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Which planets should be doing what construction?
Obvious suggestions: always opt to increase production on a planet, but other than that, chose military projects for the frontier planets and social/research projects for the interior planets. Beyond this, any planet I've colonized has built
"Soil Enhancement" followed by "Schools" and then
Entertainment Network". The strategy of building Schools and then Soil Enhancement was proposed also. Dave Chaloux generated a quick-n-dirty project comparison table that indicated Soil Enhancement should be of better use for research than Schools.
To investigate these schemes, I did some testing on a class 16 planet with one resource unit allocated to social projects. I selected either Schools (S) or Soil Enhancement (SE). I ran this until I was tired of it, about 4 pairs of trials. Other conditions: spending was 68%, tax rate was 28%, social/ research/military was 24/50/26, research path was Gen Cold
Fusion (GCF), Impulse Drive (ID), and Universal Translator
(UT), no ship building, build Entertainment Net (EN) after the other two where finished, time span - 2179-2202. Results:
Soil Enhancement by a nose. After SE was completed, all other projects and research finished 1 year faster than for S.
Population growth was a bit faster, about 3-5%, and final population (year 2202) was always higher, by as much as 13k
(303k vs. 290k). Another note, population only increases on even numbered years. Last result, the system has a bit of randomness in it. Population growth can vary a few percent, but even when the SE population was initially behind the S population, it always surpassed it once SE was completed.
While either project is good, SE may have just that slight bit of edge in a tight race. Hopefully, your strategy doesn't rely on such a narrow margin!
OK, I go out and test this little aspect of the game, and somebody (by the name of Mark Manville), goes and gums up the works by suggesting spending at the rate of 100% (looking at it solely from the research/social project end), building SE,
S, followed by University (U) and then going gung ho on the research. I added the alternative test of building EN instead of U, and just going straight for all research and then building. Some things are very clear. While you do get the techs very fast spending all your money and resources on research, you end up lagging so far behind in population that it is not a good strategy. The rest of the results in a nutshell are that U is a wrong choice of project, EN is better. Population stays happier longer and has a higher peak
(100%!). Because EN takes 3 less years to build, research is started much earlier and gives you impulse drive by 2194. U gets it by 2198. These dates may be +/- one year, but not four, or even 2. The quickest path to ID is to build SE, S and _then_ go hog wild on research. You can get ID by 2191.
By contrast, the first paths mentioned above give you ID by
2194. Building SE, S and then going for research and then attempting to build EN leaves you bit strapped for reserves, so it doesn't get built by 2202. However, this route does push your population in 2202 to as high as 394k. Using EN as the last social project and then doing research pushed the population to 432k. All of these scenarios were simplified by my not including ship building. I also kept forgetting to change that new resource unit that popped up at 300k people, but that happened long after the 200 bc reserve had been depleted so the affect would have been minimal. My take?
100% social to EN, then slam into research until you pick up
Galactic Trade and Galactic Diplomacy. As for ships, build what you need. They are a distraction/money sink away from these projects but you _have_ to build them, so do it. And, thanks, Mark!
Aside from a Battlestar, are there really any better ships than a starfighter?
Yes, there are. From reading the net posts, the most commonly used ships for offense are Battle Hammers,
Interceptors, and Battle Ships. Interceptors, with their superlative speed, are good for scouting out what, if any, enemy ships are approaching the area. Use the interceptor as a lure to drag the enemy ships away from the vulnerable system. Interceptors are just good enough to try and whomp the occasional transport. However, they will often take damage from these attacks, so caution is advised. Battle
Hammers are a poor man's battle ship. Yes, they can take out
a Battle Ship now and then. But, they will often take damage from such an encounter. The AI will usually not attack a ship at full strength but seldom lets a wounded foe escape. The
Battle Ship (and its off-spring) is the queen of the battle field. Keep one or more handy near the home worlds for defense and send the rest out on conquest. Watch the damage they accumulate. If one takes too much, send it home for repairs.
They cost too much to try and rebuild from scratch. In addition, Battle Cruisers are a good ship when you can't build
Battle Hammers. They are cheaper than Battle Axes, with a better defense and higher speed.
