Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

Gal Civ 3 Strategy Guide: How to Easily Win an Alliance Victory on Godlike

Hey All:

I've drafted a Strategy Guide and would appreciate feedback from anyone interested before publishing as a Steam Guide.

Introduction
The purpose of this strategy guide is to show how using all the mechanics available in-game leads to easy and very early Alliance Victories on Godlike.

Fast Alliance victories are possible without using a number of elements of this strategy, as a secondary goal is to help with a good start beyond Alliances. I’ve won fast Alliance Victories with the Terran Resurgence (which has -2 to all traits courtesy of Macsen), without doing any colonisation at all, without sensor boats and without embassies etc. I’ve set out the guide by turn but obviously the order will vary, sometimes substantially, between games. Also note that it is based on the 1.6 patch (in particular coercion penalty changes have an impact).

The strategy is highly effective on Huge maps which is my preferred map size as well as anything smaller. Personally I prefer a busy abundant map, and while that will help, it is not required for the strategy to work, refer to notes on rare maps at the bottom of the guide.

As map size increases (particularly Insane), the time to meet all other races increases, and this strategy does become less effective. It's still very possible but takes a lot more time, refer to notes on very large maps at the bottom of the guide.

Note if you have the mercenaries expansion, there are opportunities to accelerate this strategy further in various ways, but as there are various permutations it is not included e.g. there are sometimes long range fast scouts/survey ships available.

Beyond the guide, happy to help with anyone trying to do this, ideally send me a save game.

Setup
Create a custom race with +2 diplomatic modifiers (likeable), Coercive and Intuitive traits, or use the “Icemen” custom race I’ve made available on Steam workshop.

Turn 1 Actions
1. For the free starting technologies resulting from the Intuitive trait, select Interstellar Travel, Universal Translators and Diplomatic Reasoning (the last one won’t quite finish but varies depending on settings). You’ll continue all the way through to Interstellar Alliances before doing any other research.

2. Go to the ship designer and create a new design with cargo hull type, place 12 interstellar sensors on the hull and save as “Sensorium Mk 1”, the sensor range should be 27.

3. Go to the ship designer and create a new colony ship design with 2 hyperdrive-plus modules and 1 environmental support module for range “Colony Ship D2 R1”. Some variations with different numbers of components can be very useful. No sensors are needed which helps reduce cost. Create a second version with 3 hyperdrive-plus modules and 2 environmental support modules “Colony Ship D3 R2” and also “Colony Ship D4 R3”.

4. Send Survey ship exploring, prioritise artifacts as a priority, as they often provide a free technology.

5. With the starting scout, sent it to your homeworld where it will wait for a few turns.

6. Send Colony ship to your homeworld, upgrade to Sensorium Mk 1 (population will be unloaded automatically), cost is around 1300 credits.

7. At your shipyard, rush buy Colony Ship R2 D1 for about 1000 credits.
8. Go to the Global Production Wheel and set 50% manufacturing/50% research, 100% social manufacturing (this will then be the default for new colonies).

9. Go to your homeworld and ensure 50% manufacturing/50% research, 100% social manufacturing and ensure “do not upgrade until planet is full” is selected.

10. On your homeworld, build 4 factories in a group and then build 2 research laboratories in another location (if they can’t be grouped no problem). You should have 1 or 2 free spaces, leave them free for later, ideally adjacent to your factories. If set-up right it should take 3 turns per building.

Turn 2 Actions
1. Go to the ship designer and create a new construction ship design with 2 hyperdrive-plus modules and 1 environmental support module for range “Construction Ship D2 R1”. Some variations with different numbers of components can be very useful. No sensors are needed which helps reduce cost.

2. Most of the time, but not always, a diplomatic interaction or two will be available. If it’s a minor race, give them open borders and all of your technology, for as much cash as you can get. If it’s a major race, given them open borders only.

3. If you get lucky with an anomaly from your survey ship and get a tech boost, move onto Diplomacy Research.

4. Eject the sensor boat from your homeworld. Select a corner of its available range and move towards it. You’ll want to keep moving the sensor ship around at the limits of it’s available range until all races are discovered.

5. Send the new colony ship (0.5M population) to the highest class planet there is relatively nearby.
6. At your shipyard, rush buy Colony Ship R2 D1 for about 1000 credits.

