Whats a good start?

Try looking in the Strategy subforums here - I read some good stuff. (You cna pull them up using the pull down window at the bottom of the main forum screen - they do not show up as Forum tabs unfortunately).

I am right now trying out the 'spam colony ships at the start to get as many planets as I can' strategy - but I have found that in ver 1.1 b2 the Ai is much better at working with smaller amounts of planets and is really ahead of me militarilty and technologically. Touch and go right now. (Terran, Tough level, large map).

Others have said it is best just to get a few very good planets to start and get them up to speed by buying improvements rather than buying colony ships.

In general, I buy my starport cause it's cheap, then buy a factory, build a factory, build a Tech center, build either a factory or trade center, then specialize from there. (rush buying when I can afford it) I will buy a constructor or two if I can get a resource starbase; but I hold off if not and just start building a few for later. I will rush buy my first colony ship; and don't waste time building scouts until I have several colony ships on their way. I will not build any early scouts on a tiny hull, instead when I do start making them I'll build a cargo hull with lots of engines and sensors - fewer scouts but each covers more ground.

I don't waste time researching stuff i know the AI will research - instead I research stuff I can trade that the Ai will not research often such as Sensors or hulls. This way I can stay in the tech race without spending a lot of money.

I also keep my Tax rate as high as possible - as long as I am in the lower 40's in approval my planet will grow, albeit slowly. I continually adjust my Production slider, to try and keep my factories as busy as possible. I also will adjust my research, Military and Social sliders each turm as needed early on to make sure I am not spending too much on research. Later I tend to set and forget.

I do not spend money on espionage until I am feeling like I have everything else under control.


I will build econ starbases and upgrade t hem as soon as I can afford them making sure I can cover multiple planets with one base if possible.

I only will build defensive ships at the start if I see a nearby Ai getting frisky - If I can I will not build any military in the first year at all. After that I will ramp up as needed or If I decide to get frisky....

Finally, I try to get to Sensors so I can make more survey ships to get as many anomolies as I can - they will usually pay off enough so I never have to worry much about money.

I am not the best player - or the worst - take this advice with a grain or two of Alterian salt....and good luck!

I've recently changed my starting strategy for 1.1b. I keep my tax low for the first 10 or so turns to increase population--you make so little tax at first anyhow. I make sure to buy several additional factories for my home world. I then use my homeworld to churn out colony ships. Its the only world that can take the hits to population. I buy the first couple ships, then build after that. Otherwise, it seems like I buy the first 4-5 colony ships then stall out with no money for a long time. If I only buy 1-2 colony ships, then build the rest normally on my capital, I can keep up the colony rush for a much longer period of time.

I leave most of my colonies on their own at first. I need the money to support building new colony ships, rather than upgrades for colonies. If I buy every colony a factory at the beginning my economy crashes just that much faster. At some point, my colonies start paying for themselves as they grow. Then I buy the factories and start to harness that tax revenue.

--Brad

@Brad -

That is the issue I just ran into with 1.1 - I grabbed 11 new worlds right off the bat ...but boy do they grow slowly! By the time I recovered from the initial rush of buying colony ships at my home world, initial Starports and initial factories on all the new worlds I was constantly running in the red. By the time I recovered the Ai was way ahead militarity and in techs - even though they each only had at most a half dozen worlds. They grabbed almost all of the resources - the only thing that kept me competitive was the fact I built a few large fast survey ships and gobbled up a bunch of anomolies that got me back on my feet financially. I'm playing catch up now trading - but they are much more stubborn here too. And much friskier - several wars have broken out already, just when I start to get back on my feet from the big colony rush I am now loking down the barrel of a very Big and very threatening Torian Rail gun....

1.1 is a different beast than 1.0x for sure....but really fun. I have not been pressed by an ai like this for a long time in a TBS game.

(Tough difficulty, 7 intelligent AI, large map, playing as Terrans).

I find it's a good idea to get as many colonies as you can at the beginning, but don't necessarily start producing things with those colonies. So while I'll buy a factory on my home planet right away, I won't buy factories on the colonized planets. Each turn for the first 4-5 turns, I'll buy a colony ship and send it on it's way.

You can also colonize from already colonized worlds -- if you don't have any colony ships nearby when you colonize one planet and find there's another worthwhile planet around, you can buy a starport and then buy a colony ship. Sure, you can hardly populate it, but that's OK -- once your home planet starts growing well (or any other planet) you can populate your less populous planets. Just take a colony ship from your home planet to the lesser populated ones and put the colony ship in orbit. Since you're not colonizing, the ship will stay in orbit. When you leave orbit, put 1 instead of 100, go back to your home planet, put it in orbit, then when you leave orbit, fill it up again, and go to another planet. (I believe the max value for initial colony ships is 100 -- 100 million people. Of your initial 5 billion population, 100 million isn't much at all. 5 colony ships is only 1/10th of your population. That's easily made up.)

