A bunch of technical/gameplay questions for people smarter than I am

Quoting ,

Hi! I have put a lot of hours into GalCiv3 with a friend and we are really enjoying it. There are some things that we still don't understand though that all felt too insignificant to make a post about on their own, so here's a whole list of them! Hope you don't mind

1. Is it possible to change the direction a newly-built ship will exit the shipyard from? I'm sure it was possible in GalCiv2 but I can't find the button for it.

Yes. But it's limited, you can set a starbase or planet as a rally point. This option displays on the galaxy map when you click on your shipyard, or otherwise highlight it. There is a little info screen in the bottom left that lets you set a rally point.

2. There's a specialisation technology that has you choose between "15% more manufacturing capacity" and "reduces manufacturing costs by 15%". What is the difference? Don't they both just make everything take 15% less time to build?

Consider the difference in manufacturing vs. building cost. If you have 5 points of raw manufacturing you'd be boosting your output by 0.75. But a building that costs 100 to build will reduce to 85. 100/5.75= 18 turns, 85/5= 17 turns. Keep in mind the more expensive the building the better the cost reduction. At low costs the difference is negligible.

3. Is there a way to see you total logistics without first making a fleet?

I don't think so... someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

4. Sometimes when you colonise a planet there is a 'trade resource' on it, does it give me the bonus passively or do I have to do anything with it? Since they are unique to one per player, should I always try to trade them away if I have more than 1? If I receive a trade resource in a trade, do I have to do anything with it or is it a passive bonus for 50 turns?

The trade resource both gives you a passive bonus to your empire, it also gives a local adjacency bonus of +2 to a particular type of building. The 'one per player' thing is very misleading, it should be one per colony at least with how it works at the moment. You can get multiples trade resources and their passive empire bonus stacks. For example, if you have three planets with Harmony Crystals your entire empire gets a +3 bonus to morale.

5. The noise telling you that your turn has started is extremely quiet, and seems to not play at all most of the time, both of us often don't realise that out turn has started because the only notification is the little 'wait' text in the bottom-right has lit up and changed a bit. Is there any way to make it more obvious when your turn has started?

I don't play multiplayer. My guess is no, and that this is something that will be improved in the future, hopefully.

6. On Windows 8.1 we both have a bug where the game icon isn't showing in the taskbar, does anyone know a possible fix?

This is a known issue, it'll be fixed in a patch.

I'd really appreciate any advice, thanks a lot!

+1

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Awesome, that's really helpful, thanks so much

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I have a few questions too as am new to GalCiv... so I'll use this good thread!

1. Can you select more than 5 ships at a time? If so, how? If not, why!? I need to go kill a pirate base.

2. What exactly do 'minor' races do? Can you diplomatically get them to join your empire, or if you invade them, do they give you special ships/bonuses related to each particular minor race. Or are they just generic with a picture and occupy a planet?

3. How to invade a planet, what tech do I need to build troops?

4. What can you do about starbases from other players in your empire? I have some which I have totally surrounded with my influence, but as they got there first they seem to be taking all the resources, if there no peaceful way to turn it my side or get them to disband?

5.What does approval do? Does it effect your research/manufacturing or is it purely for resistance/influence/growth as it says (so not needed if I am already covered).

6. How does population affect the base research/manufacturing? I'm trying to work out if it is better to build farms or factories?

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Quoting ,

quoting post

1. Is it possible to change the direction a newly-built ship will exit the shipyard from? I'm sure it was possible in GalCiv2 but I can't find the button for it.

Just set the rally point for the shipyard to be the shipyard itself. Any ships built will stay on the shipyard with an extra movement point granted to be used on the turn it is built, allowing you to bring the ship out any direction you want.

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Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

I have a few questions too as am new to GalCiv... so I'll use this good thread!

1. Can you select more than 5 ships at a time? If so, how? If not, why!? I need to go kill a pirate base.

How many ships you can select while forming a fleet depends upon the logistics value of the ships and your logistics capacity. For example, at the start of the game tiny warships have a logistics value of 2 and your logistics capacity is 10 if you're not playing a race that has a logistics bonus. This gives you a max of five ships forming a fleet (2*5=10). If you have small warships with a logistics value of 3 and the same logistics capacity then your fleet would only hold three ships (3*3=9).

