Help and/or flame the Galciv2 n00b

(or just help) :)

from GalCiv2 Forums

Hey Galcivers,

A few years back I lamented the loss of my favorite genre of game when I wasted hard earned money on Master of Orion 3.  Given that MOO2 was one of my all time favorite games, the epic and immeasurable FAIL of MOO3 just broke my heart.  Until someone told me about Galciv, which I quite enjoyed.

Fast fwd a few years.  I played a couple games of 1st release Galciv2 lent to me by a friend and I love it.  I just bought the Galciv2 Ultimate Bundle yesterday so I can experience the expansions :LOL:  I started my first custom game of ToA yesterday and I figure its about time to get some of my nagging n00bish questions sorted out.

1)  What's the purpose of farms?  Before you laugh, I know they increase the max pop, but what is that good for?  Tax revenue?  Feedstock for transports & colony ships?  Production capacity for various buildings?

2)  Fighter Swarm or Capital Ship?  In base version of GC2 it seems my fleets of small/tiny ships would lose consistantly against a single larger vessel with similar type (not quantity!) of armaments.  I've allready factored in the rock/paper/scissors of weapon/armor combos, so I know its not a case of bringing a knife to a gunfight.  So is it better to build a swarm of fighters or a single behemoth?

3)  Upgrading ships?  In base version of GC2, when you upgraded a design a really confusing screen came up.  On the left hand side was a list of the currently built ships of that "class".  Along the right is different cost options.  You couldn't select more than one left side ship at a time.  Is the cost the proposed cost to upgrade all existing instances of the class to the current spec?

4)  Do starbase speed modifiers affect freighters?  I remember putting stellar wake and interdictors on military starbases to increase the speed of friendlies and decrease speed of baddies in the control radius of the base.  Does this work on freighters?

I'll probably have a bunch more as I dive into ToA, but thats all I have for now.  Well, one more, but not strictly game mechanic related.  I've been searching all over for people's custom race builds but I can't seem to find any good threads on it.  Could anyone provide a link to any discussions?

99,486 views 35 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. Tax revenue - yes. Transport and colony ship "volunteers" - yes. production - no.
2. It's difficult to say. There are two schools of thought on the subject, but keep in mind that in DA and TA, weapons are done individually rahter than all at once, so multiple targets can be destroyed per turn if there's enogh guns on the big ship. I favour big ships personally.
3. It depends on how you got to the screen. If it's the update button on the ship, it's just that ship. If from the ship yard, all of the class.
4. The pre-route freighters, i think so. The mini-freighters, i don't think so, as i think they always have speed one.
Hope that helps.
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Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks Mnesthes.

Just a strategy question on #1. Is it generally a good idea to put a farm on every planet of a certain size? I was putting them only on planets that had the resource bonus and whenever I was bored and didn't know what else to put on a tile.

5) Is the highest planet quality ability worth it? When creating a custom race, its a pretty high number of points for only a 20% bonus. Am I interpreting it right that a class 10 planet will be a class 12? Is it just me or are class 10s pretty rare to begin with?
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. Hmm. I have to admit that i'm never really sure on my farm distribution myslef. It usually depends on the mood i'm in. Also, careful with farms on the bonus food tiles, or population goes through the roof, and morale goes through the floor. :p 
5. I've never though it was worth it myself, but views vary.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Remembering more as I go...

6. Good vs. Evil choices on colonization: Is it just me, or do you get more planetary resource bonuses if you pick the Good option on colonization events?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
6. No idea. However, the resource bonuses (As well as the events) are random on colony ship arrival, so it's possible.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
6. No idea. However, the resource bonuses (As well as the events) are random on colony ship arrival, so it's possible.


I figured its a decent assumption, given that Good & Evil both have unique techs, unique buildings, but evil is obviously a better choice at the colony arrival event. But as I've been running my two games over in my head, I seemed to remember more "HOLY COW! Look at the bonuses!" moments when I was slogging through the game as a goodie-goodie.

And related to the planetary bonuses (especially from evil choices)...

7. When the colony event states that you can receive an X% ship bonus, what the hec is it talking about? Attack? Defense? Is it applied universally or only to ships created @ that planet?
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
7. Ships created at that planet, but I can't recall whether it's attack, defence, hit points, or a combination. It might give more data in the details screen for that colony.

You're not the only one to notice the seeming overpower of evil.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. Try not to go beyond 18 billion people. Otherwise the planet starts getting really crowded and people get really angry.

