Please help me, I cannot figure this game out

from Stardock Forums
I bought this game because it seemed like a really great game, plus there were a lot of good reviews. I didn't get much of a chance to play Gal Civ II but then I got Dark Avatar and I'm trying it out. After like my 10th attempt to figure out this game I have failed and have given up. I understand the mechanics of the game but I cannot figure out the strategy. I have tried not colonizing at the beginning and I have tried colonizing a lot at the beginning but it seems like all the time I am 10/10 on everything, even technology, which I prioritize (+20% abilities, +20% gov party), not to mention flat out broke.

The last game I played I was doing horrible on every category (nothing new) and I struggled to make money (again, nothing new), even with five colonies (on a map with few habitable planets) with populations above 6 billion (except for one), and with at least two adv. markets on each one (one of them was a class 14 with at least 7 markets and a pop of 12 b). I was making maybe 30 bc a turn, including four trade routes. It seems like taxes mean nothing in this game. It was so difficult for me to get a positive cash flow, and then I finally got a positive cash flow after concentrating so hard on it, but then my economic might rating was only 34, and the top player was at least 160!

My initial setup was that I would build about 2-3 labs on each colony and have a big civ bonus, so I should have a relative advantage with technology. But I am significantly slower than the rest (and also am 10/10). This is what really upsets me. I can deal with the slow economy, lack of any military, but I should be dominating with research (this was idea). I did set the tech rate to very slow so the game was more about the military and economic aspects. Does setting the tech rate only affect you? I feel like that is what it does.

I have played what I would call a decent number of TBS games (Call To Power , Civ II, Alpha Centauri, Age of Wonders, etc) and they weren't this difficult at all. I just can't seem to make headway in anything and I'm only playing on normal. I cannot imagine playing the computer on extreme in this game. I read somewhere that the computer only gets 75% of their economy on normal, so I really feel like wtf with this game because I can usually at least hold my ground in turn based strategy. So I guess I'm asking for tips or advice or whatever since this seems to be my problem and mine alone. The game seems to have so much potential, and it looks fantastic, but I cannot get to the good aspects of the game and I am quite frankly very frustrated. I'd really hate to uninstall this game but I can't continue to play it like this.
5,649 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here's a startegy guide that is well done and quite in depth.DA Startegy Guide Completed

And here is a tour of the interface and some functions that can probably help you out.
DA:A Guided Tour

That should get you a good start on understanding the game and when you run into something specific your having trouble with don't hesitate to ask.The people on this forum are quite helpful. Good Luck.   

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
at the start of each game your main focus should be to expand your empire. focus on building colony ships, then each that is built you send to a planet close to your home system, look at your mini map and decide howm meny sector you want. Example you might want 5x5 giveing you a total of 25 sectors. colonize that area, don't be greedy and take more or it will be harder to defend them all. an their you go you got a empire.

build economic star bases near all your planets, this will increase you income. start up trade route, this will dramaticly increase your income. just remember to stay on the good side of every race to ensure that your trade routes stay safe.go to your empire manager and make sure that your taxs are pay of you military, social, and research funds.

also go to the Tutorials and play them to learn how to manage and empire.

if you get a chance visit the 'game talk' section and read 'Alantians and Dread Lord'. this will show you what i can do with my empire.

hope this helps.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You might want to go with Morale and Social production for choices if your having trouble. Morale will give you a lot more breathing room with how high you can raise taxes and as a result a higher income in the early/early-mid game with no real effort. Social production will let you get your colonies off the ground easier, it's especially good if you start each colony with a couple +econ buildings since they provide extra money and take long enough to build to get some population on the colony.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Use your servey ship and build a scout while you are colonizing to find all the other civs and sell them any extreme colony techs or low lvl techs you have. Extreme colony techs are somewhat useless imo since you can always just conquer them later and if you can find any minor races they will usually pay insane amounts for colonizing techs they dont use. Just make sure to not sell weapon or diplomacy techs unless they are way below what you currently are at since that can get you killed or ruin your price gouging from a high diplomacy.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What I find that helps a lot - especially if you go Tech - is to keep a close eye on how much certain buildings cost you each turn. Not much use in pounding down 3bc/turn factories if your economy can't keep up.

Juggle the economy settings between Manufacturing/Social/Science and the main Production one under Tax. It helps. And don't forget to slap down Economy Starbases around your main planets for that oh-so important extra bonus.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Income is the main limiting factor in GC2. If you have a large income, then you can easily increase everything else: your production, research, and military, but the first step is making lots of money.

Here is something I wrote for another newbie who was asking for help:

There are a few important things to know about the GC2 economy. The first is that factories and labs use up money to create production and research. So building lots of factories and labs causes you to spend money faster. You need to make enough money to fund those factories and labs. Increase the total spending slider to 100%, and build enough market buildings so that you are still making a profit.

Most of your money will come from taxes, which means you want large populations, a high tax rate, and many market buildings. The difficulty is that raising the tax rate lowers your peoples' morale (AKA approval), and low morale lowers the rate of population growth. Population growth on a planet doubles when its morale is at 100%, and stops when it's below 40%. So one trick is to set taxes low enough to get 100% approval at the beginning of the game when you have a lot of money in the bank. Once that money is used up, then raise taxes to about 50% approval. Also, before the game starts, I recommend picking economy, morale, and population growth abilities.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
it seems like all the time I am 10/10 on everything, even technology, which I prioritize (+20% abilities, +20% gov party), not to mention flat out broke.



Don't put too much stock into the ratings within the first game-year. In fact, in games which I know I will win eventually, I'm often last or next to last for much of the game. I'm not sure how the game decides which civ is on top, but it doesn't always make that much sense. Just keep plugging away and you'll find yourself catching up with the AI civs, then slowly surpassing -- and if not in ratings, at least in reality!

