I'm not positive but I do believe your trade lines (like your autopilot lines) are a function of your race color. I generally change my race color to a color that is otherwise not used in the game, a try using gold as your race color and see if it helps.

As far as multiple forums at multiple sites it's a lot more complicated than what you mention. Most GalCiv2 forums are accessible at the GalCiv2 site, the Stardock site and the Impulse site. Besides these sites some selected GalCiv2 related forums such as the GalCiv Dev Journals are also accessible at the Joe User, Political Machine, Sins of a Solar Empire and the Total Gaming Network sites.

The bottom line is that Stardock currently has 12 separate forum sites related to different games or products and many forums that are specific to one particular game/product can be accessed from sites that on the surface have little in common with the source forum. Many people have complained about this but it's not going to be changed.

The justification is that cross posting across multiple sites enriches the discussion. While that is arguable, even so many have argued that at least the site from which someone is posting should somehow be indicated if only to give someone's reply some context. Often people with no interest in a particular game/product can become involved in a discussion that they really could care less about and this sometimes results in unnecessary grief for those that do care about the particular discussion. The idea that someone's source site should be known from their post is also something that has been argued both pro and con, but there is at least some possibility that might someday be implemented. There is no possibility that the cross posting across sites will ever be changed.

If you are using trade more for income than for diplomatic purposes there is a simple way to make them a bit brighter - have all the trade routes originate and terminate at the same planets. In other words, have only one planet that sends out frieghtors, and send all to the same AI controlled planet. Generally, your highest PQ planet that is farthest away from the highest PQ AI planet, and preferably going on a diagonal.

Also, a couple more questions, Can the ai trade techs to each other? I imagine they can but the thing Im worried about is giving some weapon tech to an ally only for them to trade it to someone else.

What determines the physical size of ships designed? How much does stacking and stacking extras affect it?

If you're playing the latest version, there is an option to disable 'Tech Brokering,' which I like very much. It means that neither you nor the AIs can trade a tech that you didn't research. With Tech Brokering off, Mumble's advice to sell to everyone on the same turn is not  always-and-everywhere good. Sometimes you might want to hold off on something another civ wants in hopes that they'll soon enough research a tech that you want much more than anything they have at the moment. And there's also the business of 'strategic trading,' where you can put a serious dent in a large empire's cash flow by selling them something that will spawn many automatic upgrades, like an improved factory tech. That can be a nice way to soften up someone you plan to attack or to discretely 'attack' a civ that's at war with a civ you want to help without declaring war yourself.

I just started designing ships and Im having trouble finding some extras. Are all extras available to you from the beggining of the game? What category are the drooping wings that the terran colony ship has? How about the civilization logo?

Also is there a way to copy and paste parts?

Thanks, thats awesome. Does that mod work with the Ultimate Edition?

Im finding espionage to be really tedious. Im not sure how to use agents. They always get nullified pretty quickly so I stopped placing them and now Im spending 700 bc a turn in espionage and my intelligence is still low. Does placing agents on friendly planets hurt diplomatic relations? If it does then how else are you supposed to get info on allies? I liked galciv 1s take to espionage better where you could decide how much to spend on each civilization.

Yes, but you must combine them into the same mods folder. So if you have 2 files with the same name, and you wish to use features of both, you must copy and paste from one to the other and only use the combined version.

 346L3 -

On your original Q post, you asked if factories were useless if all the improvement tiles had been used and no starport had been built.

First, you can change/upgrade almost any improvement to another.  The exceptions, IIRC, are a few that one cannot demolish.  I believe one of those is the Mind Control Center.  Thus, if you gained a planet that had, say, 10 tiles and all 10 were factories, you could upgrade (or demolish and build) a factory to a starport.

Second, you could use Focus to turn some of the factory output into Research.

Note that late in some games, especially when using "Fast" or Very Fast" research settings, a player will decide that all the useful techs have been researched.  At that point, all Research improvements get "plowed under" or "upgraded" into factories, farms, morale, economic improvements.  The most common switch might be turning them into Manufacturing Centers and Stock Exchanges.