PC Ranger AND pirates??? Waaaaait a minute

from GalCiv2 Forums

One thing I have to say about GC2 is it's unpredictable. This game (on the "challenging" level) pirates appear at the beginning of the game with 28HP ships in fleets - destroying everybody's fleet EXCEPT that of the Altarians. Since it takes a zillion rp to get to hulls and weapons and defenses that can take on those pirates, and they carefully went after any ship I built, my starports were useless. Since it was early game, nobody could take them on and needless to say, no trading by freighter was possible. The military chart was hysterical - with each civ's line going up and down as one ship was made and destroyed by pirates, then another again and again, except the Altarians who ramped right up. The AI's kept building ships, I didn't as it was pointless to waste the production.

Then, those lucky Altarians, spared by the pirates, get a free PC Ranger. Soon Earth is taken easily with not a single ship to defend it. Game over.

Ok all you universe warriors, would you agree this was an un-winnable game?

8,081 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

 

You didn't provide any information about your empire (number of colonies, for example), so I can't make a good assessment of your chances or possible actions.

What you definitely could have done was to bribe the Altarians to declare war on all the other races. This should have been relatively cheap, because the other races had no or only a small military. It would have also given you the chance to crank up the research, while the Altarians were preoccupied. The Planetary Invasion techs, better weapons and defenses were especially important in this situation.

Another small trick is to use empty hulls to protect your planets from invasion. They are cheap to build (depending on hull size) and cost no maintenance, so you can build them fast and in large quantities without repercussions. This works even better, if you don't have the Orbital Command Center. The AI would then need to destroy the hulls one by one, wasting movement points for each attack. Depending on the amount of enemy fleets in the area, this could make your planets impenetrable to invasion.

There were probably other possible actions as well, but without more information it is hard to say. Still, sometimes a situation really is un-winnable. I'm far from an expert, so those situations are more common in my games than I'd like.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Great ideas. I would never have thought of the empty hulls, though I had only three colonies and the pirates were sitting right there waiting for anything I could send up. The bribery would have been an excellent move. I've been surprised at how cheaply other civs can be bought.

I had managed to get a couple of constructors over to a SB and give it battle stations 1, hoping to at least knock out a couple of pirates ships, but even with 45 hp and some attack and defense, they cooked it with ease.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

This actually sounds like a glitch. While the pirates have been known to ignore minor civilizations, they're supposed to indiscriminately attack all major races - the Altarians shouldn't have been left alone.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

try it again with Drengin on Obscene mode or higher, and try to piss off Drath. now that WOULD be un-winable..