Another Rant

This game just gets better and better. I'm doing somewhat okay finally. Then because I can't lick the Drengen boots fast enough, they want to go to war with me from the extreme oppotsite end of the galaxy. Then, to top it all off, the *only* race I was actively trading with (Antarians) decides that I fit their definition of evil. Great, I decide to utilize slaves *once* and I'm evil. Now I'm at war with half the galaxy...guess what the outcome was?

Really guys, this game could use some tweaking. While not "cheating" per se, the AI seems to team up against the terrans, even if this means fighting the whole width of the galaxy, or inventing war motivations.

And once again, although I have +90% population growth, and the Altarians had +20%, they had over ten times the population I did. How can this possibly happen?

Hi Arthur,

Population Growth:

If you want population to grow. Don't tax over 49 percent, even if you can't put spending at 100 percent.
At a tax rate below 50 percent your population will grow unbeleivably. So far on 1.04, I have a higher population than AI races(playing in all races on Bright). On Intelligent-Galactic-Abundant the Torians have the highest rate I'm second (due to number of planets), but my population still is far above all other races.

Military:

Once you research Military, start building starfighters asap. The 'Military Graph' is a great indicator for this. Keep building and concentrate on military building for a while, probably until you get Corvette Tech., then switch to building Corvettes. This should put you ahead militarily.

The AI on 1.04 is just right for me. I am having a hard time beating AI on Intelligent on a large map, but not on smaller ones.

Good luck,
Joe

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not really trying make an insult of your intelligence. But it seems several people have come on here and said, I have problems beating the game so it must be cheating. X side always does this so it must be cheating. Y always happens so the game must be cheating.

I personally play a very balanced game, no 100% slider settings, no cheese tactics, well rounded development, and I have had a variety of different type of responses from the different races. Usually, they start off with better populations, but I close on them, and have had an alliance victory on with all AI's set to intelligent level with these tactics.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not the best 4X strategy player, but I have a solid game. I have found the AI to be challenging and varied, and I don't believe that it takes any liberties other than those previously acknowledged and explained.

I don't expect my results to be the same as everyone else's, but they are enough to convince me the game is well designed, and the AI is better than any other game out there.

uh, you're using slaves. slaaaaaaaaaves...

btw, that's just an awesome quote, i put it on my galciv quote page...;)

the bigger the evil bonus, the more evil it is weighted. i gave up my seat for a pregnant lady two times, doesn't outweigh the time i once killed a man just to watch him die. the same goes in the opposite way: one funny post had a guy who choose every evil path but then he got the disease random event: either let 650 billion die and get cash (evil) or spend cash to save his people (good). he only HAD 650 billion taxpayers and plenty of cash, so he choose the good path that one time and instantly was converted from evil to good.

and the ai uses the tricks that the top scoring guys use: sliders set to 100% sometimes or whatever ratio they have at, adjusting the research slider so that if it says one month left, they adjust the slider down so it still says one month so they don't waste any resources that way, leasing lots of stuff, etc. i would go insane trying to do the accounting unless i was desparate for resources. but if you want to beat the ai then you should try and find out more about those types of strategies.

in the avault review controversy brad revealed some yor ai tricks like leasing colony ships right away to get a jump in the early colony rush, and other stuff like that.
[Message Edited]

Regardless of whether the game cheats or not, which I won't get into here, Arthur's problems can be solved. The key is to keep your tax rate reasonable. Too high and it stifles population growth. Don't do what I do when I found this out and crank it down so that your morale is always in the 90s, though. That will result in you not being able to develop your worlds and getting behind that way. As far as the military thing goes, there are several possibilities. First is to build your own military. Second is to trade with the computers so they like you. Third is to make them kill each other (harder in 1.04 now that they won't go to war for a trade good).

-Drake

~SDC~

Russel-

Was that the post titled "WAR party turns ANGELIK and forgets there PAIN?!?!?!"

I loved that post. Every time I saw the title in the list of threads it cracked me up. I want to create a special event for it.

WAR party turns ANGELIK and forgets there PAIN!!!!! (picture of soldiers throwing their guns down and hugging in the background, while a guy in the foreground is smacking his forehead in frustration)

good: Far out, man. Peace is groovy. (-10 hit points)
neutral: Uh... you spelled "their" wrong.
evil: UGH! Kill the war party ledership and riform the party. I have been playing this game for to long to sit by and watch the WAR party turn ANGELIK and forget there PAIN. (+10 weapons)

-Drake

~SDC~

i don't remember, but the guy was writing in legible english. i just found it hilarious that he "accidently" turned good because he didn't want to kill off his ENTIRE taxpaying population.

Richard Heaton,

That was my post. I wish you did a reply I could have used more laughs.

I Still read it time to time.

But if you like to read somthing funny read ( 1.04.59 ).

You're obviously doing something wrong. I usually am among the galactic leaders in population, and I've been playing genius. (Incredible scares me...)

Try setting your tax rate to 39% at the beginning of the game and never touch it again. That may help. I find that a good rule of thumb for newbies--once you have some experience and know what works well then you can play around with the tax slider. I think that's the rate at which the computer taxes. Also, at the beginning of the game push your spending to 100% and only bring it back down when you're running out of cash.

