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FAQ's - Galactic Civilizations
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by Senator Drengin - 5/21/2004 3:38:56 PM
Here you may find the answer to your questions........
To all readers & posters.
If you have something to contribute to this thread then please post it.
However please do not use this thread for ANY chat. The purpose of this thread is to provide a permanent home for any FAQ's you might have, or may wish to submit for others to use.
If this thread is used as a chat thread it will be removed from its 'sticky' status.
Thank you.
          
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Q: What tech does it take to get antimatter missles? (or any other tech/project/ship)?
A: Please refer to JavaScout's Galactic Civilzation Database for all your tech tree questions:
 Link
This site is a gold mine of information.
     
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Q: What is the best strategy? How do I beat MASO? Even playing on normal my morale is going in the toilet, how do I stop it?
A: There are many different winning strategies, it depends on the style of game you like to play, the difficulty level, and galaxy you choose to play in (size, abundance of planets).
There are many posts on strategy hints in the GC Strategy forum at:
Link
It's worth scrolling down to see some of the older threads that you might not be able to view on Stardock Central. If you're a newbie and want to get better, it's worth the time to read through the old posts.
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Q: The other empires despise me...everybody's HOSTILE! I don't want to go to war with everybody. What can I do?
A: No matter what difficulty or map size you play at, in order to improve your relationships with the other AIs you can do several things:
First, choose Diplomacy as a starting pick. There is no other pick as strong as this and a combination of the Populists party (+20% Diplo) and +60% Diplo pick will do wonders.
Second, trade. The other empires won't be as quick to go to war with you if you are generating money for them. Send freighters out to the AIs who are the most unfriendly, pronto.
Third, bribe. Send the empire what you consider to be a useless tech or a few BCs. Learn what techs the AIs research and try to research the ones they don't concentrate on. A good example of an early tech to use is Basic Logistics. The AIs never seem to research this until later so it's a good one to "gift".
If all else fails, you need to boost your military rating. The AIs will try to snuggle with you if you are much stronger than them militarily. If diplomacy, trade and bribes don't keep the AIs off your back, several frigates and battle hammers seem to do the trick well! Oddly, the AIs will trade you their military for some strange things. Try offering them a couple of techs for their ships. Remember, every ship you take from their fleet and add to yours switches the miltary strength that much more! 
   
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#5
by Veteran fsk5809 - 5/24/2004 8:09:15 PM
Q: How come when I build "nothing", I still have to pay for it. Shouldn't I get my money back?
A: This has been long debated, and many players are unhappy with this feature. Stardock's justification is that it makes it easier for the AI and reduces micromanagement.
Notice that, for military production, building a constructor is usually better than building nothing, although constructors have an upkeep of 1 now and starbases cost progressively more to build due to logistics costs. For social production, you can build wonders and trade goods on the planets that are ahead. Plus, you can use +production starbases or terror stars to even out production among your planets.
Notice that, even late in the game, it's cheaper building "nothing" on most worlds than rush-building social projects on newly acquired worlds.
Hopefully, Galciv II won't have this problem.
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Q: Why do some turns take much longer than the others when I press the turn button?
That's because GalCiv has an autosave feature that will save your game every X turns, where X is your current autosave setting. By default GalCiv autosaves your game every 12 turns, but you can change that - while in your game, press ESC to get to the game menu, and on the right side you will find a slider to set the amount of turns between each save.
Especially on Huge / Gigantic galaxies, saving can take quite a while, so it usually makes for a better game if you increase the amount of turns between each save.
  
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Q: How do I know if the AI will accept a trade in diplomatic screen?
A: Look at the color of the proposed trade. It it is green, the AI will accept it. If it is yellow, the AI will refuse it. It should be noted that when moving BC or influence sliders, the color of the text adjusts immediately.
   
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Q: Any tips on using the Mods ?
Stardock approved mods should be safe ?
Are they always safe ?
Are Changes easily undone ?
 
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PART II (of #6 by Veteran Theoden of Rohan)
Q: The other empires despise me...everybody's HOSTILE! I don't want to go to war with everybody. What can I do?
