<3 Luck

from GalCiv2 Forums
Just the base +25 percent has seen an INCREDIBLE number of bonus tiles on the planets I'm finding in my current game. Including one that just blew my mind. A PQ10ish with four manufacturing tiles, two 300% and two 100%. I couldn't slap my Manufacturing capital on it fast enough. Almost wanted to rename the planet "Hurting Starts Here".

Its been more miss than hit on the anomalies, though. This game had me starting of with literally NOTHING in terms of anomaly loot, so I spent a sickening amount of time with my economy bouncing between -427 and -534 bc. Don't even ask what my approval rating was, its too painful to bear.

The number of planet colony events seemed a little higher than normal, but nothing really astounding.

Still pulled it out and managed to get the economy stabilized and a buttload of colonization and research done in time to hold my own in the colony race with the Torians.

But Luck is definitely a kiss on the lips in terms of bonus tile handouts, they're all over the place.
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11,143 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
AFAIK, Luck doesn't deal with specials on planets (although I certainly could be wrong about that). As far as I am aware, Luck has to do with anomalies and random events--like getting the Precursor Ranger, for example.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Think luck does have to do with specials. Since Specials are another form Of Randomis. And luck is suppose to Give Bonus to player on Random Items.

Course Could be wrong, won't be first time.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One time i had no luck and the whole planet about a class 6 had 300% manufacturing bonuses on ever title!! It was insane.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I haven't noticed anything specific with luck. I tried one game with +25 luck attribute and then chose universalists for another +25. I didn't get any resources in my immediate territory. Pretty unlucky, I think.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i'm tempted to try modding a civ file to give 95% luck or something and try out a game to see how will it turn out... no time yet though. anybody did this already/plan to do this, drop us a story!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No time? You find the file and change a number, takes 30 seconds.

c/program files/stardock/totalgaming/galciv2/data/english/raceconfig.xml

Change luck factor of race to 95, done.

And I've had a 200 all stat race. I didn't notice luck much when I tried it, I was busy steamrolling everything in my path.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
no time to play any comp games... too busy with schoolwork   

oh yeah, doesn't luck affect planet invasion dice rolls?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It definitely affects random events, I've had a bunch of them. A couple major multiple choice events not related to colonization and TWO Precursor Ranger events over the course of three turns.

But then I also realized I'd been playing this game with the +25 optional Luck, along with the Universalists, so its been +50.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The official count is now FOUR Precursor Rangers found, and a single Precursor Corvette event which gave me two.


  
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i'm tempted to try modding a civ file to give 95% luck or something and try out a game to see how will it turn out... no time yet though. anybody did this already/plan to do this, drop us a story!


I have done this, except I didn't mess about with 95%...I put the bonus well into 3 figures. (500% IIRC). I then CTRL-ned 20 times and compared it with 20 times CTRL-ning with no luck bonus. I noticed no worthwhile difference (in fact, I did get one insanely lucky start...with the zero bonus!)

I'm not suggesting this is conclusive. For example:

1) Maybe it only affects planet tiles on colonized planets rather than the starting planet. It would be extremely weird if the starting planets are treated differently to everything else IMO since the bonus tiles on the starting planet are also random.
2) It's a pretty small sample size. Maybe I just got an unusual string of results.
3) Perhaps the game detects "cheat" luck scores and deactivates them. This seems unlikely since all other racial bonuses work just fine when made artificially high.

But it was enough to convince me.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I always play with the luck bonus. In my current game, my home planet started with one 700% manufacturing bonus and one 100% manufacturing bonus. That was sweet. I tried playing a game with the 25% luck bonus plus Universalists for a total of +50% luck but didn't seem to notice a difference. I just stick with the +25% bonus.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

In the game I am playing right now, I have received a total of more than 15000bc from anomalies. I play with +25% luck + universalists. Now if that isn't lucky, I don't know what

Asmodean
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think +'s to luck has to be a good thing if you're planning on being evil, the gremlin empire or something like that. I find I get a lot more planet specialization bonuses when I'm lucky (one game I believe I had about 90% of my planets have modifiers (playing Torian customized to be lucky)). Choosing the evil option pretty much always gives you a bonus and if you always select the evil option without compunction about forking over 2500 or 10000 bc to be good neutral or good, then you can get a large number of modifiers on your planets. This can add up.

I think, though I'm not sure, that if you're lucky you might also want to wait on getting xeno ethics. There's a few civilization wide bonuses that can pop up, but only before you actually choose an alignment (I'm thinking of the Pokemon one).
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think luck didn't work properly in my last game(1.4rc.) While my civilization received a few precursor manufacturing, research and influence tiles, it was the gorram Torians that received a pair of 700% tiles for manufacturing and research on Torus. Once I successfully invaded Torus, they couldn't spit out the frigates or counter my offensive weapons so easily.

Did luck malfunction or was it just the Torians getting lucky as well?
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Luck is a mysterious under-the-hood advantage that can help
you at various points throughout the game. It can improve the
chances of a critical hit in combat or reduce the odds of getting a
negative random event.