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  1. #1
    Master of useless knowledge Senior Member Kitten Shooting Champion, Eskiv Champion Ironside's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    Must say that influence resources seems to be essential for an influence victory.

    5 players on a small map, challenging. Didn't exactly have the best faction for influence (Torians) but did try for influence victory anyway.

    Tried to influence one outlying colony for the Korx to get it into rebellion, so I was teaching like mad into the influence branch. Even 2 fully upgraded influence stations didn't help, instead it really pissed off the Korx.

    As the Korx was at war with the Altarians at the same time, my troops could easily do what my influence had not. The ungrateful Korx did finally surrender to the Altarians and that gave my one colony by influence as the planet next to Korx (who had been taken by me) did eventually rebel.
    Meanwhile, the Arceans decleared war on me for some reason (the Altarians was practically blocking hiim out from my empire, we had no shared borders). The Arceans did actually give some decent opposition, but my newer ships and a war with the Altarians (who seems to have been very aggressive on this map) made short work of him. About half of his original empire surrendered to the Altarians.

    By this time I had 72% taxrate, 91% approval, 100% efficency, earning about 500 a turn and was doing about 90% of the total research.
    This while owning two research and one economical resource, all stolen during the war with the Korx.

    And had about 50%-60% of the influence, with 4 fully upgraded influence bases. Then I came up with the idea of buying the 2 influence mines that the Talans owned. 10000 bc and about 7 high-techs later, I had my plans for an influence victory ready.

    The next turn I owned 83% of the map... and within the time it takes for an influence victory to be declared, I was owning 100% of the map. Really makes a difference.

    Edit: I must say that the incarnation of evil summoned by the dreadlords really got a fiendish look
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  2. #2
    Camel Lord Senior Member Capture The Flag Champion Martok's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    Gelatinous Cube, I see the perfect solution to your problem: Give those planets to the Yor as gifts. You'll get rid of the drain on your economy, plus it should calm down the Yor enough that they might actually start to like you a little bit. I did this with the Terrans, with some pretty favorable results.
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  3. #3
    zombologist Senior Member doc_bean's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    I downloaded the demo and finally got a chance to play this game this weekend. I must say I'm underimpressed after hearing all the hype here.

    First of all, a little explanation of the demo: it allows you to play in a random small universe with up to three opponents (Dreghin, and two civs that start with an A). You have to play as the Terrans. You can play for 140turns (three years).


    So I stated my first fame at the easiest difficulty setting, the AI basically did nothing, not even colonize other worlds, but it did give me an idea of how the game worked. Second game on a little higher difficulty, fast research, not too different from the fist game, I quit. Third attempt at an interesting game: normal difficulty, fast research. After a while I became untouchable (again), all rating near or over 200. Fourth attempt, one on one with the Dhregin on challenging, I took 70% of the galaxy in the colony rush, quit. Fifth and final attempt (thus far) I played the three races on challenging, I got a really bad starting position, my best planet (I think I had 5 in the end) was earth, which was right next to Dreghin. I managed to keep up with the rest for most of the game (thanks to some lucrative tech trading), I did lose an influence war (?) which caused earth to fall under Dreghin influence, I built some star bases to counter this but could barely get earth back in my zone. I lost an election and couldn't go to war on the dreghin (stupid senate), the 'yellow guys' eventually attacked me (after I had gotten bored and just pressed skip turn a bunch of times) and destroyed most of my fleets, I surrendered.

    Where the hell is this awesome AI everybody keeps raving about ? On equal footing I could beat the AI if I had been given a few decent planets. CivIV has given me more of a challenge, even on lower difficulty settings.

    Other things that kinda bugged me:

    -It takes forever to get to decent techs, near the end of the 140turns, with fast research, I barely had planetary invasion and/or medium hulls. How long is this game supposed to last ?

    -The AI seems to tech rush at first (or cheats...), all other Civs have much more techs than me, but after a while it seems like they just stop researching, especially the Dreghin don't seem to advance much beyond LaserII.

    -Military rating seem a little bugged

    -The AI seems to be unable to design its own ships

    -Does anyone actually buy stuff with delayed payments ?

    -The battles are a little too drawn out for my taste

    Despite my complaints here, I did play 5 games. It's a decent game, I might pick it up if/when i tire of CivIV, but I'll wait to see how Sword of the Stars turns out before I decide.
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  4. #4
    Arena Senior Member Crazed Rabbit's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    I just played the demo too, and I was wondering if taking 3 hours or so to get a military aircraft is normal. On the one game I played, I got 2 class 10s, one 7 or so, and one 18 (stole the highest out of Altarian territory...heehee).

    But the begining seemed to take forever. Is it like this in the real game? I wouldn't want to spend an hour or so before being even able to fight.