Another trick for all game levels but MASO is to trade techs for cash to all AI equally.
When they have no cash trade techs for techs.
When they have no cash or techs to trade and they are not diplomatically close to you, trade techs for influence points.
Trade everything but Diplomacy type techs.
When done correctly the AI's economy will be lowered and they will also become closer diplomatically to you thus preventing them from going to war with you.
The side benefit is a greater influx of cash into your empire.
***note: To a degree this will also work for MASO, but the MASO AI does not like to trade techs for cash.
[Message Edited]
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Question: On the metaverse submission in-game after you win, do I put half of my email address and stop at the already put in @ and then put in the rest or what?! I need exact instructions for getting into the metaverse!! PLEASE HELP ME!!!! 
  
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you have:
"first part of email address" the @ is already there "second part of the address with the dot in it"
in the lower field
exemple:
[bob_me]@[somewere.com]
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my first couple posts got eaten. let's see if this one works:
a little out of date. i last updated in sep 2003.
Link
Any advantage to mulitple Starbases in a single sector?
#1 by Citizen David Schapira - 3/29/2003 2:50:24AM
yes, all bonuses stack, except for bonuses that only affect that Starbases sefense bonus (those modules of the Defense variety). Keep in mind that there are upper-level caps for military and social productionj for each planet class (these are VERY high, however). If you really want to supercharge your production, build up to three fully loaded production starbases in a sector.
(also, a starbase now require upkeep of 10bc now - russellmz)
Domestic Policy
What are some good beginner strategies?
There are a lot of tips on the GalCiv forums.
How do I keep morale up?
#2 by Veteran mindlar - 4/1/2003 2:57:52 PM
The morale problem is something that has been around for quite a while. There are several ways to manage the problems that an empire will face not all of which involve sending your people into oblivion.
There are a few ways to effectively raise morale:
1) Lower taxes
2) Build social improvements that help morale
3) Only colonize good planets (i.e. 15+)
4) Research techs that boost morale.
5) Build/buy trade goods that boost morale.
6) Build/improve starbases on morale improvements.
7) Built colony ships/transports to remove population.
8) Spend money on propaganda.
9) Wait for the population to decline (morale 50)
Ways to lower morale:
1) Raise taxes.
2) Be destabilized by another empire.
3) Wait for population to grow. (morale below 40).
4) Have a treasury balance below 0.
All things being equal, morale will tend to head towards 40-50 if left alone as that is the break even point for the population growth/morale curve.
As Horatio said, espionage can tell you who is destabilizing you. You will need to spend a fair amount of money over time, but it is generally worth it.
How are population, Planet Quality(PQ), taxes, and morale related?
by Avatar Frogboy - 4/10/2003 7:13:59PM
If only 100 people lived on a class 15 planet, it would have 89% of them thinking you're doing okay.
Think of that as your base morale rating in GalCiv. Less than class 15 planets are just death traps anyway.
Class Bonus Morale
15 0 89%
16 7 96%
17 14 103%
18 21 110%
19 29 118%
20 36 125%
21 44 133%
22 51 140%
23 59 148%
24 67 156%
25 75 164%
26 84 173%
Getting people on the planet can tick them off.
Pop(b) Penalty
1 -32%
2 -63%
3 -95%
4 -126%
5 -158%
6 -190%
7 -221%
8 -253%
9 -285%
10 -316%
Then there's your tax rate penalty.
Tax Rate Penalty
10% -1%
20% -4%
30% -9%
40% -16%
50% -25%
60% -36%
70% -49%
80% -64%
90% -81%
100% -100%
These are the 3 basic things that affect morale. There are many others including your civ ability, debt penalties, destabilization, etc. But these 3 are the big things.
Cool, but How Do I Get Money?
Happy People = Money
Build economy enhancing improvements and don't purchase them build them.
Use the % spending slider to keep your budget balanced
Trade, Trade, Trade
Sell Tech (and the AI seems more likely to buy it if you do it over time ex. the Altarians wouldn't buy the universal translator for 120BC but would buy it for 10BC for 12 turns).
