Thanks dnzrx1, that helps alot. As to their tech lead, I figured it was prob a built in edge for the AI to help them stay in the hunt but wasn't sure. I'm trying to figure out how to balance the income/output slider's and manage that with the tech tree stuff.
I'm an old school TBS guy having run anything based around the Civ and Tycoon franchises, this game was recommended to me recently and it looks really cool, I've just gotta figure out how to balance things. Couple of other silly questions if I may impose:
Early on, do most people "purchase" colony ships to expand out quickly, or just rely on the ship to be completed through the weeks? Along these lines, is it best to hold onto most of your funds to keep a balance to buy techs from other Civ's or spend the $ on getting your Civ up and running?
Should you build a starport at any available colony, or save them for one per system type thing? I guess is it best to have a couple ships being built or just one at a time.
Having come from Civilization IV and the incredible world of modding that was done for that franchise, it appears that this game has a similar modding community. Is there a specific set of mods that should be played with in conjunction with the game? I will use this example: Civ IV vanilla had a couple expansions. Over time, the "Beyond the Sword" expansion became the standard that everyone used to either play or mod from. Most of the core mods were based upon this. Here I'm seeing a couple of things like a "tech tree fixer" (sorry don't know the exact name), is there a listing of mods that should be considered the "base" for the GalCiv Ultimate?
Is there a strategy guide or walk thru anywhere on this site? Could you point me towards it, probably keep me from pestering you nice folks with endless posts that have probably been answered 9,000 times by now.
Thanks for any assistance. If I'm asking to much, or this is just easily findable elsewhere please give me a link and I will be happy to go digging for it.
ON EDIT: OK, I found the section with the strategy guide, so I'm sure some if not all of these questions will be answered shortly. Any other tips or tricks, or info on Mods is greatly appreciated.