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  5. #5
    Senior Member Senior Member Oaty's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    ^^^ @ crazed rabbit

    I never played the demo and the options may be limited.

    In the retail version you have options for fast research to slow research. By default I'm assuming the demo is set at normal. If you look at the journals on thier website it will tell you what is in the demo compared to the full game.

    Also you can start a game with the lower end techs researched right away so you can militarize right away all the way to all techs researched. Also I'm sure you can mod how the techs are, all the way to making a custom map where the warmongers have a decent tech tree already researched for militarization to other races who start with less in the military tree.
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  6. #6
    Member Member Zenicetus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
    I just played the demo too, and I was wondering if taking 3 hours or so to get a military aircraft is normal. On the one game I played, I got 2 class 10s, one 7 or so, and one 18 (stole the highest out of Altarian territory...heehee).

    But the begining seemed to take forever. Is it like this in the real game? I wouldn't want to spend an hour or so before being even able to fight.
    Well, that's pretty much the normal flow of the game. Unlike the TW series, it's not designed to allow an early military rush. You don't start with any military power. Planetary Invasion is also pretty far down the tech tree, which discourages early military action. There isn't much incentive to attack your neighbors until you have that. In most of my games, the shooting doesn't start until somewhere in the midgame.

    You can speed it up a little by using the smaller maps (so fewer early resources are used in colonization buildup), and using one of the faster research settings in the initial startup. That will bring Planetary Invasion online faster. Another way to get into a quick fight is to play the startup mode (I forget the name... Battle of the Gods, or something?) where everyone starts the game fully teched-up. That can be fun, but it's a bit one-dimensional (IMO).

    I actually enjoy the slow buildup and jockying for position and strength with larger maps and slow tech, but that's just me. When I want a game where I can run an early Blitz, I go back to RTW:BI. They're just different types of games.
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  7. #7
    The very model of a modern Moderator Xiahou's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    Quote Originally Posted by doc_bean
    -It takes forever to get to decent techs, near the end of the 140turns, with fast research, I barely had planetary invasion and/or medium hulls. How long is this game supposed to last ?
    Weird, with just a few planets I can get planetary invasion in less than 30 turns if I really want it- I usually dont though, since I like going after diplomacy techs. Not sure what your were doing.

    As for the AI try "tough" if the others are too easy for you- its' the highest level that doesnt give the AI economic bonuses, although Im not sure how you were dominating the game without such techs.

    I just played the demo too, and I was wondering if taking 3 hours or so to get a military aircraft is normal. On the one game I played, I got 2 class 10s, one 7 or so, and one 18 (stole the highest out of Altarian territory...heehee).
    Well, how many turns do you think that'd be? Sounds like a pretty long time to me.

    Are you guys using your spending sliders, ect?
    Last edited by Xiahou; 04-09-2006 at 21:57.
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  8. #8
    zombologist Senior Member doc_bean's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    Quote Originally Posted by Xiahou
    Weird, with just a few planets I can get planetary invasion in less than 30 turns if I really want it- I usually dont though, since I like going after diplomacy techs. Not sure what your were doing.
    Sure, I didn't mean you can't rush towards it, but following a pretty 'normal' (imho) build path it can take quite a while before you get those techs. In my last game (challenging) it took about two years before a civ got planetary invasion iirc (the drengin of course).

    EDIT: in my normal game (which I finished) none of the other civs got to planetary invasion or medium hulls afaik

    Quote Originally Posted by Xiahou
    As for the AI try "tough" if the others are too easy for you- its' the highest level that doesnt give the AI economic bonuses, although Im not sure how you were dominating the game without such techs.
    Well, it's hard to tell if you're really winning if you don't play until the end i guess. In the games i quit I far outdid any other civ in all of the different areas, for instance I had a 200+ economic rating and every tech they had plus about a dozen more. My military was bigger than theirs and much better equipped, and I had about twice as much planets as any of them (in some cases thrice as much).

    I guess I just got teh rush down quickly.
    Last edited by doc_bean; 04-09-2006 at 22:19.
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  9. #9

    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    I find games on the larger maps are far more lively; I wouldn't go back to the two smallest sizes now I have played on normal. If the demo limits you to those then I expect that might be a problem.

    I'm surprised to see someone say research is slow! In my last game I was getting a new tech every 2-4 turns on the standard tech speed, with no research bonuses on my civ, no research resources, and a moderately sized empire. That was so fast my military was semi-obsolete as soon as I built it. Putting research labs on your planets is a Good Thing. I specialised quite a few of my mid-sized ones (class 4 -9) for resaearch, giving them just one factory and nothing else but labs, and then used the focus thingy to aim them at research.

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  10. #10
    The very model of a modern Moderator Xiahou's Avatar
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    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    That was so fast my military was semi-obsolete as soon as I built it.
    That sounds more like my problem- it seems every dozen turns or so I'd have to go back into the ship designer and update my capital ships to keep them current with my technology.

