Tell us what you'd like in Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar 1.6!

[korn469]

Have you guys seen this thread over at galciv2.com? If not check it out, and make suggestions.

http://forums.galciv2.com/index.aspx?AID=146628

I'm putting my own list together.

[Hydro]

I'll post shortly.

Here is my wish list:

Spies: Be able to ‘generally’ spy on an opponent instead of trying to place spies on his worlds (and have them countered two turns later). Also, this won’t hurt a race that is nominally your friend but that you’d like to keep tabs on.

Ship Update: Have an Auto Update of ships that will improve components to the best available in the current tech line (e.g. Plasma 2 to Plasma 3 or Plasma 3 to Phaser 1), with the understanding that there may be problems wrt space changes. This will make ship updates less tedious. SEIV did a good job on ship update, as I recall.

Ship Skins: have a few more available with various themes: organic (like the cool ships in the DA intro), angular, globular (bubble ships). All right, I know I can build these myself but I’m **sigh** not at all talented (or just plain lazy).

Ground Combat: Have ground combat NOT be genocidal unless you want it to be. To me it seems like there is little difference between the genocidal Korath and everyone else: you die, she dies, everybody dies (to quote the old movie Heavy Metal). Note – there is Propaganda Campaign option during ground combat, which somewhat accounts for this already.

Council: use some Council ideas from another of my favorite games, Alpha Centauri: Have elections for a Council President (with some bonus associated with it, perhaps low level infiltration of all factions or a few free extra spies); be able to propose some actions (very few with lower impact to reduce player abuse), such as sanctions on another race (kind of like Moo3), trade embargo, or a minor financial penalty; have the option to ‘buy’ influence during the Council interaction so that you can tip an election/resolution (e.g. – contact a faction to negotiate a purchase of IPs immediately before a vote)

Good alignment: give Good a few perks, such as Good Only beneficial random events (economic windfall to Good players) or structural benefits (trade routes increase in value more to reflect better cooperation between good wrt neutral or evil races). Or perhaps bad events that only affect Evil: planet revolt, fleets or ships go rogue/pirate (civil war (ala Fundamentalist and Drengin/Korath; THIS would be great! Like the Klingon civil war in STNG!),).

Ship experience rating: although it may be minor, I’d like to see ships have an experience level such as Green, Average, Veteran, Commando, Legendary, God-like. Right now we have is an XP number, which is meaningful but not very interesting. Also, is 50 good? How about 200? 1000? A little icon by a ship with this experience rating would be very helpful, too. Also, it would be nice to know what experience level(s) do for the effectiveness of a ship (e.g. 200 xp = 20% increase in HP, if that is true)

PQ0 planet utilization: be able to mine or place starbases on them.

Uber-advanced terraforming: be able to terraform (using a constructor?) and then colonize PQ0 planets, which will then be a PQ1 planet. This would be a benefit of high tech but non aggressive races. As it is you have to expand or die; growth from within should be an option.

War mongers: add diplomatic penalties to declaring war (there seems to be some of this already in the games I’ve played recently)

Map editor: please build one for DA so that designing campaigns or scenarios is easier (the 3rd party map editor from ~ June 2006 for DL is nice but unsupported)

If I see any of these things I’ll be thrilled as it will be icing on an already delicious cake!

Hydro

[korn469]

here's my list

*Make minor races EXACTLY like major races except they don't start with very little money (maybe 500 instead of 5000), no ships, less population (maybe half), no technology, and no starport. However, they would colonize, build fleets, and explore just like any other civ (once they finally get up and running).

*Make it so that ships orbiting a planet automatically fight as a fleet.

*Add in logisitcs and miniturization to the abilities list.

*Introduce negative ability modifers (ex. you get 1 ability point but your economy gets a -10% modifier).

*Also have higher levels of positive ability modifiers that cost more ability points.

*Rebalance one of the base races so they have an innate edge in influence.

*Make it so that you can completely automate either a planet or a your entire empire so that the AI will select which ships to build and will handle all of your planetary management, but you still control your sliders and your fleets.

*Have an option in diplomacy where a player can coordinate attacks on an enemy with an allied or cobelligerant AI.