Turn 3 Actions
1. If you’ve colonised your first world, build 2 factories in a group and nothing else at this stage. Select pragmatic, in the builder line the option for 3 construction ships.

2. Most of the time, but not always, a source of Thulium or two should have been revealed by the sensor boat. If so, send a construction ship to the Thulium source and build a starbase. This may take a couple of turns depending on where the source is.

3. With remaining construction ships, upgrade them to “Colony Ship D3 R2” for a bit over 100 credits each.

4. At your shipyard, rush buy Colony Ship R2 D1 for about 1000 credits.

5. Send the new colony ship (0.5M population) to a nearby planet, preferably not a low class planet.

6. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ship.

Turn 4 Actions
1. For the various new colony ships, send them to your homeworld, fill with only 0.5M population, and send towards the highest class nearby planets. Try to extend go in multiple directions if possible.

2. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ship.

3. At your shipyard, rush buy Colony Ship R2 D1 for about 1000 credits.

Turn 5-6 Actions
1. You’ll probably have a source of Thulium available now. Go the Ship Designer, create a new tiny hull, and get it a Prototype Survey Module, a Hyperdrive Plus and 2 environment support modules, c all it “Survey Mk 0”. Then upgrade the tiny scout ship you sent to your homeworld on Turn 1 to “Survey Mk 0” for 65 credits. If you are really lucky, build another one at your shipyard, ideally you want a couple of them. If you get really lucky you’ll have Promethion, have a second design for a Prototype Hyperdrive (rare but can be handy in future turns).

2. With the various new colonies, for ideology choose Malevolent and focus on the motivation line. You should soon be able to select Initimidating, which give you access to the Intimidation Centre. For all existing colonies, add an Intimidation Centre to the build order. For new colonies, build 2 factories and an Intimidation Centre. Ideally select tiles that have an approval bonus.

3. At your shipyard, you may not be able to rush any colony ships this turn, I don’t build unless I will still have more than 1,000 credits after the rush. If new diplomatic interactions are available, do as described in Turn 2 as you might be able to rush build more. Otherwise be patient, but every turn check if any diplomatic interactions are available for the rest of the game.

4. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ships. Be careful with the tiny survey ships they have no weapons or defence, keep them out of range of pirates (they have the sensor range to do that), move 1 space at a time.

Turn 7-8 Actions
1. With the various new colonies, for ideology continue to choose Malevolent, you should have about 7 colonies by this stage.

2. Keep moving the sensor boat and you should have 2 or 3 survey ships now on the map, prioritise artifacts but explore whatever is available. If there are artifacts around, I’ll often hold on more diplomatic interactions at this point until you get diplomacy research. Again, with minor races trade all technology, but never trade diplomatic research with the AI. Select “Economic Treaty” as your next technology as this provides Free Trade Agreements. Sign Non-Aggression Pacts wherever possible but don’t give the AI your cash.

3. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ships.

4. Don’t ever look at the power charts, you’ll probably be last, don’t worry about it!

Turn 9-10 Actions
1. Keep checking those diplomatic interactions. You should be able to pick some cash and technology. Supportive Population is really useful for the morale boost. Hence at your shipyard, rush buy another Colony Ship D2 R1 or a variant. Again, if you have the cash, rush build a colony ship as a priority, unless colonies are saturated.

2. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ships.

Turn 11-14 Actions
1. Keep checking those diplomatic interactions. You might be able to pick up Advanced Construction from an AI, in which case, build a Manufacturing Capital on your homeworld next to your factories and move it to the top of the build list.

2. Keep rush building colony ships if you have the cash and colonising.

3. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ships.

4. Your empire income will be getting more and more negative. Don’t worry about it!

Turn 15-18 Actions
1. You may finish Economic Treaties at this point. They are huge diplomatically as you get the equivalent of 3,000 credits from the AI in every interaction. Take advantage of it.

2. You should also get access to Exploration Treaties. Sign them, one way, don’t pay for theirs yet

3. You probably won’t be in the Age of War yet, so I’ll tend to pick Weapon Systems or similar to research, getting access to Prototype Weapons is important early game. But you want to change back to Interstellar Alliances as soon as you get to the Age of War.

