Gal Civ 2 Dark Avatar Guide Completed!

Please post feedback in this thread.

http://jeffpinard.com/Dark%20Avatar.htm
from GalCiv2 Forums
You can read the guide here: GC2 & Dark Avatar Guide

It's very important for you to know the purpose of this guide.

1. It is not to cover every aspect of the game. It's meant to cover some of the things that are easy to forget, confusing, or difficult.

2. I'm not a web designer.

3. I still have a few pages to add. Custom Races, and a compilation of how the game cam stay fresh and fun (i.e. no next turn syndrome, or super redundant gameplay)

4. I still have to optimize many of the pics. Some of them are pretty big, but after some 30 hours of working on this thing... I just wanted to get it out there.

5. Feel free to post items you'd like me to add, whether it's a single point or a whole page. I'm looking for things that people often overlook that makes the game easier to manage and/or more fun.

Enjoy!
faq support
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm confused by something on this page:

http://jeffpinard.com/planet_management.htm


Step 7: So you'll want to click the All button and make sure the planets are sorted by class (size).

Step 9: I'm looking for the largest planet that's not occupied by anyone. Easiest way to do this is just look for that has no shipyard and no social projects (the space beneath the shipyard). The first planet we see is Shard IV. And it looks like a great! It's a size 11!



Isn't the easiest way to just click the "unowned" button to see unoccupied planets? Instead of having to visually try to sort out all the planets when they're mixed together? Maybe I'm missing something.


Also - on this page: http://jeffpinard.com/first_turn.htm

The flashing "warning" at the top is extremely annoying to read, because you have to stop and wait for it to flash back up every second. There's no need to flashing text ever - just bold it and make it a little bigger if you want to catch people's eyes with it. Flashing is bad when someone is trying to read something that long.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nice! Thankyou. I do have a few comments.

Tip 17

If you are going to buy both a social project and a ship in a turn and you only have one planet, why not set spending to 100% research (instead of 50% social and 50% research)?

Tip 18

People might want to manually explore at the beginning before setting auto-explore on.
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you are going to buy both a social project and a ship in a turn and you only have one planet, why not set spending to 100% research (instead of 50% social and 50% research)?


In the case of social projects, you can buy a project and then immediately set your spending on the next project that same turn. This is unlike ships, where you have to wait a turn and all your military spending that turn gets wasted.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In the case of social projects, you can buy a project and then immediately set your spending on the next project that same turn. This is unlike ships, where you have to wait a turn and all your military spending that turn gets wasted.


I was just thinking about the tradeoff between dramatically increasing your research for a turn or getting a slight decrease in cost for purchasing the partially built social project the following turn.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm confused by something on this page:

http://jeffpinard.com/planet_management.htm



Step 7: So you'll want to click the All button and make sure the planets are sorted by class (size).

Step 9: I'm looking for the largest planet that's not occupied by anyone. Easiest way to do this is just look for that has no shipyard and no social projects (the space beneath the shipyard). The first planet we see is Shard IV. And it looks like a great! It's a size 11!



Isn't the easiest way to just click the "unowned" button to see unoccupied planets? Instead of having to visually try to sort out all the planets when they're mixed together? Maybe I'm missing something.


Also - on this page: http://jeffpinard.com/first_turn.htm

The flashing "warning" at the top is extremely annoying to read, because you have to stop and wait for it to flash back up every second. There's no need to flashing text ever - just bold it and make it a little bigger if you want to catch people's eyes with it. Flashing is bad when someone is trying to read something that long.



Yea, I guess that would have made a lot more sense if I'd ever even noticed it was there. DUH! No idea how I could look at it a million times and have it never register in my brain.   

Fixed the blinking thing. Did it as a test and then forgot to eliminate it. hehe, yea it was terribly annoying.

Like I mentioned the guide is just one of a thousand ways to do things. I'll continue to add to it and refine it over time.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very nice and helpful read Jpinard. Thanks a lot!
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can read the guide here: GC2 & Dark Avatar Guide

It's very important for you to know the purpose of this guide.

1. It is not to cover every aspect of the game. It's meant to cover some of the things that are easy to forget, confusing, or difficult.

2. I'm not a web designer.

3. I still have a few pages to add. Custom Races, and a compilation of how the game cam stay fresh and fun (i.e. no next turn syndrome, or super redundant gameplay)

4. I still have to optimize many of the pics. Some of them are pretty big, but after some 30 hours of working on this thing... I just wanted to get it out there.

