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Brad's "Did you know you could do this" thread

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Brad's "Did you know you could do this" thread

Tips, tricks, and more

from GalCiv2 Forums

Welcome to another (or first) edition of "Did you know..."

Standing in for a dialog with a "show me more tips" checkbox is your host, me with a series of fairly random but hopefully useful suggestions that might make your gameplay more fun!

#1 You can "grab" the map with the left mouse button and move it around by holding it down.  You may never want to edge scroll again.

#2 You can RIGHT-CLICK on the ship built block notifications that flow down on the right and your ship will automatically be launched.

#3 On the planet screen, you can put your mouse over the approval and influence and it will explain where that number is derived from.

#4 In the Diplomacy screen, you can RIGHT-CLICK on tiems to bring up a dialog that gives info on that item.

#5 You can play a quasi-Hot seat game with someone by loading up the game as GalCiv2 cheat (use the cheat parameter).  Then when you set up the game, you let the AI play out a few turns and then have your friend pick one of the races they want to control. Have them select that unit and hit  CTRL-SHIFT-Z.

#6 CTRL-S is the quick save.

#7 You can double click on planets and various other items to take the place of having to place, or install or build or go to their screen.

faq support
755,524 views 182 replies | Pinned
Reply #76 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wooooooooooooooow you just found out you can double trade routes,
I played for 15 munits with trade and got that.

Oh and if you use those cheats you WILL get labeld a cheater, thats why I dont use cheats here ( I do use cheats in grand theft auto ).
Reply #77 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
on the mini map, you can click on it, and the ship will go there, i cant remember if its left or right.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #78 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How would I move ships if the arrow keys moved the map instead? You don't expect me to use the mouse for that, do you?


I know this is the wrong thread for this, but:
GAH!!! I sincerely hope you're joking. Make the arrow keys scroll the map and make the keypad move ships. Then you could even use the keyboard to move DIAGONALLY! What a concept.
Reply #79 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
#2 You can RIGHT-CLICK on the ship built block notifications that flow down on the right and your ship will automatically be launched.

If you launch a colony ship or a transport this way, you will get an empty ship. Strangely enough, GC2 will not launch a colony ship or transport without at least 1 "passenger" any other way.
Reply #80 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"#2 You can RIGHT-CLICK on the ship built block notifications that flow down on the right and your ship will automatically be launched"

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find this feature. Please provide more of a description of where this can be found "flowing down on th right" just hasn't been enuf for me to find this. I have RIGHT_CLICKED my way most everywhere and would love to find this feature, but have yet to find an easy way to launch ships. Am forced to follow GNN to planet and launch constructors in a most tedious fashion.


When you do your turn, little blue and green icons strem down the right side of your screen. You can right click the blue ones to just launch the ships from orbit, but you don't get to assign a new ship and any colony or transport ships will be empty. It's a nice feature for when you have ships queued or have the shipyards on autorepeat.
Reply #81 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For example: "C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\galciv2.exe" cheat



Cheat Effect
Ctrl + R Research current tech (Hold Shift for ALL techs)
Ctrl + J Completes social projects
Ctrl + 0-9 (NOT on num pad) Hail's major races
Ctrl + C Clones selected ship
Ctrl + B Adds battleship
Ctrl + V United planets meeting
Ctrl + H Heals selected ship
Ctrl + T Teleports selected ship to cursor
Ctrl + L Assigns remaining planets to major races
Ctrl + S Saves
Ctrl + A Upgrades selected ship
Ctrl + M Adds 10,000bc
Ctrl + N Restart on a new map with new race
Ctrl + P Adds 1 to planet class (this adds to the planet size, however you do not get the extra build tiles in the planet screen, so it doesn't help much)
CTRL+U Takes away Fog of War
In the game itself, hit CTRL-F

i dont know why but the cheats didnt work for me


If you check the icon on your desktop or in your shortcut har, it points to a loader application. You need to make a shortcut that points at the actual galciv2.exe file and includes the keyword "cheat" after the closing double quote to activate cheats, as shown at the top of your post:

"C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\galciv2.exe" cheat
Reply #82 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why is there no Reply or Quote button on the first post in a thread?

Why does the first post reappear on every single page?

Better yet, why does Stardock use its own custom built forum software when there is full-featured forum software available for free on the internet, with loads of features that this forum software lacks?

