Late arriving newbie help

If you look at the initial colony tile you'll notice that it provides research output and that it costs maintenance.  All research output is funded in a proportion according to the percentage you set on your taxes screen.

So as you add colonies yo your empire, you will be funding more research and paying more maintenance.  To start off with, each colony's tax income will not cover its expense so you may have to run at a loss until the population (and hence tax income) increases.

Factories increase your manufacturing capability on a planet.  You'll be able to build ships and buildings faster, again according to what funding has been set.  If you're not planning on building anything (even just scout ships would do for finding more planets to colonise) then the factory is just costing maintenance, but if you're not producing anything then your funding for that planet is not used.

You're likely going to need to produce more colony ships there so you can argue that it's worth it.  However, the quicker you build colony ships and settle colonies, the quicker you will find yourself going into the red.

Bear in mind that if you're playing on a larger galaxy, sending all your colony ships from Earth may take a number of turns.  You'll want to to start building and sending them from some of the planets which are starting to grow in population.

Asteroid mines send raw materials to a nearby colony, increasing its manufacturing capability.  The mines can be upgraded later on for greater output.  The output can be redirected, but the further away the target colony is, the less materials will get through and the lower the bonus to the colony.

Your survey ship can occasionally yield money from anomalies.  other than that, you want to let your population grow, and keeping the approval rate on a colony in the green (or if not green, then at least yellow).  There are also buildings which increase Economy on a planet, these will improve your tax income, but bear in mind that these are only worth building once the population is a bit higher (let's say over 2 million) due to the maintenance costs.  So make sure you have a couple of those on Earth - it already has a high population.

An economy starbase, with the right modules, could improve your production and research on Earth.  Unfortunately, starbases cost money to maintain - 5bc per turn.  So it may not be worth it at the moment.

A mining starbase on a green resource improves the economy of your entire empire so it may be worth the cost.  A yellow resource similarly improves morale empire-wide, which means population will grow faster or you can raise taxes a bit more.

Thank you for such comprehensive help-I appreciate it.

It seems like there isn't really a way to keep from going into the red as soon as I found a new colony...

Are there any other early game 'must do's' that Im not and should be doing?

If you actually go into the red (have negative bc) then it will reduce your approval.  If you're just making a loss, keep an eye on how quickly you're losing money and what you have left.

When you start making money, aim to spend it (on ships, ship upgrades, buildings that need to be done as soon as possible, and so on) to under 10000bc.  When you over 10000bc you see, your trade income is halved, and over 20000bc you take a slight hit to your tax income as well.

It's worth noting as well that as the galactic population grows (the total of all races), so does tourism income.  The amount that you get depends on your Influence ability and having planets with reasonably high populations, or with high influence ratings - this is denoted on the planet screen as, for example, 20ip.  Homeworlds (of minor or major races) have espeically high influence ratings or ip.  These ratings can be further boosted by building Embassies and later upgrading to Cultural Exchange Centres.

Ok thanks, Ive played another game and at the start it just seems like a case of sucking it up until cash starts coming in.

A couple more questions-

I placed an influence starbase near 2 minor race planets. So far, Ive not seen a huge benefit to this type of starbase, even when other major races have dropped colonies within the influence base radius. Am I missing something here?

Do trade starbases have to be sitting directly on a trade route? Again, at the moment Im not seeing a huge benefit to this type. I dropped a trade base in a place with lots of activity but I think I must be missing something here...?

Minor races are immune to culture flipping. Building influence starbases near them is, therefore, pointless.

The effectiveness of influence starbases depends on the installed modules, and your overall influence. The more modules, and the more powerful they are, the better. For most races, the Xeno Business line of techs provide the best modules. Try to build the starbases so, that a lot of enemy planets are within the sphere of influence, to maximise their effectiveness.

If you have reached an Espionage level of low with the target race, you can see how big an effect your influence starbases have on their worlds. Click on one of their planets. You can then see how much influence this world produces, and behind in parentheses behind it, the factor of foreign influence. Your target is to increase this factor to at least 4.0. Once that is done, there is a chance each turn, that this world will flip to you.

No, it's enough if the trade route goes through the starbase's sphere of influence. However, try to incorporate as much of the trade route within the sphere as possible. Also, don't forget to install the trade modules. The starbase alone won't do anything. You will also only see an effect as long as your mini-freighter is moving through the sphere of influence. You can try to maximise this effect even further, by building as many economy starbases along the trade route as possible. The effect of multiple starbases stack.

Im managing to survive this early game but the Yor Collective have just declared war on me and even their small frigate size ship have this 'nightmare torpedo'. They are cutting through my ship butter. Each torpedo has a +25 attack or something ridiculous!

Im rushing anti-missile techs and have got to drones (or thereabouts) but its hardly helping at all. Ive focused on beam techs and Im up to particle cannon level 3 I think. No-where near as good as these torpedoes! Even their small size ships seem to destroy everything before I even get to shoot (which I guess is the benefit of missiles)...

