Noob Guide

Requesting one, not offering one

from GalCiv2 Forums
After playing a few games, I've run into some frustrations. To me, the game's overall difficulty takes wild swings in either direction. You see, I play GalCiv2 because I'm so bad at RTS, but playing a complicated game like this makes me feel good about myself.

But, it looks like I would make a pretty bad ruler of a race. Mind you, all of this is based on NORMAL difficulty.

To name a few things that have me grinding my teeth...

The game's balance seems to swing wildly between races. I've yet to play a game where the Arceans ever became an impressive, driving force in the galaxy. The Torians have wasted me several times now. The Altarians could steamroll me. But the Terrans and Drengin break like twigs before my fleets.

I can never seem to get the jump-start I hope for. I rush to buy factories and trade centers, buy colony ships immediately, and rush to establish new colonies, but for some absolutely inexplicable reason, this actually results in huge debts even though my military upkeep is next to nothing. Do new colonies actually cost more than they give you? This just doesn't seem right. I even took care to research Xeno Economics, but that didn't do anything to balance the national budget.

All of you were newbies at one time, right? Well, what mistakes did you make in the beginning, and what mistakes do you feel I'm making? Even better, what can I do to get a feel for what will win a game?
strategies
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I rush to buy trade centers
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Usually a bad idea if the planet's population is low. And by the time population has increased to profitable levels, the trade centers will have been finished on their own.

Do new colonies actually cost more than they give you?
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Yes, at least initially. The colony center requires quite some upkeep and without population you don't get much taxes either.


Last but not least, what racial bonuses do you have? Try choosing +eco and +morale together with Federalists party.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

buy colony ships
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It would be better to build them. Your initial treasury is better used rushbuying factories on worlds where you want to build quickly colony ship and for deficit spending (less income than expense) until your population is enough developped to give you more income than your expense.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As one way to keep more of your initial cash in check, only rush-build the first factory, and maybe one other building on your homeworld, and then maybe buy the first factory on your other worlds. Your first concern in the game is getting enough production to actually build things in a reasonable amount of time, with research coming in second.

Try not to spend all that cash you start out with, it's meant to keep your empire running while you're in debt.

Also, make sure your population is growing so that you get more tax money to work with (researching xeno economics + xeno entertainment are great for the innate bonus).
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
See and i do the opposite. I build factories and buy colony ships. usually during that phase of the game my home planet is really the one that has the population to fill a colony ship. Also for other worlds to be building those they will need those facories AND starbases. I guess you do either. I will add that i only buy the first colony ship on the frst turn, after that i will let a couple of turns go by before buying so i dont pay as much. i try to pay less than 1000.

As far as how the different races preform, a lot depends on their placement in the galaxy, sometimes a poor spread of plantes can leave a race unable to really compete. I notice that some people find races easy to beat the same races that i might have trouble with, and vice versa.

To repeat and addto the advice of Rakor, dont buy economic buildings at the beginning. What they do is multiply your tax income buy a certain percentage. A new colony has practically no population and therefore no tax revenue. So an economic building won't give you much of a boost at that time. By letting it just build itself you will save money and have the building when you actually will get some money out of it.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
See and i do the opposite. I build factories and buy colony ships. usually during that phase of the game my home planet is really the one that has the population to fill a colony ship. Also for other worlds to be building those they will need those facories AND starbases. I guess you do either. I will add that i only buy the first colony ship on the frst turn, after that i will let a couple of turns go by before buying so i dont pay as much. i try to pay less than 1000.
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Well, buying a ship that's only got two turns left (or even one turn, and turning off military production and letting it go elsewhere) is not always a bad choice. But initially buying a ship just seems wasteful. That's a lot of money that could have kept you afloat for 5-10 weeks in the future. When you start playing above crippling (I admit, I've only played masochistic so far), the AI's got too much of a bonus for you to be wasteful like that.

Perhaps it works for you though, I've only got my experience to work with.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Kazu, everything above is dead on....but to help you understand, on your colony screen...when you click on a planet...you will see a box with three lines...they show your income and expenses and you can see how far on a planet you are in the hole. Everytime you add a colony you add expenses but very little income and you can see this on the colony screen. Hope that helps.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thank you all for your excellent advice! The pointer on not rush-buying trade centers was excellent. I commonly twiddle with my sliders for no other reason than because I'm impatient, but one strategy that I've had tremendous success with is pumping up my civilization's Social and Research output. This lets me build stuff faster in the very beginning, and when I'm pumping out colony ships it helps me to quickly improve planets.

