This game has to be rigged

OK, that was better. As an experiment I maxed my military production and built nothing but Factories and Colony ships and I'm now the colony leader. And thanks to the Diplomatic Translator I'm also the tech leader. But man, that is such a narrow focus for a strategy. It reminds me of my Civ 3 days.

That's the secret to winning on Suicidal, and winning BIG! Focus on diplomacy and technology early in the game, trade for AI planets, and crush the AI opponents in all other categories later in the game.

If you play as a Super Breeder, it is possible to win by "conventional" means in the higher difficulty levels. Just make sure the Drath and Torians are not among your opponents. It also requires careful micromanagement on every turn during the first 2 years. One mistake, and you're toast.

In your first game, the Krynn were probably rush-buying the colony ships during the first few turns. This is a common AI tactic. The higher the difficulty level, the more of an advantage the AI has, so it is "rigged" in a sense. On suicidal, the AI races have a +170% economic advantage.

Well so was I, but I was making an attempt to develop a balanced planetary economy. It obviously was building nothing but Factories since that's the only way I can keep up. That to me isn't good AI design frankly, that's just using a brute force tactic, not a smart one.

Well I was on Challenging which is supposed to be equal to the human player. At least according to the behaviour setting if you open up the opponent personality editor. So the only possible explanation for having so may colonies is strictly a nothing but Factories approach. Why even have all the improvements in the game if that's case?

In the mid to latter stages of the game (If you are playing for Score), you need the farms, morale, and econ structures to build up points. The final score is based on Population, Economy, Technology, and Military Strength. These are not relative to the AI races.

I would like to invite you to join one of the Metaverse Empires, where we offer a wealth of information on all aspects of strategy.

I also have my own forum, if you want some good tips on ToA. At the moment, my advice is NOT to upgrade to the v2.03 patch. I had severe problems with the game locking up.

http://snarceanempire.proboards.com/index.cgi

No thanks, right now I don't even want to play the game. I just tried a new one, building nothing but Factories and Colony Ships and I still couldn't keep up to the Thalans. That's not my idea of strategy, that's just pursuing a narrow minded path and hoping you get lucky with the planets you colonize. I feel that I've just wasted $50 on this stupid game. I'll stick to the other Civilization if I want a 4E game. GalCiv could learn from that game frankly. The approach used here is exactly the same as the one in Civ 3, just a mad early REX, and most players hated it.

And too late for the 2.03 advice. I've been encountering a few problems as well, so maybe that's the cause. In some games races that I meet won't show up in my Foreign Affairs screen. The only way I can contact them is if they approach me. They don't even show up in the Universal Planets meetings. Also, when I first started playing, I was able to create my own ship style but that's no longer working for some reason. And there's been a couple of minor graphics glitches as well, like my entire interface flashing.

Hi!

Umm, GalCiv is a 4x game. Grabbing as much "teritory" ASAP is the second X: eXpand, and gives a player the strongest start to win. OFC you can always try other approaches, at least at "challenging" difficulty level that could be done without too much hassle. If you'd learn a bit more off the game, you'd realize there are other ways to play and win the game, not only the "take everything"...

BR,  Iztok

The AIs are sacrificing their long term expansion by blowing their wad(of cash) on rush leasing ships right off the bat. If your playing on a map with plenty of planets you'll catch up to the AIs after they bog down under their own mismanagement. If your playing on a map where everyone only gets about 10-15 planets you will have to get out the gate faster to combat the AIs jump.

 It's like Iztok said, once you learn your way around the game you can be outcolonizing Ai at much higher levels and wonder how you could of ever struggled so bad at first. When I first brought the game home I couldn't out colonize normal AI and thought tough to be a pipe dream. It didn't take long though with help of some of the great peeps around the forums to figure out what was what. Now the only level I can't out colonize is suicidal(and believe me I have tried).

Just remember there are many ways to win the game. A good rush is great to have, but it's not the end of the world to get outcolonized either.

