cheat/exploit: "speak to" as a spying tool

use trading tech section as a spying tool

It is not a 'real' cheat, but just something I noticed during gameplay.

In Galciv2 you can design your own ships. In designing ships that match your opponent, you can take a galnce at their current ships to know what your up against now. But what about their ships in the (near) fututre? Or the ships they can upgrade to, when war is declared?

If I want tot start a war and have to start building my starships based on my enemies current ships, they can be (and have been) outmatched by the time they are built and arrive in my enemies' space.

So if you order your warmachine to build starships for a specific war, you want to have it bulding starships that are more 'future proof'.

Well, I have something that aided me in my last 'incident'.

The tech tree is so extensive that it is highly unlikely that an opponant will research all of the tech tree branches.

Simply click on the 'speak to' button of the race your planning to attack in the near future and check his tradable techs.

If they're (far) ahead in beam weapons research and have not yet implemented this in their ships (as was the case with the Drengin in my particular game) it will be wise to equip your ships with extra shields.
7,711 views 4 replies
Reply #1 Top
And what is exactly your problem? Diplomacy screen is a very important screen

BTW, you may want to speak to all AI regularly to see if they haven't any nice tech for you
Reply #2 Top
I tend to see this as a cheat as well. Not a huge one, but especially when you are at war and they aren't trading anything.

"You've taken our capital! BTW did you know we know how to make Harpoons? No you can't have them just thought you'd like to know."

I mean I wish there was a way for the AI to control what you see...but on the flip side does the AI take notice of what it sees when it talks to you?
Reply #3 Top
The AI knows as soon as you get a new tech. You will notice, especially on the harder difficulties, that you get messaged by a civ as soon as you upgrade down a tech tree the other civ's didn't research. Often times, more than one civ will ask for the same tech on the same round. I think the CPU just does a diplomacy scan every turn, effectively; a human player could do that as well, but it would often times be boring.
Reply #4 Top
I don't think of this as an AI cheat since everyone, human and AI, benefits from tech trade. I think I'm too gullible with the AI in trades as well, so that I'm doing their research for them, but sometimes they are so far down a branch I haven't even started it seems worth the disparity in the number of items.

Also I've gotten a response from the AI when I tried to trade him two items on the same tech branch, saying in effect that there's no value in getting Widget III if I'm also offering Widget IV. Embarrassingly I have been asking for those types of trades for myself!