4. You should finish a Manufacturing Capital on your homeworld. Set social manufacturing to be 45 or so and put the rest in military. You should be able to spam Colony and Construction ships in a turn and keep building improvements.

5. You should also get another Malevolent ideology pick, this time ruthless, which doubles military production. You can now afford more expensive ships such as Colony Ship D4 R3 and so on and produce them in a turn.

6. You should be able to build small ships from AI trades. Go the Ship Designer, create a new design with a Prototype Survey Module, Interstellar Sensors, 3 range modules and as many hyperdrive-plus and hyperdrive you can fit. You might need another source of Thulium or retire a tiny Survey ship as these designs are faster and have more range.

7. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ships.

8. You’ll really see the AI spamming ships at an immersion breaking rate, don’t worry about it!

Turn 19-22 Actions
1. You should also get another Malevolent ideology pick, this time the implacable pick, which gives Death Furnaces. Build this on your homeworld as a priority amongst your factories. A well placed terraforming spot via Planetary Soil Upgrade can be handy for this. You'll now be close to being able to build a medium size ship every turn even with 50% manufacturing and 50% research on your homeworld.

2. Did I mention keep checking those diplomatic interactions? Some of the AI will start to run out of cash and technology to give you, so take their resources and be able to start to get exploration treaties for them, which will open up new diplomatic interactions.

3. Since your homeworld shipyard is producing ships in a turn, you’ll likely start to have extra cash. Use it to rush build embassies on as many worlds as possible (except your homeworld).

4. Your homeworld might be able to use a Colonial Hospital to increase growth then later on replace with a Xeno farm.

5. Keep moving the sensor boat and survey ships.

6. Keep colonising. Once all available local colonies are exhausted, switch to constructors. When this happens varies a lot from game to game.

7. At this point there will still be plenty of races you haven’t met, don’t worry about it! Your diplomatic modifiers (mainly from research and those embassies going up) will be massively positive and a very small scale.

8. You might be able to fit even more engines on your colony/construction ships depending on what research you trade with the AI.

Conclusion
At this point basically it’s game over. It’s just a matter of continuing to explore to meet any remaining races and continuing to use diplomacy. Once you have medium hulls it’s worth getting some starbases around Durantium and Elerium so you can build prototype weapons ships that are cheap to produce and have high attack, delaying the time until the AI considers you weak. It's probably easier on Godlike than Normal with this approach given how much you can farm form the AI from diplomacy.

Rare Maps
On rare maps, the number of colony and construction ships you need to rush build/build will obviously be less. In this case, there is the opportunity to build one or two more custom tiny/small survey ships (which need a source of Thulium if you don’t have that then build another scout or two to enhance exploration) or possibly even a second sensor boat i.e. have them move in different directions. You may also need a starbase or two to extend range. Beyond that, any excess cash from diplomacy should be used to accelerate colony development in particular Intimidation Centres which will help with Malevolent ideology points. It might take a fair bit longer to get to Death Furnaces, but the production bonuses of the Motivation line remain highly significant.

Very Large Maps
On very large maps, you’ll likely want designs that have more range modules, and I tend to build a couple of sensor boats with longer movement range by Turn 40. The tiny survey ship in the strategy will probably be limited in effectiveness, but the small survey with some extra range can be useful. I’ll also often have custom survey ship design at larger sizes as well due to the size of the map to explore, just keep increasing the speed, range and sensing range as the opportunity presents from technology acquisitions. Building starbases to extend range is often essential.

As more time will be required, you'll likely be perceived as weak and ripe for conquest before long. You’ll need to use most diplomatic modification opportunities (e.g. more embassies) to offset these effects.

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XWerewolfX

Join Date 02/2006

+31

Bravo! Well written and informative! I really appreciate your willingness to highlight some serious gameplay issues!

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Go to the ship designer and create a new design with cargo hull type, place 12 interstellar sensors on the hull and save as “Sensorium Mk 1”, the sensor range should be 27.

