I was planning on play Europa Universalis before I got distracted with this game. Unfortunately I am having issues with my economy and it SUCKS. How in the Hell do I get a viable economy without trade routes? I am in a huge galaxy with tight clusters. Any suggestions? I am still new to this game.
I am not great at GalCivII but Curious's advice is pretty much what I do to stay in the green --- it is easy to forget about the domestic screen but you do need to check and tweak it often.
One thing I would add is for building your economic planet, if you find a planet that has resources that boost monetary output, definitely focus on building your improvements there.
Keep an eye out for resources in space that you can mine for income as well with space stations, and once you're able to explore floating debris with survey ships, those can sometimes be a source of income as well. Not much, mind, but every little bit helps.
But the way I see the game working is you will be working at a loss from the start, just keep an eye on things and colonize as many high class planets as you can.
Hey there DeathQuaker. Yea. I figured out that I would be running at a loss from the get go. I have been working on my economy and so far it is fairly decent. So is my research. I just need to build up a fleet and improve my spy network. Sadly, I have 20 enemy spys infiltrating my planets and I do not have any spare spies. ~sighs~ I will have to increase the budget to deal with them ASAP.
I have also tried to get any space resurces that I can find. I missed out on a few that I did not see until too late. I will ahve to try to get them away from the AI sooner or later.
Build your planets populations as fast as possible, more people the more taxes you get.
How do you use your starbases? I know that there are three types. Military, Economic, and influence? I know that the bonuses from starbases stack with all planets withing their range and ships for a military starbase, but I am still unsure as to how to use the Influence starbases and where to put the military ones?
Also, asteriod mining. What should I do other than mine the hell out of everything?
And how do you set up your planets? Do you specialize or not?
I think I am getting the hang of this game. At least on the huge maps.
Hey Sharoth.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but IIRC mining and building starbases are the same thing. You find the little glowy green or purple or red thingies floating in space, land your constructor on them, and then they can build a starbase around them. The color of the glowy thingie determines the type of starbase it is, so you can't choose where to put it. The glowy thingie is "mined" automatically for the resources the glowy thingie provides (IIRC purple for influence, green for economic, and red for military). So all you do is set up the starbase and it adds the money, military power, or influence to your system. In the case of the Influence bases, they generate influence from the base, which helps you stretch your borders. You upgrade the starbases to get better output and to make them able to defend themselves. Be wary, if you ever play the campaign, there's a scenario where they plonk you near these lovely resources but then if you build starbases on them, it attracts impossible to kill bad guys who will destroy your bases and any nearby ships you have.
I quasi specialize--I usually have a science planet, an influence planet, and a economic planet at some point, but to a degree I want to make sure all the planets can generate a variety of useful resources.
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one thing I learned that may help is to let the population grow of your planets before you start slapping down a lot of improvements. I generally throw down a recruiting center, and a factory and let the place be for a while.
Generally I pick super-breeder as my racial ability, so I lower the tax for a while, focus on entertainment and ensuring my approval is at 100%, then after about six turns, start inching up the tax rating again until all my worlds are full of happy and cash!
Starbases:
1) Mine the hell out of everything.
2) Use Influence starbases to prevent you asteroid mines and planets from revolting against you and joining another race.
2a) Use Influence starbases to steal asteroid mines and planets from other races.
3) Economic starbases effect all of your trading routes and planets that are in their sphere of influence. Use them to give your economy a big boost. Beware of changing or canceling trade routes because doing so might render your starbase obsolete.
4) I only use military starbase to protect systems that are bordering hostile races. In a full on interstellar war the front lines shift to often to get any other benefit out of them.
5) Always always always try to claim and mine as many special resources as possible, their benefits can change the balance of a game.
6) in the early colonization stage of the game use starrbases to increase the range of your colony ships so you can claim far off systems before your opponents.
Planets:
1) I only specialize planets in the early game, after you have 10 to 20 planets, depending on the size of the map, developed you no longer need the boost.
2) Always build the appropriate structure on a planet tile that gives a production bonus.
Useful stuff, guys, thanks. If only I hadn't bought about 5 games recently, I'd go back to playing this! ;)
Economy: - Find minor races. Sell them your technology at the best price they will pay for it. It really helps keeping you in the green in the early game.
- Taxation is provided by population + banking centers. If you find a quality 18+ planet, build only 3 production facilities, one or two farms, one or two entertainment centers, a starport and put banks on the rest of things. Those planets will give the best revenue in your empire.
- Refrain from building up huge production planets early in the game, because if you don't have the population to sustain the production facilities, they will only be a big money drain.
- Try to get economic and morale resources. If your population morale bonuses are good enough, later on you can go up to 69%+ taxes and still enjoy a 100% approval rating.
Do you trade with the minor races or just with the major ones?
I haven't played GalCiv in a while, but if I'm remembering correctly trade routes are more profitable if the route is longer. I typically established trade routes as long as possible regardless of whether it was a major or minor race though I typcally went for major ones with more profitable planets if I had a choice available.
I always built one or two of each type of building on a planet, and filled any remaining build sites with research centers... I've always been a fan of the technology-victory. Probably because combat got boring after a while, especially with the race that let you virus-bomb entire planets that simultaneously terraforms part of it for you.
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Do you trade with the minor races or just with the major ones?
I trade with the minor planets, especially technologies. The main thing to know is that if a new minor race shows up with all your techs, send ships to destroy them asap. They've stolen all your tech and will trade them to your enemies. And take advantage of the ones who come to you offering you your enemies' techs before they're destroyed. You almost always get better deals from the minor races than you ever do with enemies.
As far as trade routes go, it's tricky, because minor races almost always get attacked sooner or later, making the trade routes dangerous and dropping them when the war gets hot. Early in the game minor race trade routes are useful, though.
I have been playing as the Yor and the Iconians. Humans were relatively easy. The Dregans are a PIA to play. They remind me too much of Miriam from SMAC. OTOH, I would not mind giving them a shot again just for the frustration factor.
What races do you all enjoy playing and what strategies do you use? What AI settings, galaxy size, and number of opponents do you pick? What race do you like the least and why?
Also, how in the Hell do you steal techs from the AI? I have yet to be able to do so.
Hmmnnn... ~taps my fingers on the desk and thinks~ Should the Yor be Neutral or Evil? Both have their pluses and minuses.
It's been a year or two since I played it - I always play Humans I try to go economic and tech as fast as possible.
I love designing my own ships - I have made some (very bad) x-wing, enterprise, and star fury....
I wish there was a bab 5 mod....
The ship creation is the only reason it's on my hard drive. I can't actually play the game to save my life, but the ship creation is a fun way to kill time.
Do you trade with the minor races or just with the major ones?
Since I tend to play Diplomacy monsters, I later on like to trade a lot with the other major races... I get very good deals out of it. Of course you shouldn't give them all your weapons and armor, but rather more conventional stuff. Early on, I sometimes trade at an disadvantage, if I try to get an absolutely vital technology, like planet colonization ones when I got that juicy 24 quality planet with sadly the wrong atmosphere in my reach. ^^
One of the main advantages of playing a high diplomacy race is that you can set the rest of the universe against each other with ease. Just pay a bit to this or that race to go to war against that other one... if you know their natural proclivities well, it is easy as pie.
I wish there was a bab 5 mod....
There is something, no idea how advanced it is. You gotta check around the web. I think there are links on the main site to modding stuff, but no idea anymore where that was.