Early game advice for a new player?

Well if your playing 1.3 this is what I do on Challenging.

Rush build Entetainment building, then Factory. Then leave rest to build on own.
Set my sliders to 30% tax, 100% production. Start a Colony ship right off, just let it build though, rember you have 5000 Credits to start.

If you want you can set your other sliders too. I don't change them on challenging though since I want my homeplanet to build buidings and ships.

Send off the Scanner ship to get anomalies, send out the Free Colony to your best guess good spot.

Home planet usually have 4-6 factories 1 entertaiment, 1 Money and I save a spot for Diplomatic Translators. Home planet usually ends up being the Producer of ships the whole game.

Don't be afraid to expand because the AI is crazy at it. You have to take a hit and usually suck up that 5000 credits to keep up with the ai.

When your searching around make sure you have the map zoomed out enough for you can see the Icons of the planets, this is an easy way to spot those Nice PQ 12+ planets. If you spot one get to it as soon as possible. Move your Ship yourself everyturn to the good planet if its in range of another race's Colony.

If you have to Rush build Colony ships after 2 turns of Building that way your not sucking up 1200 credits.

For Research get faster engines FAST. Then go to Scanners 2 for you can build your own Scanner ships to get those Nice Money Annomalies.

This will usually get your foot in the door. After that go whatever works best. And that really depends on your Playstlye and alignment.

Oh and another thing, Don't do special planets. They use to be a good idea pre 1.3, but now they just hog you down. Ie Don't build just Reaserch plantes etc. On PQ9 and below planets they are good Reasearch fillers. On higher planets build at least 1 starport and 2-4 Facts etc. That way when the mid game comes you can start producing 5-8 ships that take maybe 8 turns. Instead of 1-2 ships that take 4 turns with the specialized planets.

Things have changed from v1.2 to v1.31 but being new to the game you probably have only played v1.31. Getting your economy going has always been a issue with new players (as well as old ones just getting used to the changes).

You need to balance the rate at which you colonize new planets with how fast you can get them productive. But if you colonize too slowly you fall further behind the colony rush.

I recommend that you build either a market or advanced market before building any factories. Also you should let the planet build the market itself and don't rush buy it. The goal is to let the planet do something productive that will increase it's profitability, won't add anything to the already high 14 bc support required by the initial colony, while the planet is naturally building pop thereby becoming less of a drain. I also suggest you pick the 70% pop growth racial ability which helps your colonies grow faster (become profitable faster) and also allows you to take pop off of your home planet at a faster rate so that its not depleted by the colony rush.

There is a lot of information throughout these forums on this very subject. It would be worthwhile for you to search them thoroughly. The strategy forum is probably the best place to start but there's good information everywhere, you just have to dig a bit.

Civilization is a good background for this game but there are many other differences some subtle some not so subtle. I can guarantee you one thing, if you aren't already, you will soon be addicted to this game.

Here's some strategies that I find work quite well. (This is by no means perfect)

Research at least up to warp drive imediately. (To do this I reduce the military slider to 0 social to about 15 and research to 85. My taxes stay at around 20% giving me a high morale and social building keep at 100% as long as you can. As long as you don't go past the -500bc

On my home planet I buy a money building, get the starport, and x3 factories (just (to start)

I send my colony ship to the lvl 5 panet in the home system and buld x3 research (or all the tiles whatever the number is available)

Whenever I get a new colony I buy one money building. Get my starport, build a factory, a research and get two moral and one poulation.

This process allows you to quickly build colony ships which are fast and have long range. You have to buy all your first few colony ships, until you reach warp drive. Then wack your military and social sliders up to maximum and your planets will start pumping them out for the colony rush. Note: When sending your colony ships out send them to the farthest posible destination.

Because you are always buying the first money building on each colony you very quickly move into the green so to speak and have a healthy account. And because you are building your moral and poulation tiles on each planet you can maintain your moral and have plenty of population to pay the taxes, enabling you to keep your tax rate low.