For exploration designs, I would suggest striking a balance between sensor and hyperdrive components rather than going entirely for one or the other, except on the smaller map sizes (e.g. Tiny, which has a diagonal of merely 61 tiles; a ship with a sensor range of 27 can observe ~81% of the tiles on a Tiny map at any given moment if it's within 3 tiles of the center tile, and as long as it's within 3 tiles of the center tile the region not observed will be no more than 6 tiles deep; if the observer is at the map center, the outermost 3 rings of tiles will not be observed, but for most purposes, including that of meeting the neighbors, this is effectively the same as observing the entire map). For example, a ship with 90 capacity, 2 actions per turn, and 2 sensor range without any components of any type added, with the best available sensor component providing +2 sensor range for 9 capacity and the best available drive component providing +2 actions per turn for 10 capacity, can reveal up to 252 new tiles per turn (5 hyperdrive and 4 sensor components) as compared to up to 90 new tiles per turn with an all-sensors design using the same hull and components, and will have been able to observe more unique tiles within 8 turns of completion than the all-sensors design would have (the all-sensors design will, however, be able to observe more tiles per turn - 1518 at turn start + 90 by turn end, as compared to 330 at turn start + 252 by turn end for the given design which balanced speed and sensor range). As the goal of meeting a foreign empire can be accomplished by encountering any ship, station, or planet of that empire, and as a high exploration rate reduces the time taken to find a planet or station and possibly a ship while a high number of tiles observed at turn start increases the likelihood that a foreign ship will end its turn inside the detection range of your ship, you can strike a balance between those features as well - continuing the earlier example, if you design the ship to carry 3 hyperdrive and 6 sensor components, you'll end up with a ship that observes 630 tiles at the start of its turn and can reveal up to 232 new tiles each turn, which costs only a little of the exploration rate but greatly improves the total number of tiles visible over the course of each turn.

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Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

Good point joeball. Looking back the original reason I had that design was to reveal as much possible immediately so starting ships in the first few turns can pick the best available worlds while easily avoiding Pirates (which I tend to enjoy at abundant) given the colony/construction designs have no sensors to minimise cost. With the custom race here it looks like I can fit 8 sensors (sensor range of 19 instead of 27) with 3 hyperdrive-plus modules (movement speed of 10 rather than 4) and a range module (19 ship range instead of 11) and also the upgrade cost reduces by about 300 credits. I've got the Master version of the guide over at the eXplorminate forums but I'll update accordingly, cheers!

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Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

Introduction

To supplement the "Gal Civ 3 Strategy Guide: How to Win an Alliance Victory on Godlike", this variation applies a number of house rules, with the same goal to achieve an Alliance Victory.

Your results may depend on your skill level; in particular, checking for diplomatic interactions and applying them whenever possible is important. It is not recommended to try this without first completing the original Guide.

The following house rules are applied (i.e. mechanics that are available in-game but are not used):

1. Used a custom race with all negative traits (the Icemen Resurgence on Steam workshop which is a slight variation on Macsen’s Terran Resurgence, so all credit to him).

2. Sensor boats using cargo hulls were banned.

3. Pragmatic for 3 construction ships and upgrading them to colony ship was banned. Also, a single ideology branch must be used only, no mixing and matching.

4. Strategic resources in ships were banned, so no tiny/small survey ships or military ships with prototype weapons of any kind.

5. Precursor Worlds may not be colonised and Precursor Artifacts may not be explored.

This is based on my favourite map size, Huge with Abundant for a fun and dense map. This Strategy does become much more difficult on very large maps such as Insane but becomes increasingly easy on smaller map sizes. I would recommend starting on Huge or smaller if this is your first attempt with this Guide. Rare settings also increase the difficulty.

Setup

Create a custom race with -2 to all modifiers, Coercive and Intuitive traits, or use the “Icemen Resurgence” custom race I’ve made available on Steam workshop.

Turn 1 Actions

1. For the free starting technologies resulting from the Intuitive trait, select Interstellar Travel, Universal Translators and Diplomatic Reasoning (the last one won’t quite finish but varies depending on settings). You’ll continue all the way through to Interstellar Alliances before doing any other research.

2. Go to the ship designer and create a new colony ship design with 1 hyperdrive-plus modules and 1 environmental support module for range “Colony Ship D1 R1”.

3. Go to the ship designer and create a new construction ship design with 2 hyperdrive-plus modules and 1 environmental support module for range “Construction Ship D2 R1”. Some variations with different numbers of components can be very useful. No sensors are needed which helps reduce cost.