For defense, the Defender, in orbit, is a good ship. If you opt to be a good player (or you manage to trade for it), the
Corvette is an excellent ship on defense. In orbit, it can take the occasional Battle Ship. This is definitely worth it!
As for the other ships, one of the most important is the transport. Although I have yet to use this strategy, it would seem that building some transports on a planet when it's not doing any other projects is a good idea. You can blast the opposing star fleet to radioactive debris but you've done nothing unless you can invade! Note that all ships in orbit are considered to be defending that planet/system so that you can lose those ships if that system is attacked.
And for completeness, the colony ship is, of course, without peer for being important! Next, try the freighter. Without enough revenue from trade, your dreams of empire will most likely come to naught. I would suggest holding a few freighters in reserve for the inevitable lose of a trade or two during a conflict.
OK, I built my silly transport, how does it work?
First, load up the transport with enough troops. A transport can hold up to 500 legions. When clicking the RMB on a transport in orbit, one of the options is to [add troops].
Note that troops come from you planets population. Next,
Ground combat! Take the transport to the enemy system and move it onto the system marker. If there wasn't a shield attached to the lower right corner of the system marker, then the Ground Combat window pops up. The window is divided between you and your opponent, each showing the number of troops involved and a flashing pair numbers that represent some sort bonus factors. When the moment is opportune (i.e.- you have a higher bonus than the enemy), click the LMB in the window or hit the [enter] key. The bonus range is influenced by your technology advantage over your opponent. It also reflects the fact that you control the space over your opponent's planet. The actual casualty ratio reflects the ratio of the combat bonuses and how well the planet was defended by projects such as the Military Academy, Ground
Defense, etc. (as a note, some people are finding that a fully-laden transport appears to be a fairly potent attack vessel. don't count on this. this was a problem in one of the rounds of the beta, and it was generally believed to have been fixed. it will doubtless get "fixed" again soon. Supposedly, any ship with a 0 attack should lose a combat if it attacks.)
What about the other ships? (this is also a request for experience)
The destroyer looks interesting. Faster than a battle cruiser, but not as defensible, slower than an interceptor but better armed...is it worth it? I'm trying them out and we'll see....
Stealth cruiser...zippo for defense, but packs a whollop and is fairly cheap. plus, the enemy CAN'T track them! Good for sneaking around and whompin' the back country or ambushing that marauding battleship. They appear to be worth their cost. In fact, coupled with the Phasing Dread, they can make a potent attack force for an invasion. A Phasing Dread can take out a Battleship in orbit. Of course, it does lose now and then, but at 130 cost to 600, it's a bargain!
I'm getting some crazy swapper growth. What did you guys do?
Can't you write a simple video game? Where's my lawyer???
Swapper growth was one of the most trying problems we had with GalCiv. Because there are few large scale games (at the time of GalCiv, there are no others that we know of), many of
OS/2's more obscure API calls were not well tested. As a result, tiny leaks in OS/2 never got caught. Lucky for us, GalCiv uses those calls a lot and those tiny leaks add up. There are, however, some solutions to the problem (if you are getting it).
#1 Make sure you have GalCiv v1.01c or later. It works around most of OS/2's leaks.
#2 MOST IMPORTANT: Set your swapper file size to default to at least 8 megabytes. This can be done by going to the config.sys and changing the second number in the swapper path statment to 8092. We do not know why this works but in my experience, this completely eliminates swapper growth. I theorize that once your swapper starts to grow in OS/2 (particularly OS/2
3.0) it will just grow and grow and grow. By the way, this advice applies to every OS/2 app, not just
GalCiv.
#3 If you are still getting growth, try turning off the sound and making sure Fastload (Windows) isn't activated.
#4 If none of the above work, contact IBM or SDS or
AIMS.
I haven't bought GalCiv yet. What other games is it like?
It is most like Civilization with respect to the fact that you are trying to create a civilization. It is like Empire in terms of how you work you strategy. Each ship is its own unit.
It also combines some elements of Masters of Orion since you can win the game by forming a united galaxy and diplomacy is a much more important aspect of the game than in Civilization or
Empire.