*Give spies the ability to cause a planet to revolt

*In general I feel spies maybe useful, but the amount of micromanagement spies added to the game isn't worth the trouble. Hopefully you can add more functionality to spies.

*Allow fleet trading in the diplomacy menu.

*Introduce economic bonus squares.

*Increase the number of ability points custom races start with.

*Include a repair module for military starbases

*Allow military starbases to install a module where that gives them a factory/starbase ability, so they can can construct ships at a very slow pace.

*Allow civs (both the player's civ and the AI) to determine what to vote on at the UP. Determine which civ gets to propose the resolution based on their influence. Civs with more influence will have a greater probability of getting the chance to set the agenda. Also, include more substantial resolutions. I'd love for the UP to work more like the UN in SMAC.

*Give hulls innate advantages against other hulls. Tiny and small hulls should do double damage aginst large and huge hulls. Large and huge hulls should do double damage to medium hulls. Medium hulls should do double damage to small and tiny hulls.

*Add command modules that have similar effects as a military starbase as ship components, however they would have a much smaller radius than a military starbase.

Please change ground combat if possible.

[Hydro]

There's a rumor from folks that are working with 1.6 beta that tech trading is going to be modified, perhaps to be less restrictive. I'll be curious to see how it turns out. Right now I have tech trading turned off due to my irritation with Group AI Research.

Hydro

[greenday_234]

Is there any news on when this patch will be out? I have some trouble navigating the galciv2 site, and I'm not even sure where I'd download it, even if it were availible.

Thanks

[Hydro]

To get any patches you need to go to Stardock Central at TotalGaming.net. You’ll need to register GalCiv2 and then you’ll be able to get any patches. Stardock Central does seem to update its files very frequently so expect to get the latest Stardock Central exe file when you log on. After that it is easy to see if there are any patches you don’t have.

The DA beta for 1.6x has been out for a month. I presume that developers are getting feedback from betatesters on how their latest features and fixes are working.

The last patch is 1.59.078 from April 5th.

Hydro

[greenday_234]

thanks for the help hydro.

[Hydro]

GD -

My pleasure!

If you've had a chance to play GL or DA a bit, any observations? Thoughts?

Hydro

[greenday_234]

f you've had a chance to play GL or DA a bit, any observations? Thoughts?

Well I suppose a couple of things, first off I love the game. I got it a few weeks ago and have been playing it ever since, but I do have a couple of "complaints" if you will,

1. My biggest problem is with Technology research. In Civ4 they have a civilopedia in which you can go get details on what exactly the new tech will give you and what bonuses the new buildings will give you. With, GCII I often find myself in the dark asking questions like, "What the heck is invention matrix?!" This also makes it difficult to decipher between important techs and unimportant techs, making it difficult to develop a tech strategy. a civilopedia would solve this issue.

2. I think the U.P. should meet more often, quarterly maybe? Mostly just because I'd prefer it but, I think it would give the U.P. more weight.

3. be able to use the keyboard arrows to scroll around the map, using the mouse to grab and "pull" often results in me inadvertently de-selecting my ship. again nothing huge.

4. be able to negotiate to break an alliance with another civ, for instance Civ A has an alliance with Civ B that I want to attack, I want to be able to negotiate with Civ A to break his/her alliance with Civ B.

Other than that I have nothing explosive, personally I don't have much because I'm still trying to learn the game. On the topic of learning, hydro would you mind answering some questions for me?

1. When you placing buildings on a planet how do you decide to allocate structures, for instance, I have a planet with six open tiles to work, what strategies do you use to decide whether you want 3 banks and 3 factories or 4 banks and 2 factories? I know that certain planets have bonus tiles and in that case the decision is easy past that I have no clue.

2. How come my spies are always getting nullified? Usually I just want info on their civ so I place them on any random tile and wait, I rarely reach high intelligence, most time I don't make it more than a couple of turns before my agent is nullified.

3. How are influence points allocated? I was trying to increase my influence in the U.P. so I started launching tons of influence starbases to expand my control thinking that this would give me more points, I actually dropped from 960 thousand to some 640 thousand. Clearly I'm confused. The only way I ever found to get more influence points is if I traded for them.

thats all I can come up with for the time being, any answers you guys can give me are appreciated.

