How to delay colony ship construction techs?

[peyoan]

Hello, is it possible to make a minor modification in which the development of colony modules is placed later in the tech tree.

the one thing that sucks about GAL CIV 2 is that it is not a colonization game at all. It is simply a... rush to colonize in 20 turns game.
(obvious downside: one empire will research first, making the game dull and ending quick!)

or even better - just to astronomically increase the cost to build that module to force much longer build times in order to construct that colony ship. This should result in a more drawn out colonization and exploration stage.

Thanx.
-peyoan

[Hansolo88]

The second idea is probably better, though it would be interesting to observe the effects. After all, colonization will still be just as important, just harder to get going in the beginning resulting in a much longer colonization phase. Depending on how much more expensive the module became empires would still be able to spam them once they built up a bit. But it would make warmongering a more viable option, since those empires focusing on colonization would be pouring huge amounts of production into it that wouldn't be going towards starbases or warships.

The tech idea is probably bad for the reason you said, everyone would just beeline for it anyways.

[Kinjiru]

Here is how you do it...

Find the following folder on your particular installation:
C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\Data\English

Find a file called GC2Types.xml and open it with Notepad.

Search for or just "colo"

Modify the value next to cost to be whatever you want. Increasing it by 2000 makes it take 421 turns to build a new colony ship.

Do keep in mind that all players will start with one ship already...

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Kinjiru
Here is how you do it...

Find the following folder on your particular installation:
C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\Data\English

Find a file called GC2Types.xml and open it with Notepad.

Search for or just "colo"

Modify the value next to cost to be whatever you want. Increasing it by 2000 makes it take 421 turns to build a new colony ship.

Do keep in mind that all players will start with one ship already...

There is a scenario ('Epic') included with the game where the players start with no spaceships at all, so it should be possible to mod the game so it's always like that.

I personally liked the way MoO2 handled colonization - you started out with the tech to colonize worlds that were 'Arid' or better. To colonize less hospitable worlds, you had to research progressively more expensive technologies. Worlds that were classed as 'Toxic' could not be colonized until late in the game, unless you were the Silicoids or a custom race with the (very expensive) trait that allowed you to colonize any planet.