Dread Lords Campaign (and some beginner questions)

Your primary goal in this scenario is to capture the Drengin planet as quickly as possible, before the Dread Lord forces become a factor.  Focus all your energies on that task.  Don't worry about capturing/developing other planets unless you can use them as stepping stones in pursuit of your primary goal.  You start this scenario with a lot of cash, so be sure to use that to best advantage (rush a lot of builds).

 

You'll have plenty of chances to face the Dread Lords in future scenerios!

 

thank you. i just started the level again and read now for the first time completely the description which says the same too.

 

However i have some more questions.

1. How can i disable the game from switching to the next ship, after my current ship has depleted its movement points

2. How can i change my german version into the english one? Since all videos and voice-overs are in english and even some text is still in english, i would like to change the language files (if there are some) into the english version, so all text and menus are now in english.

3. Is there a fast way to go through all my ships? On the biggest galaxy size it's quite hard to find them.

4. Is there a way to get a warning when an enemy fleet is in my sensorrange? It's very annoying to look in every turn into every sector to find them. It's even more annoying if there are other race fleets too, which have a quite similar color and i always have to move my mouse over them, to see if they are friend or foe.

5. Are there any topics here which describe how to create good colonies and how to come to a good income? My colonies are almost useless if i want money. The trading routes are much more profitable, while the colonies should be the heart of every empire imo.

That's why some infos of how to create a good colony would be useful. Also some detailed facts of how space bases can improve them. I haven't noticed any difference in my trade routes income and colony production after placing 4 space bases in the sector with each having +30% trade income and +39 in Military/Civil/Resarch (whatever the 39 is? percents or simple production points on the colony etc). the colony statistics also don't seem to show these bonuses, so how can i prove that they really work and do something.

6. How can i create basic ship designs which are shown on every techlevel? The custom ships disappear whenever i start a level again, but i would like to use at least the design again.

7. Is there a way how i can upgrade an existing ship design, without having to place all things again? e.g. i have researched a new laser and want to change the ship design to use the new one, but i always have to place all engines, life support, sensors and other stuff again.

8. For what are trading goods like Nano-Recorder good for? Only to trade with another empire and giving them this commodity one time only for ridiculous 200MC, while the building itself has cost thousands of MC?

That's it for now. I hope you can bring some light into this bad tutorialized and manual described darkness.

I'll answer as much as I can:

1) Don't know, sorry

2) Don't know, sorry

3) Near the bottom right corner, just to the left of the end turn button, is one labled 'Find' in the English version.  Clicking this will cycle you through to your next ship that has movement points remaining.  I don't know of a method that will cycle though all ships (moved + unmoved), however.

4) Not that I know of (and to be honest, I think you would go crazy being spammed every time a new ship appeared!).  What I do is just scroll my mousewheel back to decrease the zoom of the map.  At some point the graphics switch from actual views of the fleet/ships to icons, plus you can see large portions of the map all at once.  This works well for me.

5)  The short answer to your question is to build economic buildings on high-population planets (plus enough entertainment buildings to keep that population happy).  Population = tax revenues, and econ buildings have the most impact on planets where your tax revenue is high.  You can dedicate a planet exclusively for economy, or you can get away with having a planet with lots of econ buildings, but enough other structures so it can contribute in the other areas.  This game does force you to pay particular attention so that your manufacturing and researching capabilities don't outstrip your ability to finance those capabilities.

I'm sure there are plenty of posts on this site that go into more detial if you do a little searching.  Another good site to check out is https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Civilizations_Wiki, which has lots of info on all things Gal Civ. 

6) I'm sure this is an option (that's how my game is set up), but I don't remember where.  Look around in the option screens.

7) Yes. In the shipyard screen, select the ship you want to improve and select the 'Upgrade' button (instead of the 'New' button).  The ship's design will come up, and you can remove and replace just the components you need.  You will then be able to save the design under a new name.  This method also has the nice feature that all shipyards that were building the old design will automatically convert to the new one.

8) All trade goods come with a benefit (ie the Nano Recorders give you a boost to your research ability).  As the creator of that trade good, you automatically get access to the benefit.  You keep getting that benefit even after you've traded it to another civilization, and you can trade the same good to multiple civs.   You can see the benefit in the description of the trade good when you go to develop it, or by right cicking it on the trade screen for goods you've already developed.