Inquiring minds want to know
Reply #83 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's a big drawback that you cannot use the keyboard to scroll map. If cursor keys cannot be assigned to scrolling why not some other keys in the keyboard ? Why cannot I choose to use my cursor keys either to control ships or scroll map ? It's a question of shortcuts and I found it very annoying that I have no keyboard access to such a basic operation as map scrolling. Based on the post in this forum some of you have found the drag scroll to be the best control but there are also many that disagree ... including me.

Why I prefer keyboard scroll ? Of course one thing is that how I have used to play strategy games but for me It's much efficient and usefull to use keyboard for scrolling and mouse for other actions. In fact this is the first strategy game that I have played where I cannot use keyboard for scrolling and I have played them a lot. It totally kills my wrist if I have to drag the view constantly and make the other control just using only mouse. Using minimap or edge scroll it's just the same thing.

So ... developers ... a humble request for you ... could you please enable the keyboard scroll in the future patches ?
Reply #86 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Dd you know that you can use the CDs as tea coasters as the game won't run on my system that exceeds all the reccommended specs?
Reply #87 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you launch a colony ship or a transport this way, you will get an empty ship. Strangely enough, GC2 will not launch a colony ship or transport without at least 1 "passenger" any other way.


You must have an issue with your copy of the game. I luanch all my transports and colony ships this way, an as long as I have enough people on the planet - they're filled to the brim. I even make Super transports that carry a bakillion soldiers, and they launch full. Now if you double-click them from the planetary screen, they will launch with just 1 person.
Reply #88 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In case you all missed these additions from the readme's:

+Added ability to pan and rotate main map with the Keyboard:
-CTRL and Arrow keys to rotate (with snapback working if activated)
-SHIFT and Arrowkeys to pan main map

+ Implemented new MOVE button in Ship Designer:
a) Select a component
b) Click move button (or press M)
c) Click where you want to move the component
NOTE: You cannot move a component if something is attached to it

+ Implemented Hot Keys in Ship Designer:
New hotkeys:
Delete - deletes selected component
M - Moves the selected component
1,2,3,4 - Default, Front, Side, Top views
Pre-existing hotkeys:
H to toggle hardpoints on/off
[+] and [-] to zoom in and out
Reply #89 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can "grab" the map with the left mouse button and move it around by holding it down. You may never want to edge scroll again.


I use grabing all the time, since I don't like how scolling is implemented (too slow and doesn't work on corners).

#3 On the planet screen, you can put your mouse over the approval and influence and it will explain where that number is derived from.


Now if it worked for social production, research and income/expenses it would be great.
Reply #90 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heres something that I've been doing for a while. You can Rename any ship, planet, or starbase, even if it is controled by another player. I use this for marking starships or starbases I want to buy to be easily findable in the diplomacy window.
Reply #91 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How do u edit non-choice events (galactic recession) and their rarity?
Reply #92 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Why is there no Reply or Quote button on the first post in a thread?

Why does the first post reappear on every single page?

Better yet, why does Stardock use its own custom built forum software when there is full-featured forum software available for free on the internet, with loads of features that this forum software lacks?

Inquiring minds want to know

This forum software they're using crashes my web browser constantly. Don't think there's anything wrong with my computer since it only happens here. The forum runs some kind of evil Java script or Active X control on my computer that also hangs each page for a bit. So yea, I wish they'd use something like phpBB.
Reply #94 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've upgraded a constructor to a colony ship and noticed it was empty and I had to go back to a planet to pick up some colonists. Don't try to colonize with an empty colony ship or you will get a non-functional planet. It happened to me.

What happens to the colonists if you upgrade from a colony ship to a constructor? Are 1,000,000 people just jettisoned into space? Rather heartless I think, and wasteful too.

Can you use a colony ship to add colonists to planets that are already colonized? I should think you should, but I've never tried it. I've been fearful of losing my people if the game should decide not to allow it.
Reply #95 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Don't worry, it works.
That's for what I used my redudant colony ships when all planets got colonized.
Reply #97 from Stardock Forums Top
Look at reply #81
Reply #98 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If the number of colonies get greater than 20, the fastest way to upgrade all the colony ship building to the same new ship is to use the " Starport Contruction Governor".

I was upgrading the new ship design on each colony ship building individually, it take several minutes to upgrade 20 or 30 planets startports. The Starport Construction Governor" does all the colonies with 1 click.



Reply #99 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Starport Construction Governor" does all the colonies with 1 click.


Considering that only works for the ships that havent been built yet is there a screen to upgrade the ships that have already been built and are wandering around the star sysytem?
Reply #100 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, if you just highlight the tile with the improvement you don't want you can ugrade it to something else entirely.

The demolish button is to strip a planet you know you're going to lose to the enemy.