I am not giving up. I keep coming here and picking up more advise, and trying it out in the game, and I just want to say that I appreciate all the responses. Sorry if I moan too much, but I am still "newbie-ish" to these 4x games. The only other one I've played is Civilizations IV (no expansion pack--Warlords?). And then I only won on a Continents map, and in a Space Race victory. So you see, even in that game, my first 4x game, I didn't really master it. I actually prefer the space version of the game, and even though Galactic Civilizations II (I have Gold Edition) is somewhat easier (not much) than Civilizations IV, in my opinion, it's also more complex. I could finish a Civilizations IV game in one night. I played GC II last night for about 9 hours, and the game wasn't even half over... speaking of which, here's what I've gathered from my game last night...

--I think it's best to go to each colony's Governer and turn off all auto-upgrades. Even when I have the best factory or the best research building, now I start with the basic factories first, and build all old buildings. The reason is easy enough--get the planet producing as quickly as possible. Then I upgrade the factories to their next level, and then all the other buildings to their next level, and repeat until everything is upgraded. Otherwise everything builds extremely painfully slow. I don't trust the computer to do my work for me anymore.

--An economy specialized planet is always my first planet now. By the time I colonize my third planet for technology, the second one is half done with its economic buildings, which will support it financially. Otherwise I go broke fast.

--Colonizing low PQ planets isn't a total waste, and it seems better to take planets in adjacent sectors anyway. Planets closer together benefit from one starbase instead of two or three.

There's a few things I tried but still don't understand...

--Espionage. I only dabbled in it a little, and for the first time. The Thalans were kicking the crap out of everyone, and not through combat. They were just spreading like a cancer, so I dropped a spy on one of their tech buildings. Immediately I learned Heavy Gravity Colonization (the planet was Heavy Gravity), and I got to Low Intelligence, but then they nullified me. What I don't understand is... how does Espionage even work? Is there a % chance for them detecting the spy, or is the spy immediately known when it's placed?

--Starbases. I guess I need to know more about how to use these. So far I just use Economic starbases to boost production and research. I also mined some Influence resources but I have no idea what that's doing.

Although the game didn't finish, I could see that the Thalans were going to take over. Their influence started eating into mine, and they even colonized planets in *my* territory... which I guess is a good reason to colonize everything in your territory? I never built any embassies, and I guess my influence was too weak. Then the Terrans started to do the same thing. It's like--HEY! Let's all go into the Altarian's territory and just move the heck on in!!! I wanted to kill them all.

I guess I am missing something here. The way it reads to me, you are focusing on getting a 'top three' list of planets in a way, correct? You are of course shooting to grab every hunk of rock that you can, right? I find it very hard to start focusing on making just one planet into a specialized one early in the game unless I come across a planet with a bunch of bonus tiles of course. I admit I re-read your post half-heartedly this morning so if I missed something contrary to what I am typing, sorry.
Bottom line, quit looking to build up the infrastructure so fast. Land grab like a mother until you have a decent amount of worlds for your galaxy size, then start the process of choosing what planet will be what.

I have to agree with Evil on this one. Wait until you have all your planets before deciding what to do with them. This is especially true for your capitals; once they are placed, they are there for good. It is excruciating to build a manufacturing capital, and find that the next planet colonized has a couple of +300 bonus tiles. As far as going broke; don't overextend yourself too soon. It takes awhile to build an economy, be patient.

When you place an agent on an improvement, it nullifies the effect that improvement gives. (as if it weren't there at all) The longer an agent is on a planet, the higher your level of intelligence will rise for that race. Multiple agents on the same planet, or agents on other planets of the same race will speed up the process. The AI sees your agent immediately, just as you do it's agents. Whether or not it responds to nullify one of your agents depends on the value it places on the improvement, and whether or not it has an agent in reserve. Placing an agent on a capital is sure to get an almost immediate response- again, as long as it has an agent available. I have found it useful to keep a few agents in reserve, in order to counter the AI's moves. Espionage can be a very powerful tool, once you learn how to use it.

