Galactic Civilizations 2

The Boz · Post by **The Boz** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:21 am

Anyone play? Anyone like?
I love the game, it's like CIV, but two thousand and fourty two times better, and in the future to boot. AND it has an omgwtfamazing shipyard that lets you create your own gunboats, corvettes, cruisers, destroyers and dreadnoughts with oodles of bling. In 3D.
Sadly, no tactical combat, but it's nice to watch the omgbbqpwnzorizer ship you spent the last three hours making wtfpwn enemy fleets in the battle viewer.

derekiv · Post by **derekiv** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:02 am

Yep, I used to play it. Great game.

Post by **Arcalane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:11 am

I still need to get the expansions, but for tactical depth I prefer to play Space Empires. GalCiv's rock/paper/scissors system is far too simplistic in the long run.

Also, I can't play on anything above the most simple AIs because all the others seem to cheat like crazy. By the time I'm waving ships with 5 Mass Off/Def around, the AI has ships with 30-40 Mass Off/Def each, and other ridiculous BS like that.

I swear I must spend too much time researching my actual economy instead of trying to beat the everloving shit out of everyone.

Normandy · Post by **Normandy** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:47 am

^ You have my vote ^

Personally I like Space Empires better (since it's cheaper ^.^), as well as actually giving me tools to have tactical combat.

But then GalCiv has so many mods...

Space Empires is moddable but it's too niche =C.

Post by **Arcalane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:33 am

The moddability of the SE series, IMO, -far- outguns GalCiv's moddability.

SE4 has oodles of mods as well. SE5 is starting to catch up too on that front.

Neither should be played without Fyron's Quadrant Mod, for starters.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:22 am

I played for a while, but I got bored of it.

Boba Fettuccini · Post by **Boba Fettuccini** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:43 pm

I have the first, but I suck terribly aty it because i can't figure it out... neither the manual or the game itself comes with any form of tutelage.

Post by **Arcalane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:49 pm

Baaah! Jump in at the deep end!

The Boz · Post by **The Boz** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:28 pm

The AI cheats only on Gifted and above, the full AI capabilities are active at Intelligent level, without any cheating. And at Intelligent There are oodles of technologies and technology trees to choose from, and if the AI is getting his boomsticks before you are, you probably chose to upgrade your economy/science/industry/government/tourism/sensors/engines/whatever before focusing on war technologies. Furthermore, the GalCiv2 AI is completely script-free, which means it works with mods.
I've tried SEV. Although it has tactical combat, it's strategic depth isn't as deep as GalCiv2's. The AI is particularly vulnerable to certain tactics that the GalCiv2 AI is almost immune to.
Boba, the game does have tutelage in the form of video tutorials and the main story campaign.

Captain Trek · Post by **Captain Trek** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:59 pm

I've never played Space Empires, so I couldn't reall say anything about that, but regarding Gal Civ, Arcalane, did you find you wound up with a much smaller empire than the AIs did? In Gal Civ, they tend to expand well, meaning grabbing planets (and thus, good colony ship design) is critical...

Post by **Arcalane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:09 pm

Not usually. I generally underexpand to begin with, but I find that my infrastructure focus means I'm a lot stronger early on. I don't have as many planets, but I can field a lot more ships, and in some cases get entire armadas online in only a few turns. ESPECIALLY at my V.L.S.F (Very Large Starship Factory) worlds, which have been known to put out megawarships in less than 36 turns, and your average heavy fighter/megafighter in about two turns. The problem I have isn't so much that the AI focuses on it's weaponry, it's that it focuses ENTIRELY on it's weaponry to the point where I don't have a chance in hell of keeping up most of the time.

The Boz · Post by **The Boz** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:23 pm

Different AI focus on different things. The aggressive races(Arceans, Drengin, Korath, Altareans) always focus weapons, and then on defenses, invasion etc. All the races have some niche that makes them really dangerous, and it all depends on what you do with them and the rest of the galaxy. Torians whoring most of the galaxy for themselves? Time to pump your culture and diplomacy. Korx massing technologies and hording money? Time to trade with everyone else, and strike treaties. Terrans warmongering the galaxy against you? Time to... well, if the galaxy goes to war with you, it's time to load the game from 10 turns before :p These are the less obvious threats which only become dangerous on Bright level or harder. Anything below Bright will result in the warlike races dominating, usually resulting in Arcean and Altarean bullying the others.
What really really helps is to focus at the beginning. Ignore advanced terraforming and anything like that, just build colony ships and research industry->research->weapons. With that approach and if you're good, you are likely to be the first race with a combat vessel, and that gives you power. Otherwise, ignore it and focus on technology. The important thing when focusing on anything non-military is to develop trading agreements, diplomacy and influence, so that the warlike races don't decide to take you on for your technologies.
BTW, 36 turns for a megawarship on a VLSF world is a very long time. By the time I am able to build them, my primary construction worlds are capable of building a flagship dreadnought in two months max, often a month.
Try a peaceful galaxy for once. Korx, Terrans, Torians, Iconians, Drath and you on a Large or Huge galaxy, and see how creative the AI is when direct military attack isn't a common thing.

Post by **Arcalane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:45 pm

I mean seriously heavy hardware-packed Huge hulls. I haven't really played in a while so I don't honestly remember apart from the fact that in one game I must have had a Q30+ planet that was approximately 80-90% factory and had the Hyperion Shipyard Wonder on it.