A couple weeks after game purchase...

from GalCiv2 Forums
I recently picked up GalCiv2 after a friend recommended it to me over my aging Master of Orion 2. I've been generally pleased with it (except the lack of multiplayer - still have 4-way Moo2 fights for that, and its been beat to death on the forums), there are a few things about the UI that are driving me insane and I'm wondering if I'm just not seeing options to fix them.

1) Ships move SLLLOOOOWWWW. I mean the animations do. When I click "Turn" and I have 60 ships when 100 or so moves on each, it takes bloody forever. Is there a way to speed up the animation delay?

2) When I alt-tab or click out of GalCiv2's window (I have two monitors), the game pauses. This is even more frustrating due to point #1 above - I have enough time to read all of Slashdot between turns, except the game pauses! Can this be turned off?

3) There seems no way to set waypoints based on the ship being built. For example, I'm looking for a way to tell the 30 planets building constructors to gather at Cons Gather rally point, the 15 building transports to go here, the 5 building warships to go here, etc. etc. I can specify it one colony at a time, but this takes a long time. I can set it for ALL colonies through the Governers, but I want it split up. Is there a way to do this?

4) Picking new ships if they come up after a turn is painful. The quickest way I've found is to double-click the blue icon on the right side, which gets me the PLANET for no easily explainable reason. Then I have to pick out which ship (if there's multiple orbitting) to launch, double click it. Then I STILL have to find where on the screen that planet is, and find the tiny icon to click the ship before I FINALLY have control of the ship that was just made! That's on average a good 10 seconds or so of wasted time... every... single... ship. Please tell me there's a faster way?

5) I've taken to having small worlds build my Transports (I need the bigger worlds for their higher production on other projects), then Launching them with 1 troop, sending them to the world with the lowest popularity due to overcrowding and launching from there with the full load (3000 with my normal transport design). I can find what world that easier from Civilization Manager's Colonies screen, but it seems I then have to MANUALLY find the planet (and I play on the largest galaxy size). If I click on it, I lose my selection of the transport. Is there something like a quick Find Planet that doesn't loose targetting on the ship? (something like Ctrl-F in browsers and put in the search string, or maybe a special click from Civ Manager?)

Thanks for any help anyone can offer!
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1) Ships move SLLLOOOOWWWW. I mean the animations do. When I click "Turn" and I have 60 ships when 100 or so moves on each, it takes bloody forever. Is there a way to speed up the animation delay?



Don't watch them. Before you click turn, click on a corner of the map that still has the fog of war. Your ship(s) will still move and you won't have to wait.

2) When I alt-tab or click out of GalCiv2's window (I have two monitors), the game pauses. This is even more frustrating due to point #1 above - I have enough time to read all of Slashdot between turns, except the game pauses! Can this be turned off?


Can't help there.

3) There seems no way to set waypoints based on the ship being built. For example, I'm looking for a way to tell the 30 planets building constructors to gather at Cons Gather rally point, the 15 building transports to go here, the 5 building warships to go here, etc. etc. I can specify it one colony at a time, but this takes a long time. I can set it for ALL colonies through the Governers, but I want it split up. Is there a way to do this?


Not currently. Though this has been asked for numerous times.

4) Picking new ships if they come up after a turn is painful. The quickest way I've found is to double-click the blue icon on the right side, which gets me the PLANET for no easily explainable reason. Then I have to pick out which ship (if there's multiple orbitting) to launch, double click it. Then I STILL have to find where on the screen that planet is, and find the tiny icon to click the ship before I FINALLY have control of the ship that was just made! That's on average a good 10 seconds or so of wasted time... every... single... ship. Please tell me there's a faster way?


If you right click the icon it will take you to the planet and launch the ship. I think some of this may depend on the way you have your options set up in the menu.

5) I've taken to having small worlds build my Transports (I need the bigger worlds for their higher production on other projects), then Launching them with 1 troop, sending them to the world with the lowest popularity due to overcrowding and launching from there with the full load (3000 with my normal transport design). I can find what world that easier from Civilization Manager's Colonies screen, but it seems I then have to MANUALLY find the planet (and I play on the largest galaxy size). If I click on it, I lose my selection of the transport. Is there something like a quick Find Planet that doesn't loose targetting on the ship? (something like Ctrl-F in browsers and put in the search string, or maybe a special click from Civ Manager?)


Bottom left icon brings up a menu on the LHS of the screen that will give you access to a planet list and a ship list. You can also filter it to find what you are looking for easier. I would seriously consider moving your transport production to larger planets though.







Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. I heard people say if you zoom way in to a dead spot(nothing moving)it will move much faster. Haven't done it much myself, doesn't seem to me to go that much faster.

2 D.K. When I ran dual monitors I just had GCII at 2560x 1024 across both so never alt /tabbed.

3. I wish there were ,but I haven't found any way to.

4 You can right-click the blue icon and it will auto launch and center on the ship.

5. This is a pain for me at times too. What I started doing was to track down the planet using the colony/ship list, but you have to leave the colony manager to do it, so it's still not very efficient.


edit:F.C. You type faster than me   
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Edit: I'm to slow too, and I don't think I really have anything to add.

1) The game doesn't animate ship movement if you can't see it, so zoom in on an unoccupied square when you hit end turn.

2) Does switching to windowed mode make a difference? I don't know.

3) That would be a very nice feature to have. The best method I've found is to manually set the rally points for all the planets building constructors, and then move that rally point whenever I want all the constructors to go elsewhere.

4) Right-click on that blue icon to have the ship launch and be selected. But this doesn't work if the colony is set to send the ship to a rally point.

5) I think there's a way to center on a planet from the Civilization Manager's Colonies screen, but you might have to turn something on in the options menu. And it probably deselects your transport. Clicking once on a planet on the main map doesn't deselect your ship, but I don't think there's a complete solution here.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, I run it in a window, and I can go back and forth between programs pretty quickly. I do it that way to take screenshots.