Standard opening move

[Urban Ranger]

Hello, is there any kind of standard opening move in GalCiv II just like Civ 4? Something such as "Research hunting; build warriors until hunting researched; research archery; build scouts until size 3; build worker and settler; etc."

Maybe I should put this in the stretagy section but it appears that nobody visits there

[Solver]

You'd do better to check the official forums .

[Urban Ranger]

Offical forums? What are those?

[Hansolo88]

Hey! We need more posters here, lets not go sending people to the official forums!!!

Opening strategy, in my opinion, is heavily dependent on how much you want to rush-buy. The more you rush-buy buildings/ships, etc., the faster start you will have but the sooner your economy will collapse from overgrowth. The less you rush-buy the slower your start but you get a lot more out of your starting money when you spend it in the "normal" way.

That said, in my opinion it is well worth it to at least rush-buy your first colony ship as well as one or more factories on your home planet. Otherwise those will take ridiculously long to get built.

The other major early decision is where to put your funding sliders. There is probably more argument here, but I would say avoid research for a bit and focus on social and/or military spending for the first 10-20 turns.

[Daz]

I do the following:

Turn 1: Buy Factory, Buy Colony Ship
Turn 2: Buy Morale improvement
Turn 3: Buy Economy improvement

Basically, I try to spend all my money except about 500 on buying stuff. There is no interest, so why keep the money...

[Hansolo88]

The reason to keep the money is that it can allow you to run your economy at a large deficit during a period of rapid expansion. Rather than having to shut down your factories and labs due to crippling maintenence costs early in the game, having that initial sum of money intact means you can keep them going, thus building ships and improvements at a much more reasonable price than the enormous penalties you pay for rushbuilding things (something like 5 times the normal cost).

I'm not saying its bad to rush-build, but I am saying that it can be worth it to hang on to some, if not most, of that starting money.

[Daz]

I agree. See my post.

Since the deficit spending in the early stages is relatively small, I can get though the "recession" with 500BC. That and the Explorers always dig up some extra gold...

[Kinjiru]

I take a slightly different tack than most seem to advocate.

On my home planet, I don't rush buy anything. Why? With your population, you can still build stuff fast, saving the cash to jumpstart your first couple colonies.

So:
Turn 1:
- Set spending sliders on 60% social, 40% research
- Set tax levels so that approval is around 50%
- Place 2 factory tiles, 1 farm tile, 1 happiness tile, 1 econ tile, 1 factory tile, 2 lab tiles
- Point initial colony ship towards potential colony site

Turn 3 or 4
- Initial factory built
- Colonize any found planet
- Set up tiles like initial colony
- rushbuy colony factory 1

Turn 4 or 5
- Rush buy Colony Factory 2

[Urban Ranger]

Is it a good idea to colonise any old planet that you can stick people on, or is it better to skip the poor worlds (class < 10) and come back to them later?

[realpolitic]

On a large board, as terran, I build factories so I can build 2 ships/turn, if there are a few percent left, switch that to research Universal translator. When I find my first race, I switch to 100% science until I get Universal translator, then back to the Original setup, when I get the next factory tech, set up a Manufacturing Capital 1I build until I can crank out a Colony/turn, build my economy on other worlds, build an Economy Capitol, and if I get another good planet, a Intellectual Capitol, when I hit about 2000 bc, I switch to 100% science, get advanced markets etc., sell off my techs when I just have a few hundred bcs so I don't have to turn off my Manufacturing.

Urban Ranger, yes I'd skip the lower quality < 7 worlds, so when I bounce back, I'll be strong enough eigher for another round of colonization or to get the Aphrodesiac and Terraforming wonders.

[Hydro]

The great aspect about GalCiv II is that there are many ‘right’ strategies, and the decisions you make have a true impact on the game. That said, some are better than others and you need to tailor them to your style, race, and racial picks. I typically play at the third from the hardest level.

Here is my typical opening gambit, which is oriented toward high growth. I don’t particularly like playing blood-makes-grass-grow races, so this is a more development or hybrid strategy.

Turn 1: buy factory at home planet, set ship production to colony pod, tax slider set so that morale is at 100% (tax rate very low, ~15%), military production set to ~70% to get colony pods cranked out
• Land free colony ship on planet to top off colonists (for some reason they aren’t automatically maxed).
• Set research goals to get ‘free’ production improvements, with an eye toward Sensor I (correct name?) which lets you build survey ships (KEY POINT!)

Send the colony ship to find the first good PQ planet, which for me is PQ9 or better. You’ll need to conserve cash so don’t buy any social improvements at new colonies, which for me have a build queue of 2 factories, space yard, then markets (money is so short in the early game I need eco structures), and perhaps research if there is a good bonus tile. Eventually when the shipyard is built I’ll queue up a constructor, cargo-hull based survey ship, or small-hull defender.

Turn 2 home planet: buy second factory, all other social improvements will build on their own. Hopefully you are building colony ships fairly quickly, perhaps 1 colony ship per 3 to 5 turns.

Turn 3 home planet: may queue up a 3rd factory if my production is slim or I have no manufacturing bonuses to get my colony ship production rate up. The rest will be a few research and the balance markets. I like the Terran special structure for the eco and speed boost, and I may build this after my factories are up. If I get a big haul with my survey ships I may buy it to ensure it gets up and running ASAP.

The 100% morale strategy hinges on getting the double population growth bonus associated with 100% morale. You’ll run terrible deficits in the early game when keeping production at 100%, so you’ll either need to sell tech or (better yet) build a number of survey ships on cargo hulls to run around getting anomalies and the occasional cash bonuses. A few 500 or 1000 bc anomalies will do wonders to keep you from running your account in the red, and if you get some very good exploration as your survey ships are running around. Remember that population = taxes, so the faster you can get your population up along with some eco social improvements on your planets the better off you’ll be. After the anomalies are scoured then I post my survey ships as pickets to detect enemies, or pair them with fleets as scouts. Note that this strategy does not work as well for small and tiny galaxies where your neighbors are very close, or when anomalies are rare.

A couple of tricks to consider depending on your setup:
• If you have a good speed bonus (Terrans to start, or racial picks with +1 or +2 speed) then consider colony ships with no engines on a small hull. These are very cheap so you can produce them quickly.
• Build a few cheapo small hulls with a few weapons on them as soon as you see your opponents militarizing space. This gets your military rating up and your neighbors will be more likely to leave you alone if you aren’t a military weakling. Getting a higher diplomatic rating and the Diplomatic Translator helps, too.

There are LOTS of other tips at the Gal Civ II boards, but I’m sure the friendly folks here at Apolyton will be happy to help too!

Hydro

[Civsassin]

I am a CIV IV BTS veteran, but I am a GC2 TOA rookie. Over my past couple of attempts at the game - not beyond normal difficulty, I've had success sending 7 or 8 colony ships - purchasing 2 or 3 - out as quickly as possible for two purposes. First, if I find a high quality planet 8 or above, I will colonize immediately. The second purpose is to look for worlds that I cannot populate until I research Barren Worlds or some other such planet improvement technology. After getting some basic techs researched, I get to the point where I can build basic defensive ships. I then B-line it to the techs I need to colonize those other worlds. I have a colony ship waiting by each world, so as soon as I research the enabling technology, I immediately colonize.

This strategy, so far, has allowed me to pick up some high quality planets reasonably early in the game and use the REX strategy effectively. Once I've colonized all the planets I want to, I can trade the enabling technologies for other techs I didn't focus on along the way.

So far; so good. We'll see as I move up levels whether it can remain viable.

[crampon]

I totally agree with u.

[Hikapo]

This is one old thread.