2. Smaller ships don't do well against larger ships, unless the smaller ships have fleet support modules (ships with those modules equiped tend to draw fire) or superior weapons and defense (huge number advantage works). Assuming both sides have equal weapons and defense, a large ship can ussually take a beating, while returning fire that will probally kill a few smaller ships, thus reducing firepower that can be used against it next round.

5. Consider it something to be used as part of an advanced strategy. Since you are new to this game, you should avoid it for now. By then you can probally figure out if its worth it. That said, some civs like the Arceans get their "Weather Control Zenith", a planet improvement that increases a planet's quality.

6. Good tends to get screwed over in most random events. The bonuses can be significant enough that you may wish to avoid researching "Xeno Ethics". By the way, researching "Xeno Ethics" prevents further random events, so research it early if you plan on playing good, or later if you plan on playing evil.

7. I think you are talking about the "ship quality" bonus. Its a bonus that is applied to all ships built by that planet. The "ship quality" bonus increases ships weapons and defense by a the given percent. Other bonus types include "ship HP" (increases ship HP by percent ammount) and "ship speed" (increases a ship's speed the number given).

Planet improvements that give these bonuses includes, but not limited to: the Arcean "Stellar Forge" which proivdes both a ship quality and ship HP bonus, the Drath/Altarian "Doomsday Generator" which provides a very large bonus to ship HP.

________________
If you want more information, check out the guide I wrote. Though its was written for those who already knew how to play DA, so feel free to ask questions.

TA 101
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Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks Mnesthes.Just a strategy question on #1. Is it generally a good idea to put a farm on every planet of a certain size? I was putting them only on planets that had the resource bonus and whenever I was bored and didn't know what else to put on a tile.


Not sure what others say, but here is my thought. Farms are good for bringing up the number of colonists on a planet. This is a plus and a minus.

On the plus side, more colonists mean more income. So definitely put a farm on your Economy planets. Also, the more colonists you have on a given planet, the more troops you can take off that planet to invade neighboring planets. So if you grab a planet that will be a staging area for a future war, put down a couple of farms so you have a place close to bring in your Troop ships from. Also, the more "Citizens" you have, the more influence you have. So bulking up any planet with a cap of 8 to 12 or 16 is a bonus. And they make great meat shields when the enemy attacks.

On the minus side, well there is only one minus. Moral. colonies above about 14 start loosing moral like a somb. It just flushes down the drain. So you have to be very VERY careful about those planets. And you can sometimes create a self losing battle between Farms and Moral centers so that your income drops.

anyway, good luck.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
5. Consider it something to be used as part of an advanced strategy. Since you are new to this game, you should avoid it for now. By then you can probally figure out if its worth it. That said, some civs like the Arceans get their "Weather Control Zenith", a planet improvement that increases a planet's quality.

7. I think you are talking about the "ship quality" bonus. Its a bonus that is applied to all ships built by that planet. The "ship quality" bonus increases ships weapons and defense by a the given percent. Other bonus types include "ship HP" (increases ship HP by percent ammount) and "ship speed" (increases a ship's speed the number given).Planet improvements that give these bonuses includes, but not limited to: the Arcean "Stellar Forge" which proivdes both a ship quality and ship HP bonus, the Drath/Altarian "Doomsday Generator" which provides a very large bonus to ship HP.


That leads to a new question: (8) Stacking bonuses? Do the improvements you mention in answers (5) and (7) stack with or replace the bonuses you receive from evil planetary bonuses?

RE: (7) Is this somewhat of a confirmation that "good" colonization decisions don't have a higher likelyhood of planetary resource bonuses? :(
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Build farms only on large economic worlds. Small worlds will see a morale drop due to the crowding, as well as have less tiles to build economic improvements. Farms on manufacturing worlds detract from the factory concentration. Research structures on economic worlds detract from the economic concentration. Do take advantage of research bonus tiles though, of course.

When you are looking at the details screen and checking out the planetary bonuses, know that it includes the bonuses from the structures you have built.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
8. I believe that planet random event bonuses stack with planet improvements. I have no reason to believe that they don't. Sticking with good often yields penalties, such as a production penalty. If all it took to over write that penalty was to build a power plant, I'm sure the devs would recieve many e-mails asking them to fix it.

7. As for random events, I'll say that picking good does not give bonus tiles that weren't already there. Good often get the bad end of the deal in random events. Choosing good does not give you additional bonus tiles (as far as I can tell). From my experience, it would seem that bonus tiles are placed on planets as the map is being generated. Inaddition, I've looked at the .xml file for random events, and I have never seen anything that would suggest that random events could grant bonus tiles.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. Try not to go beyond 18 billion people. Otherwise the planet starts getting really crowded and people get really angry.