4. Go to the ship designer and create a new tiny ship design with 1 environmental support module and 1 interstellar sensor “Scout Mk 1”.

5. Send the Survey ship exploring, prioritise artifacts as a priority as they often provide a free technology.

6. Send the Scout exploring and upgrade to “Scout Mk 1” for 32 credits (keep it in your influence so it takes 1 turn).

7. At your shipyard, rush buy a new “Scout Mk 1” for about 440 credits.

8. Go to the Global Production Wheel and set 50% manufacturing/50% research, 100% social manufacturing (this will then be the default for new colonies).

9. Go to your homeworld and ensure 50% manufacturing/50% research, 100% social manufacturing and ensure “do not upgrade until planet is full” is selected.

10. On your homeworld, build 4 factories in a group and then build 2 research laboratories in another location (if they can’t be grouped no problem). You should have 1 or 2 free spaces, leave them free for later, ideally adjacent to your factories. If set-up right it should take 5 turns per building.

11. Rush buy your first factory for 300 credits.

12. Use the colony ship to colonise the closest world. Build 2 factories in a group and nothing else at this stage. Select malevolent and focus on the motivation line and Intimidating which provides access to Intimidation Centers. Add an Intimidation Center to your homeworld build queue (but not any future colonies).

13. Ensure your shipyard only has your homeworld as a sponsor.

14. Your morale will be terrible, don’t worry about it!

Turn 2 Actions

1. If you get lucky with an anomaly from your survey ship and get a tech boost, move onto Diplomacy Research.

2. Keep exploring with the scouts and survey ship. Your ships will be extremely slow, don’t worry about it!

3. At your shipyard, rush buy a new “Scout Mk 1” for about 440 credits.

4. Rush buy your second factory for 300 credits.

Turn 3 Actions

1. Rush buy your third factory for 300 credits.

2. At your shipyard, rush buy a new “Construction Ship D1 R1” for about 900 credits.

3. Send the Construction ship to a juicy resource location which also helps extend range.

4. Keep exploring with the scouts and survey ship.

Turn 4-20 Actions

1. Keep exploring with the scouts and survey ship.

2. If you’ve found another colonisable planet or two, rush buy “Colony Ship D1 R1” for 900 credits. You will only have funds available for 2 of them.

3. If Diplomatic Reasoning has finished, continue with Diplomacy Research, and then Economic Treaties. Normally with artifacts on abundant you can finish Economic Treaties. If you need to wait for the Age of War before accessing Interstellar Alliance research, select either movement or range technology. Add Embassies to the build query for all colonies.

4. After the second extra colony (or a galactic event) select Relentless from the Motivation line under Malevolent ideology which will provide a production bonus to your homeworld.

5. Once your homeworld completes building an Intimidation Centre and Embassy, switch to 100% military production. Focus on Colony Ships if any planets are within range or else build Construction Ships but build diplomatic starbases that improve diplomacy and also help extend range.

Turn 21-30 Actions

1. With an extra colony or two, you should also get another Malevolent ideology pick, this time ruthless, which doubles military production. Colony and construction ship production should be down to 2 turns each.

2. Most of the time a diplomatic interaction or two will be available. If it’s a minor race, give them open borders and all of your technology, for as much cash as you can get, or the odd technology. If it’s a major race, given them open borders and free trade agreements for as much cash as you can get when available. It will still be very slow at this point, however. Be careful with Non-Aggression Pacts as the AI will charge you through the teeth due to how weak you are so I just ignore Non-Aggression Pacts.

Turn 30-40 Actions

1. Some more diplomatic contacts should open up. When trading with the AI, sell your strategic resources and sell any non-diplomatic technology. Supportive Population is a key technology target for trade as it will massively improve morale. Advanced Construction is an important trade target, build a Manufacturing Capital on your homeworld immediately.

2. With an extra few colonies, you should also get another Malevolent ideology pick, this time the implacable pick, which gives Death Furnaces. Build this on your homeworld as a priority amongst your factories, rush build if you have the cash.

3. You might get diplomatic relations that are trending negative with some races. Don’t worry about it, because the diplomatic modifiers from embassies (which should be rush built if you have the cash) and diplomatic starbases will soon kick in.