Also, this means that my small size ships die very easily. Even using them in large groups seems to be a wasteful idea at this point. Should I generally be assuming that the smaller sizes become pointless in the later game?

And why is it that a medium ship is taking say 10 weeks to build and a small is still taking 8, whenthe amount of weapons/defences is substantially higher on the medium. Seems a little off. 

Some other questions.-

Im also in a war with the Drath. For ages they seemed to have a negligible fleet that I generally had no problems countering. Yet their military score in the comparison stats always seemed far ahead of mine, even when my medium size ships were being built and they were still using tiny & small sizes. Am I missing something?

Starbases seem weak even with upgrades and with every upgrade needing a whole new constructor they seem a very expensive proposition. Again, is there something Im missing here?

That's the ultimate missile weapon! You either wasted a lot of time with other things, or they rushed through the missile tree. Either way, go Yor! (sorry, but they are my favourites    )

If your ships get destroyed, they will still have the ability for a last shot back. The only exception is, if they are destroyed in the first combat round against a race with the Super Warrior ability (like the Arceans), and only if that race initiated the battle.

Generally yes. However, there are some exceptions. For example, a fleet of tiny or small all-weapons ships can be quite useful against enemy capital ships, because they will be able to tear down the defenses in no time. Just make sure, that you attack first.

At the same planet? That depends on the cost of the individual weapon and defense modules. Defenses are cheaper than weapons. So, if you have the same amount of weapons on your medium ships as you have on your small ones, and add a few defenses, then those medium ships will only be slightly more expensive.

There are several possibilities. For one, they could have a large fleet of weak ships. You can check this in the Foreign Policy screen. Another one is, that they have large bonuses to their Weapons and Defense abilities (either through military resources or their tech tree). You can also check that in the Foreign Policy screen, once you reached espionage level 2 (I always forget what it's called, but it is the second one, once you start spying on a race). Then they could use the bonuses from military starbases to increase the power of their ships. Lastly, there is the Spin Control Center. However, that is extremely unlikely, because the AI doesn't know how to use it properly.

Nope, they really are weak in general. However, if used properly, they can be quite helpful. Especially the mining starbases are a must. Just don't bother with the starbase defense modules. You're better off to defend them with fleets.

^Thanks for the tips.

Im starting to sense that the AI players favour a rush to colonise/ quantity over quality approach, typicially when I had one colony with perhaps only +20 profit per turn at most the AI players had 3 or 4 (how are they supporting this?)

Make a "People Mover" colony ship. You only need 1 or 2. These have as many colony modules as you can place. Do not use these to settle colonies. They should just move back and forth spreading out your population between planets. Later on these will have the transport modules. This helps your pop grow fast as well as push colonist to your big econ planets. 

The space combat mechanics seem a little off to me, perhaps someone can explain.

I had a single 22HP ship facing off against the same. I had approx level 20 lasers and shields against an approx level 20 cannons and no armor of any kind. The enemy ship tore through me and suffered no damage in return whatsoever and the enemy ship had no defences of any kind. Am I missing something here?

Generally speaking even playing on a normal difficulty I tend to find that I will any up getting attacked by somebody for no apparent reason and as the AI seems to be able to colonise so much quicker than me every other major race seems to be leagues ahead of me...

This game really needs non-aggression treaties. But again, any tips that can help here please?

Ok it's been a while since I played GalCiv but I believe this is how it works. 

You need at least 1 defense verses the attackers weapons to have any benefit whatsoever. If they were attacking you with cannons you need armor.

In the scenario you outlined neither of you only had shields and they attacked with cannons. 

I believe each attack is checked verses each defense. 

You get the full benefit of defense if your defenses matches the attackers weapon type. 

Mismatched defenses will grant the square root of the value as long as you have at least 1 point of defense verses the attackers weapon type

If you find yourself in a lot of wars you are might not be building enough units. AIs will attack a weakly defended player. The quarterly reports will display your military power. 

For colonizing make sure you use early funds to buy colony ships. Also refit your colony ships as soon as you get faster engines. Generally my first colony I will make 4 factories and then kick up military spending (click the focus on the colony management screen) You can get out colony ships fast this way. 

You don't need on-type defenses for your off-type defenses to work. They always provide the square root of their value as the max defense value.

Also, during combat, weapons and defenses roll between zero and their max value to determine damage. Defenses get weaker for each weapon roll above zero, even if that roll wasn't high enough to do any damage. However, this is only important, if at least one side has multiple ships in the battle. 

Thank you Gaunathor. Yeah I havent played it for a while. 

Thanks for the replies guys.

Given that the encounter was mostly equal in terms of ship size and weapons value, Im still not sure why my ship was so easily destroyed with no damage to the enemy.