At your earliest convenience make sure you can communicate with the other races and trade quickly. you will find that they really like Iron drive and up and will trade good stuff for them, but don't let them have your best drive, stay one step ahead

After this begining strategy you can do what ever you please.

I find this (and slight variations of it) works fairly well for 1.3

Hope this helps!

I start by buying up as many colonizers as I can right off the bat. I also research Impulse drive first to get faster colonizers. My economy takes a bit of a hit as I expand real fast, but I keep up with the AI as it expands so I feel its worth it. Once I get settled in my neighborhood, I begin researching for stock exchanges so I can build those as quicky as possible.

I also take the last of any remaining funds to set my taxes low enough to get 100% approval and try to keep that for at least five turns, as I read somewhere that typical growth is 0.2 Million so double that for five turns is approximately 2 Million per planet population growth. This is something I do every few months to try to boost economy.

The surveyor ship is important, and as mentioned the sensor tech that allows for surveyor modules is extremely important early in the game as well, since those extra funds from anomalies really help out a lot.

- dtrotzjr

Another big thing to remeber is that in the early game NEVER BUY ON CREDIT! That is the quickest and simplest way to completly tank your early economy. The only things that I would say would be worth buying on credit are wonders (if you think that someone else might finish it first).

One thing to remember is that the economy in this game is related to your population, so while you have the initial starting capital, you should reduce your taxes to 5 or 10% so that your home planet and first few colonies can rapidly grow. There is a significant population growth bonus related to having 100% approval, and early in the game your low tax rate will only cost 30 BC or so, which you can easily afford for ten or fifteen turns. This means more people, and more poeple (or yor, drath etc) mean more money. Another trick is to occaisionly focus on one aspect of production. If I concentrate on social production with 100% of my production facilities I can fast build buildings on 20 or 30 planets within a turn or two. I can do the same with ship production (25 transports or warships in one turn) or make tough research projects available in only 3 turns rather than 10 or 15.

Oh yeah, and like dtrotzjr suggested above, you should try to get the survey tech as fast as possible, and then put a bunch of engines on a cargo hull with a survey module and hit auto-survey. 4 or 5 specialized survey ships unleashed like that early in the game will not only give you a lot of extra income over time, but will deny resources to competing civs while exploring the map.

As a beginner myself, having trouble with the start, I can't offer much advice. I can suggest what NOT to do. In my rush to colonize, I built about 10 colony ships quickly and was quite proud for a few turns of having so many planets. That feeling was short-lived as I was broke, losing money every turn and had a population of .1B on Earth. Good way to cripple an economy.

I like to maximize research and exploration, once I have my colonies laid out. Usually, I rush buy colony ships, but I won't rush buildings very often. Exploration gets you into contact with other Civs. Research will give you techs you can trade. If you are on the curve, you should run into a Civ or two that doesn't have your techs, but also doesn't have techs you need. These Civs are excellent to trade with, because you can trade a tech for money.

Once you trade away a tech, be sure to visit all of the other Civs, and offer them the same tech for $. This practise has been given the uncomplimentary name of "tech whoring" (hooray for the lowest common denominator!) but boy howdy, it works.

This isn't a strat in as much as it's an example of my current game, meant to show you what "not to do". Playing at the normal difficulty, I started out like any other game, planet grabbing. By the time I had about five colonies, my treasury was around neg. 500 and sinking fast. After many turns in the red (in which I humbled myself and literally gave away tons of hi end techs for whatever cash I could get) I realized that my resources were spread too thin. Needless to say, colony destruction was inevitable. Unfortunately, I had to destroy all of my colonies just to try and get some money coming in. Even that was looking bleak. I had a home planet doing nothing, no research, no production, nothing. I even went so far as to destroy everything on the homeworld save for the starport. I even decommissioned my survey ship, just because I was pissed. My saving grace was a decent lump of change for a couple of techs, paid by the Drengins(can't remember what techs though). With that trade I got enough to pay my way into the green. My point is this, DON'T OVERDO IT! On cakewalk, mass exodus to all the planets can work in the beginning of the game, but on a more challenging diff setting, your numbers matter tremendously. Relax, take time to build your infrastructure, and by all means, wait. Obviously research techs that will aid you in your strategy of conquest, but don't rush it. Eventually, when you find the proper formula, your economy and ranking will improve, allowing you to finally realize your quest for universal dominance.

