Yawn.

I can't try to argue too much, since I work for stardock and it seems tastless to do so, but perhaps try bringing the number of other alien races down, and turning up the number of habitable planets.

I found that, if you play with more than 8 races the exploration part ends pretty fast as you realize all the good worlds have already been sucked up by the AI.

One thing I can attest to is that the AI does NOT know where the colonizable planets are. They know where the planets are, but still need to scout to find out which ones are worth colonizing.

There should be an optionable storyline where all the known planets have been stolen by the Arnor or some such thing so that even if you're playing the Terrans, there is no disadvantage and everybody is equally blind. Or even just have that option without the storyline for sandbox mode.

Exterminate. Provided I get around to the technologies to do that. Seems the only real way to expand as the game quickly devolves into a war. Someone is always going to want to throw a punch.

As with every 4x game, expansion leads to war.

Have lots of useless ship types I can build, where the majority of my builds are nothing but warships. My planets just spend time upgrading things for which the governor is good at. Thank goodness I don't have to go through them all and pick upgrades as I need them. Sure I can build a "wonder" ....

If they're useless, it's because you made them that way. All of my ships have a purpose (sensor ships, fast transport interceptors, defenders, big guns ). No idea what you mean by upgrading, but isnt that a good thing? Would you rather be stuck with all the basic tile types?

Lots of diplomacy, most of which is trading technologies or telling people to take a hike. Trouble with the techs is that unless your intimately familar with them you have to guess. (I forget if I can access my tech tree but I don't recall being able to do so). Perhaps its focus isn't catching my eye, it seems as if most of what I do there, unless I purposely aim to piss them off, means little in the long run.

There's much more to diplomacy then trading techs, but you should be able to figure that out for yourself. It took me a mere several games to get cozy with the tech tree, it isnt terribly hard. You can access all your tech tree via some kind of expand button (I forget the specifics, as I never use it). You can make them like you or hate you, just like every other game with diplomacy.

The AI just seems to know which planets are habitable and doesn't have to waste time finding out otherwise.

Humans don't start out with stellar cartography, the other races do (where the planets are). NONE of the races know anything about the planets until they find them.

So far the one guaranteed play is to buy colony ships until everything near ya is colonized then ignore the ship type completely. Upgrade them to Constructors when you find nothing in reach, which occurs way to quickly.

Switch to Gigantic galaxy size if you think the explore and colonizing part of the game is over too fast.

Its a pretty game, but sheesh, MOO3 held my interest longer. At least that made it out of the first weekend I had it.

Moo3 went from installed to back on the store shelf afer 10 minutes of "gameplay."

I guess I will have to wait for mods and hope they can be used to put exploration back into the game. By that I mean making techs that extend range mean something. Right now if I need more range its far easier to pop a starbase out there which seems to never attract attention even though its of incredible strategic importance. The AI seems to be fixated on whacking planets.

Try a bigger map. Also, if the AI isnt targeting your starbases it's because of one of two things. 1) You set the AI to stupid. 2) Your starbase isnt as important as wacking your planet?


The game shines everywhere.

Civ IV is a great game. Go play that one. I like this one a lot, though after a week I just started a new game called "2nd full game."

Setting were easy on the 1st and I beat it, now moving up to a new level with 3 races as enemies. Great game, Frogger!

"sheesh, MOO3 held my interest longer"

This really says it all.

Then go play MOO3 and leave us neandrathals to our happy land of GalCiv 2.

you can try making a gigantic galaxy, with rare stars set. That will make the space seem a lot bigger, and make the initial range of ships a lot less meaningfull. Also, if the # of races is turned down, it wil incerease the exploration and expansion time.

I'm never directly going for a really strong military. IME, Galciv is one of the least war-biased strategy games. It has a lot to do with how you play though. If you violently expand then you'll of course have your fair share of shooting. However, if you manage to tangle the other civs in a web of culture-based conquest, interdependencies (broker some wars between them, great fun) and trade, you'll see that you slowly erode their territories without firing a shot.

