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Galciv Observations
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Galciv Observations
Ok, a few things:
1) This is long. I had a lot I wanted to say about this game because I find myself thinking about it a lot. I’m sure most of this information has already been provided somewhere.
2) I’m by no means one of these gifted players that puts it on Maso and dukes it out. I have two game scores in the Metaverse for a total of around 9500 points. I’m not writing this to be a big-shot or to prove that I’m good or anything, I’m writing this to generate discussion and perhaps glean some more tidbits of strategy from it.
3) I’m not a stat-monger. I play by feel more than by numbers. If any numbers are off, incorrect or whatever, please feel free to correct me if it will satisfy your pedantic urges.
Game settings:
-Medium universe, tight clusters, rare habitable planets.
I tend to play on rare because I find that on the higher settings, the game can get too unbalanced when one computer player gets a lucky cluster (or two) and simply dominates everybody from the outset. Rare forces everybody to work with fewer planets and thus fewer resources, which I find more interesting.
Computer settings:
-All AIs on Intelligent -> Painful difficulty
-All AIs have their default alignments.
I haven't tried anything above Painful, yet. I decided to stick to medium galaxy, painful difficulty, default alignment until such time as I felt I had a real "feel" for the game. I might bump up the difficulty now that I'm comfortable playing at painful.
My Racial Picks
This one differs widely from game to game. I tend not to to play the same political party/bonus combination from one game to the next. Here are a few I’ve played:
Pacifist, +max diplo, +max influence.
Got this one from someone else on the boards who mentioned that they played this combination. It's a very powerful combination if you're the type who prefers to stay out of wars. While effective, it wasn’t a very exciting game.
War Party, +40 Repair, +1 speed, +10 pop growth
Another excellent combination for the military conquest type game. The combination of speed, hit points and repair make you a force to be reckoned with since you can retreat ships, heal up and get back to the fight instead of having to constantly build new ships.
Industrialists, +50 military, + 50 social.
I just finished playing a game wth this combination and found it very powerful. After the initial land-grab and research rush I set my sliders to M20, S20, R60 and left them mostly like that the rest of the game. With the production bonuses your infrastructure and military will still be cranking out improvements/units at a decent rate _and_ you'll stay either on par or ahead of the computers in the research department. Combine this with the appropriate improvements for your end-game strategy and you've got a powerful engine to execute whatever you want in terms of strategy.
Regardless of the actual combination of party/skills I choose, I recommend the following: Try to choose bonus abilities that amplify your political party picks or will amplify some aspect of your late game strategy. I've played a number of games where my bonus abilities were more varied/less powerful and I find that under these circumstances I had mediocre games where the computer eventually ran away with things. My best advice here is decide on a strategy for your entire game at the political party selection screen and then focus your bonuses on amplifying the characteristics that will facilitate that strategy.
Gameplay / Flow
Now that I've played enough games to get into the Galciv "groove", I had some observations to share about how gameplay progresses in general.
For me, gameplay is really divided up into roughly 3 stages: pre-equilibrium, the gray area and post-equilibrium.
Pre-Equilibrium
This stage goes from the beginning of the game until the initial land grab / research rush / military rush is over. At this stage you're mostly executing on a pattern in terms of your build/research order so the real activity here gets broken down into some simple things:
1) Find all the best planets that you can. Colonize the planets that are closest to your neighbors then back-colonize the planets that are closer to your homeworld.
2) Get the best bonuses you can with your survey ship. Asteroids are essential. If you can scoop an early military unit like a battleaxe, defender, starfighter or corvette it can make all the difference because your military might will jump up higher than your enemies and they won’t be in a position to threaten you before you can build up a decent military foundation. Scrap metal that improves your survey ship is also good, especially if you can get one ore two +attack bonuses. If this happens, don’t hesitate to use your survey ship as an initial attack ship for your early invasion strategy.
3) Make contact with your neighbors. (Or avoid contact in some cases.) Normally you want to make contact to your neighbors if you're focusing on a trade strategy. There are two immediate cases I can think of where you don't want to make contact with your neighbors (or someone else in the galaxy): a) You're going to kill them anyway or b) You can tell they're big and powerful and don't feel that making contact is in your best interest yet. I've purposely delayed making contact with the Drengin in a few games because I could see messages that they were extorting a couple other majors and I could see a lot of red-tinged territory on the map even though I couldn't see their planets yet. This told me that making contact with them would almost immediately lead to demands and possibly war, so I avoided them as long as possible. Also, remember that if you don’t have a universal translator, they can’t make demands of you. Sometimes it’s not the best thing to rush up the Communication Theory path.