I really like GalCiv but I miss the feature in Masters of Orion where I could design my own ships. Is there any way to make
GalCiv more like Masters of Orion?
REAL SOON, 1995, SDS will be releasing Shipyards for GalCiv which will be an add on that lets you do just that. When
Shipyards is installed, a new button will appear on the icon bar that will let you create new ships. Your opponents will also be able to build their own ships. You can even choose how your ship will look like. One added feature is that you can "steal" ship designs from your opponents.
Is it easier to win by being good or evil? Where's the payoff for being a good guy?
Being a nice guy has never meant that you get rewarded. It works like this though, good guys are treated better by other nice civilizations. Being a bad guy offers a lot of short term benefits but good civilizations will likely come after you while other evil civilizations won't lift a finger to help you. There are about a dozen technologies available only to good guys (there are also about 10 technologies only available to evil players too).
I've been hearing a lot about GalCiv but where I live there are no stores that carry OS/2 software. How can I get GalCiv?
The best thing you can do is to try to get your store to carry it. However, if that doesn't work, you can order it from numerous sources including SDS. SDS's number is (313)782-2248
(FAX: 313-782-9868). All you need is a credit card (or you can order it COD). They'll need your name, address, city, zip, credit card number and expiration date. A distributor called
Micro Central will be the place to tell stores that they can get it from.
I don't have OS/2, just Windows 3.1. Will there be a Windows 3.1 version of GalCiv?
No.
How do I repair my ships?
Take them home. A ship can only be repaired by placing it in orbit about its home-WORLD, not system, nor any other planet in that system. The easiest way to do this is to hit the
[GO HOME] button on the bottom of screen in the ship status display window.
What does it mean that this game has a configurable set-up?
For me, it means that I can move the quadrant map to the left hand side of the screen, move the button bar to the middle and over-draw the graphs and button bar with my star map. If I need the other two, I use the RMB to pop them up.
Who the hell is this John Martz guy??? Some GalCiv god-wannaby or what?
Actually, John's just someone that was willing to engage in a few rounds of e-mail discussions of strategy and tactics
Which planets should be doing what construction?
Obvious suggestions: always opt to increase production on a planet, but other than that, chose military projects for the frontier planets and social/research projects for the interior planets. Beyond this, any planet I've colonized has built
"Soil Enhancement" followed by "Schools" and then
Entertainment Network". The strategy of building Schools and then Soil Enhancement was proposed also. Dave Chaloux generated a quick-n-dirty project comparison table that indicated Soil Enhancement should be of better use for research than Schools.
To investigate these schemes, I did some testing on a class 16 planet with one resource unit allocated to social projects. I selected either Schools (S) or Soil Enhancement (SE). I ran this until I was tired of it, about 4 pairs of trials. Other conditions: spending was 68%, tax rate was 28%, social/ research/military was 24/50/26, research path was Gen Cold
Fusion (GCF), Impulse Drive (ID), and Universal Translator
(UT), no ship building, build Entertainment Net (EN) after the other two where finished, time span - 2179-2202. Results:
Soil Enhancement by a nose. After SE was completed, all other projects and research finished 1 year faster than for S.
Population growth was a bit faster, about 3-5%, and final population (year 2202) was always higher, by as much as 13k
(303k vs. 290k). Another note, population only increases on even numbered years. Last result, the system has a bit of randomness in it. Population growth can vary a few percent, but even when the SE population was initially behind the S population, it always surpassed it once SE was completed.
While either project is good, SE may have just that slight bit of edge in a tight race. Hopefully, your strategy doesn't rely on such a narrow margin!
OK, I go out and test this little aspect of the game, and somebody (by the name of Mark Manville), goes and gums up the works by suggesting spending at the rate of 100% (looking at it solely from the research/social project end), building SE,
S, followed by University (U) and then going gung ho on the research. I added the alternative test of building EN instead of U, and just going straight for all research and then building. Some things are very clear. While you do get the techs very fast spending all your money and resources on research, you end up lagging so far behind in population that it is not a good strategy. The rest of the results in a nutshell are that U is a wrong choice of project, EN is better. Population stays happier longer and has a higher peak
(100%!). Because EN takes 3 less years to build, research is started much earlier and gives you impulse drive by 2194. U gets it by 2198. These dates may be +/- one year, but not four, or even 2. The quickest path to ID is to build SE, S and _then_ go hog wild on research. You can get ID by 2191.
