(former) expert 4x strategy gamer NEW to GalCiv!!

Other Questions:

 

When you buy a Factory that has 3/5 turns completed. Do you get the money back for the industry the system puts into it that turn? (If answer is no whenever buying on a planet it would be best to put 100% pop into wealth for that turn correct?)

 

When you buy from a shipyard, I notice you don't get the manufacturing ? If you buy on a shipyard is it best to remove all manufacturing and put shipyard's sponsors planet on 100% social manufacturing while you are buying?

 

I find it is incredibly easy to exploit the AI to get money using diplomacy, selling tech etc... Is this a standard tactic people use? Seems a bit exploitative.. This is how I've been getting most of my money as my economy is struggling.

 

 

First off id say you have a bit of work before youve mastered production my homeworkds usually churn out 2-3 capital ships per turn 

for research planets start with a couple of factorys to bring down build times keep morale up and a hospital or other pop growth bonus to help it get going

income i cant help with ie been letting the game age a little bit   But look towards setting up trade routes and tourism

as for multiplayer games my schedule is to erratic so i stay away from them

Newbie tips 

starbases  you can with some planning and techs stack up to 12 starbases around a single planet that increases raw production by 120% before looking at any of the manu/res/wealth bonus's or the morale bonus's 

 

i think you're right on the buying factory's im not usually that micro about the extra points so will just leave it set at manufacturing 

as for buying ships shipyards store excess production (thats how i can produce more than one ship per turn) so if you buy a ship any manufacturing produced by the planet should go to your shipyard Overflow

 

the ai diplomacy is pretty rough its one of the things i believe they are working on for 1.4 or 1.5 . some people abuse it some people dont if you feel its too easy to exploit then you should try to refrain from using it until they fix it

hey man thanks for the reply!

 

Yes I can imagine manufacturing can get serious  I figured out the starbases, have 3 circulated around my research system with research modifiers and 3 around my industry system with industry modifiers.. same for economic. Love the starbases on this game.

 

Diplomacy wise, yea its a bit OP isn't it.

 

What race traits do you find the most useless? I find the +25% economic/manufacturing/research traits a bit null as you can OP those with buildings? Better off to pick the morale/food buffs? 

 

Lots of questions! I'm enjoying learning this game, especially the economy side

Welcome to the game!

I'm a botf fan myself, still playing actually, mostly vanilla lately, although I played all the mods, but the AI works best on vanilla.

For GalCiv, there seem to be a lot of strategies, if you watch the youtube videos.  On new game, I'll shift sliders to 100% research, buy 4 research (while researching morale improvement), buy moral building to get 100% morale, buy 4 manufacturing while researching up to ION drive.  I used to buy a colony ship, but now, just save the money for finishing out the homeworld, and some money left over to buy manufacturing on the first colony.

All planets buy a few manufacturing first, more if it's a big planet, then morale, then research or money.  I make sure all planets have two roles:

* production vs money (money maker when not making ships or upgrading, 3 or 4 banks)

* research vs production (to upgrade only, 2 - 4 depending on planet size)

* money vs production (to upgrade only, 2 - 4 depending on planet size)

When not making ships, my production planets have a few banks (more early game), to make money.  Everyone has money problems from the beginning thru developing colonies.

Honestly, I like botf better, it has better combat, better AI, and is just more enjoyable.  You don't have to be at war in botf to attack anyone intruding near you, and the non-aggression keeps people out of your territory.  I wish galciv had these features.  The botf hall of fame is great too, makes me finish every game.

Galciv has a major update coming (so I've read), and some mods to check out, so there are things to look forward to.  I really wish the combat was turn based, and you could control your ships, like in botf and StarDrive 2.

As to questions, the ship yard, the game gets too easy when you start making your own custom ships.  Prototype weapons are overpowered IMHO.  When you buy something, divert the planet production to something else, like research, revenue or social manufacturing 100%, if you care to micro-manage every turn, like I do.  I disable all tech trading, seems like too much of a cheat to me.  The vulcans never shared any technology with humans, ever.

Cheers

One population point = one raw production point. So I've started spamming farms on most planets. Also, in ver. 1.3 we can still micromanage each planet's economy, so periodically you should go through all planets and make sure none are running in the red.