Yup, I agree with this one. The first game I played on Twilight I had a colony with an 18 pop and 81% morale. I built a farm and when the pop hit 20 my Morale dropped to 53% for that planet. I was like wtf......an almost 30% drop in morale for 2 bil pop.....bull
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
7. As for random events, I'll say that picking good does not give bonus tiles that weren't already there. Good often get the bad end of the deal in random events. Choosing good does not give you additional bonus tiles (as far as I can tell). From my experience, it would seem that bonus tiles are placed on planets as the map is being generated. Inaddition, I've looked at the .xml file for random events, and I have never seen anything that would suggest that random events could grant bonus tiles.

This. I never looked at the xml files, but I did spend a bored afternoon repeatedly reloading a game and colonizing the same planets to determine this for myself. The only effect I found was that events that result in PQ loss do tend to eat bonus tiles more often than random chance could account for.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
7. As for random events, I'll say that picking good does not give bonus tiles that weren't already there. Good often get the bad end of the deal in random events. Choosing good does not give you additional bonus tiles (as far as I can tell). From my experience, it would seem that bonus tiles are placed on planets as the map is being generated. Inaddition, I've looked at the .xml file for random events, and I have never seen anything that would suggest that random events could grant bonus tiles.


As far I know, it's upon colonization. I only notice because my computer crashes more than i'd like, so I end up doing a lot of things (Like colonising the same planet) several times. Grumble, Mutter, Moan, Complain... :( 
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. Try not to go beyond 18 billion people. Otherwise the planet starts getting really crowded and people get really angry.


That´s true. But if your Empire evolved to a certain Stage, you should indeed put the big Colonys higher then 18 Million. I do it like that...

Planetsize 1-4 = 6 Million
Planetsize 5-8 = 9 Million
Planetsize 9-12 = 12-18 Million
Planetsize 13-16 = 24 Million
Planetsize 16-xx = xx Million

The more People you have, the more Taxes they create. The more Taxes you earn, the lower you can set the tax rate. The lower the tax rate, the huigher the moral of your people. I have around 20-25% Taxes with about 300 Million People living in my Empire. I earn about 1000-1200 a round.

Question 2: Capital Ships will always loose against 3-4 smaller Ships, simpy because there are more Targets.

Question3: I always upgrade one type of Ship and then permanently set the old Style to "obsolete"...but don´t delte the Ships of the old Class...you´ll still need them...;)

Question 4: I f you have Trade Routes, then yes, they will be moving faster.

Question 6: No they are totally random.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. Try not to go beyond 18 billion people. Otherwise the planet starts getting really crowded and people get really angry.That´s true. But if your Empire evolved to a certain Stage, you should indeed put the big Colonys higher then 18 Million. I do it like that...Planetsize 1-4 = 6 MillionPlanetsize 5-8 = 9 MillionPlanetsize 9-12 = 12-18 MillionPlanetsize 13-16 = 24 MillionPlanetsize 16-xx = xx MillionThe more People you have, the more Taxes they create. The more Taxes you earn, the lower you can set the tax rate. The lower the tax rate, the huigher the moral of your people. I have around 20-25% Taxes with about 300 Million People living in my Empire. I earn about 1000-1200 a round.


Depends on your econ, farm and morale tech and buildings. I weigh adding a certain amount of people to the existing population + any necessary morale buildings versus using economic buildings on those tiles.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
sry for hijacking thread, but since it its already newbish q&a i'd like to post two questions myself if OP dont mind ;)
one thing has been bothering me for as long as I play GalCiv: what is exactly "luck" and how does it effect the game ? does it work something like creativity or .. ?
and second, does anyone know how exactly does the fighting work ? i'm talking about for eg. a ship with attack value of 6 never dealing 6 dmg, and ship with attack value of 1 attacking same type defense (value 4) still managing sometimes to deal dmg to defending ship; i suppose that values of attack and defense work as percentage of some base attack, or maybe the fighting works like dice with maximum possible number being your maximum attack and minimum number being 0 ?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I wonder if minor race influence affects major races. There was a minor race that had 3 influence starbases in my sector where the Torians were located. I had been trying to flip the Torians for a while with no luck. I tried an experiment. Even though I am playing a ‘GOOD’ race I decided to declare war on the minor race. ***side note – why are all minor race planets 15 quality?*** I built a fleet and some transports and attacked everything the minor race had, including their home world and literally wiped them from exsistence in one turn. I tell you that was fun, logistically annoying, but fun. Well the very next turn the Torians flipped to my side. That experiment makes me think the minor races have more influence when it comes to major races then I first believed……Thoughts anyone?

