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Starbases
Everything you ever wanted to know about starbases.
Check out my Help Guide on Starbases too!
When a starbase is built on a resource, does it provide a bonus just for that sector, or is it galaxy-wide for that civ?
Are starbases ever mobile, or do they have to be turned into Terror Stars to move?
Can I build a starbase anywhere?
If I build a starbase on a galactic resource and then convert it to a Terror Star, does the resource move?
If you build two star bases in one sector do abilities get added up?
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.
Domestic Policy
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.
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 (bwardell@getridofthispart.stardock.com)
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
How do I initiate UP issues?
Unfortunately, you can't.
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
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 are, but this is explained in the backstory as they traveled the stars much longer than humans.
#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.
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.
Miscellaneous
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?
#3 by Veteran fleabitfox - 4/4/2003 6:47:31 PM
It was actually mentioned that 2 parties were removed for balance reasons in the read.me file. Sheesh.. doesn't anyone *read* those things anymore?
fleabitfox
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? ;)
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