If you're broke, notice also that many AI civs are also broke. It happens early in the game, even when you're playing optimally.


That being said, if the econ aspect of the game is just too frustrating, I'd recommend starting on Dread Lords, then moving to DA later. The econ and morale in DL is much easier than in DA.

Good luck!
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow, I didn't expect so many replies in the first day. Thanks a lot for the advice. I have been building econ star bases but I didn't really notice a positive benefit, only the cost of maintaining them. To the comment about getting a lot of colonies right away, I have tried that, but I only end up broke. Anyways I just got Supreme Commander and I've been trying that out, but I'm going to try DA again in a couple of days.

It's too bad that this game isn't multiplayer, it looks like a lot of cool people are interested in this game.

Thanks Again.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
the most critical thing to any new colony is a starport if you plan to build ships, and really every planet unless its unreachable should have a starport, and a manufacturing/production type building, at least one, preferably two.... When you start out you probably should build just one and then build a xeno lab ( or similiar building), and the third should be an economics type building, so you can at least cover some of the costs of what you just built....

for every two buildings you build that is for production or research, your third should be for economics to pay for the maintanance on those buildings....

other options to get more people is farms and moral buildings, so you can have more people paying taxxes....

The four main overall layouts of planets you want to build is production, research, or an economics layout....the 4th is a mixture of all 3 of the above, and this type of layout is about trying to balance all the building types...

An economics layout is a few manufacturing buildings, so you can build everything fast, and then mostly economics(trade centers/etc), with one farm and some moral buildings for the people you plan to pay taxes.....after everything is built, and your in your final stage of end game buildings, you could dump some of the manufacturing buildings to build more economics for even more profit from the planet....

Also, there are many options to solve economic issues, I personally choose my custom picks of a high econ skill, so never really noticed what its like without high econ skill.......

don't overlook capturing econ resources, that adds to your overall economy, and build them up with constructors, and defend them.....

when your starting out, you should not really fiddle with the options, leave everything at the basic levels until your actually off the ground, it makes no sense to put 100% into social when starting when you also want to be building colony ships to take planets, or 100% into military to make colony ships when you also want to be making buildings, or 100% research, neglecting the other 2.

66% production is fine for starting, since you can raise that when your empire is off the ground economically and you can afford a higher production rate....

To summarize, first planet should build a starport, and then a factory.....
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i personally only build star ports on level 9 or higher planets, and only on 50% of those. the rest i dedicate to reasearch or economy. for economy planets, i build one factory, 1-2 farms, 2-4 entertaiment centers, and the rest markets. dont forget to set focus to social for that planet. for reasearch planets i biuld 2 factories, and the rest reasearch centers. i normally have about 2 econ planets for every reasearch planet. though i must confess i havent tried anything harder than normal.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i personally only build star ports on level 9 or higher planets, and only on 50% of those. the rest i dedicate to reasearch or economy. for economy planets, i build one factory, 1-2 farms, 2-4 entertaiment centers, and the rest markets. dont forget to set focus to social for that planet. for reasearch planets i biuld 2 factories, and the rest reasearch centers. i normally have about 2 econ planets for every reasearch planet. though i must confess i havent tried anything harder than normal.


the point of building a starport at every planet is that gives you the option to buy a ship there in an emergency...

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, if you have a planet dedicated to econ or research that is suddenly under attack while your fleet is a bit off, there is no way to defend it without a starport.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
oh, another option with starport on every planet is that you can build smaller ships even if its not a major manufacturing planet, like transports, to help in war efforts...

imagine if you had only 10 planets with 5 starports, and another civ with 10 planets and 10 starports, everything else being even, the civ with 10 starports has the advantage....

also, starports are easy to build and maintain (low production points/costs). You can also build starports at buy price in an emergency and then build ships from it.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On 'tough' with +-30 planets huge map and 6 opponents:
All 'stuff' set too low, rare, occasional, the galaxy is big but resources are scarce.

I usually put the total slider immediately on 100% and raise taxes until approval is just in the yellow.

Then I rush buy about 3 factories on my home world and start creating colony ships in about 6 turns or so. I also buy the first 1 or 2 colony ships. My flag ship in the mean time is auto surveying to find some extra cash (anomalies are rare in my game).

On each new planet I start building one factory with 'focus' on social production (in the planet view top middle button). After the factories are built (+-13 weeks), I build one or two markets.

The pace of colonizing with this strategy is just about right to get about 10 good planets without getting broke and do a little planet development.

While colonizing I make sure to research the military and production techs which give immediate bonusses on production. Also one early planet improvement tech gives you immediate bonusses.

I don't build starbases early on and on each planet. Not all my planets are going to build ships so it's more cost effective to build markets instead of starbases on some planets (low quality ones). Also, in the beginning of the game I don't build a lot of ships. It costs money to build them, it takes a lot of time to build them and they cost in maintenance. Not a good idea for an economy in its infancy.

This is a straightforward strategy without too much micromanaging for this game-setup.
Might not work for other settings though!
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Geez, here I worry about people actually liking me, and trying to keep morale up as high as possible, and it seems most people oppress them and keep them just happy enough to avoid a revolt. Silly me.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
it seems most people oppress them and keep them just happy enough to avoid a revolt


That is just one way to do it. I usually hold approval at 100% through the first year if possible. I also start almost every planet with an econ setup and adjust after the empire is making money. When you do have to raise taxes that 100% population growth bonus from holding 100% approval will result in an economically stable empire. There is many good strats, the diversity of play is one of the game's greatest assets.