I don't claim to have the perfect starting sequence but this is generally what I do:
Taxes: As high as I can keep them w/ 100% support. Check every turn.
Spending: 100%
Military 70 or 75
Social 0
Research 25 or 30
Initial research path:
-Propulsion Theory
-Cold fusion
-Impulse Drive
-*Wild Card*
-*Wild Card*
-Weapon Theory
-Phasers
-Communication Theory
-Universal Translator
-Diplomacy
-Trade
The two wildcard slots are for researching the two techs that best complement my overall game strategy. Sometimes they will be two steps up the industrial theory path so I can get Fusion Power Plant. Sometimes they will be up the Medial Theory path so I can get Habitat Improvement. (Rare) Sometimes I leave them out and rush straight for Star Fighters. Sometimes I substitute in the Communication Theory path at this point up to Trade and then jump to the Weapon Theory path. It depends on my starting position and neighbors.
Once my initial 1000bc runs down to around 0, I adjust my spending slider down to where I’m making 5-10 bc per turn. I try not to let my economy go into the red because that’s bad for morale and will hurt you in the long run. Generally my taxes sit around 35% unless I’m playing military conquest and I’m constantly alternating between military ships and transports. In this case, boost that tax rate up to 50% and deal with your morale issues by offloading population. (More on this below.)
Initial Ships:
1. Sol builds colony ships until all the good colonies have been taken and the initial land-grab is over.
2. Second planet colonized builds a scout as it’s first ship then switches to constructors.
3. Constructors
4. Constructors
etc.
…until I reach transports. Then, everybody switches to building a transport immediately or gets delayed a few turns if a constructor is almost done. By the time you reach transports, you should have at least one or two constructors on their way to claim the nearest resources. If there are a lot of resources around your planets, be selective. I’ve had games sink early on because I grabbed too many starbases and the upkeep destroyed my economy. I wouldn’t go for more than two at the start or you’ll seriously cripple yourself.
Early Agression
As much as it is possible to play Galciv without being a conqueror, I highly recommend some early warmongering even if your political party is Pacifists. Why? It’s simple: If you don’t wipe out the convenient/weak neighbors you have, someone else will and you will have lost the balance. The ideal scenarios for beginning agression are to be slighly offset from a corner with a major restricted to one or two planets in the corner. It also helps to have a minor around that you can wipe out too. You might be tempted to leave these people alive so that you can bully/trade with them. Just kill them. The planets, improvements and income that they will generate long-term outweigh any benefit you might reap from leaving these people alive.
The Gray Area
The gray area is what I call the middle of the game. The initial land-grab is over. You’ve got some military power built up thanks to your early agression. This is the phase that I find most interesting in Galciv because this is where it all happens. What do I mean by that?
When you first enter this stage, nobody is clearly in front. You still feel off-balance, as if you’re struggling to keep up. Things are tense.  This is the time where you have to decide what fits your strategy best. The activities I engage in during this period generally fall into these categories:
1) Build up infrastructure so you can run your economy hotter. (ie. Make more money, produce things faster.)
2) Research critical improvements to enhance your civilization and contribute to #1.
3) Maintain an appropriate level of military might to deter your opponents if you don’t feel like fighting or to conquer your opponents if that’s your game.
4) Keep your friends friendly and your opponents off balance.
At some point during this period if I manage to successfully build up my civilization through those activities, I will get this feeling of “balance”. It’s a mental shift from thinking, “What do I have to do to stay alive?” to “What can I do next to get ahead?”. Once you get to this point or past it, you largely cease to be affected by the universe and instead you are the one affecting it. This is usually a good sign that you’re going to win, but it is by no means a guarantee at this point.
As far as #4 is concerned, there are several things you can do to make sure your friends stay friendly and your enemies stay off balance:
a) Make sure you’re more powerful than they are. This has an amazing effect on how the computer perceives you. Plus, there’s no better feeling than having a computer come to you and say, “Hey, here’s some money. Be nice to us.” I love that.
b) Destabilize them. Destabilize them. Destabilize them. This is _essential_ if you see one nation running off with the lead. Even if nobody is running away and I’m generally friendly with other nations, I’ll spend some minimal amount destabilizing them, more if my economy can support it.
c) Keep your opponents fixated on each other. Pay people to go to war with each other. Pay minors to attack majors. Pay majors to attack majors. If they’re busy fighting each other, they generally won’t fight you. If you see a message pop up that so-and-so made peace with so-and-so, try to get them to fight again. Getting opponents to fight each other immediately after they’ve made peace makes them _really_ angry with each other. This is an essential strategy. Be warned however that you have to encourage the right kind of conflict. Getting someone really strong to attack someone really weak will result in the strong person wiping out the weak one and becoming even stronger. Try to get balanced foes to fight each other so that they both suffer.