You can research Logistics to increase your logistics capacity.

Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

2. What exactly do 'minor' races do? Can you diplomatically get them to join your empire, or if you invade them, do they give you special ships/bonuses related to each particular minor race. Or are they just generic with a picture and occupy a planet?

One Planet Minor races (OPM) normally are not a threat as they do not expand to other planets. Their planets do not culture flip; so, the only way to join them to your empire is by invasion. Otherwise, they are like the major races. You can trade with them, get them to embargo or go to war with another race, and receive insults from them.

Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

3. How to invade a planet, what tech do I need to build troops?

You need to research Planetary Invasion then build transports. Transports pull population from your planets to use as invasion troops. If you research Invasion Optimization you can do either planetary bombardment, information, or biological warfare in addition to the conventional invasion.

Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

4. What can you do about starbases from other players in your empire? I have some which I have totally surrounded with my influence, but as they got there first they seem to be taking all the resources, if there no peaceful way to turn it my side or get them to disband?

Starbases do not flip due to cultural influence. Either attack it, buy it, or leave it alone. ATM, you cannot threaten an AI player.

Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

5.What does approval do? Does it effect your research/manufacturing or is it purely for resistance/influence/growth as it says (so not needed if I am already covered).

Approval affects planetary production which affects manufacturing, research, and wealth. If you have a high approval you get a 25% increase in production. Low approval results in a 25% decrease in production.

Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

6. How does population affect the base research/manufacturing? I'm trying to work out if it is better to build farms or factories?

The more population you have, the greater you production is. However, as your population goes up the amount of increase lessens. Consider this the cost of maintaining the infrastructure. Early in the colony life-cycle you are better off building factories while building farms as you need them. Keep in mind that as the population increases your approval goes down unless you build entertainment centers to keep them happy.

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Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

1. Can you select more than 5 ships at a time? If so, how? If not, why!? I need to go kill a pirate base.

You can, but you need to gain more logistics by researching some techs (in the engineering tree, I think).

If you want to increase the strength of your fleets, you can either research better weapons or defenses in order to make your ships more powerful, or research logistics and concentrate more ships in a fleet.

2. What exactly do 'minor' races do? Can you diplomatically get them to join your empire, or if you invade them, do they give you special ships/bonuses related to each particular minor race. Or are they just generic with a picture and occupy a planet?

They don't do much. You can exchange techs with them, curry their vote in the U.P., initiate trade routes with them, or invade them if you seek an extra planete.

3. How to invade a planet, what tech do I need to build troops?

You need the Planetary Invasion tech, (in the middle of the red tech tree, I think). It is in the yellow tech age, so you need to research about 15 techs before you can research it.

Once you have it, you can build Transport ships in your shipyard, and use them to invade.

4. What can you do about starbases from other players in your empire? I have some which I have totally surrounded with my influence, but as they got there first they seem to be taking all the resources, if there no peaceful way to turn it my side or get them to disband?

Not really, they won't flip to you. You can try to trade for them in the Diplomacy screen, but it will cost you much.

5.What does approval do? Does it effect your research/manufacturing or is it purely for resistance/influence/growth as it says (so not needed if I am already covered).

It also affects research and manufacturing, it is important to keep high approval when possible.

6. How does population affect the base research/manufacturing? I'm trying to work out if it is better to build farms or factories?

Not sure exactly, I know the formulas have been posted on the forum, but they should change with patch 1.02

Edit : Beaten by detailed answers to your questions.

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Seafireliv

Join Date 03/2006

+9

I like how logistics works since it makes a lot of sense. A lot of people think `Well why can`t I have as many ships as I want in a group?`, but it`s not that simple. The more ships you have the more it needs managing. It very much reminds, as a real-world example, of the problems that most airforces like the Americans had in WW2 when gathering their huge numbers of bombers togther to attack the enemy. It took logistics and a lot of learning to finally get them up and going without bombers running into eachother or dropping bombs on eachother!

Just a bit of a pity that on the batle map, ships in the game don`t act very orderly.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

Quoting nindisp,

reply 3

I have a few questions too as am new to GalCiv... so I'll use this good thread!