Well I'm still slogging away at it, though it's not made any easier having a serious bug to contend with. For some reason there will be a race, or more, that won't appear in any of the screeens after meeting them. So I can't contact them, place spies with them, or get any sort of info. They don't even show up in the United Planets meetings. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does it pretty much screws up the game and I have to restart a new one.

Anyhow I'm learning to live with colonizing pace. About the only ones I have problems with now with are the Krynn and the Thalan, I'm pretty much out-colonizing everyone else. The Thalans I can sort of understand as they get the bonuses for Factory production, but I see no reason for the Krynn always having so many colonies. I hadn't actually considered them leasing their ships, that could explain alot frankly. I've also noticed that the build Factories only approach isn't as dire as I first thought. By going for as many colonies as possible at first my economy at one point slows down so that most planets aren't building anything anyway. So by the time things start picking up again they may only have 1 or 2 Factories actually built, leaving the rest of the tiles still available for more diversity. The only real exception is the capital, but once the other colonies start producing Colony ships of their own I can diversify that a bit more as well.

As for the Krynn and the Thalan, I've just finished adding 12 more races to the game thanks to Fomis' great artwork so they won't always be appearing in my game to pisss me off.

I've had some issues as well with the AI not playing fair really but in the end there are so many things it lacks that can hurt it also. I generally play on Challenging or Tough and find I suck at military strength for awhile and I ignore it but my tech stays ahead and my colonies matchany other strong colonizing race if not out colonize them. Finally when have my empire semi sorted as having "this is my area, stay out!" sign I get a few defenders knocked out to get up on military strength and usually just in time as some other race starts war mongering weaker races.

The annoyances I find is while we can get the new stellar cartography which shows all planets it doesn't show habitable ones but the AI knows where each habitable planet is w/o having to scout. I also tend to think its survey, scout, and miner ships automate is different then players have a bit because they behave a bit smarter like I often find all my survey ships going through distant wormholes becomming semi useless for quite a few turns, scout ships travel back and forth over my own revealed territory for a tiny patch of fog, and space miners running off to set up mining bases out in nowhere when I have planets with asteroids nearby needing to be setup. Ontop of all that seems the AI also knows exactly where resources are and soon as the colony rush is winding down they have a constructor rush out trying to grab any resource in places they have never been even.

I suggest saying screw the social bar from turn 1 and set sliders to only research and military.... just rush buy your first factory/lab or whatever start setup you like. Could even drop only to research for first few turns while you only rush buy social and military. Also don't forget to offset lossing by raising starting taxes (think I'm generally around 45% tax's at start) and make sure production slider is set to max from turn 1. I also always start off with max moral and economy bonus's with whatever else feel like doing (industry or fast techs)... always need that moral and economy though imo.

Go to the economics screen, and be sure to set the production slider to %100. It defaults to %66, so unless you change it you are only using two thirds of the factories you build. Also, to keep your economy out of the tank on larger galaxies, don't improve all colonized planets, you have to choose theones that will help you expand and not just suck money from your empire. On challenging, with a large map and this tactic, The AI and I are usually pretty equal after the colony rush.

And buy a factory and research on your home planet

Belanos - #8

On your mysterious races that do not show up in screens or in UP meetings, could they be minor races?  Minor races are not in the UP.  To access a minor race, one must toggle the "minor races" button on one screen (possible the "Relations" screen?), toggle one of their ships, or toggle on their planet.  Especially early in the game, you might not yet have "seen" their planet and their ships may have met your only briefly.  Note that you DO get an opportunity to talk with them when their "hello" screen pops up on first contact.

No they're not minor races, in fact I don't seem to be having any trouble with those. The ones that aren't showing up are the major ones. What's happening is that instead of the first contact dialogue, I sometimes get the "announce research" one instead. If that happens the game acts like the race has already been contacted and they don't show up in any screens. And it's not just the UP it's all the screens, including Stats & Graphs. It's like they're not in the game at all, so I have absolutely no info on them and no way to contact them. It doesn't happen all the time, in fact I have a game going right now where all the races are showng. But it happens often enough to be extremely annoying. It sucks being a few hours into a game only to find that I have to scrap it because of the bug. I'm finding the game in general to be quite buggy frankly, it's been a constant litany of problems. Rather disgusting considering how long the game has been out. DA was near flawless for me, not so Twilight.