Lower Taxes as your economy grows.
Build morale enhancing social improvements as necessary to keep your people happy.
So far money hasn't been a problem for me and I believe that is due to the fact that I am patient and allow improvements to be built over time instead of purchasing them up front (which is really, really expensive!)
In my current game I've got the tax rate all the way down to 20%, have the spending slider set to a point where I have a positive 100BC/turn, can build most stuff in less than a year (most in less than 6 months) and have a balance of over 7000BC (which allows me to purchase stuff in an emergency).
I'm playing as a Diplomat/Trader and everyone loves me - so far anyway!
--
Maddog
Foreign Policy
How do I make an Alliance?
Alliances are hard to do. You must have Alliance technology. The empire you want to ally with must also have Alliance technology. Your relations must be close. When you are in the diplomatic details screen (you see the animated head of the other empire's leader) you can choose Alliance under the Treaties list.
What are the Belua and Pirates?
#2 by Citizen David Schapira - 3/31/2003 3:18:15PM
Belua is the space shark. Pirates will appear at various times in the game and will attack freighers and starbases.
After getting to Advanced level of espionage on another civ., do I have to keep spending to maintain it or can I cut espionage down to 0?
From: Brad Wardell ( Email)
You can cut it way down, but espionage does tend to fade over time since
it's based on how much you spent versus their population.
Brad
What good is espionage and destabilization?
#4 by Avatar Frogboy - 4/8/2003 10:11:03 PM
Destabilization is cummulative. The longer you do it, the more it hurts them.
Does trading techs to other AI make people that don't like them unhappy?
#1 by Citizen BuzuBuzu - 6/5/2003 10:45:41 PM
The enemy AIs are not privvy to what techs you trade with other AIs, so they shouldn't get mad if you trade something to one of their enemies.
How do I initiate UP issues?
Unfortunately, you can't. I think they will be modded eventually.
Why does the Senate vote against my war?
#1 by Citizen Horatio - 3/29/2003 8:07:17 PM
you need to boost your approval rating - declaring war is like a mini-election. try lowering taxes and/or building morale improvements or increasing propaganda.
What do the trade goods that I "build" do? (Aphrodisiacs, Frictionless Clothing, etc.)
The freighters trade "misc. goods" regardless of your "Trade Goods" status. Trade Goods are things you INVENT which have significant impact on your civilization (Aphrodisiacs - 30% pop growth, Frictionless Clothing - 20% morale improvement IIRC, etc.). These INVENTIONS are unique to your civilization and you can "license" them to others via the diplomacy screen (once you license them the other civ benefits from them as you did).
EX: You click on your Aphrodisiacs and then click on the other civs $ section and tweak the numbers until the bid is in the green which means acceptable (100 bc for 50 months as an example).
--
Joe M.
How does Sector/Cultural Influence work?
Brad explains in an article.
Research
About tech...
Here is Za H's Tech Tree Image
Mirror at Tripod
Mirror at galciv.bsd.st
JavaScout's amazing Galactic Civilizations Database lists all the techs, their atrributes, and also has tech tree images.
Ships
Why won't my survey ship Auto-survey after I order them to?
If there aren't anomalies around to survey it can't survey them.
Brad
Why do some of my ships and star bases have small electricity bolts flashing over them when there have been no battles?
If you learn a tech that increases hit points, then the total hit points go up but your current ships stay with their current hit points and show up as damaged. They will repair themselves over time. Todd
Fleet Questions answered by Brad Wardell:
So why don't you have fleet combat in GalCiv?
Because we don't want fleets to be a tactical advantage.
Why not?
Because then the game would end up where you had a handful of "Super fleets" ala MOO or HOMM that go around the game.
Why would that be bad?
Because GalCiv's map is free form. It's not a bunch of jump points or very distinct paths. Ships can move anywhere. A handful of super fleets would take away a lot of the strategy of the game because GalCiv is ultimately about clashes of civilizations, not tactical combat. It's about who is building the superior civilization. Therefore we want our game to be won by the people who can create the strongest economies, the most powerufl industries, the most advanced technologies. Not the guy who has managed to out tactically fight.