The game is a bit like Morrowind: it doesn't beat you over the head with the fun. Sure you can go all gimp, run up the weapon techs and just eradicate everything that doesn't surrender within three turns, but you can also do it "your" way, whatever that may be.

Trollin, ain't ya?

Enjoy Moo3. I didn't, so I'm glad someone does.

Ships start out with WAY WAY WAY too much range...I guess I will have to wait for mods and hope they can be used to put exploration back into the game.

If my eyes don't betray me, it should only take about 5 minutes to do that. Only have to edit a couple of lines on two files...

I don't know about the just combat, I just finished an excellent game with the focus on diplomacy.

One thing is, I figured out the tech tree much better on a small easy game, moving up a level with each victory.

Good luck!

Someone should write a song about forum trolls... and post it here.

There is one, by Dennis Leary. It's a beutiful one which the name I can not say here but, look him up in google. You'll know the song that I'm talking about.

The guy's not trolling - but it sounds like he's played a few games with all the default settings and based his post on that. As others have said - make a bigger galaxy, fewer races, etc etc and things may be more to his liking.

I don't see why the alien civs start with stellar cartography though. Brad said he wanted to remove this advantage for the AI in GalCiv2 because he got beat up over it last time. But he's only half removed it - knowing where the planets are (habitable or not) is a huge advantage. This should be removed IMO.

You are not forced into playing the Terrans.You play the Aliens, you get stellar cartography too.

I just played a game on medium and developed a long-range colony ship just so I could grab the last three planets in a portion of the galaxy far away from everyone else. There's no problem with range as it is.

Also, what makes you say eXploitation isn't in this game?

Sure, I just like the idea of everyone starting with a *blank* slate. In the kind of game I'd like to play, noone has stellar cartography. Clearly, the AI uses scouts just fine now to find the habitable planets. So why the need to give them this advantage?

I've been pulling together a Marathon game. Start one of the gigantic Earth maps in Civ IV, play until military domination or colony ship launch, then switch to Galciv 2 and continue my empire's growth to the stars.

I was thinking of doing that myself

Someone should write a song about forum trolls... and post it here.

Please don't - its bad enough having Brad singing on the Poweruser podcasts...

Not trolling. Just expected more from the hype. The game has so much potential yet at the same time has some features which don't work for me. I like the exploration aspect of these type of games but even on the larger galaxies everything is picked over very quickly. Simply put, with the ranges we get at the start its not hard to get anywhere.

Tech is now my sore point. No matter how I play everyone has more than I do, even races that in no way shape or form can compete with me. Hell I was practically havling to milk races for tech with threats of invasion to keep pace. A damn one planet race was gaining tech faster than me! What gives?

I wish there was more to diplomacy. I like the idea of stealing stuff, blowing things up, etc.

Combat would be more fun if my opponents didn't essentially have all the techs. It doesn't take long for them to flip their designs to counter mine, but it does take me time to switch out because unless I am milking someone I can't get up a tree quickly.

Oh, I found a class 14 planet finally. First time in nearly a dozen games where I found such a large planet. Was nice to get one but unfortunately for me the majority of systems near me were dead. Just a bunch of useless class 0 planets. I would love to be able to use one, of say for exploding and mining the remains

Here's a tip:

DON'T buy ships at the start. Instead, buy planetary improvements. That's why the AI is getting more research. They buy those labs right from the start.

I haven't played too many games yet, just getting to know this version. Played GalCiv I though.

This may be a silly question, but have you played with the sliders for your civ's spending? As I understand it, the AI "gets more" because its good about optimizing its revenue and spending. Early in the game there's no need to keep 100 approval ratings, tax those little darlings for all you can. Bump up your spending level and pick a focus for tech research. Give 'em enough food to grow to a reasonable size, but not too much because then they get hard to keep happy.

You can't build everything on a planet, so pick a focus. Research centers early on or manufacturing? Small planets are ideal research centers, I don't even bother putting a starport on them. Same thing goes for medium planets that end up being way in the rear on a larger map.

If you're gonna play a fighting game then you can lay off the influence and diplomacy techs, etc. However, it seems that if you don't develop diplomacy and trade there's a good chance that the AI is going to start disliking you sooner rather than later.