I had lasers and shields, all the enemy had was guns, no defences whatsoever of any kind...so I would have thought that even if I didn't win I should have at least not been so easily destroyed?

The "Luck" trait affects combat die rolls.  One can add "Luck" as a racial trait, and also as Universal political type.  They are additive in effect.  IIRC, they work by reducing the band of possible die rolls.  Thus, if the possible values of a weapon roll were 0, 1, 2, 3, then one Luck level would take away the lowest one-fourth of the possible outcomes, so in my example, there would be no "0" roll.  Two levels of Luck would prevent either 0 or 1 as outcomes.

Also, you mentioned that the enemy had about the same number of cannons as you had lasers.  Was that based on the hardware on the ships, or was it the actual Attack Value?  That is, some races begin with a better Combat modifier as a racial trait.  Additionally, having the "Starship Defense" tech adds defensive value even if there is no defensive item on the ship.  Also, any red mining bases can add value to both the Attack and Defense values of a ship.

There is still another possibility, and that is that the combat took place within the circle of space affected by one or more military starbases.  Those bases can have modules that boost the attack and defense values of ships within that circle, and the effects are additive.

Just to add to this, in TotA, the Altarians and Drath can get another 10% by researching Xeno Mysticism. The Altarians also get yet another 10% bonus from Divergent Evolution. In essence, they are the luckiest race in the game.

No, the bonus from your Defense ability only applies, if you have defenses on your ships (and starbases). It's basic math: 0 + 0 x 10% = 0

My answers did not include things from TA, as I do not own/play it.  For that matter, I think there might be some fleet bonus module in TA.  I seem to recall some mentions of something like that, anyway.

As for the Defense +10% effect in DA, I have never tested to see if there is any effect.  That is, how the math is precisely applied.  It could be applied to the hitpoints, for example, or to the die rolls themselves, or like racial traits.

I know, that is why I made this addendum.

There are, but the AI is incapable of using them.

The Defense bonus from Space Defenses is simply a ability bonus, and increases your race's Defense ability. The ability itself gets applied to the defenses of your ships and starbases, increasing the max value used in combat.

What you said sounds reasonable and you are probably correct, but I have never done a test of it and have not seen any posts that another did such tests.

I could do tests, but the effect would be small in any case.

easy, just trade your influence point for credits.

I still really must be missing something. I started a new game and this time I really tried my hardest to rush colony ships while keeping up a fair research budget.

Yet once again every AI player seems to be colonising at what seems like a rate of 3 to my 1, even in the very early game when I managed to have 4 planets much quicker than last game, most of the other seemed to have around 10!?!. AND they seem to be ahead of me in tech and ship production.

I feel like Im improving with each game but it seems like the AI in this game is still massively outpacing me.

Any suggestions?

It's not uncommon to be beaten by the AI in the colony rush.

You can start building colony ships immediately at a new colony (rushing a Starport is not very expensive).  You can use the limited population of your new colony to plant flags on as many nearby planets as possible.  Because you're going a short distance there's no need for engines or life support modules, which means it takes less time to build.

Now the downside is that spreading population thin in this way can lead to soaring colony maintenance and virtually no tax income.  So every now and then you need to send one of those colony ships back to homeworld (or any nearby colony which is at or has nearly reached its population cap) and bring some extra colonists to the new outposts.

You may still not get a fair share of colonies this way, but it gives you a decent chance at snapping up entire star systems if not sectors, while allowing your economy to recover.  it also means that you have numerous starports set up already for when you want to start building other ships.

TerranEmperor -

Getting the hang of this beast does take time.

What race do you use, what racial picks, and what political choice?  I ask because you will likely do better if the race and picks match what you see as your game strategy.  For example, colony rush in crowded galaxies goes better when you start with extra planet types you can colonize right at the start and have production and cash bonuses.

Oh, and don't forget that you can always hit Control-N and get a new set-up.  I add this because you can try several galaxy-position-homeworld layouts before investing the time in a game.

I like playing from whatever the map generator inflicts on me.  It's not always pretty, but it's interesting.

As far as picks go, I would solidly recommend taking at least +10 in Economics, and/or picking Federalist as political party.  It is robust because you'll prosper even if you can't get to a green resource before anyone else.

I have been experimenting with Industrialist, which suits the Arceans quite well I think, seeing as how powerful ships in great numbers can leverage their Super Warrior ability.  However, Industrialist isn't much of an early-game party.  Sure, it will help a little bit with getting buildings and ships done faster, but in the early game money is tight and you can't afford to go nuts with it like you can later on.

Picking Morale is good for growing populations and maintaining a healthy tax income.  You might also consider boosting Population Growth as another way of getting more citizens to tax.

Speed does help with the colony rush.  A +2 boost costs a lot of points but you will scout faster and get colony ships to planets sooner.  I typically build them without Hyperdrives because they take less time that way.