I don't think I am cut out for this type of game.

jwburks

Join Date 03/2007

I don't think I am cut out for this type of game.

I think I might be stupid, literally.

I bought Civilizations IV a while back and had a really hard time with it. It was my first "real" PC strategy game, and I got my butt kicked quite a bit. It took me a long time, but I finally won a victory. A Space Race victory, and that's only because I played on a Continents map and all the opponents were on different islands (thus, I had no direct competition for land). It's the only victory I was able to manage, and only on a Continents map.

Lately there has been (in my opinion) a serious drought in the PC gaming industry. I am usually an RPG kinda guy. I like games like Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire--The Masquerade: Bloodlines, etc. You know, *that* route. But lately, there just isn't much out there. Just first-person shooter games, mostly. And strategy games. And so that's when I decided to get Galactic Civilizations II: Gold Edition. It got a pretty good rating on both GameSpy and GameSpot, and the forum members at BioWare.com recommended it to me, and their word is gold to me.

They were right, it is a fun game. It's better than Civilization IV, in my humble opinion. But now I am suffering post-traumatic syndrome from my attempts (and tremendous failures) at Civilizations IV. Ah, why sugar-coat it. I SUCK! I AM STUPID! There... I said it. I have no strategy. I have no intelligence, no cleverness, no clue. I can't win at this game, because I am not "strategically inclined", as it were.

I am just wondering, though... is it possible to learn? Or am I doomed to be a loser forever? Because I read posts on here all the time about you guys thrash this game and make it cry for its mama. I want to be able to do that! ARGH!

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Hi!

Can someone provide a few examples of what a newbie needs to know concerning current ship defense rules?

You have to put on a single ship about the same amount of defenses as your opponet's fleet has the attack (the treshold is at about 60%), and only so much weapons to kill the whole fleet in less than 50 rounds of battle. If you have more FP you'll take less attrition damage (you'll destroy opponent's ships faster), so you can use fleets of such a design. That's all.

If you can't mount so much defenses, forget it, and go for maximum attack ship you can made. If you can mount enough firepower on that ship to destroy their whole fleet in first round (psionc beams really rock in this department!), will your ship survive regardless of the damage it takes ("in case of mutual destruction the strongest ship survives" rule).

BR, Iztok

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The higher your tax rate the *more* of those shields go into military,
social and research. Just try it on a mature world. Set tax rate to say
15%. Check the planet and note the number of shields in each production
area.
Now jack up taxes to 50%.
You'll see a whole lot more shields in those production boxes and a ton more money rolling in to your budget.

Have *you* tried it? I've never seen tax rate affect my production rate. With some races, I run with extremely low tax for a long time and can build stuff and do research and everything just fine. When I bump the tax rate up, it doesn't change the time to the next technology, or the time to build the next ship. The only thing it changes is my fiscal balance.

If you adjust your *spend* rate, then you will see a big difference.

Ok, ok. I guess what I mean is this (and I poorly stated it earlier).

If you run taxes at say 15% you have to dial spending down a lot or else you're losing money like crazy.
If you up taxes then you can up spending which in turn builds things faster and makes your research go faster.

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All I can say dude is just don't give up. It's a great game once ya get the hang of it. So do me a faver and kick them Torian's asses for me!

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Everyone seems to hate the Torians! What's up with that? I feel sorry for 'em, specially after that intro movie.

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