Post-Equilibrium
Once you feel that “balance” kick in and your empire is humming along, what next? Well, that depends on your strategy, of course. I can’t tell you exactly how to finish the game…once you’re at this point so many variables kick in that there is no absolute path to take.
Some suggestions:
-Even though there are multiple paths to victory in Galciv you must maintain a strong military presense (or the *appearance* of one) or the computers will stomp you.
-If you’re not engaged in a war, you should be improving your civilization so that when next you need to build military units you can build better ones in less time.
-Friends in Galciv are not really friends. They are people who won’t attack you, for now. Don’t hesitate to get others to declare war on them or to destabilize them.
-Keep a close eye on the mililtary might graph. None of the other graphs really matter that much compared to this one. If you see yourself slipping or you see one particular civilization really accelerating in this department, switch to military mode. Note that you don’t have to be the most powerful civilization militarily, you just have to make sure there are several juicy targets that are weaker than you so that the more powerful civilization will ignore you for them.
-If you see one strong civilization beating the crap out of a weaker one, play dirty. Send attack fleets with enough ground troops to take the planets of the civilization that’s getting pounded. Park them right next to that civilization’s planets. When the planet in question has all its defending units destroyed by the bigger civ, swoop in and take that planet “for free”. This has two benefits: 1) You prevent a computer opponent from getting a new planet and 2) You get a new planet with minimal ship loss. Sometimes the weaker civilization will complain that they have noted the military buildup and consider it a hostile act. Good. They’re already in 1 war against a stronger foe. They can’t really afford to be in a war with you too. Ignore them and wait for the defenses to fall.
-*** Don’t build morale improvements. They’re effectively useless. You’re better off watching the morale of each planet and simply building a transport or combat transport every time the morale gets down to around 50 and offloading a bunch of people. This immediately puts your morale back up to 100 if you send enough of them off into space and has the added benefit of improving your military rating and giving you an attack force already sitting in space. I rarely build morale improvements now – I just cycle between constructors, my best military units and transports every time the morale gets too low.
Overall I really like this game! I haven’t been this addicted to a TBS since MOO2.
Some suggestions I have for improvement:
-Computer players need to be smarter about protecting planets. There are several flaws with the way the computer plays this right now. 1) You can get the computer to launch almost its entire fleet from any given planet by attacking it with a single, wimpy ship that you plan to lose. Then you can move in on that planet with your big fleet and take it out too easily because there are only one or two ships left defending it while this nice big stack of ships sits useless next to it. 2) Computer players should note when you have a sufficiently large force moving through their territory and bolster the ships protecting their planets accordingly. They’re too complacent.
-There should be a way to blockade planets (legitimately) and to break those blockades. Right now if you surround a planet with 8 ships, it’s a cheesy tactic that prevents any ships from launching. I want to be able to use this tactic without it being cheesy. Perhaps launching a ship from a planet that is blockaded would cause that ship to automatically fight the weakest defender in the blockade?
-UI: In the foreign relations page, under the stats tab you can see a list of the percentages for a given race. Add a column next to these percentages to display your own percentages for easy comparison.
Thanks for the game,
CatHerder
      
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#1
by Citizen CypherPax - 7/8/2003 4:14:12 PM
CatHerder,
Your post is well thought-out and it sounds like we play a similiar strategy, though I'm still getting to the point where I am comfortable at the higher difficulty levels.
Just out of curiosity, how much to you typically need to spend on destablization to get results? Does it result in low morale? I've never spent enough to get results.
I agree with you about the AI attacking and defending. I can play Tough/Painful on the conquest path, but Challenging is difficult enough for me if I try a more diplomatic path. My point is that I think it is easier to keep the AI's at war and even when there military might is MUCH higher than mine I can take them out using the strategy you describe. I've seen the Torians and Arceans actually build and send out Constructors and Freighters right into the path of my navy - rather than building warships.
Since you shared your observations, I'll share my favorite war strategy (and see if we get any other observations):
1. Launch a fleet of transports, constructors, and war ships and flank the AI you're about to attack. (Flank means approach so that you are not in a straight line path to your nearest systems.)
2. Use another ship to attack the AI.
3. Wait for their navy to sail by.
4. Mount an offensive on their systems (the AI ships will not typically return).
(Don't do an alpha strike, instead leave a fast ship out of your offensive to take out straggling transports, freighters, and constructors)
5. Take several of the AI's better systems.
6. Make them pay for peace (they won't pull their ships back immediately).
7. Use the money to plug holes in your defenses and try to extort tech as well.
You should have the upper hand so it's now possible to repeatedly attack and negoitate peace and gain systems, starbases, and tech.