Another thing I forgot to mention, NEVER allow your treasury to go below -500 bc, if you do, all production stops and not until you hit green again will production start up again. It is definately not worth it to drop that low.

- dtrotzjr

Yea, hehe, this game's all about the money. Pretty much everything you do has some impact on your economy. I think it's good that way, you actually have to think about what you're doing.

Good thing to know though, if your treasury hits -200,000 in a normal difficulty game, it resets.

Or maybe it was -2,000,000. I just remember alot of zeros.

try my posts in that thread

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=347&aid=120234#1022840

First Turn:
Research Planetary Improvements
Start building econ building on home world
Buy Scout (I typically finance this one. The last setting is only 117 BC and the rate per week won't mean much in a few turns)
Crank taxes to 49%
Set spending to 50%
Set military spending to 0 (you are going to buy your first few colony ships)
Do not colonize the pathetic PQ4 planet in your home system. That can wait. Try to find at least a PQ10+ for your first colony.

When Econ building is done build a factory, entertainment, and depending on your homeworld bonus tiles a lab. Buy your next several colony ships outright. Do not finance them. Hopefully if you are lucky you'll find a few of the money anomalies so you can scratch out a couple of more colony ships before you have to start to worry about getting your economy back in the positive.

Every new planet you colonize the first thing to build is an econ building.

When Planetary Improvements is done research Xeno Economy.

After Xeno Economy if you still have trouble with your early economy you may want to bee line for Trade to get the Economy Capital.

If you happen to find a PQ10+ planet in the early go set it up as a cash planet.

If you find a green or yellow space resource rush build a constructor to snatch it up. Typically the AI won't go after them until it has a few colonies so sometimes you can snag it even if it is close to their system.

You've got to get your economy stable as soon as possible. Don't be afraid to crank your taxes up in the early game just try to keep your morale over 40%. Continue to adjust your spending accordingly until you can run your economy with taxes set between 30%-49% and spending at 100%.

Once you master how to get your economy on its feet in very short order you'll find the rest of the game is much smoother. And of course like everything else in this game it really depends on your play style as to how you approach the game. Some people are very aggressive while others prefer to build up slowly.

cyberj914,

what difficulty are you playing at ? Are you sure this work at all ?

high taxes: low population growth

buy ships: expensive for nothing
you can crank up 1 ship / turn at 33% military very early if you buy factories

another reason it's a bad idea, early on, even if you take the speed racial hability, and the yor miniaturize + Ion drive.... those ship are still patheticaly slow compared to what you can crank up latter.

Also, the colony ships are slow no matter what compared to mega-scouts (scouts built from cargo hull - ideally survey vessel if you play custom race starting with sensors tech)

in the early game, cranking up taxes is utterly useless, you'll make what ? 100bc after a while ? survey ships can grap 2500 bc quite often. that's what you need early on. not colony ships. and you don't even know where the good planets are.

I say send away those speed 10 survey vessel to find the planets and grab the money, then it's time to build those ultra fast colony ship to grab all the best planets

The hardest difficulty games are pretty fast. can't build slowwly there.

also I turn off tech trading because it's too ridiculous an exploit. the minor races never colonize. as a result they get low diplomacy. you end up just buying their tech and selling it to all other races or exchanging it for other tech. before you count to 3 you're the brightest guy in the universe without ever building any research center. I just find it very silly. hope they fix it in dark avatar.

early eco buildings are not that usefull by the way, especially when you have no population ! (high taxes - aaargh ! you could as well tell beginers to commit suicide, would be less painfull)


by the way, why would you want to set spending at 50% ? research/production/military is a lot less expensive than buying the actual building, research and ships. you want that spending set to 100% and to build those 3+ factories as soon as possible so that you can crank up those marketplaces. I always run at 100% except for about 2-5 turns when I run out of money (if I'm unlucky). sometime that bad phase never happen. the larger the planets you colonize, the less that problem occurs. 2 turn at 75% is not that bad anyway... or you just switch research to higher % for those few turns,

that game is about outrunning your oponents, it's the only way to face 9 oponents in the hardest game.