Rommel was a great tactician but the allies were the ones with such immense logistical superiority that they had enoguh spare room to send over chocolate bars and cake across the ocean.
Planets
In the planet view screen, what does it mean when some icons are lowered?
#1 by Citizen Cataleptic - 3/31/2003 11:04:54PM
Big ones are worth ten small ones.
What does population represent?
Planetary poulations are not the real population, just the number of tax payers (citizens).
Brad
AI
Does the Ai cheat?
At levels below Intelligent it receives less than a human from taxes. At Intelligent it receives the same. Above it gets more. Also, the AI knows where all the yellow stars and galactic resources are, but this is explained in the backstory as they traveled the stars much longer than humans. Note: Frogboy's numbers may be higher for the upper level AIs now since there have been several updates to make the AIs tougher.
#10 by Avatar Frogboy - 4/3/2003 5:25:02 PM
AI does not exceed range on ships.
Every time someone has emailed me about this "bug" or "Cheat" I've found that there is a starbase or something that the AI has built to extend their range.
Similarly, AI doesn't know where ships are outside its sensor range. I wish it did because about 30% of the time spent CPU wise by the AI is calculating whether a given ship is in sensor range.
AI has to research the same techs you do.
AI doesn't know the quality of planets before hand. It only knows where yellow stars.
#7 by Diplomat Louis-guy reid - 3/29/2003 7:25:58AM
Here is a report of Brad's comments on intelligence
Intelligence
One of the things we did do during the release candidates is make the game much easier to win on the lower levels. We found that experienced strategy gamers would get creamed even when the AI was set to "fool".
But at the same time, at the medium to higher levels, the AI is much more intelligent than it was in the betas. In fact, the beta GalCiv AI was, well pretty crummy compared to the gold version in terms of intelligence (not saying the gold is "harder" to beat, but that the AI is more intelligent in how it behaves).
In the betas, each AI level simply increased the intelligence rating of the player by say 15 points. Here's the problem we had with that:
You'd play on "normal" and get a challenge and then you'd up it a level and get creamed. So a lot of the extra month of development was spend play testing and adding more difficulty levels.
So now each computer player can indvidually be set to the following difficulty levels:
[IntLevel0] 4 Fool
[IntLevel1] 14 Beginner
[IntLevel2] 36 Sub-Normal
[IntLevel3] 42 Normal
[IntLevel4] 50 Bright
[IntLevel5] 60 Intelligent
[IntLevel6] 65 Genius
[IntLevel7] 100 Incredible
With the corresponding intelligence being 4, 14, 36, 42, 50, 60, 65, 100.
We may tweak these or add more after released based on what you guys say.
So now, you have sub-normal, normal, bright, intelligent and genius quite close together. I have not personally won with all the AI's set to genius on a medium sized map or higher. And incredible is just, well the AI gets lots of extra stuff.
Speaking of extra stuff, how do the resources get handled?
The intelligence ratings do two things: 1) They determine how much money they get from colonies.
So in pColony->CalcTaxesCollected() at the end it gets:
ulTaxes = ulTaxes * (40 + ulIntelligence);
So at intelligence = 60 (intelligent) it's getting the same from a colony as you. At Genius it's getting a bit more. And at incredible, all bets are off.
The other way intelligence matters is that it determines whether the AI is going to
a) Do a thorough analysis on what players are doing
b) Which AI scripts are available to use, and
c) Determines whether the AI is going to do anything about it.
Example:
An AI with intelligence 60 will be able to check out its sensor areas and see if you are building up for an attack, fortifying starbases, trying to culturally dominate it, etc. It will then have to roll to see if it is going to do anything about it. I.e. "Do I recognize this as a threat or am I too dumb to see this?". If it rolls that it is going to recognize the threat then it has to roll whether it's goign to actually do anything about it. And if it is going to do something about it then it rolls to see if it will tell the human player about it (if it's a human player that is the threat).