My favorite variant is when a good aligned race has an alliance with a weaker major. The weaker major will repeatedly declare war on you, but will always want to offer peace terms that give you things you want.
By the way, you can do a blockage. Also, you can set a ship in orbit to auto-attack - and if it has movement left it will go after hostile ships it sees.
Since you enjoy eliminating aliens, you should consider joining the fun loving pirates in GROSS... you'd be a great addition.
Happy raiding,
Cypher
     
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As a fellow warmonger, I usually use pretty much the same tech path for early games that you do. My only difference is that I usually go for photons - corvette technology after phasers and then go for communications theory - universal transmitter. The reason for this is that I can get corvettes out of the way while still going through my 1000bc starting reserve, and that the AI highly values it and I can use it as a bargaining chip in diplomacy. Plus I can immediately switch all my starfighter production to corvettes to help boost my military rating.
As for starting parties/picks, I find this combination rather useful: Industrialists (+20 social +20 military production), +1 speed, and +60 diplomacy. The +1 speed helps out in the initial colonization rush, and the +60 diplomacy helps out in several areas (trading techs, trade goods, getting races to declare war or make peace with me) and allows me a big diplomatic advantage even on crippling.
I find that in "The grey area" part of the game, usually one race is far outpacing the rest. It's important to shut them down as soon as possible by playing them off whoever is second. It lessens the chance you will be dragged into an unwanted war, and keeps them wasting resources fighting each other. One dirty little trick I like to use is to station a couple of offensive units (corvettes or battle crusisers do well) near the conflict zone. If one race tries to invade another with transports, simply give the defending race your crusiers and let them (hopefully) use them to take out the transports.
Finally, I also take the time during the "grey area" to try and get majors and minors heavily in debt with me through trade goods and techs for cash. The AI is rather short sighted when it comes to trading, and will easily trade for a small chunk for several turns than a larger amount all up front. This lets you drag their economies down as you saddle them with more and more debt. I like to do this especially to minors and weak majors, as they are often my main competition when it comes to building wonders and trade goods.
    
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#3
by Citizen CatHerder - 7/9/2003 12:32:13 PM
CypherPax:
As far as destabilization is concerned, I usually have all my serious opponents (The ones that are less than "friendly" with me.) on the first or second step up the slider. Depending on my economy and the stage of the game this will usually be somewhere in the 8-20bc range. I'm not sure if this has any significant effect on their overall progress, but if it behaves anything like espionage, the long-term buildup of destabilization funds should have an effect eventually. At the very least, I "feel" that it slows them down and thus is worthwhile. ("feel" = no hard evidence to back it up)
When I'm planning to go to war against someone, or I see someone running away with the game, I crank the destabilization funds up somewhere between 50 and 100bc if I can afford it. If I'm about to start a war, I try to do this 10-20 turns before the invasion starts, usually while the fleet is being assembled at a convenient staging point.
Yeah, we do use a similar technique in terms of reaming the computer opponents for all they're worth during war/peace cycle. When I sue for peace or the computer comes to me begging for peace, I get every single thing I can out of them...trade goods, techs, money, influence, whatever. No mercy here.
One tactical thing I like to do if I'm not strong enough to completely wipe out an enemy civ is this:
I'll hit one or two of their largest planets with enough force to take them and use tidal disruptors when I attack. Once I take the planet(s), I get rid of all the improvements and offload all the population to restock my remaining transports, leaving maybe 50-100 million people at most. Then I sue for peace and offer the planet back to the enemy in question. They're usually so happy to get their (ruined) planet back that it's no problem getting them to agree. This has the benefit of severely trashing their economy/output, which is a fair trade for the losses your fleet(s) will encounter because you've already got another fleet on the way for the next wave.
If I can sue for peace without offering them their planet(s) back, sometimes I'll offer that planet to another race for a declaration of war against the guy I just attacked + a bunch of tech/trade goods if I can get them. Yes, I play dirty but that's most of the fun.
GamingHyena:
Love the ideas about getting everybody in debt to you. I haven't explored that path yet. How do you do it generally? What sort of terms do you go for? (2bc for 200 turns? 5bc for 100?) I know it depends on your diplomacy skill and other factors but I'm just looking for general ideas here. Also, do you keep going back turn after turn, selling 1 tech each turn for similar terms so that it snowballs?