I also tend to completely neglect warship-related research trees until 1) I've got my eye on someone else's land and 2) I've got a Medium level of intel on my hapless target. This makes everyone think I'm very weak. Worse, it means that they're unwilling to trade war technology with me. Is this a bad idea?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Dear All:

Good afternoon from Canada!! I hope this finds you and yours well. As for me, I could complain...yadda, yadda, yadda.

I'm a Tau'ri who got the game yesterday and am a 49 year old lover of RTS games!!! My interest in RTS sci-fi started with a mod for Civilization IV's expansion pack called,"Beyond the Sword." The mod itself is called, "Final Frontier." It's a great mod!!! I just took a gander at the Star Trek mod, and I'm SOOO drooling.

Yet, I'm a newbie at this game, but I've already swapped planets with a race called the Yor and found all sorts of stuff in meteorites and other space anomalies. I also have a universal translator which helped me talk to the Yor.

Yet, I need some guidance here. What are the best techs with which to start? Does one research techs that'll have some importance to their people? Don't get me wrong--I don't regret for a minute that I've bought the game.

From the "Just my two cents" department: I had no idea Alpha Centauri looked so much like our Sun!!!

Live long and prosper, take care and thank you kindly!!!!

Sincerely yours always,

Indy.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As for the different races and their respective difficulty, you can also tailor those. There's an option under the opponent's AI setting during the intial setup (assuming you dont play against random). You can not only change the LEVEL they play at, but the TENDENCIES they act out. For instance if you think the Arceans are always pushovers, set the AI for them to act like the Korath. If the Torians or Altarians steamroll you, try setting them as the Terrans or the Krynn. I dont think this trips the "cheat" flag for the Metaverse, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Edit: I saw that you also posted about having medium level intel on any opponent you decide to attack. Try a few games where you dont bother doing that and you will save a TON of cash. Spying, as a whole, is worthless. There are a few things I will sabotage, but otherwise I usually have spies just to neutralize the ones on my planets.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Spying, as a whole, is worthless.
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Well, it's not totally worthless. I generally put the very minimum into it just so I can eventually have a few spies to work with (the cost is quite minimal). Getting a 'low' level espionage on everyone means I can tell how close their planets are to defection, which might motivate me to colonize or increase my influence in certain areas. And, having some spies is useful when you have a couple Civs decide to spy on you all at the same time.

But yeah, it's not really worth putting much income into.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The game's balance seems to swing wildly between races. I've yet to play a game where the Arceans ever became an impressive, driving force in the galaxy. The Torians have wasted me several times now. The Altarians could steamroll me. But the Terrans and Drengin break like twigs before my fleets.
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When starting a new game, check your race intelligence is not set to random. Even though the overall difficulty slider sets race intelligence, you can still vary it for each race within the limit set by the overall difficulty level. Barring that, the races do have different personalities. The Terrans tend to make friends with everyone and rarely get into wars. The Drengin concentrate on their military and pick fights as soon as they can. It's pretty cool actually. But, it also depends on where a race is in the galaxy. A race right in the middle of a dense cluster of planets is going to do better than one in a sparse area. I've rarely played a game where all races expand equally. There's always one or two that become dominant and it's not always the same ones. I think you'll find it interesting once you've played enough to get the feel of what's happening.

I also tend to completely neglect warship-related research trees until 1) I've got my eye on someone else's land and 2) I've got a Medium level of intel on my hapless target. This makes everyone think I'm very weak. Worse, it means that they're unwilling to trade war technology with me. Is this a bad idea?
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Yes, it's a bad idea. Start researching one branch in the weapons tree as soon as you see other races showing a military rating on the main graph. I like missles, but beam is good for quick research. You don't have to actually build warships, just throw a couple weapons on a small hull and leave one or two in orbit on each planet that can build. Upgrade them as you improve your weapons tech. On higher difficulty levels, the AI *will* crush you if they perceive you as weak.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I saw that you also posted about having medium level intel on any opponent you decide to attack. Try a few games where you dont bother doing that and you will save a TON of cash. Spying, as a whole, is worthless.
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Actually, the reason I do so much spying is because that way I know what weapons and defenses they have, and it also gives me an idea of their Soldiering ability. I've had great success (on Normal difficulty obviously) with surprising enemies with ships that they can't even dent.