By contrast, the first paths mentioned above give you ID by
2194. Building SE, S and then going for research and then attempting to build EN leaves you bit strapped for reserves, so it doesn't get built by 2202. However, this route does push your population in 2202 to as high as 394k. Using EN as the last social project and then doing research pushed the population to 432k. All of these scenarios were simplified by my not including ship building. I also kept forgetting to change that new resource unit that popped up at 300k people, but that happened long after the 200 bc reserve had been depleted so the affect would have been minimal. My take?
100% social to EN, then slam into research until you pick up
Galactic Trade and Galactic Diplomacy. As for ships, build what you need. They are a distraction/money sink away from these projects but you _have_ to build them, so do it. And, thanks, Mark!
Aside from a Battlestar, are there really any better ships than a starfighter?
Yes, there are. From reading the net posts, the most commonly used ships for offense are Battle Hammers,
Interceptors, and Battle Ships. Interceptors, with their superlative speed, are good for scouting out what, if any, enemy ships are approaching the area. Use the interceptor as a lure to drag the enemy ships away from the vulnerable system. Interceptors are just good enough to try and whomp the occasional transport. However, they will often take damage from these attacks, so caution is advised. Battle
Hammers are a poor man's battle ship. Yes, they can take out
a Battle Ship now and then. But, they will often take damage from such an encounter. The AI will usually not attack a ship at full strength but seldom lets a wounded foe escape. The
Battle Ship (and its off-spring) is the queen of the battle field. Keep one or more handy near the home worlds for defense and send the rest out on conquest. Watch the damage they accumulate. If one takes too much, send it home for repairs.
They cost too much to try and rebuild from scratch. In addition, Battle Cruisers are a good ship when you can't build
Battle Hammers. They are cheaper than Battle Axes, with a better defense and higher speed.
For defense, the Defender, in orbit, is a good ship. If you opt to be a good player (or you manage to trade for it), the
Corvette is an excellent ship on defense. In orbit, it can take the occasional Battle Ship. This is definitely worth it!
As for the other ships, one of the most important is the transport. Although I have yet to use this strategy, it would seem that building some transports on a planet when it's not doing any other projects is a good idea. You can blast the opposing star fleet to radioactive debris but you've done nothing unless you can invade! Note that all ships in orbit are considered to be defending that planet/system so that you can lose those ships if that system is attacked.
And for completeness, the colony ship is, of course, without peer for being important! Next, try the freighter. Without enough revenue from trade, your dreams of empire will most likely come to naught. I would suggest holding a few freighters in reserve for the inevitable lose of a trade or two during a conflict.
OK, I built my silly transport, how does it work?
First, load up the transport with enough troops. A transport can hold up to 500 legions. When clicking the RMB on a transport in orbit, one of the options is to [add troops].
Note that troops come from you planets population. Next,
Ground combat! Take the transport to the enemy system and move it onto the system marker. If there wasn't a shield attached to the lower right corner of the system marker, then the Ground Combat window pops up. The window is divided between you and your opponent, each showing the number of troops involved and a flashing pair numbers that represent some sort bonus factors. When the moment is opportune (i.e.- you have a higher bonus than the enemy), click the LMB in the window or hit the [enter] key. The bonus range is influenced by your technology advantage over your opponent. It also reflects the fact that you control the space over your opponent's planet. The actual casualty ratio reflects the ratio of the combat bonuses and how well the planet was defended by projects such as the Military Academy, Ground
Defense, etc. (as a note, some people are finding that a fully-laden transport appears to be a fairly potent attack vessel. don't count on this. this was a problem in one of the rounds of the beta, and it was generally believed to have been fixed. it will doubtless get "fixed" again soon. Supposedly, any ship with a 0 attack should lose a combat if it attacks.)
What about the other ships? (this is also a request for experience)
The destroyer looks interesting. Faster than a battle cruiser, but not as defensible, slower than an interceptor but better armed...is it worth it? I'm trying them out and we'll see....