Astarsis:

Well considering I typically win the games I play yes the strategy does work. As with everything else in this game there are hundreds of effective ways to win. If you'd look at my MV games you'd see I don't play beyond Tough. I don't like for the AI to have any unnecessary advantages. Also a new player will not typically start the game much above Normal. Therefore giving them advice on how to win at the top difficulties will only confuse them when they don't understand the why's of what you are doing. Therefore I tend to give advice that I know works and will give them a stable economy after the colonization phase is over.

As for your colony rush strategy that is no longer going to work once DA hits due to the new way planets are going to be handled. I agree if you are going for a lightning win then you've got to outpace your opponents. But again this is an advanced strategy that a new player will find frustrating to implement. Also I use those same slow colony ships to scout with. Then when I do find a nice planet I can immediately grab it.

Taxes only effect your population growth if your morale falls below 25%. In the early go it is harder to keep your morale above 75% when you start to get a bonus. Therefore there is no need to worry about keeping people happy. Also I play with a population growth bonus to offset the new population rules.

An economy building early you are right does not add a major amount. But if it is the first thing you build it will offset the initial colony maintenance which is more of a drain on your bank account then anything else. Keep in mind that I want the colony to be turning a profit by the time the population does grow to 5B. An early econ building makes that happen sooner rather then later with no cost. No brainer in my book.

I will adjust my spending all the time in order to keep my economy growing. If that means sometimes turning it down to 50% well then so be it. I find so long as you keep funds in the bank anything that arises in the short term can be handled by buying it. Also in the early go you need to stretch that 5000BC as far as you possibly can. By turning down spending in the early go (since your only focus really is new colonies) you can keep it from being eaten up by production costs you really don't need anyway. Relying on those 2500BC space goodies is just not a viable solution in all games. Honestly when I hit one of those the first thing I do is buy colony ships.

I've played without tech trading and honestly the game becomes even easier since you can rapidly out research the AI so I leave it on.

This game is about your economy. Most new players lose a game because they do not concentrate on getting their economy stable early enough. A veteran player knows how far they can push the system before they have to stabilize their economy.

What I do and I am in no way saying this is the best way to go about it is simply crank tech to 100% straight away and get faster engines.

After I have faster engines I design a faster colony ship that does about 4-6parasecs a turn (I take everything off the craft execpt for the engines). Then I colonize like crazy.

I grab as many planets as I can and build starports on them and then build MORE colony ships. Then colonise more.

Naturually soon I go into massive deficiet. After this happens I begin the struggle to curve my economy upwards with lots of farms and markets.

Later in the game i'm a major economical power raking in 1000bc per turn.

Be warned... This strategy is hard to cope with and requires a lot of patience and luck to get out of the massive defeciet but it is do-able.

~ Michael

OK First advice:
If you start a game and find yourself in a corner, RESTART THE GAME! If you are next to the wall and do not have some great resources on your homeworld, restart. The mid and late game advantages from being in the middle are just that great.

The things to do on the first turn are:

Begin researching Planetary Improvements (the best overall improvement tech in the entire game!)

Buy you Capitol world a basic factory the first turn.

Send your colony ship back to you homeworld and put 500 colonists on it! Otherwise you entire expansion is slowed down dramatically.

Go to the shipyard screen and upgrade the colony ship design and add another engine.

Set your flagship for auto-explore (the A button)

Launch your colony ship and send it to the nearest star. AFTER it moves, upgrade it to your new colony design.

Set your production slider in the domestic policy tab to 100% and adjust your tax rate until your Morale is at 50%.