As for the "pick a weapon tech tree and go for it when you can" comment, don't I run the risk of turning out useless weapons that everyone has defenses against? This is especially true because I tend to focus almost exclusively on building economic momentum in the beginning.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The probelm is, the game experience varies wildly with the map settings youre playing with, and you'll get advice from people from their preferred settings viewpoint which may actually not apply to the game youre playing. For instance, colony ships, build or buy? On a large map with a lot of planets you want to rush your manufacturing capacity and start cranking out ships. On a small map, or a map with few planets to go around, you absolutely want to buy those colony ships, because a couple more planets on that map make all the difference, and the AI isn't waiting.

Best advice I can give is that, like everything, it all comes down to economy. Learn how to grow it, how money is made, and how to keep your industrial sliders pegged all game long, and everything else will fall into place, regardless of map or difficulty.

As far as a "noob guide", the wiki contains everything you need to know:

WWW Link
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Actually, the reason I do so much spying is because that way I know what weapons and defenses they have, and it also gives me an idea of their Soldiering ability. I've had great success (on Normal difficulty obviously) with surprising enemies with ships that they can't even dent.
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Or you could just click on a planet and see the stats on the ships they have in orbit, and take a look at their tech list in the diplo menu. Viola, you just saved yourself $1000 a turn.



Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ColIndy: Since no one seems to have answered your questions, I will say a few words.

In the beginning, techs that improve your economy are great (Xeno Economics, the Morale boosting techs and the Medicine techs (more people = more money)). Next in line are techs that give you some basic military to improve your military rating, followed by basic miniaturization techs.

From then on, it is your choice of how you want to play.

I hope that helped.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another good thing you want to remember is that Anomalies are a great way to get cash flow. Particularly the asteroids and shipwrecks can give anywhere from 100-1000bc per anomaly - your starting flagship can survey and find them.
You don't want to RELY on them, but don't ignore them either. A 1000bc anomaly pop can let you run in the red for longer, or pop out a colony ship five turns early to fetch that planet the AIs are staring at.]

Another source of income is from your influence - you get tourism income from it, the more influence you have the more income you gain.

Also, they don't even need to be small hulls - early game it's not a terrible idea to build some ships with Cargo Hulls and loaded to the teeth with your smallest weapon techs to build your military rating - they're useless in a fight, mind you, but they'll boost your military rating so hopefully the drengi/korath won't gank you before you can muster an actual defense.

Just make sure you don't leave them as the only defenders, because their 1hp means they have a chance to bite it pretty hard if you do.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cargo hulls with loads of weapons could be used like torpedos: One shot that has to destroy the opponent. So as long as you inflict more damage than he is able to take, you will at least destroy him.

In DA, there is the rule that the ship with the stronger design survives the battle if both kill each other in the same turn. Could that mean that cargo hulls with loads of weapons can actually win in battle?
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cargo hulls don't seem like a good idea to me-- loading a cargo hull with as many Laser Vs or Plasma units as will fit is expensive and it gives you a worthless ship.

The poster above has a point, though-- in the early-mid game, would you hypothetically be able to use cargo hulls in an attempt to nuke the enemy in a single salvo?

*Edit* And how would this strategy interact with the Super Warrior ability?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, now it gets interesting.
A super-warrior with insanely weapon-heavy ships would not lose his ship in a one-on-one if he destroys the other one with the first salvo, right?
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Right, and thats exactly why the battles were changed in the first place. In DL this was the case all the time. People were, in fact, usinging weapon heavy cargo hulls with no defence. And it worked. So with the super warrior ability it can also be used.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wait a minute, let me see if I've got this right. If both ships are destroyed in the same salvo, then the game does some calculations (it would be really nice to know what they are) to decide who survives.

"Super Warrior" is supposed to give you the first strike in every battle, and if I'm interpreting this correctly, it gives you an extra salvo, given that normal "turns" are simultaneous, with ships getting off one last shot even if they would be destroyed.

Either my interpretation is correct, or my interpretation of the "mutual destruction" rule is incorrect. Which is it?
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your interpretation of mutual destruction is correct.

I think you misunderstand the Super Warrior ability though. It just means that your first salvo goes home before the enemy can fire on the first round, it's not really an extra salvo, but an early salvo. They still get to fire on the first round, but only after the damage done by the Super Warrior's first salvo is calculated.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So, the Super Warrior ability denies enemies the chance to attack in the same round that they are destroyed?
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On the first round, yes. Not sure on subsequent rounds.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What a totally worthless ability that is. What about the "mutual destruction" rule? Does it leave your ships with 1HP, or something?