Love the idea about stationing a couple of combat ships out in between two fighting races and giving them to one or the other when transports/constructors are flying past. Nice.
'Nuff said for now,
CatHerder
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The basic premise of the idea is that the computer will pay more money total for a little cash over time than a lot at once. You can easily test this yourself by trading a tech with a race. For example, say that the Alexians will pay 100bc for 0 turns (this means that you get 100bc up front) for diplomacy. However, by adjusting the slider you find they will pay 10bc for 12 turns for diplomacy. Since 10x12=120, you make more this way than if you got your cash up front. Plus, the Alexians will now have 10bc less to spend for a couple of turns, which means they will either have to raise taxes or reduce production to pay for the extra burden. Do this a couple of times with big ticket items (trade goods and valued technologies), and you can saddle them with so much debt that it will exceed the amount they make each month.
Minors are even better targets for this strategy since they usually don't have the diplomatic rating you do, and since they often produce the majority of the trade goods. If you can shut a minor's production down, the trade goods are yours for the making.
The exact terms depend on a variety of factors, including your diplomacy level vs theirs (that's where the +60 diplo pick helps), the difficulty level, what you are trading, and (I think) your current relations with them. However, my terms usually depend on if I need the cash now or if I am simply trying to slow them down. However, I believe I read somewhere (and have found this to be true) that you maximum payoff is around 20 turns.
I almost forgot to mention another bonus. If you have the Alexians heavily into debt and someone (like you) invades and kills them, you still get your monthly payments regardless of the fact they no longer exist. I will often reduce a race down to one planet, demand a hefty tribute per month for peace, and then invade the next turn and finish them off.
[Message Edited]
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#5
by Citizen EtherMage - 7/9/2003 8:37:55 PM
I have to disagree with a number of your points...in order of precedence:
1. Morale improvements...AAGH...they're HIDEOUSLY useful to me. I build e.net and a stadium and a harmony generator on every planet, which lets me have much higher populations at the same tax rate, which means more $$ and more productive capacity. It also keeps my population growing faster, so when I *need* to offload, say, 50 billion people into transports to mount a large-scale attack on a big opponent, I can do it and STILL have enough population on my worlds to accomplish anything I need to. Alternatively, it lets me tax a particular population more heavily.
2. Re: lots of resources. I like to play Abundant, where the opposite is true. Because everyone has so many planets, and resources give global bonuses to all your worlds, it's absolutely CRITICAL that you grab as many as possible, even if some are in the middle of someone else's territory. When you have 20+ worlds, you can eat 30bc/turn for those six resources you grabbed and still be in the black as far as benefits gained.
3. Re: early agression. I like to keep minors around because they're worth SO MUCH MONEY to me in tribute and trade. I can easly make ten or fifteen times as much from a planet in a minor's hands as I would if it were in mine. Weak majors, on the other hand, I leave because I use your above-mentioned cheap strat - when someone else takes out their defenses I come in and mop up all the good stuff. So I rarely build tranports at all, preferring to wait for battleships and combat transports before I invade anyone. (With this strat it's quite necessary to do better than everyone else in the landgrab, but on painful I can do that just about every time.)
-EtherMage
[Message Edited]
   
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#6
by Citizen CatHerder - 7/14/2003 6:58:56 PM
EtherMage:
Aha - this is what I was looking for!
I never thought of morale improvements as a regrowth accelerator after an invasion offload. Definitely useful. I'm not sure that these morale improvements are _necessary_ however for a military conquest type game. Once I get into the combat ship/transport loop, my morale stays under control and I usually just roll over the enemy anyway. Gonna make use of it next time I play a more peaceful role in the galaxy, however. Thanks.
On another note:
-Regarding destabilization...I'm convinced it is a long-term effect similar to espionage. Last game I played, I tried an experiment with the Arcaens, who were my "friends" at the time: Up to that point in the game, I had not put any funds into destabilizing the Arcaens. Since everybody else was effectively dead already (or they just didn't know it yet), I ratcheted back my own spending and put it all into destabilizing the Arcaens.
So, I put the destabilization slider up to ~300bc /month and observed their planets for something like 10-15 turns. Granted, I was not observing very closely, but I did not see a significant change in their planetary morale, which seems like it would be the primary indicator that the destabilization is working.
On the other hand, I had been consistently destabilizing the Altarians and the Drengin from much earlier in the game at a rate of about 5-10bc /month. (1 or 2 ticks up the slider) Both of these races surrendered to me in the end because they could no longer sustain themselves in the galaxy. I was not at war with them at the time. Perhaps destabilization has some effect in this area? I'll try more experiments with it to see if I can come up with more conclusive evidence.
CH
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