You can do the same thing later on when you're conquering worlds -- let's say you use 4 troop transports to invade a planet. One troop is completely killed in the battle, and so is it's transport ship. Half of your soliders from the second transport are killed, and their transport ship is used as part of the new settling. The other two ships stay outside the planet. You simply put them in orbit around the planet, take them back out with the minimum number of soldiers, and suddenly you have a planet with over 2 billion people instead of something like 500 million. They start producing tax revenue and production right away.

Trying to learn a game and playing large systems for the sake of the huge colony rush is not the way to go. Esp if your learning strategy games in general. Start small. Find a level of game that you enjoy (do not play " brutal plicks" to impress anyone). Play to have fun.

I would suggest trying a two system start. Don't worry about losing this game, it's not the point of it. Develop your opening strategy and find what works for you. If you only have 5 planets or so it is a lot easier to find your balance of style. Then in future games you can go bigger, a system at a time, and make minor adjustments to your core strategy to fit the expansion of style. If you find you made a number of early mistakes, start a new map or reload a very early turn. The first few games should be learning games. Don't get distracted with concepts of cheating or anything. Your not submitting any scores or or going for forum fame with some cheap cheese scores. Your playing to learn how to beat the game, within the game, first. Plenty of time later on for that, and you will feel good about your bragging because you did it with skill. Those are "scoring games", and of course you don't reload every time you lose a ship. You won't need to because you have developed your strategy to deal with losses in your learning games.

To get a good handle on your starting economy, and with growth and it's effects. Start a map and don't rush by anything. Set your tax slider to 0, capacity to 100%, and see how far you can develop the empire. This will give you a comparison against what your really giving up when you rush buy. Not saying rush buying is bad, just that you want to make a more informed decision. Take what you learned on that map, with you to the next one. You are not going to learn a game in one sitting or with one map. Give yourself some patience to try different things. New games I get I usually play 5 or so learning games, then move on to scoring games. I rarely ever even finish a learning game. The latter I always do.

Yeah - it's just that in 1.1b pop growth seems much slower than in 1.0x - making the colony rush path a bit more complex to do. And the Ai is much more proficient at using a limited number of worlds than it was - much better optimization now. I can easily grab more planets than the Ai, but now it takes more time to get them up to snuff and if I'm not careful the Ai will jump too far ahead becasue it is now using it's limited resources better.

I too have been having problems with my games, but I think I've finally gotten the hang of it. For me, I don't rush the colony ships right away. I put them in the quae for building and just let 'em slowly build up. I fast-build an entertainment centre on each planet right away so I can raise the taxes and maintain a high popularity, then next round I fast-build a factory or a star-port. All other constructions I just let build up naturally, and place the focus on social dev to speed 'em up. I never rush for planets unless (A) I've got sweet FA in my own area, (B) I'm really hemmed in by the AI, or (C) there is a really nice planet nearby...otherwise I expand slowly. I find if you expand too quickly, your money starts to run out rapidly, and short of jacking taxes way up, there's no way to stop that slide.
After I've got the first three to four planets built up, with one world focused on research, one on military, and one for economics if I can, I change the focus to either research or military, adjust my spending sliders appropriately, and maybe start pumping out freighters.
I have to confess though, I am still technically new to the GalCiv games, and I usually play on beginner. Still, it works for me and I'm having a great time.
As for espionage, I invest right off the bat. As soon as I meet a new faction, I jump to foreign relations and invest about 5-6 credits. A little over a long time usually leads to information and stolen tech without too much of a wait.

Always get Planetary Improvements!

I tend for the Colony Rush.
The very first turn I change Taxation to 100% approval rating, Spending to 100%, Military Spending to 0%, Social and Research to 50% Each. I then BUY colony ships every single turn until I have 4 of them, and buy the first Factory of every colony I have.

With a decimated population on my home world, I'm bringing in no tax worthwhile yet getting pop bonuses from 100% Approval. Only a single world becomes my Military Production planet, or two for the largest of games. Almost every one of my planets is generic, possessed of 2 Factory, 1 Farm, 1 Entertainment, 2 Stockmarket, 2 Research. I only specialize based on at least a 300% or two 100%'s. In very short order, my deficit dissapears and I'm rolling in cash. I've researched Laser 5, and stock market upgrades and begun producing first strike craft to use in my defense. Sensor ships come next.

honestly.... i rarely play a game unless my home planet has a 300 or 700 % mineral bonus. it's slightly chees, yes. and if there's ever multiplayer it's not something you can count on. honestly i'm surprised home planet tile bonuses aren't programmed into each race's... uh... file. i don't know what the techno jargon term would be for what i'm trying to say.

