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Reply to Too lucky in Strategies Stardock Forums

Selling them to a minor civ is best, especially if the minor civ is your trading partner. Obviously, you aren't going to sell them to a major civ that's doing well. If you want peace, sell/gift them to the weaker major civs. If you want a resource, park them and some constructors near a resource, and sell/gift the ships when war breaks out. In the short term, selling ships to weak majors keeps them in the game, so you can culturally flip them or invade yourself later (rather

Reply to A global social swap would be nice. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Why would you want a global social swap? Just put it in the governor queue near the top. This way, any planets will finish whatever they're building and then start the new social project. For example, when I get research center, I may decide to put it as #7 in my queue. If a planet is already building a medical center, which is lower priority, it will then switch to the research center when it's done. The only time you might want to do it is if a planet is building a

Reply to Too lucky in Strategies Stardock Forums

Even better than disbanding excess craft is to sell them.

Reply to factions and starting bonuses in Strategies Stardock Forums

I think that the bonuses are reasonably well-balanced right now. It's hard to go wrong. Other games have picks that dominate. There have been picks that were overpowered, like +planet quality and +speed, but they were rebalanced. +1 speed helps on huge/gigantic maps. It lets you grab a lot more planets and resources in the opening, especially when you set military to 100%. +trade routes helps on tiny maps. If you build trade starbases, they can be a large part of your inco

Reply to When is starbase influence bonus applied? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Look at the encyclopedia. There's an entry for influence calculations. There are 9 sectors that affect the influence in a sector: that sector, plus the 8 adjacent sectors. The current sector is given 5x the weight of a single adjacent sector. So, you should build a starbase in the sector you want to culture-flip. However, this will lower relations with that AI. If you build a starbase in one of the adjacent sectors, it has only 1/5 the effect, but it doesn't harm relations

Reply to trade route bonuses Q in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Also remember that if your trade route isn't horizontal or vertical, your "mini-freighter" will not take the same path going as returning. The trade economic screen is misleading as to the actual path of mini-freighters.

Reply to Here's my general trade strategy, for what it's worth. in Strategies Stardock Forums

Someone above said "don't spend racial ability picks on trade routes, because the game limits you to 10 routes and there's enough tech to give you 10". On a gigantic map, where you expect to get deep in the tech tree, this is true. On a tiny map, especially tiny with rare inhabitable planets, those extra 2 trade routes are huge. The game is likely to be over before dreadnaughts appear. Most of your income is going to be from trade. If you stack all your trade routes on the same hori

Reply to Help: early game starbase problem. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Regarding your population problem: People don't reproduce, pay taxes, research, or build things while they're in colony ships. I only load up 50-200 people per colony ship. *DON'T* use "auto-launch" for colony ships; the default tends to overload the colony ship. I try to keep enough population on Earth so that its morale is just barely at 100%. This way, I'm maximizing my taxes and production on Earth. You get transports fairly early in the game. I use transports to move

Reply to Resources in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

This is a known user interface flaw. If you have discovered an unoccupied resource, it appears on the mini-map with an 'x'. If the resource is occupied, and not within your sensor range, it disappears from the mini-map. If the resource is occupied, and in your sensor range, you can see the starbase if you have the "show ships" minimap button selected. If the resource becomes unoccupied due to war or elimination of a player, then the 'x' again shows up on the minimap, even if it is not within

Reply to Suggestions 1.03 in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

When calculating Metaverse score, a player should *NEVER* be penalized for submitting a game. Any results that would lower your overall ranking should be ignored. More precisely, figure out if the ignoring the worst result would improve your overall ranking. If so, ignore it. Repeat until ignoring the worst remaining result no longer improves your ranking. This is an important principle: a player should never be penalized for submitting a result. In fact, there should be an incenti

Reply to How is it possible to get THIS score?? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I was thinking that there should be some incentive to submit your losing games and your subpar games. I was thinking that, when calculating your overall score, your worst result should be dropped if this would lead to a better ranking. This should be repeated until dropping your lowest score is no longer an improvement. The current metaverse system violates an important rule: A player should *NEVER* be penalized for submitting a result. ~SDC~

Reply to Help: early game starbase problem. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Are you adjusting your spending level to 100%? At the start of the game, your spending level should be 100%, even though this will cause you to run a deficit. You can, and should, have defecit spending until you reach 0 or even -500. The spending level is under the taxes bar on the economic screen. It starts at 50%. The first thing you should do when you start a new game is set the spending level to 100%. There are also 3 sliders in the lower-left corner on the same screen, for military, s

Reply to economic bonuses do not pay in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I think the problem is the production cap and taxes cap. The bonus is applied before the cap, so if you're at the cap you get no bonus. Really, the bonuses for race, resources, social projects, and wonders should be applied AFTER the cap. Only the starbase bonuses are abusable, and need to be capped.