 

Try the option "Skip Moves Left Over From Auto Pilot". Its mentioned in the manual (english version) on page 21. It should prevent the game from moving on the next ship, even if it has moves left over.

If not, I'm not sure what you can do. You might have to look for the expansions for this option.

Try e-mailing stardock support. They might be able to assist.

[email protected]

Make many economy worlds. 1 farm, 1 morale building, a pair of factories, and a bunch of stock markets. Once you have enough income, you should be able to support a few factory worlds and research worlds (don't forget to use the manufacturing capital, and research capital).

Templates were added in DA expansion as a means to solve this problem. Any template ship you make will have all the jewelery you gave it, but none of the weapons and other components that require techs to build (save for the hull size). You could select this template ship for the templates tab, and then upgrade as though it were a normal ship.

However, this option does not exist in DL version. You're going have to make your templates as though they were normal ships, but without any functional components that might add a required tech to list of prerequisites to build (beyond the required hull size tech). Try calling it "something template", and work from there.

There might be an option that strips a ship of all functional components. You will probally need to turn this option off if you want to keep all functional components when you upgrade. In turn, you will have to manually remove all unwanted components (which I assume you are fine with).

Some trade goods are quite powerful. Many of them are worth getting as a means of making yourself more powerful, while denying your enemies the said advantage. They work better than techs in this regards as your allies can't trade these goods away like they can with techs, and these bonuses can't be stolen like you can steal techs. However, you have to watch out for enemies capturing the planet it was built on, otherwise they gain the advantage and can trade it to others.

________________

I hope this helps.

Hey guys, I just played that scenario myself. I was playing on tough, and instead of rushing, I used mass military starbases with dirt cheap ships (Laser IV, Armor 1 tiny ships) with logistics of 16. I was more than a match for the single ships the Dread lords were throwing at me.

 

However, I have just taken the north 4 planets that were held by the dreadlords, but the scenario didn't end. An earlier poster mention the dregnin planet, I haven't gone over there is that where the remaining dreadlords are?

Well I tried to rush and take the four Dread Lord planets, but by the time I got there they already had ships in orbit around their planets.  Do they start with planets in orbit, or did I just rush to slow?  Well that let to researching +soldiering techs to with stand the incoming invasions.  Eventually, The Dread Lords captured all the Drath's worlds then eventually started capturing my worlds.  I will say it would take several invasions thanks to my soldiering techs.  I would reinvade the planet to take it back the next turn when I could get a troop transport to the planet without being attacked.  That became pointless because they would retake it the next turn and after awhile they had to many fighters flying around for my troop transports to make it.

So, my next try will involve lots of small well armed fighters to try and contain them and try to keep them from getting off their planet.  Once I have contained them then research some soldiering techs and invade them.

As for it not ending Stalker0 you have to edit the mission because the win condition is set wrong.

They start with fighters in orbit around there planet the best I can tell.  I rush bought a cargo hull with engines and life support on it the first round in the mission and flew it straight there.  When I got there the Dread Lords had all four planets with ships in orbit.  So, I am trying to built fleets of small fighters.  At this point in the game the Dread Lords are sending scout ships everywhere.  I expect to be attacked/invaded soon.

Any suggestions for how to win this would be welcomed.

Stalker + emedlin - please reread my first reply in this thread.  Your only mission in this scenario is to take the Drengin planet.  Don't spend any energy trying to fight the Dread Lords.

My fault I was talking about Mission 6: Apocalypse.  I saw Stalker mention the 4 planets to the north held by the Dread Lords just like the Apocalypse mission I am on and thought that was the mission he was talking about.  Plus him not being able to end it which is a bug in the Apocalypse mission due to victory conditions set wrong.

Is there anyway to currently 'end' the Apocalypse mission, or should I move on and attempt one of the other campaigns while awaiting the patch upgrade.

I posted this in another thread, but:

 

 

Thanks for re-posting this.  I just started the DL campaign last night, and was going to try finding the other post you made so I could get this part fixed before I begin it.