IF the AI FAILS the roll, the human player gets a message from the AI letting it know it's on to what it's doing. Otherwise it quietly lowers relations and prepares for a war.
If you play on say Genius, and build up star bases and ships in a sector you're planning to attack you'll notice ships from other sectors quietly coming in to fortify. Fighters shadowing your transports. Etc.
But on lower intelligence levels, none of this happens. Which is one of the changes. So when you get the game, on Fool and Beginner you should be able to play the game without getting creamed now. This is different than it was in the beta when fool was = Int 15 and the next one up was 30.
by Avatar Frogboy - 3/5/2003 4:02:14PM
Adrenaline Vault reviewed GalCiv, and all but stated that the AI cheated. This was amended fairly quickly after Brad explained that the AI was not cheating in this Avault thread.
Why is it that the Torians totally dominate the galaxy but are unable to successfully invade planets?
#1 by Veteran Za H - 5/11/2003 2:44:37 PM
It might need fixing... or not
The military snafu you have just witnessed is an integral part of the Torian AI. While they are very good at managing their empire, they are designed to be lousy invaders. Torians don't build many transports, and the few they do build are never escorted. As long as you don't get carried away and think the Yor or Drengin will make the same mistake, you might want to use this to your advantage against the Torians.
Galactic Civilizations Universe
What are Galactic Resources supposed to be?
#1 by Avatar Frogboy - 3/13/2003 2:55:34 PM
Without giving too much away, resources are essentially artifacts from the precursors. But that's back story that we don't really go into. In the game they are just anomalies that have specific properties.
Why do Humans and Altarians look alike?
Same link as above, but later on in the thread Brad explains some of the backstory.
In the beginning...
More backstory from Brad.
Mods & Modding
How do I change the Drengin diplomacy screen music?
You can copy another race's music file and rename it to the Drengin music file. Play the race.mp3 files till you find the Drengin one, delete it, and copy one of the others. Problem solved. ...[i]GalCiv\galciv\Event Music[/i]
How do I convert files into the type used by GalCiv??
Rad Game Tools. Not the most intuitive program, but it works well. Has utilities to fool around with bink and pcx, and many other file types. Convert files button on lower left.
Miscellaneous
How do I remove a race from the initial game?
Right click on the galciv icon, click properties and add a w after the target. So it will look something like this: "C:\program files\stardock\galciv\galciv.exe" w
How do I remove a race from the initial game?
#5 by Citizen DMF - 5/19/2003 9:33:42PM
Click on the portrait of the Ambassador on the racial setup screen. First click shows the bio, the second disables the race.
Any way to bypass opening cutscenes?
#1 by Citizen RustyBlade - 4/1/2003 2:57:40PM
Just rename the BIK files you want to skip by renaming Intro.bik to say for instance Intro_Disabled.bik . That way it will be easy to put it back if you want. Brad mentioned in the readme that people with slower machines could delete the BIK files to get old computers to run smoother. But I would rather keep a copy of the original with it remamed.
#2 by Citizen Stevious - 4/1/2003 3:19:59PM
Besides the Intro.bik RustyBlade mentioned above, you can also rename sf_intro.bik and Colony_Leaving.bik to bypass the Strategy First movie and the other opening cutscene (colony ship being built).
What is and where can I find the Galactic Battle Simulator?
This neat tool lets you estimate the probability you will win a fight. Can that squadron of Battleaxes hold off that Dreadnaught? Find out...
How do I stop Proxomitron from blocking Stardock Central?
You need to add galciv.com and wincustomize.com to the bypass list as well as sdcentral and sdcentral2. Here are the appropriate lines from my Proximotron bypass.txt:
[^/]++sdcentral.stardock.com/
[^/]++sdcentral2.stardock.com/
[^/]++galciv.com/
[^/]++wincustomize.com/
R. N. Dominick
What happened to the Universalists political party?
Was not added initially although it was in the manual, but is now in the latest patch.
How can I change resolution?