Reply to Starbase Maint Idea Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

How about having "mini-resources"? A starbase built on a mini-resource is free. Starbases not built on mini-resources are expensive. There would be 0-3 mini-resources per sector, tending to be more in sectors with good planets. This would lead to more conflict - fighting over good starbase locations. It would also prevent abuse, while preserving the original intention of starbases.

Reply to A suggestion for a feature (maybe...) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Do you track how many people are actually using the windowed version? Does this information show up in the metaverse submissions? I think the developers are underestimating the popularity of the windowed version. They initially put it in as a side feature, but I think it may be more popular than that. I play windowed mode exclusively, and use notepad to track game events and my plan.

Reply to Starbase Maint Idea Thread in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The 1.7 method needs to be adjusted based on map size. The rule proposed by frogboy takes starbases out of the game on gigantic maps. On tiny maps, it is no penalty at all. A better solution is to cap all the starbase benefits. On a related issue, the fact that production and taxes are penalized leads to some weird situations. If you're already maximizing your tax income, you get almost no benefit from a new economic resource or a galactic stock exchange. The production cap

Reply to Gigantic Maps : Are Trade Starbases Worth It? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

This really should be reported as a bug, then. - The economic trade screen is wrong, because it misrepresents the actual path of trade ships. - The benefit from trade starbases is much less than what you might expect. Requiring trade routes to be horizontal or vertial to get maximum benefit is counterintuitive. - On gigantic maps, trade starbases just aren't worth it. You're better off making 1-sector routes, putting them all to the same pair of planets, and then max

Reply to FreeHotSex! [Otherwise known as my burning questions about Trade] in Strategies Stardock Forums

If you have a minor civ trading partner, you can sell them culture-upgraded starbases to keep them from being culturally absorbed. It appears there's a design flaw regarding long trade routes. Since the starbase trade bonuses only apply when the "mini-freighters" are in the same sector as the starbase, longer trade routes don't get as big a bonus. A long trade route has a larger base value, but the starbase bonus is a lot less. Further the "mini-freighters" move like regular

Gigantic Maps : Are Trade Starbases Worth It? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

On a gigantic map, does it pay to make starbases with trade upgrades? It appears that you only get the trade bonus on turns when the trade ship is in the same sector as the starbase. But on a gigantic map, the trade route is very long, so the bonus only covers a small % of the route. The route itself is worth more, but the value of the bonus appears to be much less than on a short route. Also on a gigantic map, it's hard to track what sector your trade ships are in, so it's hard to s

Reply to Anyone played a single sector challenge yet? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Play with a tiny 4x4 map and rare inhabitable planets. The only class 15+ worlds will probably be the home planets for each major civ and each minor civ. It is amusing to use your initial colony ship to scout for resources, and then put it on your homeworld for the extra 100 population. It's important to keep the balance of power. You can't allow another civ to get a 2nd planet, or they'll become too powerful. I also find myself donating culture-upgraded starbases to minor civs, to keep

Reply to Should the computer players be able to win a technology victory (currently they can't) in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

How about making it alien race/alignment dependent? I can imagine "Beyond Altarian", but I can't really picture "Beyond Drengin".

Reply to Checking starbase upgrades......suggestion for update in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I play in windowed mode, and track that information in a separate notepad file.

Reply to Any way to see effects of starbases on freighter trade? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

On a 24x24 map, does it pay to build starbase trade upgrades? The documentation says the upgrade only matters when the freighter is in the sector. On a 24x24 map, the trade routes are so long that the starbase covers a negligible % of the trade route. Also, on a 24x24 map, it seems like more than 10 trade routes should be allowed.

Startdock Certified Mods Feature Request in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I heard about "Stardock Certified Mods". It would be nice if there was support for easily installing/removing mods for a specific game. For example, it would be nice to be able to select which mods you want to use when you start a new game. I'm reluctant to download and install mods, because I don't want to corrupt the game and have to reinstall everything. Since most mods involve editing text files, this shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Reply to 1.03 and Windowed mode. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I play exclusively in windowed mode as a workaround for flaws in the user interface. I keep open a notepad file where I make notes for things that the game should track for me, but does not. The game does not track: - the sectors with uncolonized good planets - sectors with unexplored anomalies - sectors with unclaimed resources - sectors containing resources I control, along with how built up my starbase is - sectors with enemy resources <br