Racial abilities selection

need clarification!

from GalCiv2 Forums
According to Stardock's strategy guide for beginners, after we select a race (say humans) we're supposed to use up the remaining points. This suggests that the race defaults are not balanced.

This seems the obvious deduction since some races have -2 ability points left over (e.g. the Korx) which means they've used up MORE than 10 points. Others like the Iconians have as many as 6 points leftover.

The problem is adjusting the ability points would lead to special abilities like miniaturization and loyalty +100 disappearing. Which seems to suggest that the game actually meant us to play the races AS THEY ARE without any tweaking (except for maybe political parties).

What is the official Stardock position? Have the races be pre-balanced already or do we need to adjust their points?

P.S. On a related point, the races descriptions in the "Select Other Civs" screen is a bit strange. The races summary ability descriptions don't match their real abilities. For instance the Iconians are described as "Weak in Research" even though they have by default +20 Research, the highest among all the races.
6,898 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like to know what Stardock has to say about it too. Maybe the Ai handles +20 resaerch more badly or something....
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Most races have special abilitities that disappear if you change abilities.

This needs to be fixed.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For instance the Iconians are described as "Weak in Research" even though they have by default +20 Research, the highest among all the races.


Yes i also noticed it, probably it is a bug. There is also Korx saying good economy, high defection rate but........they have no negative modifier to loyalty.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I believe the developer explained some of this in a statement in an old thread about how some of the weaknesses and strengths are based off those races' AI and not directly off stats (each race has its own AI routine). With that said "high defection rate" would seem to need a stat adjustment to be game effective
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Still it doesn't make sense for the Iconians to be described as "poor in research" when their own text description says "highly inventive". Indeed, judging from the other races, the iconians are supposed to be the tech-intensive ones, much like the MOO Psilons.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I posted this in my other thread, but it seems as if it got no replies.

In a custom race, if you save it and load it, it'll increase its logistics by +4. if you do it again, it'll increase it by another 4. it'll keep doing this as long as you want, and you can have lots of logistics from the getgo. Which is not good, cause it costs you nothing and is a glitch/exploit.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, from the looks of it the peeps doing the manual and much of the in-game text were not talking with the game programmers. How else can one account for all the blatant discrepancies between what Frogboy says "should have been" and what really appears in the game?
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This problem is definitely a bug, which I have encountered twice.

I started a game as the Drath, adding diplomacy, research, and economic bonuses with the excess points. When I started the game, the Drath had, most notably, no espionage bonuses, which were the main reason I chose them in the first place. What's worse, I am now unable to correct the situation. Even after uninstalling and reinstalling the game and deleting all saved games, the Drath are permanently locked as nothing more than a custom race.

I subsequently had the exact same problem with the Terrans. Upon starting the campaign, I added points to economics and research for the Terrans. They lost all diplomacy bonuses permanently, in the same way that the Drath have.

This is most certainly a bug; whether or not the preset races are intended to be used "as is", I can't imagine that Stardock intended them to lose all preset bonuses permanently any time the user took advantage of the option to perform minor customizations. It isn't necessarily game-breaking, but it eliminates the ability to enjoy the subtle variations in gameplay and strategy requirements which each race's abilities offer.

Bottom line: it's a bug, and it should be fixed with the next update, either by eliminating the ability to customize major races, or by fixing the system so that customization is not permanent and does not weaken the race considerably.