You can't, it is locked at 1024x768. You can try and download the windowed version and see if that helps. I heard the readme states it is in different resolutions, but that is incorrect. Sheesh, do people actually read those things?
How do I get the mp3 player to play?
#2 by Senator CariElf - 6/3/2003 8:27:29 PM
1) On the options menu, set User Defined Playlist to ON
2) Save a playlist in the .m3u format from winamp or another mp3 player program to the playlist directory. If it doesn't save the full path information, the mp3 player may not find your files when it goes to play them.
3) Click the Load Playlist button that now has appeared on the Options Menu.
At the top of the Load Playlist Dialog there is an entry field. You can change this to be the directory where you store your mp3s and it will create a defaul playlist as Sigma_7 said, or if there is an m3u file already there it will see it.
Where may I download the patch?
The latest standalone patch is usually not the latest one. You can go to the same page for Stadock Central which lets you get the latest incremental patch.
Where can I get the Unofficial Strategy Guide?
A fan-made guide. Avaliable in several versions at The Orion Sector. Make sure to look in the News Archive if you can't find a version you can use.
What are the Cheat Keys?
Make sure to go to hit Escape during the game. On the Options screen on the left there is now a new option "enable cheat keys".
CTRL A adds hit points, move points, attack and defense points
CTRL B battleship
CTRL C clone selected ship
CTRL E decreases morality
CTRL G increases morality
CTRL H heals ship, restores move points
CTRL J make all human colonies complete their social and military projects
CTRL L assign all the worlds and resources to major races
CTRL M money (adds $1000)
CTRL O add anomaly
CTRL P increase the class of the planets in the selected star system
CTRL S research current tech (if shift key is also held, all techs except final frontier are researched)
CTRL T teleport
CTRL U clear FOW
CTRL V create random ship
CTRL Y create colony ship
Note: Don't try to submit a score to the Metaverse once you enable cheat keys. It will report it as 0.
  
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question: On a Windows XP how do I reach the data folder. I went into my computer and selectind Gal Civ but i cant find the data folder HELP ME!!!!!
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| question: On a Windows XP how do I reach the data folder. I went into my computer and selectind Gal Civ but i cant find the data folder HELP ME!!!!! |
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Find your galciv icon either on the desktop or start bar and select its properties. Then select find target. A folder will open up taking you to the galciv directory.
I think by default it might be in \program files\stardock\galciv .
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another question: How do I increase the levels on my ships? They have been through a lot but they wont grow!
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| How do I increase the levels on my ships? They have been through a lot but they wont grow! |
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It takes a lot of ship combat to gain experience above level 7 but it can be done. The problem is by the time a ship has a lot of experience the next generation ships are still its equal or better.
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#17
by Citizen sorghum - 7/4/2004 2:09:14 PM
Call me dense but I can't figure out how to start a scenario or load a custom map. How do you do it.
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| Call me dense but I can't figure out how to start a scenario or load a custom map. How do you do it. |
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To load a custom map, go to the map size, and scroll to the right past Gigantic to Custom. From there you can load custom maps I believe.
 
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In the tactical map display, I accidently zoomed in, but I can't figure out how to zoom back out so that I can see the entire map again. 
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#20
by Citizen TrekE - 8/3/2004 5:28:00 PM
Hey all, I'm a big strategy fan but new to Gal Civ. I had a question about the game before I bought it... does it allow us to play as long as it takes to acheive victory, or will it cut off at a certain year (as in civilization III) ?? That feature on games annoys me to no end... Thanks
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You can play as long as it takes you to archive an victory. (My longest game was till 2520s) but i forced it
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| In the tactical map display, I accidently zoomed in, but I can't figure out how to zoom back out so that I can see the entire map again |
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Use you mouse scroll button to zoom out. If you don't have a scroll button, try the arrow keeys.
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I tried the arrow keys and still couldn't get it to zoom back out. I'm playing the game on a toshiba satellite laptop. When I finally get home I'll see if things work differently on my desktop, I've had that problem before with certain games.
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