Surely another explaination is they built it, having full production putting themselves in debt 2757 bc. After all they were still under the 500bc limit.

[Message Edited]

Right, here's some more undeniable 'suspicious behaviour':

Incidentally I used cheat keys to remove the fog of war to check this out:

Game level: Tough

60 months into the game (year 2183), and the Drengin have:
16 planets, nearly all with a population of over 15 billion, most with PQ of between 25-28 (2 with 37!)... their colony ships (and frigates etc) have travelled right across the (huge sized) galaxy without any starbases in sight. Their tech level is massive (I'm technologically in 2nd place and they have 19 techs I don't have, and they've researched all of mine too) most of these techs being high-cost ones.
Now this is the frightening bit: They have literally hundreds (can't possibly count them all) of Frigates, spaced right across the map, and are at war with every civilisation, and winning - easily.

Now if they had cleverly used their sliders to give them one or the other of these advantages (ie. Military at 100% and Social and Research at 0%) then MAYBE it's possible to have this huge military, but no way is it possible to have all these huge PQ planets, a massive fleet of Frigates AND be so vastly superior technologically. Just no way. I calculate there must be around 200 months worth of research they've done for a start.

Another point: a few months down the line and there's an uninhabited star system at the edge of my 'culture'... it has a class 16 planet and a class 15 planet. One Drengin Colony ship lands there and within 1 turn (yes, 1 turn) they have turned into class 21 and 22 planets, each with a population of around 750 million.

How is all this possible??? Just exactly what advantages do the AI get on 'Tough' setting?

Anyone want a free secondhand copy of Galciv please post here.

Are you sure all the AIs are set to basically the same level? That sounds like the behavior you get when you set one AI to Incredible and the rest to low levels. (Incredible AIs get huge bonuses.)

oh, right, so how can I set MY intelligence to incredible? I appear to be stuck on 'Sub-Normal'
[Message Edited]

Maybe if you changed your nickname to "Incredible_nickname_Page"...

hehe --
couslee, thanks for validating my opinion!

stupid, nothing you noted is cheating. Yes, they manipulate the "sliders". They also go to war with each other early and often, if there is a strong advantage, so they didn't have to colonize all the planets. 100 frigates is only 5 or so per planet, also not extraordinary

You simply must start the game with 100% military spending and 100% expenditures so you can crank out colony ships in 2 turns. If you have two planets close, then you can have 16 colony chips in less than 20 turns. add travel time and you can easily colonize 16 planets in 30-40 turns or so.

Remember, the AI gets to see all the yellow stars and plan its expansion. Try saving the starting position, using CTL-U to see the position, look for numerous nearby planets and AI's a *long* way away. Then plan your colonizing accordingly. Reload to reset the cheat key. (evil lear)

Look up threads on morale -- morale has much more to do with population growth than senate voting. Basically, morale = population growth. Look for threads on build order. Build zero cost improvements and improvements that increase morale and econ. Don't build military until you are ready to go to war. Use diplomacy to keep AI's from attacking.

Really, the AI's are not cheating in the areas you mention -- humbly I say I could achieve what you report they are achieving. The game is just harder and more subtle than you think.


Cheers!

Are you giving away a free secondhand copy, contact me at [email protected]

Mayito I think hes kidding or being sarcastic.Hes probably not used to computer games that can kick your @#$ without much trying.Most strat games I've played in past I could master in day or two but this one took a little longer.He will get the hang of it soon.

Hang in there Stup.

I know I was hoping he will contact me, and I could be able to give him some hints about the game, sort of a small version of EBZero strategy.

Yeah I remember first few games of whooped on by all AI's.Now its not that hard to beat most levels at any starting position.Maso is still king though.I have only managed one win there and that one was really tough.I don't use the cheeses posted and I try to play clean.Crippling is more to my liking and will probably try maso again in the future.

Hey all, thanks for your replies.

You may or may not have noticed that I've gone off the word 'cheat' and started using the word 'Bonuses' instead...

Yup Eradicus I guess you're right - I've been playing computer games since the early '80s and the old Vic 20 days, and usually master them within a couple of days, but I have to admit it's my own fault for going from 'Beginner' to 'Challenging', beating both easily and then getting damn frustrated when I can't get a foothold on Tough, Crippling and Maso!

Shouldn't complain really - I'd be more upset if it was easy I guess.

You'll all be relieved to hear I've started a new game, following your advice, and am curently kicking AI ass, so hopefully I'll at last put forward a score I'm happy with!

