Has anyone tried....

from Stardock Forums

Perhaps the greatest thing about this game is that there are a zillion ways to win.

One that I haven't yet tried but I intend to shortly is based on two "trojan horse" techs.
The top line factory and farm buildings. The first of these requires so many mp to create it can completely stop your ability to churn out buildings on small planets (unless you can rush build one to start with).
The second can give you terrible morale problems as your population cap needs a huge number of morale buildings to "keep up".

These buildings are undoubtedly double edged swords (so much so that you can actually end up in big trouble if you get them at the wrong time). This means I've always steered well away until I know I can cope with them. And therein lies a strategy to exploit. If they are such a pain for me, how will the AI cope if I researched them early and then gave them away.

If also I chose EVIL so that invasion methods are free I could invade poor morale worlds with Information Warfare and use mass drivers on the underdeveloped ones.

So my strategy is going to be.
Get a few planets from the rush.
Stop rushing before the AI does.
Spend more time on getting plain honest factories (and a good economy) on my planets (earlier than usual because I stopped expanding early).
Avoid ever building farms. (Or on big planets put loads of morale buildings with them)
Then research Industrial Sector. Trade it away. (Hell give it away if they have nothing I want)
Then research Farms to the top of the tree. Trade it away.
Research planetary invasion and see what a mess the Universe is in.
When invading go for Information warfare or methods which give the HIGHEST PQ drops and not really bother about defending them or building on them.
Essentially by contolling the timing of the introduction of these 2 techs try to be the only civ with usable planets.

19,303 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Xeno Farm 3 only needs one Virtual Reality Center and probably a couple stock exchanges to go along with it to keep the morale high enough. I usually try to get as many of the morale boosting trade goods as well, to help out in that regard. And a morale resource nearby is nice, too.

As long as it is on a normal tile and not a bonus tile.
And as long as it is limited to one per planet.

And by not building farms you limit your tax income way too much, as well as limit the defense if you are ground invaded. You are also limited to a very few troop transports from that planet if you are invading another race's planets.

It is not that hard to keep a moderately high population happy.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Moosetek13
Sorry I've not explained myself well. I usually build farms, lots of them for exactly the econ bonus you say.

But I don't go racing up the farm tree without racing up the morale tree at the same time. What I'm suggesting is purposely going for "bad" early techs and giving them away. Knowing that I've avoided the pitfalls of why they are "bad" early on.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
sounds like you've got most of your bases covered there. but, Moosetek13's also right. you're kind of pushing your income level for that galaxy-wide invasion of yours.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Please don't get me wrong, I know how the economy works in GalCiv2...
and most people undervalue population. It is just that very high populations bring trouble in building the correct ratio of morale vs farms. I'm sure that in general I'll make a better job of it than the AI will so I guess I'm exploiting the AI to some extent.

Also by controlling the timing of it... and giving it way too early it may really mess up some civs.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hey, interesting idea! I've never tried it. let us know how it works out. I suspect if it does work it will be the factories that do it - population doesnt get too big till later in the game anyway, and it looks like your strategy is designed to kill them before that. Also, if giving away industrial sector works as planned, they might never get around to building the farms!

good luck!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Habitat Improvement/Terraforming techs also take a lot of time in the queue.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I think that for the strategy to work it will have to be on large or above galaxies... where the AI does spend a long time colonizing rather than getting their planets up and running properly.

I will push my espionage right up to make sure I see what effect it has on the different civs.

I think the farms will only really work in helping me invade. I tend to race up the invasion techs... often leading to 7-1 tech advantage... If I'm getting 2000 of their troups too it will mean capturing planets on one or two small transports.

@AngleWyrm - I've never experienced that. However, it is a great tech to give away a few months before you invade (before they've had chance to exploit it)... as they spend their time doing something that you will want to do anyway.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ooooh I like this idea, though it does faintly smack of exploit. Does the AI have any idea how to cancel an upgrade in the build queue? Even if it did, would it be able to determine when to do so? I doubt it. Still, on the higher difficulty levels we often need all the help we can get. I'm assuming it works, of course, but I can't wait to try it out in game soon. I love the idea of not having to buy or build industrial sectors on a newly conquered world which has been working on building them for me. High espionage would be a lovely tool to conquer a world just as soon as they're completed. This is sort of like giving a kid "free" plans for building a bike, watching him abandon most of his free time for months to do it, and then punching him and taking the bike. You are a twisted gamer, xpyre... I like it.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Great analogy shirt145... I'll keep you posted as to my success.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've tried parts of this strategy, but more because I saw an opportunity to crash the already weak economy of the races on the brink of collapse by giving them research and factory techs that would have them wasting all their economy building them, and after they're built (if they get built) would use so much money to keep going that they would quickly be in debt. However, as a strategy used right from the outset to take over the galaxy I've never tried it, but the idea definitely has merit.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Rush the research of Huge ships. and planet invasion. Create about 20 huge ships with nothing on them. push them out the fastest planet you have producing. Now create a huge troop transport ship. Take those 20 huges useless ships and create a fleet(s) move them into your enemy's territory preferably at their high PQ planets then mass upgrade. and invade. They wont see you massing a fleet of warships and wont build up defensive ships on the planet. At most they will have 1 defender. So make sure your transport has a few beam weapons but must have 5 adv. troop modules. Now invade and start again..
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
@starlost.

