They weren't the Torians, were they? There was a bug at one point that gave 'em constructors at a ridiculous rate. The AI theoretically might also be getting production bonuses from starbases, although at Normal I have not noticed the heavy use of non-resource occupied-sector starbases that I would from a human. It does appear to build tiny bases for the sole purpose of extending ship range, though. As for leasing, I do go for quite a few of the trade goods and wonders that w
...or, you could probably create a new ship class by adding a .ship file, an appropriate image, and perhaps technology for it. In-game, don't forget military resources. A fully built starbase on a military resource can net you something in excess of +80% attack/def, if memory serves.