Congrats, stupid! (That sounds really weird, doesn't it? LOL )

I'm an old Vic 20 gamer too! Ahhh, the old days of programming in BASIC!

Good luck with your gaming, stupid. Hope you have fun! And you really should consider changing your nick by going to http://www.wincustomize.com !

It could be that stupid nickname page has the same problem I do...we both stink at playing this game!...I tell you, I have been around the block with many games in my time but never had I had so much trouble beating a game as I have had with this one...I look at those Mega scores and think..."how the hell do these people do it?"...but the game is so damn good that I never get frustrated, I just crank up another game and try something different... however, in those dark times, when this game has beaten me low, and I question my gaming manhood, I'll dust off MOO3, realize what a waste of money that was, take a deep breath, and tackle GalCiv once again....

JP,

Most of us got our arses handed to us when we first started playing the game! This is by no means an "easy" game. I think what really blows everybody's mind when they start is they can't just start at Normal difficulty like with most other games. Hell, even Cakewalk is hard at first! It took me a bit to get used to the fact that I needed to start at the lowest levels and work my way up the difficulty.

The Strategies forum also helped me immensely. There are some great threads over there. Talking to good players is an excellent way to learn, and the Strat forum is the perfect place to do that!

Hope you and stupid nickname page keep trying! Eventually you'll get the hang of it!

at that point in the game, there is no way they would have the production capacity to build it by means of turns, even if they set the tax rate at zero. Please. :rollseyes:
(grin) nice try.

Ok, how about after you checked their finances they extorted a minor for enough cash to go positive, and then bought the Translators?

I said that in my original post, if you had read the whole thing.

And I reiterate, I have my doubts about that. They did not have contact with any other empires that I was aware of. They were isolated. And I had already sold off techs to achieve parity with everyone (we were neighbors from the git). And at that point in the game, I doubt they had enough military to extort a twinkie (no one even had star fighters yet).

If there was a reasonable explaination for it, I would not have posted what I did.

Damn, I've gotten myself into a right fix here...

I was doing so well: just me, Altarians and Torians left. Unfortunately, we're all allied together (I un-checked all optional victories), and when I start on the Torians the Altarians join forces with them to get me. So, as luck would have it, the Torians decide that "we'd better get rid of you before you get rid of us", and YEAY!!! the Altarians join with us against them. Anyway, so now we've done the Torians, and luckily I've managed to take about 95% of their planets and the Altarians took the other 5%. Unfortunately the Altarians are still much stronger than I am and so it's a bit of a stalemate from here. I've somehow managed to research Overlord technology and produced about 30 of the buggers, but the Altarians are just staying way ahead of me, and their production is going faster than mine. Also, I don't think I can afford to sustain a huge military as I just don't have the income to pay for it. If I do start on the Altarians and try to take a few of their planets, it all goes pretty well but I soon find that their military is so bloody huge that I just cant get a foothold, and they wont allow peace - they just want to finish me off.

Any suggestions for a victory?

culture bomb them and gain planets until you can out produce them then go with the military conquest.


I expect one of the more experienced players will suggest a better way.

Send 5 constructors to each system then build terrorstars all in one turn (you can go in the red as far as you like and it won't keep you from building the terrorstars). Next turn, nuke the altarians. Instant win.

I'm guessing that by culture bomb you mean build starbases like crazy and upgrade them with all the culture modules I got?

If so, where should I be building them, cos I've done that and my influence in these sectors is still nowhere near as good as theirs... one of their sectors, which is right in the middle of my main area, has about 12000 influence and I can't get above 3000, even though I've got all the surrounding sectors.

Another thing you can do is to buy as many of their starbases as you can afford, especially influence or military resource bases. You could cut their military rating by a quarter or a third (and boost yours by the same amount) if you buy one fully tricked-out military starbase.

If you build two or three starbases with all of the cultural maximizing/palace options in the same sector, adjacent to the sector you want, you should see a dramatic effect on that sector. Especially if you have a planet in the sector where you build the bases, but it's not required.

Gets harder if they have some big cultural starbases. Consider purchasing those starbases from them... Also, a little destabilization over time goes a long way to help with flipping.

Look for a sector where they have one colonized planet and there is an uncolonized 14 (13 will work too). Build a couple of cultural starbases and then colonize the planet. Buy Soil Enhancement, Habitat Improvement, and News Network. That should be enough to flip the planet and give you a foothold. You may need to build another couple of maxed culture starbases to get that first planet to flip depending on how strong they are.