4. 8-10 colonies should be enough, then switch to construction ships and building diplomatic starbases.

5. You should enter the Age of War at some stage, switch to Interstellar Alliance research immediately.

6. The AI will likely start to build Starbases in your territory, don’t worry about it!

Turn 40-80 Actions

1. Keep checking every turn for AI trading opportunities and farm as much cash as possible, but don’t give away any diplomatic technology.

2. If you have survey technology from the AI build some more survey ships, again an Artifact focus.

3. Depending on events and number of colonies, you might get another Malevolent ideology pick, this time select unforgiving for an across the board production bonuses.

4. Often, with ongoing exploration, an artifact will be found that will provide Interstellar Alliances and possibly more. Continue through the Diplomatic tech tree all the way to Eminence.

5. You should be rush building embassies and building diplomatic starbases routinely. Diplomatic relations will start to switch to become very positive very rapidly. Diplomatic Districts will become available once you have Interstellar Alliances, upgrade as a priority.

6. There really is no issue trading your military technology to the AI, better to have the cash to rush diplomatic buildings.

7. Exploration treaties will help find the remaining empires. You should be able to afford them from the AI.

8. Everyone will start to see you as weak, don’t worry about it, keep spamming diplomatic buildings and starbases.

9. The Snathi Revenge are often the last to resist. Relations with others will be so positive that you can proclaim friendship and give them credits per turn without a material impact on anyone else.

10. Wait until all races are ready for an Alliance, then Ally with them all in one turn.

11. In the particular game played to produce this guide, victory was on Turn 67.

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Great work, Icemania!

Stardock, please take note of the issues that have clearly been highlighted in these playthroughs and add them to the list of things to work on. I consider myself a genuine fan of the series but it is frustrating that some of GC3's mechanics are exploitable to the extent that they are, as though the game is intended for those who are content to play it forever casually and would happily gimp themselves against the ai as they discover its significant holes. I hate to say it, but that is how it appears.

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Thanks for the guide, it showed me that I probably should use survey ships in a more sophisticated way than I do atm. Furthermore, I think that your strategy of using the tech advantage of godlike AIs against them by tech trading is brilliant.

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Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

Cheers LongDeadFingers.

@Kurt_Blitzer, yes it seems the status quo with Gal Civ is a single survey ship. In other games with large maps like Distant Worlds you learn quickly how important having many explorers is, so I just took it as a given that you would need more than one as early as possible here as well. Unfortunately, I've never noticed the AI having more than one, which is a huge handicap particularly with anomalies that are as overpowered as artifacts around. It wouldn't be hard to get the AI to apply this strategy to survey ships, just combine with giving an early source of Thulium some focus if it's within range. There are numerous other parts of the strategy that the AI could be coded to follow e.g. Turn 1 either build a sensor boat or upgrade the starting colony ship to a sensor boat etc. My view is, either close the exploit if it's not intended, or give the AI the ability to use it. Unfortunately at the moment we have lots and lots of exploits the AI doesn't use. And at this point the list is growing over time, sadly. The Precursor DLC introduced more of them and this also seems to be the case with Mercenaries as well, specifically on Turn 33 of my first game I have 11 Mercenary Ships and the 9 other AI combined have 3.

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Quoting Icemaniaa,

reply 7

Cheers LongDeadFingers.

@Kurt_Blitzer, yes it seems the status quo with Gal Civ is a single survey ship. In other games with large maps like Distant Worlds you learn quickly how important having many explorers is, so I just took it as a given that you would need more than one as early as possible here as well. Unfortunately, I've never noticed the AI having more than one, which is a huge handicap particularly with anomalies that are as overpowered as artifacts around. It wouldn't be hard to get the AI to apply this strategy to survey ships, just combine with giving an early source of Thulium some focus if it's within range. There are numerous other parts of the strategy that the AI could be coded to follow e.g. Turn 1 either build a sensor boat or upgrade the starting colony ship to a sensor boat etc. My view is, either close the exploit if it's not intended, or give the AI the ability to use it. Unfortunately at the moment we have lots and lots of exploits the AI doesn't use. And at this point the list is growing over time, sadly. The Precursor DLC introduced more of them and this also seems to be the case with Mercenaries as well, specifically on Turn 33 of my first game I have 11 Mercenary Ships and the 9 other AI combined have 3.