Resource starbases are some of the most valuable things that you can build. Grab every resource you can find. Resource bonuses are applied across your empire, as opposed to the localized effects of the more mundane varieties. And, their values stack. Their values are pretty self explanatory; economic resources give a boost to your economy, military boosts the power of your ships, research increases the amount of research you do, and influence increases your galactic influence. You must improve them to get the maximum benefit, and in order to do that you must research certain techs in order to be able to build the modules necessary. It's a bit of a process- but the end gain is more than worth it.

Not necessarily. I sometimes skip over planets closer to home, in order to get to a more valuable one a bit farther away. Wait until the other civ builds the planet up for you, then raise your influence, and culture flip it.

Sometimes, that is the best strategy of all. Good gaming.

How do I raise my influence? I'm Altarian with +60 Economics, +40 Technology and +40 Morale (+20 Technology from Technologists party)... I see on some of my colonies a decimal in parenthesis (0.56, for instance). How big does that # have to be before my planet rebels? In this game the Korath are just coming into my influence and claiming planets, and it's cutting down my influence ring big time.

Aside from the obvious builds that raise your influence (better versed players step in at any time please... ) you can start by building some constructors and then send them out to areas where you want to increase your influence, even if it's within your own 'territory'. Have them build influence starbases and then add modules to them (upgrade if you will) by sending more constructors out to them. There are posts in here with regards to doing such if you look hard enough. Just experiment with it.

1. Population - the more the merrier
2. Research the influence techs (one of the yellow branches).
3. Build the Restaurant of Eternity - much harder now if you've got the Korx in the game as they start with the pre-req tech.
4. Influence resources (the blue ones)
5. Influence starbases
6. Stock Markets carry a 5% influence bonus as well as the economic bonus

If you get really desperate, you can even build Embassies / CICs on affected planets.

Influence is almost irrelevant unless you're going for that victory. If you have a planet about to flip, the best solution is to increase population ASAP. Build a ferry (colony or troop transport) and take people from a highly populated planet to the one that's in trouble.

I've NEVER had a planet flip, and I've only had the chance of it show up a few times.

Influence starbases aren't necessary unless you're trying to take planets without declaring war (a good strategy sometimes), or unless you're going for influence victory.






It entirely depends upon the size of the map and the habitable planets available. For instance, if you know you don't have much chance of getting a few more good planets, it's certainly time to start building manu caps and econ caps.

However, I'd say it's time even before that. I tend to use my homeworld for those two important improvements. Yes, you MIGHT find a planet with a 700 or 300 manu bonus, but it's still better to get the advantage that the manu cap gives as early as you possibly can.

Others might disagree, and I'll respect their opinions.

And also the number of races in the game. There are times that the available planets are gobbled up pretty quickly, and other times where they are around well into the game. You know, I almost put a caveat in my post regarding Mumble's, (and it turns out, your) opinion on this matter, but I thought that I should let him speak for himself.

I generally don't wait too long to build; only a few months perhaps, and then only if I have my eye on a particular planet or two.

And I'll certainly respect yours. I find it delightful how many seemingly contradictory styles of gameplay can achieve success.

That can happen anyway. Oh yea the anomalies are a big plus with the custom maps... no competition!

Well, I never said I was building capitals, just specialized planets. A good ecomonic planet with nothing but economy buildings helps a lot, though not as much as I wish it did. I build this to support my specialized manufacturing and technology planets, which I build next. Technology first, to get a boost. I don't think a specialized planet has to be a capital, it just does what it does. I make planets with rings around them into tech planets and ones with moons into factory planets. It all depends on what the "Details" window says, too.

I don't think I did too bad in my last two games, though they went on too long, I guess these games are supposed to be incredibly long? Really, I am starting to get a little emaciated with the lack of food and sleep, and there's a puddle on the floor here...

*ahem* Anywho, back to the grind, I guess. I'd still like to know why some of you like to claim all your planets before building anything on them? So you just claim a bunch of planets and leave them with empty tiles until you decide what to do with them? Then you have... 24 technology points for how many turns?

I have read up on starbase modules and have yet to find any that reduce the cost of anything. They just give a production bonus in %, or to your trade income. What am I missing here?

And for the record, I colonized over 15 planets in my last game, and not a single one of them had a bonus tile anywhere. I guess I'm just incredibly unlucky, since in every game I've played so far, only one planet in one of those games has ever had a bonus tile, and it was +100% food. Whoopie.

