Really not getting to grips with this game

You're really asking an unanswerable question. First off what version of the game are you playing, DL, DA or TA?

There are literally dozens of different basic ways to play the game and probably hundreds of detailed variation. Even then I could write a thesis to try and give you a "general" strategy and it still would probably not work for you.

Both the beauty and the frustration of this game is that there are so very many ways to play the game. But what works for me may not work for you. I could write 20 pages of what to do, why, where when and how and most likely it wouldn't make sense to you nor would you be able to replicate it. It all depends on where you are in the game, what your playstyle is and what makes sense to you.

Basically you have to work at this game on an incremental basis. Take what you know and gradually extend the boundries. I've been playing this game for close to 3 years now and I'm just now trying to move from DL to DA and the change and impact are very large.

I will give you a couple of pointers for what they're worth.

Often the best thing to build is nothing. The cost of the initial colony building is very high and it takes awhile to build up your population to support itself. Why build a factory or a research building and make the colony even more expensive to support particualrly when there's nothing particualrly useful that you can build right away. Let the planet grow and start supporting itself before you strat burdening it with the maintenance cost of a lot of buildings.

As far as specific strategies for specific races it's really the other way around. You don't pick a strategy for a race, you pick a race for a strategy. If you decide that the way you want to go is to be strong in research then you pick a race with those abilities. Same with economics, or military or colonization or whatever.

I know this probably sounds like someone trying to weasel out of giving you a simple answer to what appears to be a straightforward question, but it's really the only answer anyone can give. There is no simple answer or formulatic approach to this game that someone can just "give" you that will simply work for you. If it were that simple then you could master the game in a week and be bored with it in a month.

I'm still playing this game after 3 years and feel relatively confident that I've mastered DL and have really just started with DA let alone TA.

What you need to do is to ask smaller but more detailed questions. These are the kinds of questions that are far easier to answer. The "big picture" questions are pretty much impossible.

I pretty much second Mumble's reply and also encourage you to search the forums for whatever catches your interest at the moment. Even searches for something as simple as Korx or Yor could lead you to threads that will answer a question you couldn't quite ask or give you an idea that sends you straight back to the game.

*Lots* of folks have spent *far too much time* typing around here...

We could still give him some general tips. . .

Maintaining money: Try not to build/buy to much on one turn for any planet.  Spread it out, if you notice your treasury go in to the deficit spending it is alright, but don't let it get out of hand.  If it gets to bad lessen military production and turn down overal production. 

Making money: You can tech trade, it helps to have high diplomacy when doing so.  You can also research trade and move freighters around.  You can also colonize low level planets and then sell them off.  Heck, maybe they'll even revolt and you can get the planet back.

Tech Trading: NEVER trade diplomatic abilities, and always start with the lowest level of that tech.  Make sure to take in to consideration of what you're trading.  Will they use it against me? Have I gotten the achievement for this tech yet?  Usually it helps to sell the same tech to every race to maintain some sort of balance, but you may also want to consider selling advanced techs to others to perhaps throw said balance off.  Having ahigh diplomatic ability makes it easier to trade and get more money out of it.  However, if you trade your diplomatic techs you will only hurt yourself--so keep 'em to yourself. 

I know it can be hard to strike a balance, but it really helps to have a strong economy and a decent military.  Without a military you are a prime target for other, more violent races.

Building on those general tips:

1) Maintaining money: I'd say it's crucial to develop your homeworld early in the game, so keep that one building at full speed. In a large galaxy you'll typically colonize several other planets and it's there that you need to be careful:
- Don't try to colonize too many planets; take the high quality ones and don't be afraid to leave the low quality ones in the same star system for the AI. Once your high quality planet is fully populated, you shouldn't have too much trouble influencing the low quality neighbour planets. Once your influence is strong enough, they will flip to your ownership anyway while the AI has taken the costs to develop those planets.

- Don't build too much on those planets until the population has grown enough and the tax income can support some maintenance costs.

2) What to build on planets: that strongly depends on the strategy you want to take (do you want to focus on cash , buying techs and ships? do you want to research, selling techs for cash? do you want to pull ahead in production to build a strong military?)

It's a good practice to dedicate some planets to a specific goal: e.g. 1 planet with mostly labs so you get the maximum advantage out of adding a "technology capital" later on, 1 planet with quite a few factories so you get the most out of adding a "manufacturing capital" later on, some planets dedicated to econ buildings to get your cash flow in the green.

At each point in time you should ask yourself: what do I require the most now (research, production, cash, ...) and depending on that decide what you will research and build. Early on your research should be focused on the cheap techs that are quickly researched (preferably only a few turns) and that give you some bonus to ship speed (for faster colonization), production, research, income, ... I also suggest to research tech capital and econ capital early in the game. Next on the list is going for a bigger hull size (small or medium) and then 1 branch of weapons (preferably several steps in a row so you get access to reasonably powerful weapons that make a difference) and some miniaturization. Don't wait too long with diplomatic techs, as that gives you access to the econ capital, gives your population morale and/or income boosts + it gets you more when you trade techs with the AI. Plus better diplomacy improves your relations with the AI.