1. Can you select more than 5 ships at a time? If so, how? If not, why!? I need to go kill a pirate base.

Yes you need to research the logistics tech

2. What exactly do 'minor' races do? Can you diplomatically get them to join your empire, or if you invade them, do they give you special ships/bonuses related to each particular minor race. Or are they just generic with a picture and occupy a planet?

They are good for trading with either through diplomacy or with freighters they dont produce influence or try to colonize so you ca. Safely leave them in your territory

3. How to invade a planet, what tech do I need to build troops?

planetary invasion tech

4. What can you do about starbases from other players in your empire? I have some which I have totally surrounded with my influence, but as they got there first they seem to be taking all the resources, if there no peaceful way to turn it my side or get them to disband?

Theres an ideology trait that flips all starbases in your ZOI other then that you can try and buy the base from the ai

5.What does approval do? Does it effect your research/manufacturing or is it purely for resistance/influence/growth as it says (so not needed if I am already covered).

It does effect manufacturing research etc i think at 100% approval you get a 25% bonus

6. How does population affect the base research/manufacturing? I'm trying to work out if it is better to build farms or factories?

There is a formula to figure it out i dont have access to it atm but i think after 25 pop its less usefull to build farms then factories

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Don't like that at all. Seems a cheap method to limit the ships that the program can draw during battle.

The one tile represents at least the space a planet takes up, not sure why you cant move 1000s of ships together.

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You can.... They'd just be organized in to multiple fleets in the whole grand armada.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

2. There's a specialisation technology that has you choose between "15% more manufacturing capacity" and "reduces manufacturing costs by 15%". What is the difference? Don't they both just make everything take 15% less time to build?

i guess the other stuff was answered already, but i think the answer to this one was a bit misleading. reduced manufacturing cost means that buildings of that type (i.e. factories, the "once per colony" power plants & duranthium refinery and the "one per player" manufacturing capital - maybe some others as well) get cheaper. that bonus doesn't apply to other building types. same for similar techs in the research, food, entertainment, trade, tourism etc. branches. the reduced cost applies only to that type of buildings, not to others.

it's usually a safe bet to pick the other bonus.

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See, while I was writing that I was like, this makes total sense why haven't I done this yet? That's why, totally forgot about that. Base bonus that works for all types is much more effective than reduced cost on one type. Especially considering the base bonus's stack.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

4. Sometimes when you colonise a planet there is a 'trade resource' on it, does it give me the bonus passively or do I have to do anything with it? Since they are unique to one per player, should I always try to trade them away if I have more than 1? If I receive a trade resource in a trade, do I have to do anything with it or is it a passive bonus for 50 turns?

I have a correlary question to that...

Let's say the Altarians have harmony crystals on one of their planets. They trade it with the Terrans for technology, for 50 turns.

20 turns later, I invade this particular planet of the Altarian dominion. Do I get the harmony crystals right now or only in 30 turns? I almost never pay attention to that...

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Quoting redviper37,

reply 13

...

I have a correlary question to that...

Let's say the Altarians have harmony crystals on one of their planets. They trade it with the Terrans for technology, for 50 turns.

20 turns later, I invade this particular planet of the Altarian dominion. Do I get the harmony crystals right now or only in 30 turns? I almost never pay attention to that...

that's a good question actually. common sense would be that the trade between terra and altaria is cancelled since altarians lost the resource. and since you own it now, you should be able to use it. so the "losers" in this case woud be terra, since they traded for something that the other party can no longer supply, and altaria, since they lost their planet to you

but i haven't actually tested it, so it's quite possible that the resource basically stops working until the trade is over.

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Seafireliv

Join Date 03/2006

+9

Quoting redviper37,

reply 13

I have a correlary question to that...

Let's say the Altarians have harmony crystals on one of their planets. They trade it with the Terrans for technology, for 50 turns.

20 turns later, I invade this particular planet of the Altarian dominion. Do I get the harmony crystals right now or only in 30 turns? I almost never pay attention to that...

I`m not sure gamewise, but logically, I`d say you`d get whatever that Civ had available. I doubt it would be 30 turns worth of resources as the Civ is unlikely to have that many to spare in one turn. It would probably be a couple of resources straight away, the amount it actually has available. Regardless the agreed amount it was giving to the other Civ per Turn would immediately stop.

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