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Reply to Newb - Overwhelmed in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Beginner's Strategy Guide This is a good place to start. It is written for Dread Lords, and not the Dark Avatar expansion pack, but the basics are still the same.

Reply to Getting decimated on Challenging in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

My usual strategy until now's always been to rush my colony ships every turn at the start and send them every which way in the hope of finding a planet. I usually play on a medium map and find that if I don't do this, the AI grabs all the planets before I can. This is a good idea if you're playing a medium map against all 9 opponents. Only if there are more than a few planets to colonize, you're better off buying or building the factories and building t

Reply to Some things were better in Gal Civ 1.... in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

* Yeah, I was kind of disappointed that some things were simply reused in GC2 from GC1. On first impression it looks like cutting corners, but I don't mind any more. * The leaders animate in the full game, but I don't know what you mean by "silent", they never actually spoke in GC1. * All techs have a flavor description in GC2, but you only see it when you finish research on the tech, so you'll miss it if you trade for the tech. I guess GC2 doesn't completely obsolete

Reply to Whats wrong with the Iconians? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

They have a lot of starting techs and a good home system (a 14 and a 3), but you're right, their abilities are weak. I didn't like them much in DL either.

DA 1.50.057 - weak defense doesn't deplete in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

It looks like a ship's defense strength is not reduced when it is damaged by a weapon that it is weak against. One specific example was when I had a fleet with 196 attack power in mass drivers (14 small ships each armed with 4 graviton drivers and 20% weapons ability) and used this fleet to attack a single ship with 57 beam defense and 28 hitpoints. I've reloaded and retried this battle several times, and the enemy ship always survives the first round of combat, usually taking just a

Reply to Do stockmarkets stack on planets? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Yes. Build lots of stock markets on planets that have high population.

Reply to Are upgraded factories worth it? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Even if it takes a long time to win, the short-term advantage of sticking to low-tech factories is worth considering. Instead of spending time and money building or upgrading advanced factories, you could be doing something else. For example, build warships and go conquer some new planets. That's another way to increase your production capacity, and you'll probably capture some nice advanced factories without having to build them.

Reply to Military production bonus in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

I like military production, it's one of the better abilities. But I prefer economy, morale, and population growth. I disagree with the idea that the game is all about cranking out ships. Military production is only one expense out of many in the game. You also spend money on: social production, research, maintenance on ships and improvements, purchasing, upgrading, espionage, logistics costs for starbases, some starbase modules, and trade in diplomacy. Generating more money will

Reply to Masochistic - please help in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

So you leave the planets with no focus? Interesting, I may try it. I didn't mean to never use focus, but in your question, you said you set ALL your planets to social production. That's just pointless micromanagement, use the slider if you want your whole empire to change its spending. The focus is useful if you want some planets to be doing so

Reply to Masochistic - please help in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

0) After the colony rush, the most important thing to focus on is ECONOMY. You need to get to the point that you're making some money while producing at 100% capacity. You need to start working on this even before the colony rush is over. I usually put a lot of my race's points into population growth, morale, and economy. One trick is to use 1% military spending and 99% social spending during the colony rush. Planets producing colony ships have nothing in the social queue and a focus on mi

Reply to Help me have a fun game in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

The AI doesn't suck, but it's no genius either. Some of what was said about the AI really is just hype because if you're an experienced strategy gamer, beating the AI on tough won't be difficult. This isn't different than any other game. To get a fun and challenging game, I think you should play on at least Masochistic. That will make sure the AI can produce a good amount of ships and make enough money to support them. You're not giving the AI bonuses for no reason, you're giving

Reply to Help with Ships in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

Here's a way to do it inside the game: Start a game using the "Battle of the Gods" scenario. This scenario starts you with all techs and enough money to buy the hyperion shrinker, so all your ships should be available to build. The scenario forces you to play as the humans, but you can switch their ship style to whatever you want.