As rubbergovernment said, don't let the AI pull ahead in military rating... Typically I keep an eye on the AI's military ratings in the graph centrally below on the screen; as soon as I see one AI taking off I build a few small or medium hulls with the best weapons I have at that time, in order to stay in the first place of military rating.

3) Sliders: the overall slider always at 100% unless you really, really have a cash problem (lower than 100% means you're slowing down your research and production).
For the split between research, social production, military production: until you advance your playing style you can keep them on the default 33% each unless you urgently need to advance faster in 1 of those 3 categories. Also, toggling the research slider can gain you some weeks in research time so it's often worth playing around with that slider when you're close to completing research for a certain tech.

4) Ships to build: first a few colony ships to grab those nice high quality planets before the AI does. Then a few constructors to take resources (those green, red, purple, yellow, cyan, ... crystals - as those give you a nice overall boost in a specific category, not to be underestimated). Next either some military ships to stay ahead of the AI or a few freighters to increase your income and improve relations with some AI's. Especially for the Korx income from freighters is important as they get bonuses on that income.

5) I would suggest you start with 1 race and build a strategy around their strenghts (e.g. trade income for the Korx). Once you feel comfortable on easy or normal difficulty, you can change to a different race, apply the general principles you learned using the first race and tailor your approach to their strengths. It's been too long since I played so I don't feel well-placed to give you race-specific tips but start from the race's strengths (what bonuses do they get, what is their unique super ability?) to know what you should focus on.

As everyone else says, feel free to ask more specific questions to solve some painpoints, do you have certain areas where you can't keep up with the AI, etc?

Without coming off as an ass, but if you are going to provide tips, make them correct at least mate.

This is just flatout incorrect. Having played as many ZYW's as i have i know that the best path of selling your techs is to start with the highest value tech in that line first, not that other way round.

You will make far more money working back along a line than forward.

As for not trading Diplo techs, well that is only true up to a point. Eventually you want the AI to be building Total Majesty so you can grab more and more SCC's.

To the OP, as Mumble conveyed, there are too many ways to achieve whatever victory you may be playing for us to give you any real broad answer.

Take Noct's post for instance, everything he said to do in there has merit, will yield results and is a fine general strat. Yet i can think of games where the exact opposite is needed and is in fact even more optimal.

Playing a ZYW requires purposefully wrecking your econ and focusing near on entirley on research. For other games that approach will kill you.

This is another good example of why 'advice' needs to follow from a player's goals. That "eventually" is only if you're going for a conquest win. If, say, you want an Alliance win as Thalans, you're much better off hoarding the diplo techs (except Alliances itself, of course). The edge those stacked bonuses give will help you overcome the basic diplo weakness of the Thalans.

Um,

What is a "ZYW"?

KD

/edit that Is if he is even still checking this thread/forum.

First: What do those accronyms stand for?

Second: I don't know about you, but I don't like to trade Master Trade before I have the Galactic Bazaar.  To me, trading the highest level techs risks losing valuable achievements and such.  Also, why would I wanna give the AI an equal oppurtunity?

QFT

ZYW = Zero Year Win. Winning the game by the end of the games first recorded year, which is year zero, Decc 22 to be exact.

The game does not allow you to win untill April 8th though, no matter even if you can do it quicker, (which many of us can) you will be cheat flagged.

An April 8 win is the goal with a score of 100K+ on a gigantic map. (the record is just under 200K for a ZYW)

Oh..you were helping? False info does not equal help, though your intentions are good.

But when given such a broad question there was little to do but give a broad response. There are far too many facets to this game to narrow down any one answer that would help. What works for a ZYW fails in a tech victory, and what works well for a scoremongering game is different for an alliance victory. Specifics are needed.

First - ZYW = See above, SCC = Spin Control Center......

Second - I dont build the Bazaar, or at least dont need to anyway...the optimum scoring path does not require it.

Well ideally you want them to be stronger not equal! Not sure how long you have been playing, based on your forum account, not long, so you may not be aware of many of the stratagies out there, but you want the Suicidal AI's to be as strong as possible.

But the short answer is...for score.

Basic Strat guide

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure the original poster doesn't quite care about a ZYW yet.  If he's still checking this thread, that link might help him.

Never said he would, i was just making my point, which seems lost on you.

Enjoy your games.

Of course! Just to be clear on this, I gave some general pieces of advice that are all over this forum and that will make for a quite standard strategy. Once The Chen gets this overall approach working, it's indeed a good time to experiment with deviating from the standard steps and come up with more original strategies.

I'm new to the game but I experience the opposite of the OP and I feel that there's one overal strategy, that always works (on tough difficulty, DL):

1 early phase

Turn on the colored territiories on the minimap end scout the stars with the ships you start with for habitable planets. If you don't have scouts build one or two.