I know you probably implied it, but certainly this should be tied to the AI skill level rather than a general change.

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Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

Yes agree. This would be a good example of an AI method which would only be applied on higher difficulties.

It's been too long, but isn't the sort of thing the Gal Civ II AI did? i.e. not just bonuses but apply better methods on higher difficulty. I'm going to have to boot it up again someday just to get my butt kicked for a change!

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Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

I've made some notes and updates in the "all mechanics" version of this strategy to reflect the Mercenaries expansion.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=622615551

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This strategy guide is so informative. I was a bit skeptical at first, so I began on genius level. No problem. Game won on turn 62. I stepped up a level, again won around turn 65. At Godlike, I won on turn 72, and would have won earlier but the Drengins held out for a long time as the final race to "feel the force."

For all these wins, I never scored more than 2 Metaverse points on any level. I always played on huge universes, using all major races and used the "common" option for minor races...which meant that at least 8-10 minors were in play.

This strategy is so good for getting a good start that I tried for a different win on a longer game and conquered all races on genius level for 137 points. I think I'll try a conquest victory again, one step down from Godlike, and see what happens.

I still cannot understand the Metaverse scoring. Why do I receive the same, tiny score of 2 points for victories of the same type, and in the same amount of time, using four different difficulty levels? I always use all major races and opt for a common number of minor races. If I used only a few races would that ramp up the points?

I have played GalCiv (I, II, and III), Elemental, Fallen Enchantress, and Sorcerer King for well over a thousand hours combined. I fully understood the Metaverse scoring for Gal Civ I. I made it to the top 20 in GalCivI. I made it to the top ten in Sorcerer King, then the devs changed the scoring and I was suddenly, one day later, #29. I have no idea why. I have no understanding of how the scoring works for the Metarealms and Metaverses of the rest of the games, and have never seen any detailed information from Stardock about how these games are scored. The devs just say...well, we have changed the scoring system with this new version. Any thoughts? Comments?

These games are still fun to play, but I somehow feel like I am going out on a cricket pitch in Dorset, England, knowing only American baseball rules, and have no real idea how the game I am trying to play will be scored.

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Icemaniaa

Join Date 04/2010

+14

Thanks Drifter-san.

The problem is that at a strategic level I feel like the game is broken (again, I said strategically before anybody responds inappropriately to my statement).

It's even worse with Mercenaries because I always end up with many more ships than all of the other AI combined which just makes the game even easier. Turn 75 with Mercenaries (Alliances Victory off) I just turned the game off and haven't been back since. Why? If I go with military manufacturing, I can produce 2,581 per turn on my homeworld. Without the Bureau of Labour I would have 50% research / 50% manufacturing (per my global wheel setting) which gives me 1,683 military manufacturing per turn. With Mercenaries, one ship alone gives +150%. I get +235% from my manufacturing capital, +130% from Death Furnaces, +355% from manufacturing centers, +100% military manufacturing from ideology and a whole bunch of other smaller factors. It's totally and utterly ridiculous when the AI has no idea how to use the existing mechanics effectively.

Don't get me wrong, I've got value for money out of Gal Civ III. I just can't get value out of Mercenaries and hence can't recommend it. I can't see how to have fun with the game anymore without massively nerfing myself strategically, which is sad, because I do enjoy the game and see it's potential.

With respect to Metaverse scoring, I totally agree and have commented on exactly your concern a number of times.

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Quoting Icemaniaa,

reply 12

Agreed. It's that the game is a fait accompli at any level right now. Too many exploits for the human player (who has a decent understanding of game mechanics), and the Ai does nothing to expand its own empires (or its methods of doing so are wildly ineffective), or react to changing galactic conditions (emergence of a dominant human or Ai empire).

DLC and expansions add bling, but don't change any of the above. I really like all the stuff in Mercenaries, but I can't see the sense of buying it or other paid content until the Ai actually has a victory strategy rather than a stagnation strategy.

So much work was obviously put into differentiating the races - tech, ideology, methods, strategic goals, etc. It would be great to see that actually take effect in game with a dynamic, evolving set of empires beyond your own, instead of every race stagnating after colonization.

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