Reply to Why do I glow in the dark? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I've had something like this happen, too. Sometimes, when I start a game as a custom race, it seems to start me in a randomly generated system instead of the home system I'm supposed to have. My homeworld has an initial colony and 2 billion people, instead of the civilization capital and 8 billion it's supposed to have. The homeworld is named what I chose, but the star is called "Custom Star". The home planet is always PQ 10, sometimes it needs a colonization tech, and there are always 5 pla

Reply to The AI is why i still play this game. in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

GalCiv 2 might have a more advanced AI, but Civ 4 is the more challenging game for me because of the game rules. I can beat Suicidal in GC2 fairly regularly, but I can't beat the highest level of Civ4, even though the bonuses there are smaller. In GC2, there are some rather simple things you can do to get very big advantages, such as tech trading, surprise attacks, fast ships, big shifts in spending, and matching weapons to defenses, and the AI doesn't do these things well, or at all. But Civ

Reply to Empire Morale @ 1% in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I know that if your civ's morale ability is negative, the morale of all your planets will be stuck at 1%. I found this out while editing some raceconfig files to give civs penalties. But if you've been playing for "many hours", you probably have some bonuses from morale tech and trade goods so that the -1% from the event wouldn't make your total morale ability negative.

Reply to Gameplay Example (DA): Rise of the Galactic Republic in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

How does the new combat system work in DA? I was pretty surprised when I read that the Terran ships with massive shields were beating Drengin ships with psyonic beams, and Brad's ships with mass drivers.

Reply to Two planets, what would you do? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

2 years? way to rush em with speed cheese Yeah, using fast ships on a gigantic map is totally against the rules. And rushing is cheating too. The point is, if I had spent time and resources building all those economy starbases, I wouldn't have been able to win as early. You don't have to build an ultimate economy before you attack someone

Reply to Just another newbie question in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

This website has a good beginner's guide . That should lead you though the basic steps of playing the game well. The manual is ok for answers to specific questions. There are two main ways to make money, tax and trade. Taxes come from a combination of population, tax rate, and market buildings. The trick is that high taxes cause low morale, and population grows slowly or stops when morale is low. Trade comes from resear

Reply to Two planets, what would you do? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I've played this type of game, too. Check my profile, the Yor game was played on suicidal, on a gigantic map with rare stars, planets, and habitables, so everyone only had their home system. I won in two years, and I didn't build a single economic starbase. I don't really like economic bases in general. They don't get good until you've researched most of the industrial tech branch. They cost a lot to set up: you have to build he constructors, pay the logistics cost when founding

Reply to Generic Espionage in DA? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I agree with the commenters: I don't always want to cause harm to the other players, I don't usually want to risk the incident (I assume getting caught spying is a negative). But I do always want to know what my opponents (and friends!) are up to... You can do this. Plant multiple spies on their worlds and then immediately remove them all. You

Reply to Two planets, what would you do? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I just checked. When at 100% spending on military, with focus on research, 25% of the base military production is diverted to research. The research gets full research bonuses, but no production bonuses. There's no overall loss at all, but a maximum of 25% research isn't much, you might be stuck researching much slower than you desire. So, like I said before, it would be efficient, but not flexible.

Reply to Two planets, what would you do? in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

If you build all factories and focus on research, you lose a lot of flexibility. I love the ability to switch from 100% research to 100% production on any given turn too much to give it up. But it could be interesting if you trade for most of your techs. With only two planets, I would make one the manufacturing capital with all factories, and make the other one the tech capital with lots of labs. The tech capital will also need a few factories and a starport so it can actually buil

Reply to What kind of size and endurance you got? in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

I've tried playing gigantic/abundant maps, but it looks like they would take me 50-100 hours to finish. And I don't think giant maps are any more fun than small maps. So I generally play small/abundant to huge/rare maps and finish them in about 10-20 hours.

Reply to Spy spawning event in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

You're not supposed to get rid of all the spies. Neutralize the ones on important buildings, but leave the rest. A spy sitting in some random lab really isn't hurting that much.

Reply to Any location to view all race ship models? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Use the Battle of the Gods scenario, which starts you with all technologies researched. It forces you to play as the humans, but you can select any ship style for them.