No problem. I've seen people say it's fixable, but I haven't seen any instructions on where to find the scenario.

What's funny is how all the maps also assign the Dread Lord worlds to Krynn... but the game assigns those to Dread Lords automatically, as the Dread Lords are in the scenario, and the Krynn aren't.

GalCiv2 Ultimate, version 2.02, updated 22/04/09, downloaded from Stardock 2 weeks ago. Played with Vista 32 Ultimate.

The mission does not end. I would have thought that they fixed this in this recent version... but no.

I reached 100%. I see that an autosave "Apocalypse_EndGameSa" is created. Even reloading the game does not trigger any end.

In the Ultimate version (2.02), you will find the editors into the folder:

C:\(your installation path)\GalCiv2Ultimate\Twilight\Tools

there are several editors:

GC2ScenarioEditor.exe
GC2CampaignEditor.exe
GC2ImprovementEditor.exe
GC2MapEditor.exe
GC2ShipComponentEditor.exe
GC2TechTreeEditor.exe

Obviously, for editing, we need to open the GC2ScenarioEditor.exe editor.

THANK YOU Phaedyme.

I can not believe something so simple (the dev simply clicked on the wrong line in the combo box) continues to be integrated into recent games... well....  it is fixed now. After avery painful 16h50mn of Apocalypse, Challenging level (how stupid I was when strating this campaign...), i won. But it was David in an handicaped chair vs Goliath. I missed the blitzkrieg train, and it was an exhausting path...

<Rant On>

Most of this campaign is poorly designed when comparing what the storyline tells us we need to do to what we actually have to do.  I just don't get the concept of running a military operation by playing a sandbox style colonize/research/build game with a few extra techs thrown in.  I just restarted Apocolypse yesterday after a ten day break, and was again disgusted at what the Terrans start out with:

1 each scout, survey ship, and constructor.  1B people on one outpost world, and not even a colony ship to start working the other world in that same system.  No attack ships at all.  None. And the known techs?  Please.  Like we'd have beaten the DLs last scenario with that level of technology.

The AI teammates have the same idiotic personalities as always, the Altearians built an influence starbase on top of my starting worlds, the Arceans still consider almost every tech they research to be too valuable to trade for any reasonable price, and the Thorians and Iconians are happily hard at work  researching mass driver defense to use against a race that's attacking with nothing but missile ships.  Not that defense really matters.

In the end this really is just a sandbox game with a very tough super event type opponent thrown in.  I seriously hope that the other campaigns make more sense. 

<End Rant>

Rant aside, there are two things consistently happening to me that I'm not understanding at all.


1 - I attack a 22 HP DL ship, in my space, that has zero defenses listed. I use a ship with 50 beam attack.  The DL ship wins, and has 8-15 HP left.  Where did the other 35-42 worth of beam attack go?

2 - A 42 HP DL ship attacks one my fleets.  It kills them all, even though their combined attack is 300, and has 3 HP remaining.  It's my turn now.  I click to double check (because this has happened to me before).  Yep, 3 HPs. Confirmed.  3 HPs left.  I send a 50 beam ship to attack it.  It destroys my ship and, after the fight, it now has 18 HP.  This is all in one turn. 50 attack versus 3 HP and no defenses = enemy ship wins and heals 15 HP.

Heh.

I'm at a loss to figure out what dynamics are supposed to be at work here, especially when this happens over and over. Not even with random combat rolls. The game before I took that break, I had 110 beam ships attack, and lose to, 42 HP DL ships.  I also had 550 beam fleets of medium hull ships suffering 50% - 75% losses against 1 22 or 42 HP DL ship.  Even if the ship has that Precursor +25% defense module, the numbers just don't work.  Not when it happens consistantly.

jprcompain,

 

It's not what the devs did, it's what they didn't do. When they wrote the first campaign, there were 10 races + Dread Lords, for 11 slots. With Dark Avatar, there were two new races (Korath, Krynn). Moving the maps and scenarios to DA or TA shifts the race slot for Dread Lords up two slots, which defaults the original race slot to Krynn. They didn't bother to change most of the maps, but the game adapts to that fine. This is the only scenario that references the Dread Lords in the victory conditions, which is why it's the only one that broke.