Stealth cruiser...zippo for defense, but packs a whollop and is fairly cheap. plus, the enemy CAN'T track them! Good for sneaking around and whompin' the back country or ambushing that marauding battleship. They appear to be worth their cost. In fact, coupled with the Phasing Dread, they can make a potent attack force for an invasion. A Phasing Dread can take out a Battleship in orbit. Of course, it does lose now and then, but at 130 cost to 600, it's a bargain!
I'm getting some crazy swapper growth. What did you guys do?
Can't you write a simple video game? Where's my lawyer???
Swapper growth was one of the most trying problems we had with GalCiv. Because there are few large scale games (at the time of GalCiv, there are no others that we know of), many of
OS/2's more obscure API calls were not well tested. As a result, tiny leaks in OS/2 never got caught. Lucky for us, GalCiv uses those calls a lot and those tiny leaks add up. There are, however, some solutions to the problem (if you are getting it).
#1 Make sure you have GalCiv v1.01c or later. It works around most of OS/2's leaks.
#2 MOST IMPORTANT: Set your swapper file size to default to at least 8 megabytes. This can be done by going to the config.sys and changing the second number in the swapper path statment to 8092. We do not know why this works but in my experience, this completely eliminates swapper growth. I theorize that once your swapper starts to grow in OS/2 (particularly OS/2
3.0) it will just grow and grow and grow. By the way, this advice applies to every OS/2 app, not just
GalCiv.
#3 If you are still getting growth, try turning off the sound and making sure Fastload (Windows) isn't activated.
#4 If none of the above work, contact IBM or SDS or
AIMS.
I haven't bought GalCiv yet. What other games is it like?
It is most like Civilization with respect to the fact that you are trying to create a civilization. It is like Empire in terms of how you work you strategy. Each ship is its own unit.
It also combines some elements of Masters of Orion since you can win the game by forming a united galaxy and diplomacy is a much more important aspect of the game than in Civilization or
Empire.
I really like GalCiv but I miss the feature in Masters of Orion where I could design my own ships. Is there any way to make
GalCiv more like Masters of Orion?
REAL SOON, 1995, SDS will be releasing Shipyards for GalCiv which will be an add on that lets you do just that. When
Shipyards is installed, a new button will appear on the icon bar that will let you create new ships. Your opponents will also be able to build their own ships. You can even choose how your ship will look like. One added feature is that you can "steal" ship designs from your opponents.
Is it easier to win by being good or evil? Where's the payoff for being a good guy?
Being a nice guy has never meant that you get rewarded. It works like this though, good guys are treated better by other nice civilizations. Being a bad guy offers a lot of short term benefits but good civilizations will likely come after you while other evil civilizations won't lift a finger to help you. There are about a dozen technologies available only to good guys (there are also about 10 technologies only available to evil players too).
I've been hearing a lot about GalCiv but where I live there are no stores that carry OS/2 software. How can I get GalCiv?
The best thing you can do is to try to get your store to carry it. However, if that doesn't work, you can order it from numerous sources including SDS. SDS's number is (313)782-2248
(FAX: 313-782-9868). All you need is a credit card (or you can order it COD). They'll need your name, address, city, zip, credit card number and expiration date. A distributor called
Micro Central will be the place to tell stores that they can get it from.
I don't have OS/2, just Windows 3.1. Will there be a Windows 3.1 version of GalCiv?
No.
How do I repair my ships?
Take them home. A ship can only be repaired by placing it in orbit about its home-WORLD, not system, nor any other planet in that system. The easiest way to do this is to hit the
[GO HOME] button on the bottom of screen in the ship status display window.
What does it mean that this game has a configurable set-up?
For me, it means that I can move the quadrant map to the left hand side of the screen, move the button bar to the middle and over-draw the graphs and button bar with my star map. If I need the other two, I use the RMB to pop them up.
Who the hell is this John Martz guy??? Some GalCiv god-wannaby or what?
Actually, John's just someone that was willing to engage in a few rounds of e-mail discussions of strategy and tactics
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- Galactic Civilizations (1998) hints by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
Getting started - Galactic Civilizations (1998) FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50