5. Feel free to post items you'd like me to add, whether it's a single point or a whole page. I'm looking for things that people often overlook that makes the game easier to manage and/or more fun.

Enjoy!



I checked out your guide, nice job on that! No doubt some very good info.

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks. It's now a full 30 pages and the text on black is easier to read. You'll need to clear your browser cache to see the updates I think.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well Done on this guide, although creating the custom race was a little more... in depth... than I would have liked. However, I liked the changing music part, so I'm gona find some musice to replace the main menu music.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nice guide, lots of things I had no Idea about. Like where to see how much the asteroid adds to production. The music site you linked to is great (digg museum)

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am definitely going to want to go dig through my classical collection for some good background music now. During long play sessions, I've just taken to turning the music off all together, otherwise I find it gets stuck in my head.

When it comes to picking a planet to colonize, I just zoom out all the way and look for the solid white planets (or the ones with their "circle" completely filled depending on how you look at it...) They are always 11+ it seems. It doesn't take more then a few mouse clicks to drag around the map (even on Gigantic) in the zoomed out view.

I also try to pick planets that are close to any other civs I've found while exploring. Kind of "stakes off" my border and lets me see any colony ships he sends my way.

If you find a purple star, get a colony ship (better yet, 2 colony ships) over there ASAP. They always have a PQ26 planet and very often a PQ12-14 also.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The guide has been updated to include economy help, charts, and more espionage tips.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Let's keep it real here. I'm a newbie and none of you know me, but here's my opinion after reading the guide. It didn't contain a whole lot in the way of strategies for winning the game, which is what I want from a guide. Instead, 5 of the 30 pages were devoted to pictures of ships. An entire page was devoted to spreadsheets of planet sizes, colors, and temperature gradients. Another page was devoted to customizing the music. Other pages covered such things as Metaverse, reference data, and tips for keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks. The rest of the guide was mostly a detailed exploration of the UI with the occasional nugget of useful information about various aspects of gameplay.

Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, that's correct. Easy to forget information and other details. If you want a newbie guide, Brad has already written an excellent one and this is linked on the front page. For more direct explanation of every detail, the wikipedia is also linked on the front page. The differences and additions in Dark Avatar are already covered by Brad which is linked on the front page.

I wrote the guide from a point of view from someone who is not new and also not a pro. Someone in the middle that sometimes gets lost/overwhelemd in the game.

I didn't want to write a guide about how to beat the game. The wonderful part of playing a great game is the challenge and the experience of finding out new things and trying new strategies. What fun would there be, in having a plan to beat everything the first time through? This is the first game in a long time where I don't mind losing. It's part of the experience.

I'm sorry you didn't care for it. I'm not a professional and it started out as things I had overlooked after lots of game-playing. I figured it would hold some useful information for people.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To complain about a FREE guide seems a little silly.............
Me, I found useful tips on almost every page---many thanks for the effort
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
As a person who is not a rank beginner, and not an expert, I liked the guide. Thanks for putting in all that effort!

The formatting is a bit of a problem: Would it be worthwhile to convert to .pdf form?
That way, the pages could be anchored, making it easier to find a specific section.

I'm volunteering my help...
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sure physics_theory. I think you can e-mail me through the forum.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great work on the guide. Good read for newbies and veterans.

With all due respect, it would be the perfect guide if the design's better.

Instead of having links to the 30 pages, perhaps a left menu bar with main and sub catergories would improve the navigation. Below is a simple example..

Economics
- Trade (Clickable link)
- Tax rate (Clickable link)
- Etc (Clickable link)
- Etc (Clickable link)

Ship Design
- Etc (Clickable link)
- Etc (Clickable link)
- Etc (Clickable link)
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Under "keeping the game fresh", how about realistic galaxy settings to make the hunt for good stars competitive? Like Common/Rare habitable planets, rare/occasional planets, occasional anomalies, and common asteroids.

Also a one-planet challenge? One planet with our without the Planet Quality bonus?
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Is the making the game fresh and fun section in the guide yet, as I would like to read that, if not could some of you give me some tip on how to make the game reash and fun.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am curious about minor races and their interaction with the player. Specifically when it gives you the message that so-in-so acquired all the tech of such-in-such and are looking to trade for star systems. When you goto the minor races interface there is no obvious option to exchange a star system for anything other than their own tech. I can offer them a star system without asking and they just take it and there is no offer???????
What am I missing???