Just got the game and it seems great. Regrettably, I’m getting my ass kicked. I can’t seem to keep up in influence. The folks on my home planet are ALWAYS pissed off; I give them social structures and entertainment, lower their taxes, and they’re still not happy.
Any strategy hints, Dopers?
I’ve never heard of this game. Of course, I’m only interested if it slightly more complicated than Masters of Orion 3. I also like reading tax law and occasionally burning myself with a cigarrette.[/sarcasm]
Is this like Civ3? Do you have a 3 dimensional planetary map?
The galactic map is two dimensional to simplify things. Frankly, it’s what MOO3 should have been.
I’ve got MOO, MOO2, and MOO3. I can get Gal Civ for $10 at Target. Worth it?
Galciv 2 is a great game, I’ve spent WAY too much time playing it so far. Did you get the gold edition with the expansion pack, Dark Avatar? The game does have a long learning curve, but it is definatlly worth it.
Ok, some important hints, the most important thing in the game is money, Factories and research labs only transform one BC of money to one production. You want to be running at 100% spending for as long as possible. Population is only good to make money (pay taxes) and use as troops when taking planets.
Also, don’t worry too much about keeping your population happy, esecially if you haven’t upgraded your government. Happieness of your population only gets you more votes in the better governments, and helps with population growth. There are 3 levels of moral that effect the population growth rate. At 100% population growth doubles, at 75% it increases by half (50%), and at 40% it stops. So there is no diffrence between a moral at 41% and 74%, and between 75% and 99%.
Also, make sure you have the latest version of the game, the devoloper really supports the game and add some really good features in the patches. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask.
Edit: asterion If it is the gold edition, pay for it. If you liked any of the MOO games, you’ll love this one. The expansion is worth it, and I think the gold edition is selling for $39.99 at Best Buy.
Is it Gal Civ 1 or 2? If it’s 2, absolutely, if it’s 1, maybe. The original was loads of fun, and is probably the only $10 TBS game I’d recommend, but if you can spare the extra money for the sequel (now available as a “Gold” version, which includes the awsome Dark Avatar expansion) you will not be disappointed. It is the best sci-fi TBS since MOO2, possilby better, even. The best part about GC2 is that even though the game shipped without any game-killing bugs and in a complete state, development is ongoing. Check out their website for the latest changes/additions.
Are you building farms? If so, don’t until you are in a position to keep the extra population happy. You may not have noticed that an increase in population always leads to a decrease in morale, this effect is exacerbated on low quality planets. As Hirka said, population is only good for extra tax money, votes in the United Planets, and cannon fodder.
Actually, the only thing I didn’t like about CalCiv 2 (which is saying something, since I’m picky about my 4X games) is that the tech tree is a little bare. It’s also not at all intertwined, which I find odd. I understand why they did it this way, but it seems less interesting. If I want weapons, It’s definitely alright to just be putting mroe money in going up the weapons ladder, but it does cut out alternative paths and makes research prioritizing less interesting.
Aside from a few tweaks (and Dark Avatar fixes much of that), GalCiv2 is a great game and very fun to play. I don’t claim to be a very good player, but the game definitely caught my interest and made me work for victory.
This is one of my favortie games as well. It’s really well done. As for keeping your people happy I second the suggestion not to build farms unless morale is already quite high. Of course installing an entertainment center on each moderate to large planet is a must in my opinion. Besides the entertainment tech tree helps if your strategy is conquering by influence rather than by might.
What I love most about this game is its customization - there are so many different ways to set it up, you can always come back and have a different experience.
I don’t however have the Dark Avatar expansion, this is the first I’ve heard of it, what changes does this make to the game?
So is this basically Europa Universalis 3, but in space? I’d google it myself, but I’m at work and the server nazi’s hate the word “games” on it seems every website but this one. (I suspect my network admins are dopers)
I give the first version a solid “meh.” It might’ve scored higher if I actually got to game.
I always heard good things about Galciv I, so I picked up a copy at Half Price Books (not pirated, still sealed in the box) and installed it. It turns out that I need the latest patch version in order to run it in a window, so I go to stardock.com and try to download the patch. Need to register before the website lets me download, so I register. Website needs me to type in the serial # from the box, so I type that in. Won’t work, website says it’s an invalid serial #. I email Stardock sales/service/tech support about the problem, and they try to push Galciv II on me instead of letting me download the freaking patch. No thanks, I already spent money on this. So I say fine, I’ll just play the version I bought, and I played it for about twenty minutes before I got bored with it, so I alt-tab into my email. When I alt-tab back into the game, it’s crashed.
Nice.
So now I’m back to playing Stars! - which I have two 100% valid serial numbers for (thank you Empire Interactive), and all the patches are free to download.
There are a lot of changes, but here are the good ones, asteriod fields to mine, new buildings such as power plants which increase your productions, Super abilities, each race has its own ability, from super breader (4x population growth on 100% moral worlds, instead of 2x) to Super Hive (Much cheaper factories, and a range bonus) and more. There is also new planet environments, Toxic, Aquatic, Barren, Heavy Grav, etc. And probably the most important thing in a StarDock game, MUCH better AI. If you have a dual core system, you can have the AI use it to plan their turn while you are playing. If you don’t have a dual core, you can select it to spend extra time after you press the turn button.
I personally think Dark Avatar is the best expansion for a game in a LONG time. Its the first game I pre-paid for since Star Trek: Judment Rights.
I really like the game. II more than I. I like the AI. Pre-emptive strikes if you mass near the border (or across the border). Equally interested in wiping out other AI’s as it is in taking you out. Pragmatically ruthless.
I played the original OS/2 version. It must be 10 years ago. If your populations are unhappy, you can do two things: build pleasure projects - ‘Entertainment centre’ etc - or build a transport or colony ship and load it up with people which reduces the planetary population which makes the remaining population happier. You then use the transports to invade other systems.
…what OS/2 version?
I dig GalCiv, and have not yet installed GalCiv2 - other games distracting me. But I will get around to it eventually.
The original. GalCiv was originally written by Brad Wardell who at the time was an OS/2 enthusiast.