My reason for it may be 'flawed' but I do it for the population. The quicker I can get my population to grow to the maximum UNADJUSTED population, which is 6 billion for all other planets, the quicker my tax revenue grows. To spend money building improvements right off the bat isn't always wise fiscally but is doable on a few planets at a time if your economy can't handle a massive amount of builds on a bunch of planets. As others pointed out, the side effect if you want to call it that is that with more people your influence grows as well. More planets equal a bigger 'influence' spread on the map and more tax money coming in.
I usually try to get the economic and production bonus going by making those the first things I research that way 'new' colonies gain the benefit of enhanced economic and production activity without having to build immediately. Oh, almost forgot, I do build a starport on my planets immediately, unless it is within my 'sphere of influence' and is a low PQ planet, then I don't bother unless the planet is in enemy territory and of strategic importance.

I heard that bonus tiles were made very rare in DA, however Kryo said that it had been changed again and you should be able to find almost as many bonus tiles as was in DL.

Having said that, yes i have played a game or two in DL where i gained not one single little bonus tile after colonising about 15 worlds.

I think i even have a saved game which i named - 'barren landscape'.

NB, i didn't bother playing that game out, since it was just a big pile of nothing!

I have about 15 planets in my current game, and only one planet I colonized had any bonus tiles to speak of. It's an aquatic world, too. A +100% research tile and a +100% production tile. Not really worth waiting to find a planet with bonus tiles to make it into a capital, really. So far my best luck came with a PQ 26 planet with a ring around it. A choice came up and I chose "Dump the underwater pukes into the ocean, I need room for my chemistry set!" and got +56% research. Needless to say this became my research capital.

On that note I am wondering why anyone would choose to play good in this game. The only time you get anything worthwhile is if you pick the evil choice. It would be better if they all gave back something, just something different.

I don't know if they're rare or not since I almost always get a few of them each game. My current game my actual homeworld has a 700% manu, a 300% manu, and a 100% manu bonus tile... take a guess where I built my Manufacturing Capital... go on...  
Too bad it isn't a Metaverse game.  

The best bonus result i got was a 700 manufacturing and a 300 science bonus on Earth in the second last DL campaign mission!

That was the second time i played the campaign so it was interesting to see the difference between the two games with such an absurdly good bonus result!!!!

I slaughtered the dreadlords so thouroughly that i didn't even need to take that planet at the bottom left of the map to win! I assume one of my allied did?? I duno but suddenly i won the mission without taking any enemy planets at all?

Kinda dissapointed how the campaign ended... i'm like "cmon, just let me at em, we'll see who has who surrounded!!"

We need a sandbox game option for planet bonus tiles.

like for anomalies? Except that anomalies cannot be off completely which is somthing i would have liked to have. Since anomalies is just another way for the AI to get lucky while you get squat!

Yes. I support both an option for no anomalies and no bonus tiles in their respective game options.

Maybe it has something to do with galaxy settings. I always set everything to abundant. I think this is bad, now, since the AI gets really overpowered in its influence, and it has no issues with patience and doesn't really feel annoying with micromanagement. I wish I were a computer sometimes.

hehehe, well actually, i think your already a super computer, light years ahead in technology from that box sitting in front of you.

They say we only use a small percentage of our brain power but i think that's crap. I think it takes allot more to make a concious being than science understands.

If you're not willing to Ctrl-N, then I agree, this game depends too much on pure dumb luck. And it's not just Ctrl-N to get yourself a 700% tile--it's Ctrl-N to intentionally give yourself a crappy start, or a blah start. Use it like another difficulty slider.

The economy starbases reduce the cost of building and researching by the fact that you only spend 50% of the cost for that 30% increase in production. That is how a starbase helps. Also a 60% increase in trade revenue can help a lot, if you concentrate your trade routes. There are some ways to help your economy, that are not really spelled out, but WIKI articles help explain a lot.

Don't get me wrong, I love starbases. I just started playing as the Thalans, per some advice I got here, and I think they kick butt. Super Hive! What can I say, I no longer have to spend 1,000 turns for my planet to finish improving all its tiles. It's just that the United Planets tend to vote on limiting the modules on them... I freaking hate the United Planets. What, exactly, would happen if I left the UP? Would I be able to ignore all their laws then?