Hey everyone,
Played Gal Civ 2 and trying to get into Gal Civ 3 Intrigue. Version May 01 2018.
My start is better. I use the cash to rush out colonies and constructors in order to secure my early territory faster. Scout with survey and a scout or 2.
As for Tech I usually grab some research tech, colonie tech and diplomacy. I slowly get into military.
Problem: I get into serious money problems despite building markets. Getting more anomalies helps but I feel like I am missing something. Maybe I need to run both market and tourism? Next big issue is military power. If I do try to get tourism as well my military is already behind so it will be more behind. How do I manage military? just constantly make small hull ships for a while? The transition to medium and large hulls is also a question mark for me. My management in that area is clueless.
Really enjoying the game so far though. My biggest problem is trying to understand why war is so hard. In my current game(medium galaxy Terran) I got 5 colonies and managed to get a lot of markets and economy citizens. Also captured a faire number or resources with star bases (5-6). Military wise I am behind and will likely get smashed soon now that the Yor are dead and done distracting the other Leaders.
The_Arbiter
Good. Most people I think hold back some money to
- hire a survey mercenary (when they find bazaar)
- endure the early-game deficit spending.
Good, but do not grab research techs in the beginning. They take a long time to research and do not give you much early-on. Instead, I'd suggest getting techs that increase your ship speed (under Engineering).
Happens to all of us. Anomalies and some money in the bank are really the only ways to get through this early deficit phase. If your government allows to send missions, you can also build treasure hunts at your shipyard.
Do not build markets in the beginning. Build morale buildings (entertainment centers, ideology buildings) instead, so you can increase tax rate later. Due to how game mechanics are now, this is much more effective.
Tourism is great, but you have to research it first. At the very start, you can only build Import-Export center on one planet. Remember that Tourism scales massively with the number of your colonies that have Ports of Call built. So, as a rule of thumb: if you only have very few colonies, Tourism is not very important. If you have many colonies, research it ASAP and build Ports of Call on your planets. It will then quickly solve any money problems you have.
But keep in mind that Tourism is tied to tax rate like everything else. So you should have enough morale on your worlds to increase tax rate.
Yes, build tiny or small hulls equipped with the basic missile early-on to get your military rating up (so that the AI doesn't target you). Transition to medium when you have to do some actual fighting (then you should also get some Logistics tech and train a Commander).
Large (and huge) hulls are not really needed, they are just "icing on the cake". You can win any game using medium hulls only, so you can research large/huge whenever you want. If you want to use self-healing ships, large hulls are pretty much mandatory though.
Try to avoid getting into that situation. Once you have researched a few military techs, you can build tiny hulls with an attack value of 8 or so. If you alternate between building these and the other ships you need, you can keep up with the AI in military rating (though probably not on the two highest difficulties).
WOW, Awesome Response. Everything I wanted and more. Thanks!
I will finish off my current game then try the points you mentioned to see how my game pans out. The hull sizes are extremely helpful as that part is way clearer now.
Depending on how you want to play, there is another, simpler path that probably won't help you figure out early game strats much, but it will give you time to adjust.
The best war/invasion defense is hard vacuum, meaning that if they cannot reach you (or take a very long time to reach you), then you can build up defenses before they get there as a reactive method instead of a preemptive tactic that waters down your tech/morale/wealth progress. I tend to play in the larger map range with about half of the recommended players so that when I meet other civs I already have a manufacturing base to draw from and I can stack defensive units on those borders instead of keeping them dispersed throughout my empire. This method will make hunting pirates (and monsters if you get the event) more difficult though, as you'll be playing whack-a-mole with limited ship resources. Having a single or a few extremely basic defenders per planet as Croc suggested would offer more flexibility to deal with internal threats, but they take more manufacturing time that you could use to build your "soft power" attributes (tech/morale/wealth).
You should also work on your starbases. You want the AI to see you with enough military power to give them more than a bloody nose.
Another is to bolster your resistance and soldering.
Also work in diplomacy so civs next to you like you by using diplomacy and trade.
There are many areas to work on to give the same results. Use a little bit of everything.
Right I see. Thanks for the tips I will give that a try as well.
What about planet specialization? Should every planet be specialized. Does specialized mean. Literally have a planet with morale, food then all manufacturing.
Just wondering how specialized I should go. Currently I do a farm if possible or city if there is food. Then look at getting deep core mine, space elevator and spaceport all on 1 planet. With some added factories or other manufacturing bonuses. Then I try to get another similar planet the same to get ships out faster. Then my economy world is food, city all markets then maybe morale as needed.(NOTE now I will try more moral and taxing as mentioned above)
I guess the real question is what specialization types are good. Production planet, Population planet, Research planet etc?
You can specialize your planets, but the game doesn't really reward it (it also doesn't really punish it). I specialize some planets in most of my games, just because it's cool to have a research world, finance world etc.
But when it comes to min/maxing, all that really matters in the end is the Raw Production of a planet (Raw Production is comprised of population, asteroid mining and some percentage bonuses). So, if you want to maximize your output:
- put all your Scientists and your best one-per-civ research-increasing buildings on the world that has the most (Raw Production + flat research points)*
- put all your Entrepreneurs and your best one-per-civ money-increasing buildings on the world that has the most (Raw Production + flat money points)*
- for manufacturing it's a bit different: you probably want both Social and Ship Production to be a bit distributed among your planets (but nevertheless aim for very high Ship Production on at least one shipyard)
Food:
Food is special. Always build the Galactic Wonder Kimberly's Refuge on your best food planet. Build it next to Cities, Farms/Arable, Colonial Hospital, Colony Capital and/or Shopping Centers to maximize the adjacency bonuses it gets. Then throw some Farmers at the planet you built it on. This is pretty important for carbon-based civs, because you need as much food as you can get in order to build as many Cities as you can.
Sadly it's not possible anymore to have a fully dedicated food planet (at least not for carbon-based civs). All you can specialize here is Kimberly's and it's surrounding tiles - build whatever you want on the rest of the tiles.
General:
I always build Space Elevator, Deep Core Mine, Starport and maybe a factory or two first on any planet. After that I build Port of Call and morale buildings.
Also make sure that as soon as you get a new planet it supports a Shipyard. If all your existing Shipyards have full sponsor lists, build another one. Reason: whenever a planet does not support a Shipyard, it's Ship Production goes to Nirvana (i.e. is wasted).
*Flat points come from stuff like Computer Core, Central Bank, Space Elevator etc.
Awesome thank you
Just a post game update. I applied many of the tips given, on the game I was running before I posted, and I managed to get my first WIN !!!! (On a medium Map, Normal AI, 8 Races, I was the Terran Alliance)
I started pumping out small hulls to keep my power ranking up. Luckily the Snathi got people aggravated and I managed to use diplomacy to hold of the Iridium and United Earth.
As I got my power up I managed to hold some money with tax rate and approval. Then got a few port of calls when I hit 7 or so planets. When things started to look like war I mass made medium hulls with some logistics and commanders. Managed to hold off the united earth then fight back. I used the medium ships and commanders to take earth and then pushed most of the way on medium hulls. Going full Large hull for the victory as I conquered all civilizations from there.
My tech tree choices were not great as I really seemed to lag on engineering and whatever tech gets you performers for morale. Next I need to try a new game while trying to implement the tips form the start.
Congrats, happy to hear that.
Good luck with your new game.
Yeah, those warmonger civs (Snathi, Drengin, ...) usually don't last long in my games as well. They use to getting ganged up upon by the other civs or (if they make the grave mistake to declare war on me) getting conquered by me.
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