Maximize research and spending to 100% and focus propulsion until you have impulse drive. Meanwhile keep your approval at exactly 100%, so you may have to lower taxes occasionally. Stop all research spending once you got the impulse tech.

When you find a habitable planet rush buy a colony ship specifically designed for the target range. You can spend all your treasury on colony ships.

2 development phase

Try to get in contact with all the alien races and start tech brokering. Some races may not even have ion drives yet. Broker well and you can continue to keep up with all the latest techs at zero research for years (this is easy for the humans).

In the mean time gradually build up markets in large colonies starting with a few fabs to get the markets up faster.

Keep checking for the planetary invasion tech.

3 conquering phase

If an alien invents planetary invasion. Build up your military fast.

If you have a large population and economy, before anyone has planetary invasion, start building facilities and do some research yourself, starting with a couple of cheaper improvement and military techs and then the planetary invasion line once you can research each one tech in a couple of weeks.

Have a few dedicated planets with starports to build all the armed ships. Engines aren't necessary, they'll fly on the tech bonus moves. Make some fleets (logistics) and attack the weakest enemy. You should be winning your battles and if not, research more weapons, logistics, hulls first.

Taxes can be increased drastically.

Once you can build advanced troop modules, sent 2000 troops per transport after the armed ships to those planets.

Rinse and repeat for the next weakest race in line.

I know how you feel, dude.

I'm playing my first game, with Twilight of Armor version, and the Drengin just colonized Mars, LOL.

I only have 3 habitable planets in my region of space, and I have Earth and a Class 11, and was busy sending colony ships to the Class 11, and mining three cool asteriod fields, with 2 mining ships.   Earth's population is getting close to 12 billion, and moral is low (66%) on Earth, but good on my Class 11 (89%), so my starport just slowly builds colony ships.   I have 9K credits of money, but no weapons.

I've just been slowing building one ground thing at a time (one of everything), on Earth, and have two things built on my Class 11, and am focusing on trade on and diplomacy research, but have the first two things bought in most research categories, and balanced spending. 

I am afraid to talk to any of the other leaders, since I don't have "trade" researched yet, and I noticed that moral on Mars is very low (34%), and it has a little pirate flag on it.

You just have to play the game, dude.   You will learn a lot more by getting your butt kicked, than from an easy victory.

It's not about winning all the time, and it's just a game, and I have to salute the damn Drengin for thier bold move.   It really puts me in a bind.   I noticed that in most games, the AI gives a little extra help to a player that isn't doing very well.

So pity the Deengin and not me, because payback is gonna be hell.

I think what was hardest for me to grasp at first is that economy doesn't work anything like research and industry.  You don't build money factories or anything logical like that.  There no gold mining or anything along those lines either.

Most beginners in strategy games want to turtle into a small area thats easy to manage but Galciv heavily penalizes you if you want to turtle.  The way population and taxes works means you need to expand to compete.   There are ways to turtle still but I think they are harder to do as a newbie.

Basically do what others have said.  Don't try to build onto every tile just because you can.  Even if you expand very slowly you can easily make way more buildings than you can afford.

The game isn't that hard to grasp I've been playing for about 3 days and I can win in tough category.. The idea is maintaining a cash flow in your economy so it doesn't go in the negative, so you would wanna invest in economic improvements early on, they've low maintainance costs and generate income better, also super progects, trade goods and the one per planet improvements that benefit you are also very important as they have little to none maintainance costs, the ones with the highest maintainance or the ones that give to industry or research so you would most likely wanna avoid these until you've enough treasury that can support them, the only exception is bonus tiles.. But the thing you wanna do before this is establish trade routes or grow your population bigger which adds to more tax income.. After mid to late game when you've got a good treasury you can switch out the buldings to ones that would benefit either your research or manufacturing, and move from there on, depending on what kinda victory you're aiming for, whether its a technology victory or military, which seems to be the only 2 victories that make sense to me.

If you wanna make it a hell lot easier you can invest in  creativity as your starting abilities, this is one of the best abilities as it would give you a chance to instanstly learn a technology, skip abilities like military or morall that don't really make a difference early in the game..

I haven't been playing very long but it feels alot like Civ in space, which is good for me because I like Civ. Don't start out playing huge maps, start with small or medium ones. Take all the planets you can afford, then build up your economy. City specialization is important in civ, and it seems to be working for me so far. I usually specialize my homeworld into a money planet. Only thing I'm not sure of is whether tile bonuses are applied before or after planetary and civ wide multipliers.

The easiest victory condition to meet is diplomatic. Turn it off if it becomes too easy to get and focus on winning another way until you can win consistently any way you choose. Then turn up the difficulty a notch.

Even though the OP hasnt responded to acknowledge the comments posted here... I wanted to say that the info provided has helped me at least.

So the knowledge passed on is appreciated... and whether or not someones strategies are right or wrong the fact remains its their opinion on what they feel is right and that certainly isnt wrong.

Just wanted to post and thank everyone for their opinions

Cheers