    Ive had some good games in a small galaxy, but I dont think the demo allows you to control how common/habitable planets are, ect- it's just random, no? Also, I think you will get cakewalk from time to time by just getting lucky and starting out near oodles of good planets while your enemies get screwed. That's something I think would also be exacerbated in a smaller galaxy as opposed to a large one.
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  11. #11

    Default Re: Galactic Civilisations 2

    Okay, I just downloaded the demo and played it for a few hours last night.

    It looks like it might be a bit of fun but there are some glaring problems with it which really give me the irrits.

    To begin with, if you turn the music off, the game is played in almost total silence! There don't seem to be any sound effects at all, except for primitive "bleeps" and "bloops" when you click on buttons.

    After a while the eerie silence gets rather oppressive, and I find it very immersion busting. Are they so poor they can't even afford to add a few sound effects? At least they should have the capacity to include them so modders can do it for them.

    Secondly, the scrolling around the main screen is really s-l-o-o-o-o-w and gets me hot under the collar. I just *hate* slow scrolling games, GRRRR.

    Not only that, but the scrolling is busted! If you put the mouse up into the corner of the screen, the stupid program won't scroll at all! Apparently it can only scroll in one direction at once. That's incredibly lame programming.

    Same thing if you have a little window open on the screen. For example if you have that little window open that comes up when you click on the leftmost bottom gadget, the game won't scroll at all in that direction.

    Thirdly, the lack of a "next active" button or something similar. You have a bunch of ships and you set them to various destinations, and then you don't see them again until they reach their destination, which means that if they encountered anything along the way which might be interesting, like an anomaly or something, you don't get to see it UNLESS you take the trouble to go searching around on the main or mini-map for the location of each and every one of your ships. I find it a real pain in the butt having to do that. Perhaps there's a way to set unit tracking in the options, but I didn't see one.

    These might sound like little gripes, but it's the little things like this that one encounters constantly that usually end up driving me away from a game.

    I don't like the tech tree display either. Having to pull it around with the mouse to see where you're headed is again, slow and clumsy. Surely they could have come up with a better method.

    There are some other minor gripes too. For example, when you're informed that a planet has finished some structure and you click on "go to" to set a new structure, when you leave that screen, the original screen is still there with the original information! - it doesn't update as you complete stuff.

    Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to check how much money you've got, except at the point of buying something. It should be on the screen all the time, or at least on the economics screen, but it doesn't even appear there.

    Nor can see any place where the date or the number of turns is shown, which makes it kind of hard to track your progress.

    In general, I find the game interface to be a bit cluttered and disorganized. It could all do with a major revamp IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by doc_bean
    So I stated my first fame at the easiest difficulty setting, the AI basically did nothing, not even colonize other worlds...Where the hell is this awesome AI everybody keeps raving about ?
    My experience was different, I began the game by setting the intelligence of all AI species to "normal" and in both games I played, even though I madly rushed to colonize, the AI ended up expanding faster and beating me to most of the good planets, even those in my own back yard. So in both games I found myself struggling even from the start.

    Quote Originally Posted by doc_bean
    -It takes forever to get to decent techs, near the end of the 140turns, with fast research, I barely had planetary invasion and/or medium hulls. How long is this game supposed to last ?
    You can put the tech on "very fast" if it's too slow for you. But there really isn't much time to achieve anything in the demo. Three years is hardly enough time to get some warships and start attacking the other guys.

    I don't think the numbers of turns you play is a big issue though since after a while it seemed to me there was little to do but press the turn button over and over while you waited for something to get completed or for your ships to reach their set destination and so on.

    Quote Originally Posted by doc_bean
    -Does anyone actually buy stuff with delayed payments ?
    Yeah, I did, in my second game, because I had more habitable planets than I had money to pay for colony ships. Don't know how viable it would be as a longterm strategy though.

    Quote Originally Posted by doc_bean
    The battles are a little too drawn out for my taste
    I didn't play any battles :) I could see that by the time I got ready to fight I'd be near the 3-year limit anyhow so I didn't bother going that far.

    Quote Originally Posted by doc_bean
    Despite my complaints here, I did play 5 games. It's a decent game, I might pick it up if/when i tire of CivIV, but I'll wait to see how Sword of the Stars turns out before I decide.
    It looks like it might be a decent sort of strategy game, but for an independent "budget" title it looks a bit expensive. When I went to their website they were asking $45 for it, which is rather a lot for a game of this type IMO. I'd probably be willing to pay $30, I don't know if I could justify the extra for a game which is lacking an essential feature like sound, and which in general appears to be lacking a little something in sophistication and utility.
    Last edited by screwtype; 04-13-2006 at 03:49.

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