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Help: Diplomacy & Trading
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I've just became a happy owner of Galactic Civilzations a couple days ago. I have to say, I wasn't expecting much from this game because I hadn't heard much about it and decided to pick it up on a whim while browsing the shelves at my local EB. Let me say, this game is great. I real joy to play after Master of Orion 3. I liked Master of Orion 3, but I like GalCiv a whole bunch more!
Now, I decided to play on normal for my first try. Call me crazy, but I did.  But anyway, I could manage to become and stay the second or third most powerful race in the galaxy, but the Tolarians always outshined me (well, I've only played two games). There are a couple things that I'd hope you could explain to me a little more to aid me in my conquest of the stars... Oh yeah, and besides my questions, any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Diplomacy
1. I can't seem to get races to like me - they always demand stuff and when I deny them, the relations go down the toliet. How can I get them to like me? I give them some money and influence points, even a technology or two but they still don't warm up.
2. How can I access the more complex treaties. I can't establish a peace treaty, alliance, trade treaties, or anything!
Trade
1. I'm kind of baffled by this whole trade thing. I know that you can build a freighter and send it to another friendly star syatem and make a trade route to bring in some extra income. But what are these galactic resources I keep hearing about, how do I get them, and how do I get "franchises"?
2. Not really trading, but I always seem to fall a little behind in the tech area even though my rating is around the 90's and I'm doing over a quater of the research galaxy-wide. What's the deal?
Thank you guys!
P.S. I'm asking these because I find the book of few words - or as they call it, "the manual" - to be of little help. I had to figure out most of what I know just by winging it.
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#3
by Citizen EtherMage - 6/24/2003 8:15:41 PM
Most of this has been said, but I'm gonna put it in a quick Q&A:
1. I can't seem to get races to like me - they always demand stuff and when I deny them, the relations go down the toliet. How can I get them to like me? I give them some money and influence points, even a technology or two but they still don't warm up.
Unless you plan to initiate a war, build lots of Star Fighters and Corvettes early on...make sure your military might graph is always at least 3/4ths of the top guy's (preferably higher) and you won't get bothered. Because ships are currently valued for these purposes by ATT+DEF value, SF's and especially Corvettes have the best cost/maintenance/deterrance combination until you hit AMM's and capital ships (which are quite costly, but are also actually useful in actual wars, unlike, for the most part, corvettes).
Also, if you have a trade route (est. via freighter) with a race, both you and that race will gain income from it every turn. The more income a race gets from trade with you, the more your relations will slide toward the positive end of the spectrum over time; after all, they don't want to interrupt their very lucrative trade routes with you by going to war unless they stand a VERY good chance of winning.
2. How can I access the more complex treaties. I can't establish a peace treaty, alliance, trade treaties, or anything!
Peace treaties are only active if you are at war, and even then are not enforced on you (the AI will lay off you for awhile if you negotiate peace with them, but you are under no such restriction, and there are currently no consequences for going back to war the next turn). Alliances require both the "alliance" technology and "close" relations with the potential ally for the option to even appear on your diplomatic menu. Even then, how favorable they are will be determined by your relative strength. If you can swat them like a bug, they'll be more than willing to compensate you handsomely for entering into an alliance with them. If they thing they're in a better position than you, they'll want some concessions before they'll agree. "Trade treaties" as such don't exist - freighers establish trade, and while you can deactivate any trade route you please once it is established (even those established by AI's to your planets), generally they're only interrupted by war.
Trade
1. I'm kind of baffled by this whole trade thing. I know that you can build a freighter and send it to another friendly star syatem and make a trade route to bring in some extra income. But what are these galactic resources I keep hearing about, how do I get them, and how do I get "franchises"?
As Ralegh said, "trade" constitutes 2 distinct things in this game.
One, which I'll call "diplomatic trade" involves contacting an alien ambassador and offering it a deal. The AI will trade techs among each other via this method extensively (above "normal" difficulty), and will even occasionally offer YOU a tech trade. However, only you as the player will ever initate monetary deals, ship or system trading, etc. Even then, trading for enemy starbases or planets is of course prohibitively expensive. This is affected by "diplomacy" bonuses.
The second item is the "trade route" trade. Trade routes are established by freighers and add a certain variable amount of money each turn to both participants' treasuries. This is what "trade" bonuses affect. Trade routes are also an important diplomatic tool for improving relations, as mentioned above.
2. Not really trading, but I always seem to fall a little behind in the tech area even though my rating is around the 90's and I'm doing over a quater of the research galaxy-wide. What's the deal?
If you want to stay ahead of the AI's without traiding AT ALL, you need to be doing something near as much research as all the rest combined. Generally, it is expected that you will trade techs that the AI's value heavily in exchange for useful techs that they're willing to part with. However, because you can trade a single tech to every civilization that doesn't have it yet, even unfavorable deals are useful.
Say you have 3 decent techs that nobody has yet, but are otherwise behind. You trade these techs to every other civilization, and each one gives you only 1 or two equivalently useful techs in return. Now where are you? Say all 5 majors are around. Each of them is 3 techs ahead of where they were...but you are at least 5 and possibly 10 techs ahead of where YOU were. And none of them can further trade the techs, because now everyone has them. See the benefit?
A few random tips from a moderate-to-good player:
Resources are _important_ in the endgame. While each only gives a 5% bonus initially when you build a starbase there, you can (with the appropriate techs and large numbers of additional constructors) enhance these bonuses to a maximum of 59%...59%! Imagine having +59% economy bonus and +59% morale...high tax rate, insane income, and a happy populace to boot. And that's with just two resources. Granted, it takes a LOT of investment to get them that fully mined, but you see the potential.
Speed is _important_ in the early game. A speed pick is possibly the most overlooked pick by new players. What it essentially does for you is double the speed of your colony ships, constructors, and transports. This means that you can expand faster than the AI's who don't make similar picks, and if you are careful, grab more systems and resources.
HTH,
-EtherMage
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EtherMage, I think you missed a module, fully upgraded resources give a 63% bonus, if I remember correctly. Not a big difference.
One time I managed to grab 5 military resources early on in a game, and grabbed two more before I started warmongering, and had all 9 on the map by the end of the game. It was fun watching corvettes attacking sensor drones and then dieing  The AI even lost a phoenix to a sensor drone. This was back when military resources increased HP as well as ATT & DEF.
    
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