And when people start threatening you, take that as a sign that you should start building a military. The AI will only pick on you if you're weak--if you're strong enough, they'll be kissing up to you and offering gifts! If you want to stay out of early wars you can build a bunch of star fighters--they're cheap and you can crank out a whole lot of them very quickly, and they have a high "attack" value so the AI finds them intimidating. If you have more planets than the AIs then if you set them all to producing starfighters and crank up the military spending then you should see your military strength shoot up very quickly. (The AI judges your military strength by the total attack value of your ships.)

Richard: I LOVED that ANGELIK post and if you made an event out of it I would download it in a heartbeat.

Gee Art, I can offer no advice because I'm a poor player...I still play on the lower levels (though I still have fun.) I'm just kind of wondering why so many players are successful (see Metaverse) while you have lost 20 something games in a row. Maybe YOUR copy of Gal Civ cheats and everybody elses dosent. That can be the only reason I can think of that would explain you losing so often.
[Message Edited]

If morale drops to 50 or below, growth stops on the planet. If it's 100, it doubles. The higher growth rates chosen are useless. You cannot keep up with morale improvements fast enough. Thus, you are continually maxed out against your limit. Slow that growth rate down and take other improvements.

High taxes don't stunt your pop growth too much, I set my tax rate at 50% when the game starts and it pretty much stays there. The extra money is nice and my pop is noramlly the 2nd or 3rd highest and often climbs to the highest when I have a few morale buildings.

First I want to thank everybody that replied in a very civil manner to my posts. That must have taken some restraint. I was really frosted by the time I took to the keyboard -- always a bad move.

russellmz2: I'm glad you liked the quote. I had to laugh out loud myself when you quoted me.

wampyre: I've actually considered that maybe my GalCiv is corrupted in some way. I know that's lame, but just to be sure, when the expansion pack comes out I'll probably do a new install just prior. Why take chances?

Thanx again to everybody for the tips. I'll put 'em into play and maybe I'll get a better experience. I'll pursue my military a bit more rigorously early, and step down my medical research path. I'm also going to pay way more attention to morale in terms of social projects.

Thanks for keeping it civil yourself, Arthur. Way too often on message boards tempers tend to flare up and boil over about totally solvable issues.

So this post has some value, I'll add my own little advice- I tend to heavily specialize in a couple of "Forge Worlds" which I lavish will all of the best improvements, especially the starship ones. I also concentrate production increasing stuff therein. My other planets tend to get low level research bonuses, inexpensive morale adjusters, and everything that increases economy. Your mileage may vary, but it works for me!


-Mark

That's a great tip Mark. I intend to employ that one as well, and it should provide additional money since I'm not having to pay maintenance on things I can't effectively use everwhere anyway.

russellmz2:
A galciv quote page is a cool idea! There is one you must include, unfortuneatly I can't remember who wrote it and in which thread it was, but it went something like this:
"I always try to finish the Tolarians as fast as possible, because I don't want to hurt there feelings so bad."

If I got the time, I will look it up. And please tell me where I can find your quotes-page!

[Message Edited]

http://www.geocities.com/russellmz/quotes.html

it's a short list, but there are some gems:

When all was said
When all was done
We had a Terror Star
And they had none
-Bertil Jonell

I like the quotes page, but crediting Lucian Wischik with that one quote is a stretch. I think it's been said before.....

i am sure there have been others, but his was the first one i read. if you find a link for an earlier cite than the date of the one listed, then send it in.

You can increase taxes safely? Maybe that's why I've been having so much trouble winning. I never go above 33 percent. =( I had been under the impression that raising taxes is never a good idea. Now, if I keep on coming this close to winning at 33 percent, maybe I can win at 45%! Better start another game soon.

Oh yeah, I liked the quotes page.
If I see some good quotes in the forum which are missing on your page, I'll tell you.

Try the movie Star Wars.

Darth Vader....

yes, yes, i am aware of the origin, but the satiric quote was regarding a "terror star", not a "death star".


the "when all was said, all was done, we had a terror star, and they had none" was based on a poem where the guy was talking about the british maxim gun, so that was said before too...

plus, some guy named terry was involved somewhere.

[Message Edited]

Blue-

Yes, you can. Mine typically float well above 40. Never think in terms of tax rate. Think in terms of approval rate. When you're moving the tax rate slider up and down, look at your approval rate. Depending on what part of the game you're in, you want it to be at certain places. I start the game with an approval rate of just over 90. When I am done colonizing, I move to just over 80. One things start rolling, I go down to just over 70. And in the middle to end game I keep it a bit over 60. Go lower than 60 and you start to run the risk of losing an election.

Obviously there is the concern of keeping your population growing. But I generally find that except in the early game, as long as it's sort of growing, I'm okay. No need for explosive growth. Basically, if I am not in last place on the chart, I am happy. If I am in first place, I assume I am not running my economy hard enough. Note that at tax rates of.. I think over 39, there is a penalty to productiveness. So in other words you get less bang for your buck. But I have played with the slider and watched my build times, and come to the conclusion that the penalty is negligable compared to the increased revenues.

A final word. The one whacko situation is when you have diverse morale levels in your empire, which typically happens after you have just conquered several systems. Then you have to watch your slider carefully. At a certain tax rate revenue goes DOWN and not up, but it's on a planet by planet basis so in weird situations you can actually watch your revenue go down, up, down, up as you increase the tax rate. When I get a jacked up situation like that I tend to just go with a low tax rate and let my planets even out. By that point in the game, you are already winning or dead anyway.

-Drake

~SDC~