My games are generally won/lost by the time Huge hulls are available. Not literally but certainly it has been decided in the earlish years. My strategies are all based on what to do for the first 1-2 years...

I found using cargo hulls with one advanced module as troup ships with huge number of engines to work best for my style. The AI doesn't even see the troup ships coming. You can make an invasion force which can take over a whole civ in one turn if you troup ships have 40 movement and you have a similar fast assault force. If the AI can't respond then you can win very easily. (That is a significant problem in turn based games where you have almost unlimited movement in one turn).
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Just an update.

Tried it on Masocistic (version 1.2b2) Large Universe and it sort of worked but it sort of didn't.
I was really unlucky and didn't get a single bonus square (apart from influence) on any of my 6 planets.

It took a long time (too long) for me to research up the factory tree (I'd forgotten how expensive some of these techs are - I usually research them late in the game when I only need 2-3 turns for anything). Given that I needed to do enough econ research to get profitable as well. I reckon I was about 100 turns in by the time I could give the tech away. (Maybe I should have traded for econ/gov techs rather than doing them myself... but the AI is so slow in researching them).

As a result I was too far behind militarily (I was way ahead in tech (with trading) with the exception of weapons and my economy was fine +250bc per week).

Had my ass handed to me by the nearby Dregnim on about turn 150. They had multiple squads of 10 small ships each with 28 missile against my 6 defenders (my entire fleet) with attacks of 12 mass drivers. Everyone (well about 4 civs) gave me battleships but I could see they had enough "good planets" to actually sustain their attack so I left it.

On the good side the effects were as predicted. Many of the AI's planets (using espionage) were completely messed up. Generally the home worlds and the first 2-3 planets colonized looked usable the rest would have taken forever to get off the ground. So I will try again.

I need to find a way to reorder my early game to advance the factory tech earlier. Maybe needs a huge Universe to give myself a bit more time. Maybe go sensors straight away and design loads of survey ships... with the hope of a 25% bonus on tech being researched. (Although it is beginning to feel a bit too cheesy).

I will try on crippling tonight and see whether I can tweak the order of reseach to get a fast path through. Alternatively a bit of luck on bonus tiles maybe all I need. A 300% manufacturing tile somewhere would have meant I could have produced a more significant navy. A 300% research would have had obvious benefits in cutting the time to do the research.






Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try giving yourself the max research ability bonus, then spending the rest of your points on econ and social production. Also, go for Technologists as your political party. That should get you up to those high-level techs faster.

As for the farms, what I would do for this strategy is turn off Automatic Upgrades using the colony governor each time you colonize a planet (and your home planet, too, of course...). That way you will be able to build at least Basic Farms on your planets without worrying about farm techs exploding your population out of control. You could also research Xeno Farms early on and build those on planets with a morale bonus tile. Not only will this give you a better tax base, it will also give you a larger pool of recruits when you start invading the rest of the galaxy.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
MarshallONeil
Already did exactly the choices you suggested (they are the obvious ones).

You are also right about the farms and the colony governor. That way I get the best of both worlds. I just have to micro manage upgrades a bit more.

I hope I do find a way to get it to work because it may be a way to get back up to suicidal and huge.
Prior to 1.2 I could win on suicidal and huge but the AI has improved enough to ram home its huge bonuses. This may be a way to hamstring the AI enough to be competative again
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is sort of like giving a kid "free" plans for building a bike, watching him abandon most of his free time for months to do it, and then punching him and taking the bike. You are a twisted gamer, xpyre... I like it.


Great analogy shirt145... I'll keep you posted as to my success.


hehee, no need to ask what alignment you two are

Prior to 1.2 I could win on suicidal and huge but the AI has improved enough to ram home its huge bonuses


yeah, i'm in a similar position xpyre - pre 1.2 suicidal was doable, but now i just get chopped into tiny peices...

i might have a try with this idea too
*joins dark side* Mwahaaahaa...
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Damn... it just takes too long.

The problem with strategy is that occassionally tactics get in the way. Before I could get anywhere near industrial sector the Drath and Torians came steaming in. "Your just too evil... blah de blah...".
"I was minding my own business in a corner of the galaxy mate. Just cost I metal...and different... you shouldn't be so predjudist"

I managed to beat them off but by this time everone elses worlds were up and running. I won the game quite easily in the end but still not had any luck testing the strategy properly.