Begin building another colony ship.

After this read some of the other posts for advice. What you do on the first turn affects the rest of the game dramatically. The game works on an exponential scale, so small changes at the beginning have a HUGE effect later.

For the first turns.

Set your taxes to keep your approval at 70% or better. Adjust your spending to be barely profitable. Set your spending priorities to 40 military, 10 social, 50 research. Buy your homeworld a factory, set up a second factory as your first build (even if the first one is on a bonus tile), then layout your homeworld however. Redesign a colony ship with two engines, one support module, and no sensors. This will be less expensive than your basic version and faster to boot. Buy one, set your homeworld to build them constantly. Send your Survey ship off to find anomalies. Send your starting colony ship to the second habitable planet in your home system or a planet within one turn of your homeworld (if it exists). Set the first build item on your colony to a factory, followed by a starport, followed by another factory, then whatever. Buy the factory. Research priorities are negotiable, pick whatever suits your tastes.

End turn 1.

Turn 2.

Buy your homeworld's second factory, buy your colony's starport. Set the colony to buy colony ships. Leave it alone. You will not touch this world again until it starts producing colony ships, should be something like 15-30 weeks, depending on bonus tiles. Launch the second colony ship from your homeworld, buy one more.

Send the second ship to the nearest star system. Check your economy, make sure you're staying green.

End turn 2

Turns after 2.

Nothing really to do here, unless you want to risk buying another factory or ship (don't mess with this too much unless you get a nice cash anomaly). At this point you're clicking turn until colony ships are done, then you start pushing them out to the nearest star systems in all directions (don't get too linear, even if you see planets beyond, unless its a purple star or something special), don't worry about more than one planet per system just yet. Expansion here is ultra critical moreso than thoroughness. Keep to the pattern of the first three items. Factory, Starport, Factory. When the starport is done (you can buy these, they're fairly cheap), set them all to buy colony ships.

Keep driving the border out as fast and far as you can. If you encounter a species, use one planet's ships to fill out the systems in a direct line between you and the other race. This will prevent a lot of headaches with trying to compete with influence. Keep an eye on the map, and start filling in the outer systems when you're within a sector or two of the other's influence zones. If you see someone encroach fast, don't panic! Influence moves a lot faster than those colony ships, and it is still possible to overwhelm a border world if you're fast enough to slam the other planets around it quickly.

This opening phase requires a LOT of aggression to get down fast. Keep an eye on the Drengin, Drath and Kvorx. They tend to get heavy with their militaries fast, don't hesitate to trade tech's to keep them pacified if you encounter them and they want to get ugly. You're going to be exposed for a while, but its not something that is necessarily a bad thing if you're smart on the diplomatic front. Your high research value should have you cutting a wide swath through low level techs you can use as trade off bait for techs other races have that you want. When you start to get boxed in, trade up ship designs for Construction ships and Freighters. Trade more with races of opposite alignment. If you make them dependent on you for financial sustainance, they're less likely to risk a war with you cutting off trade.

Whatever you do, if you can avoid it, don't burden your planet's economies with a lot of ships. As your empire expands and starports come online, cut back production of ships leave the starports empty and idle and focus on the planets making them the fastest. 10 turns or less per ship. If you have a planet with low population making ships fast, then don't take more than half the colony's population or 200 people, which ever is lower, but don't turn down their production output. At this point, a planted low pop colony beats a high population colony five weeks further out.

While all this is going on, don't hesitate to turn down the expense slider to keep in the green, even if it means losing time on ship production. Once you've got 12 systems loaded up and growing with only 4 or 5 starports spitting out ships, you should start to see profits come up. Remember, you're only putting 10% into social spending. Don't level that out until the colony rush is over. Then you can reverse social and military as you see fit. After the colony rush, make a couple worlds build military vessels with whatever tech you've been able to muster up, and the rest of your worlds build constructors to start putting up influence, economy and mining starbases.

If all goes well, you should have between 15-20% of a Huge galaxy under control when the expansion is over.