A Potential

[ElConejo]

I have been heavily addicted to the Civ games for quite some time. I saw this so-called "Galactic Civilizations II" when I was reading up on Civ4. I like what I saw, and I hope that once I have a good enough computer to run both it and Civ4, I will be able to go out and get a copy of GalCiv2 so I can use Apolyton for both my Civ4 and GalCiv2 addictions!

But I am a bit confused about some aspects of the game, and I figure there is no better place than good old Apoly to help me get up to speed.

My first question is this: as I understand it you choose your political party (of which I dont know the choices) and that if your party looses the majority vote you get alot of bad things happen. But can you change your political party after already in the game? Such as changing your stance from militaristic to more research based party?

Also, as I understand it currently (which isnt much) you progress with 'better' governments as they become more democratic? I am not entirely sure I understand this. Is there any advanced governments that arent democratic?

I have more questions, but lets keep it light for now!

Thanks for your help, and I hope that in time, I will be producing here with you all about this game.

[Illuminatus]

My first question is this: as I understand it you choose your political party (of which I dont know the choices) and that if your party looses the majority vote you get alot of bad things happen. But can you change your political party after already in the game? Such as changing your stance from militaristic to more research based party?

Sadly no. Once you choose it you stay with it.

Also, as I understand it currently (which isnt much) you progress with 'better' governments as they become more democratic? I am not entirely sure I understand this. Is there any advanced governments that arent democratic?

Also no. It is a linear progression from Imperial system to Star Federation. The logic behind thiss the more independent the planets, the more productive.

[bonscott]

The only bad thing that happens if you lose the election is you no longer get your party bonus. So if you are the Technologists that get +20 Research and +1 Sensors and you lose an election then you lose those bonus'. Once you win the election again then you get them back.

But honestly it *really* hard to actually lose an election. Well I should say it is easy if you don't pay attention to your morale. So long as you keep your morale above 50% you should be just fine.

Also there is nothing that forces you to go to a newer form of government. You can stay with Imperial the whole game or with Republic or whatever. Just as in the Civ series there is nothing to force you to change your government.

[Topgun]

Originally posted by bonscott
The only bad thing that happens if you lose the election is you no longer get your party bonus. So if you are the Technologists that get +20 Research and +1 Sensors and you lose an election then you lose those bonus'.

Incorrect.

You not only lose the bonuses, a penalty is applied based upon what party wins the election. The bonus from the party that wins becomes your weakness. If you are Technologists and lose to the Federalists (who normally grant +20 Econ) then your total whammy is:

-20 Research
-20 Economy

You do not want to lose an election.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Topgun

Incorrect.

You not only lose the bonuses, a penalty is applied based upon what party wins the election. The bonus from the party that wins becomes your weakness. If you are Technologists and lose to the Federalists (who normally grant +20 Econ) then your total whammy is:

-20 Research
-20 Economy

You do not want to lose an election.

Wow, thats a total bummer.

I dont understand the logic involved in that though... if the Federalists won, shouldnt you just lose the old party bonus and gain (at least part of) the new party bonus?

Thanks everyone for your comments, they have helped.

[Topgun]

Originally posted by ElConejo I dont understand the logic involved in that though... if the Federalists won, shouldnt you just lose the old party bonus and gain (at least part of) the new party bonus?

Because they want you to work hard to avoid the consequences of low approval.

If the penalty lacked teeth you wouldn't need to worry about your approval ratings or losing elections and could run at 100% taxation etc.

[ElConejo]

Originally posted by Topgun

Because they want you to work hard to avoid the consequences of low approval.

If the penalty lacked teeth you wouldn't need to worry about your approval ratings or losing elections and could run at 100% taxation etc.

My apologies, I didnt mean the logic in them making it a bad deal - because I know that they needed to place negitive reinforment to low approval - I meant why they wouldnt allow other parties to come and go.

[chadeo]

I would suggest staying around 60% or higher moral. You can lose elections when you go lower than that.

In the beginning of the game before you have the tech to change to a democratic government you have an incentive to keep your moral high as it has a very strong impact on your growth rate. I actually try to go for 100% moral at first to speed my expansion.

In the mid to late game your need for strong population growth will fall off as your planets fill up with people. If you are expanding via conquest you still might have some strong pressure to keep it up so you will have a steady supply of troops, but if you are more peaceful the incentive drops way off. This is when the whole government thing kicks in. At that point in the game it is going to hurt a lot to lose an election.

The one thing I wish was done though would be to up the difficulty of winning an election as you progress to the more decentralized governments. As it stands now if there is any affect it must be a minor one as I never notice it. This basically makes your government a flavorless bonus to your empire which I feel is a missed opportunity to introduce late game choices.

[Hansolo88]

I thought I'd share a minor little flavor I noted regarding political parties. When you have an election due to a higher form of government, different opposition parties will get "seats" in the Senate, with the goal for the player being to get a controlling number of seats for your own party.

When you then desire to declare war on another Empire, the Senate will vote on whether or not they are willing to support you going to war; without their approval you can't declare war. So long as your party has a decent majority of seats, this is easy to do.

Anyways, the point of explaining all this is that in my game yesterday, one of my leading minority parties was the War party. Interestingly, while most of the opposition voted against my war, the War party wholeheartedly supported it. Which leads me to think the Pacifist party would likely vote against any war, regardless. Considering I thought opposition parties were all identical in voting against you, this was kind of a clever little addition. After all, it makes sense that the War Party would like me going to war even if they didn't support me being in power.