Also: is there a 'combat view screen'? I think I read that but I cant find it
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Individual weapons roll a dice against the defence of the target ship. The defence modules of a given type don't roll individually but as a whole, but even if the defence rolls higher it is depleted by however much the damage would have been. If it rolls lower, the difference is taken out of the hitpoints and defence is depleted. So by the end of a round, defences can become completely depleted and then they don't offer any protection against that weapon type.

Ships with an attack bonus from military resources get a 'supershot' at the start of the round which can exceed or severely deplete defence. The other shots during that round roll as normal.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
one thing has been bothering me for as long as I play GalCiv: what is exactly "luck" and how does it effect the game ? does it work something like creativity or .. ?


Luck is related to combat rolls, so I'll get to that later.

and second, does anyone know how exactly does the fighting work ? i'm talking about for eg. a ship with attack value of 6 never dealing 6 dmg, and ship with attack value of 1 attacking same type defense (value 4) still managing sometimes to deal dmg to defending ship; i suppose that values of attack and defense work as percentage of some base attack, or maybe the fighting works like dice with maximum possible number being your maximum attack and minimum number being 0 ?


The attack and defense ratings of ships are the maximum damage or defense that ship has. Each time a weapon fires, the attack rolls between 0 and the max value, then the defense rolls between 0 and max effective defense (on type defense plus square root of off type defenses). Any damage in excess of the defense roll is subtracted from the hit points.

The damage from the weapon is subtracted from the max effective defense to calculate the effective defense against the next weapon. Note the full amount of the weapon damage is subtracted even if the defenses didn't block all of that damage.

Luck comes in by adjusting the minimum possible attack rolls (maybe defense as well - can anyone confirm?). If you have 25% luck, your minimum attack roll will be 25% of your maximum roll (rounded down) instead of zero.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I wonder if minor race influence affects major races. There was a minor race that had 3 influence starbases in my sector where the Torians were located. I had been trying to flip the Torians for a while with no luck. I tried an experiment. Even though I am playing a ‘GOOD’ race I decided to declare war on the minor race. ***side note – why are all minor race planets 15 quality?*** I built a fleet and some transports and attacked everything the minor race had, including their home world and literally wiped them from exsistence in one turn. I tell you that was fun, logistically annoying, but fun. Well the very next turn the Torians flipped to my side. That experiment makes me think the minor races have more influence when it comes to major races then I first believed……Thoughts anyone?

Also: is there a 'combat view screen'? I think I read that but I cant find it


Unless you reloaded a saved game and repeated that, I'd call it a coincidence. Influence overkill does NOT increase the odds of a planet flipping - a planet at 4.0 has the same probability of flipping as one does at 80. So if you had the Torian planet above 4, it could have flipped at any time. It's a random event, though, so it can take a year or two to flip a planet, or happen the first turn it gets over 4.

Minor races rarely colonize or invade, so the planet they start on is generally the only one they get. It makes sense to give them one somewhat better than a typical capital planet, as that planet has to do everything.

Combat viewer - open the options menu, the check the box that says "show full battles" - or something like that. You can also set it so only fleet battles are in combat viewer.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
thx for responses Marvin Kosh and WIllythemailboy; actually i remembered combat system as i read your posts (tho i thought that off type def. was counted as 1/2, not sqrt, but it has been quite a while ago since i read about that), and thanks for clearing up the luck thingie to me :)
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok... played a good amount this weekend and I have some more questions.

9) Fast Freighters? When a trade route is established it gives you a "per turn" income correct? In essence, the freighter going back and forth is just animation and has no impact on the money generated, correct? So... all things being equal, do faster freighters generate more trade revenue, or does having a fast freighter only help to get you to the destination faster the first time?

10) Spies like us. Does it make a difference what kind of building your spy infiltrates? Are there technologies that spies simply can not steal? (There's a unique building or two I wouldn't mind finding!) Can you gain tech from conquering a planet?

Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
3. It depends on how you got to the screen. If it's the update button on the ship, it's just that ship. If from the ship yard, all of the class.


No. Even if you go to the upgrade screen from individual ships, you still have the option to 'upgrade all ships of this class'. The cost will then reflect the sum of upgrades instead of a single ship.