[Hydro]

GD,

I’ll do my best to field your questions.

Planet development: one of the joys of GalCiv2 is its flexibility, but this can also be suffocating. However, I do have a few standard formulas I use for planetary development:
• Every planet gets at least 3 factories so that it can build other structures or ships without taking bloody forever. If I can I’ll put a 4th factory in
• Space ports go on all but the tiniest planets – I want ALL my planets to be able to produce ships! This way, when they’re done improving they can do something besides twiddling their thumbs, and I don’t want some hot shot Drengin showing up with a transport-out-of-nowhere with me having no way to respond since I didn’t bother to build a space port.
• Smaller planets ( • Better planets get a same or a little better manufacturing but are generally economy worlds. This is because higher PQ planets have higher population limits, better morale and, hence, growth rates. A few might be research worlds, though.
• As you’ve mentioned, the decision is easy if there are bonus tiles.

Overall, I tend to bias my planets toward economy. Earlier in the game this is always the hardest to get off the ground, and here is no such thing as too much cash.

This said, there are many other strategies that can be spectacularly successful. For instance, some players build only factories or research (!!!) and then use Focus for research (when manufacturing) or building ships or improvement (when research). This is a novel concept and very aggressive, but players on Suicidal swear by it. Regardless, this shows there are LOTS of options and, frequently, there are no wrong decisions (even if some decisions are better than others).

Spies: it is best to store up at least a few spies and place them in a wave. The AI probably has at least 1 or 2 defensive spies which the AI will use to nullify your spies. If you place, say, 5 at one time you will saturate his espionage defense. That is the key to getting intelligence on an AI.

Influence: although I don’t have the formula, influence is based on technology-related influence bonuses (yellow research), galactic influence resources you may be mining, and special structures such as Restaurant of Eternity. All of these modify your base racial influence ability, which is then applied to the influence generated at a planet. A plants’ base influence score is based on the planets’ population (higher = higher influence), PQ (high = high influence), influence buildings you construct (best to do these on the blue ‘drip’ influence tiles!), and whether it is a capital since they have a big influence bonus. Influence is projected from where it is generated at planets or influence starbases, and the affect at any given point in space or adjacent planets decreases with distance. It is, however, cumulative, so if the AI colonizes Mars by your Earth and you have a few other planets you will have a large projected influence on the low PQ and low population Mars, which will likely result in you flipping the planet due to influence.

I’m sure others have dredged out the influence formula, and if you’re REALLY interested in the mechanics it is likely buried in a post at the GalCiv2 web site.

As to your comments, I’d like to see a bit more on exactly what the techs do too. In fact, I’d be happy with a simple table.

I’d like the UP to be more like the Planetary Council in SMAC. That Council could be called, had elections, you could barter with the AI, make proposals – it was fun and functional. The UP in GalCiv2 is kind of like the Council in Moo3, sad to say.

I don’t do much with the map that doesn’t require more than a mouse, so no comment on that. I have noticed that treaties are hard to break, although you may be able to offer a bribe to attack.

Hydro

[greenday_234]

Hydro,
Thanks again for all your help! You're proving to be a valuable resource to me. haha.

I actually have another question, how many farms do you tend to put down. And what is a good farm to entertainment ratio? I often find my approval at 75-78 percent (beginner difficulty) so not very good. Speaking of, I difficulty I'm in second place on the easiest difficulty level, so I clearly have a lot to learn! Any additional strategic tips are always appreciated.

[Hydro]

GD,

My strategy on farms is that I only build them in the early game at economy planets since the extra taxes from population are multiplied by markets (and later banks), which gives more bang for the buck (more population does not give you more research or industry – only taxes and troops). I generally build 1 recreation for every farm, but be careful about the food bonus tiles! A 300% bonus can result in a huge population and the need for several morale buildings. In one of my latest games I found two minor races that had two farms. One was a 300% tile, and between the two farms their population was ~24B or so! I thought my invasion was doomed until I saw they had ~30% morale. During the invasion I selected propaganda tactics and a bunchof unhappy people came over to my side and I won easily with only 6B invasion troopers. The lesson: be careful not to allow populations get too high since there is diminishing economic returns and your morale will tank. Quite simply, high populations are simply not worth it.