One thing I like to do, which alot of people tend to overlook because its such an early tech. Is forgot the first manufacturing/research upgrade for awhile. Or at least if you get it dont upgrade many of your planets with the upgrades until later. All those buildings while they do add better planet bonuses, also double the upkeep of the improvement from .5 maintenance to 1 per turn. This can really add up to an unsuspecting empire.

Another thing you can do on on developed planets, if your income isnt the best. Is even if its a non income planet, you can change the production wheel to just enough in economy to negate that particular planets maintenance. It might not  be something you may want to do long term but it can help. Although when 1.4 comes out you wont be able to do this any more.

 

They are an equivalent of one factory , research building, etc per planet and not a flat addition bonus to the total of that asset unfortunately. So compared to the others they aren't that great, same with the influence one and to a lesser extent the trade route value and tourism income traits.

there has also been some debate on if the Strategic Repair is rather useless as it wasn't giving much if any bonuses to ships repair rates. Although that may be been changed, im not sure.

And on the topic, there are some Trade Resources that can seem rather useless. Unless your trading them or really want the adjacency bonus in some cases destroying them is better. Well maybe only for the +5% to manufacture/influence/income/research. Unless your on a map where your getting like 20 of them or something that might actually make it worth it.

 

i think this depends entirely on the map type and game length

while i dont remember all the bonus's off hand

some like bonus research will eventually become useless on extremely long games

bonus manufacturing or econ should be viable for all games but are probably better in longer games

a flat bonus to weapons or move would be more useful in smaller/shorter games 

wheras a percentage bonus to weapons or move would be more usefull in longer games where you are more likely to get values in the 100's or more.

Given that 1.4 will drastically change strategies (we lose micro for planets, and have to go with governors which aren't as efficient, but a whole lot more scalable), I think I'm going to switch over to a more "balanced" approach.

That is, make sure each planet has a 'primary' use, but also a strong 'secondary' one. So, in most cases, I'll be setting up research/money planets or production/money planets. Probably in something like a 60/40 or 75/25 mix.

As it currently stands, what I've found works well is this:

 

1. Send out all the start ships to explore

2. Set Research to 100%

3. Start researching the Xeno Commerce or equivalent tech which gives you the 1st tier Approval building

4. Rush buy 4-5 buildings on the Homeworld, positioning them for optimal self-reinforcement.

5. Buy the Approval building, to keep morale as close to 100% as possible.

6. You should now have a HW that has 75-100% morale, 11 pop, and +60% reasearch +75% manufacturing by now. You should be about 5 turns in.  And still have half your starting funds (~3000 credits). Reset your production wheel to be about 40-50% research, and the remainder Manufacturing.

 

You can now start pumping out colony ships (try custom ones with added sensors) and use them as explorers. I research the first 2 drive improvements to get me better range and drives, then concentrate on other techs (Ion drive isn't really worth it until later in the game).

By round 20 or so, you should have 4+ colony ships out looking for planets to colonize. Given the map settings I use, it's not common for me to find more than 1 or 2 planets within that timeframe, due to distance and scarcity of planets. 

 

As to what to do with the planets when you find them:

1. Throw a factory on there. Until around turn 100 when you've got sufficient global production bonuses, not having a factory really hurts the buildout of a world.

2. Set new planets to 100% production until you've got 3-4 buildings built. Then back them down based on whatever that planet is going to specialize in.

3. You're going to need money, especially now that new planets seriously dent your money supply (-4 credits for the initial colony capital). Any planet that has high Pop Growth rate, make a money planet if at all possible. 10+ quality planets should almost ALWAYS be considered a money planet.  They might do something else, but figure on covering at least 50% of the tiles for 10+ quality planets with money buildings.

4. I'm a big fan of max pop density. Buy and place the farms and hospitals to maximize pop. Play your cards right, and buy the Pragmatic 1st-tier Ideology which prevents you from be declared war on for 50 turns.  That leaves you without having to worry about a military until *at least* turn 100.

5. Trade like mad for techs with all the minor races you can find.

6. Unless you're an Evil race, make at least one friend with a major Civ - Open Borders treaties are a great way to do this, and at the early game, they're mostly harmless.  Don't think that not having one will prevent them from colonizing in your influence space, so just let them in anyway (and they tend to be much nicer in the long run).

 

Then, when you're around turn 150, pick a fight with your nearest major civ that's weak (and not your bestie).  You should have sufficient military to do so around them, and if your careful, you'll be able to build enough custom ships to kick their ass relatively easily.