You mean like where a popup says, "Such and such planet has defected from Civ A to Civ B" or "Civ C has built achievement X", where you haven't met A, B, or C?  If we're thinking of the same thing, that's kind of a bug as far as I can tell, but it isn't really a damaging one.  It won't do anything more than let you - as the player - know what Civs are in the game and what big stuff they've built.  You still have to contact them to see them on the relations screen, have them in the UP, or any of the other stuff.

Belanos -

You said DA was "near flawless" but the same thing happens in DA.  That is, I may not have met ANY AIs yet, and I will still get reports like "The Krynn have built a manufacturing capital".

Those races will not show in the UP or any other screens.  I have treated them like third hand news, when face-to-mandible contact is needed for communication.

I do not have TA and DA is what i play.  I never chose the option to specify the other AIs, so those reports are how I begin to learn what other races are in the game.  You may be able to turn off those reports somewhere in the options screens.

BTW, at lower difficulties i was able to get Extreme Colonization early enough to grab some of those worlds before the AIs did.  Some races start with the ability to colonize one or two classes of extreme environment worlds.  If I had heard reports of the Korath (and/or that other one), I knew I had to attain their environment tech first or those worlds would be gone very soon.  Even if I had not met them yet, their colony ships were probably already on their way.

Legacy and LT, you're not understanding the problem. It has nothing to do with those announcements.  When I first make contact with a race it's supposed to give me a greeting, then after that they will appear in the various screens in the game, like the Foreign Affairs, Espionage, Stats & Graphs. Well that's not always happening. Instead of the greeting, I'm getting the text where they announce what they're researching, then they don't appear in any of the screens. It's not a minor bug by any means, in fact it's a game-breaker. I have absolutely no info on those races and no way to contact them unless they approach me. They don't even appear in the United Planets meetings.

Yeouch, that is a biggie

I have no idea how to help in that case

Belanos -

Can you describe with some more detail the examples you have experienced?  That is, what are you calling"When I make first contact"?

For example, can you see a planet they inhabit? (If so, you should be able to click on the planet to talk with them.)

Do you see a ship of theirs? (If so, you should be able to click on the ship to talk with them.)

Most of the time I don't see anything. They approach me with what is supposed to be a greeting, but I get some other dialogue screen instead. I've sent a save game to Stardock where it was happening with the Korx consistantly, but they haven't been able to reproduce the problem. It seems it's a bug unique to my system.

Sorry, I don't think this is a bug at all, I have seen this frequently (on immense maps especially) where a major race I haven't met suddenly pops up on screen and says something like "tremble in fear cuddly creatures! We are now researching yadda yadda yadda.."

After this "event", they don't appear in the UP or the diplomacy screens UNTIL I run into one of their ships and/or planet in the course of normal gameplay, after which I can interact with them normally.

I presume that the game doesn't regard this "taunt" as true contact, so the race remains inactive to the player diplomatically. If you want to be pedantic you could question how a race you haven't met can send you a video, but I think the idea is just to give the game a bit of character (and freak out the player if the tech mentioned is WAY more advanced than anything he has in his reach)

On continuing a TA game this evening the same thing happened; the Drath, who occupy territory way over the other side of the map and have no ships anywhere near me pop up with a tech announcement, and then don't appear in the foreign relations / UP screens. I'm absolutely sure the game disregards this as "contact" between the two races because you do not get the button "speak with (or is it to?)" when this comes up, but when "real" contact is made and they appear on your screen telling you they hope you can get along etc you do get that button.

The games where I have had this situation have played out completely normally; you eventually meet the race that sent the message and they then appear on the diplomacy screens

I've also had these kinds of messages from races I do have contact with

Yes it is a bug, it's not supposed to work that way. If you haven't made official contact, then you're not supposed to get any dialogue screen from them. I'll keep that in mind that eventually things work out though. I've always scrapped those games as I figure it's broken.

Because that's not how it worked in Dark Avatar or Dread Lords. You had no communication at all until you had made official contact.