By mid game when most of my planets have max population and I have a few terraforming techs I like to build a farm on every planet. By this time I have researched a number of morale enhancing techs so my base morale is good. The extra population give some extra income and provides a reserve of population for transports.

In late mid game and late game I like to have my eco planets with 12-15B population and my other worlds with 9-12B. I may have a very high PQ planet or a planet with good morale bonus tiles go higher, but it is generally too much trouble. By this time I want planets that I can pull 3B off for transports and not have the economy be devastated.

Also, I like to keep my early game morale at 100% by keeping taxes low. In mid game I increase taxes since population growth isn’t as important, but still shoot to have newly colonized planets (with <3B pop) with 100% morale so they get the 2x growth rate. Another key point is to keep morale at low population planets above 75%, which it sounds like you’re doing.

If you’re looking for other pointers I have a number of AARs here at Apolyton. They may be instructive (that is why I did them). There are a few good how-to AARs at the GalCiv2 web site, too.

Other hints:
• Early in the game lower your taxes until you have 100% approval. Keep this until your most of your planets reach 3-4B (or better). This will help your economy improve faster since population = taxes, even if it does cost taxes to start. It is a long term investment.

• Don’t neglect your military. Aim to keep your military ranking at least in the middle (100% ranking). Otherwise you may be mobbed by the aggressive AI. Early in the game this can mean all you have to do is produce a small hull with nothing but weapons – your first defender.
• Never use the stock ships. Design your own. It’s fun too!
• Spend your initial 5K primarily on factories at your homeworld to get your production level up, and maybe a colony ship or two. But make sure you have a bankroll of at least 1K to 2K to fund long term deficit spending until your economy gets off the ground.
• If funds run tight sell technology, but sell it to every race since they will certainly turn around and sell it to each other! When you sell be sure to sell each tech individually instead of in a group. You’ll get more $$ that way. Minors are not a safe bet, btw – they buy and sell as much as any race. Logistics and weapons techs get the most $$. Also, be sure to get a few diplo techs since that will increase the $$ you get!
• Research Sensor 1 early and build a survey ship to grab anomalies. A survey ship should be one of the first ships you build, and if you can build several. But build it on a cargo hull and load it with engines. Even with early propulsion it will be much faster, and therefore grab more goodies. After the anomalies are gone they become great sentinels to ensure Bad Guys aren’t sneaking up on you.
• Don’t bother to build scouts. Instead just build colony ships and have them explore for you.
• Consider building colony ships on SMALL hulls instead of cargo hulls. You can’t fit engines on it, but if you pick Speed it can still move at spd 2 or 3! Once you get a few propulsion bonuses they move even faster. This hull is ~650bc instead of ~1200 bc, so you can build them MUCH faster.

Looks like you’re moving along if you’re doing well at Beginner. I’m happy to help with any questions – and I might even give you useful answers, too!

Hydro

[tetley]

Quite simply, high populations are simply not worth it.

Not worth what? Often, growing population doesn't cost much. I mean yeah, if you obsess yourself with morale buildings and farms, it's not worth it, but I would say the first farm is worth it. If that farm happens to be on a bonus tile, great. I would never put a cap on my own population growth if it was a simple matter of putting a farm on one tile instead of another.

As a rule of thumb, I just build one farm on almost all planets (I say "almost" all--I won't build one on PQ6 or less, or on my manufacturing capital or tech capital), and I only build morale buildings on 100% approval bonus squares. But I will go hard after all the global morale bonuses like yellow starbases, Harmony Crystals, Xeno Entertainment, etc..

IMHO, there is a point at which growing population is not worth it. But there's also a point where it's pretty cheap & easy.

[Hydro]

'High' referenced my example with 24B population. At this level you may have to build lots of rec buildings to keep your morale at a decent level. Lots of morale tech and wonders will help, but in the earlier game it will be a real challenge. Populations of 9-12B are easily manageable, and even up to 18B can be workable.

In my example I explained that eco planets always get farms, and that other planets get them during my first few rounds of terraforming.

Hydro

[KWAiRT]

How about some multiplayer? Oh yeah right this is Stardock. NEXT!