anyway, i usually turn my industry up to 100% on the first turn, military 60, social and research 20. maybe i'm just tripping, but when i play with luck bonuses, i get way more $ from exploring anomolies (and on that note, i've noticed that when i play custom maps where you have no starting ships, i'm almost always the first to get sensors, and typically get ALL the anomolies... seems a bit exploitable). just set your survey ship to auto, and it'll take care of the rest.

anyway, i've found if i don't spend my entire 5k, i can run pretty long on a minor deficit. i don't add anything to the military Qs on my new colonies, and in 1.1 i've also been leaving their social Qs empty in some cases. i turn my taxes as high as i can while still keeping approval in the 60-ish range. since my young colonies aren't building anything, their minor funds are put back into my income, which helps to extend my early expansion phase. when i start with a precursor mine and have my spending set like that, it takes like 4 turns to make a colony ship. i usually buy it at 2 turns remaining - save money, but still get ships out pretty quick. how quickly and when i buy them depends on the game i'm playing. i havent tried a gotta-catch-em-all approach to how many planets to get in 1.1. I try to grab the best quality planets nearby first, and after that try to pay attention to how my boarders are going to affect other civ's growth (say i'm playing the Yor; I'll try not to crowd the Drengin. They'll be stronger allies, and i'll be right up next to the civs I really want to take over). i often don't even bother colonizing Mars/ the 2nd planet in the home system. you're basically assured a cultural revolution when someone else colonizes it, unless it's the Yor or Thalans who can be pretty hard to convert). i also try to grab resources. constructors are easier to build like this, and i try to grab resources. sometimes i just send an available 'structor into a large area without stars even if i don't know there's a resource there. there often is, i just might find it, and even if i don't i'll use the ship later.

at some point i arbitraility decide, i figure even if i can get more colony ships out to those unexplored stars, they're so much closer to other civs that i'm better off switching my focus to development and set military spending to 0% for a while. regarding my planets, if it's 7+ quality i build a starport before anything, just cause it's so cheap and useful. after that i build industry and farming first, research and morale second, economy, culture (if needed) and specialization last. i still haven't found a way of handling low quality planets that i like. i get some diplomacy techs early and start trading early to help off set this, but at some point i start producing "duds".

that's what i called the ship. basically, if anyone actually caught me with my pants down i could be f-ed, but it hasn't happened yet... they're just ships with weapons piled on. no engines. no life support. not even usually defenses until mid game. but their fire power gives me a high military rating, which convinces the AI that i'm enough of a threat that they should point their transports elsewhere. usually when i feel i'll need to do this soon, i research up to stinger II. i like missiles early on because they do 2 damage, and a singer 2 will fit on a tiny chasis with no miniaturization. your rating is higher when your ships are in orbit, so usually i'll build a small fleet of these things and distribute them more or less evenly. then my military spending goes back to economy - build up star bases, and/or turn mil. spending way down. then i switch back to building a bunch of cheap, lame ships to keep the war hawks away again for a while. i do this military spasm method for a while, but eventually i've got enough of a technological and industrial lead to churn out some comparatively mean ships.

i found what helped me more than anything was learning the game in a controlled way. i jumped in early like i quite rightly intended to, and i didn't do very well. then i played a few games on easier AI settings. then a few on normal. then i realized i needed to take another step back again. i found playing custom maps also helped me a lot (i like 'chaos'). their small, so micromanagement is not difficult, but their also very... tidy. it allowed me to see how a lot of the parts of the game work that playing on a huge map makes difficult.

playing this game well is about adapting. the AI is really good, and they're only making it better. it's not good because it can do and see things you can't. from what i've read it has the same perspective limitations human players do, and uses the same rule systems to "play" the game. StarDock has done something rather impressive. maybe it's just a change by degree compared to the AI in other games, but the GalCiv AI analyzes the strategy of all its opponents on enough levels that sometimes i really feel like i'm playing against, well, intelligence, not just a pattern.

sheesh. i rarely use 'their' when i should use 'they're'

Always go for the planets.

In 1.1 cut back on colony ship population to grab the planets without depleting your builder planets.

Assuming you are playing a large + map after you have 20-25 planets start building improvements and let your population grow for awhile then go for engine tech and life support and start another rush. If you can get control of about 20% of the map you should have a power base that will allow you to win with whatever strategy you choose.

If you research planetary improvement and xeno business early you should be able to stay in the green economically and if you have chosen moral bonuses wisely you can grow your population.

Ultimately I have found you will have a hard time winning without controlling your share of resource bases and you must stay in the top 2-3 militarily. If you stay fairly strong and research well the AI will spend their treasure on wars and you will wind up with a strong economy and big military potential by the mid game.

This is for the mid range difficulty. For games over the painful rating, you will need more tricks up your sleeve and you will need to be able to take advantage of AI weakness.