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Galactic Civilizations 2

Copypasta:

In a galaxy far, far away, a myriad of races try to dominate all of creation. Here are the current results:


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We are the 'Yor Collective,' a bunch of robots who suck at diplomacy and cultural influence but rock at manufacturing and 'turtling'. Each race has their own super ability. You have the Terrans, who are experts at diplomacy and generally try to conquer planets culturally through their influence (the blue area). Their influence used to be far greater before a galactic event was triggered in which everyone accused them of 'cultural conquest' and so native cultural influence was increased to match it. Their empire used to be far larger but has been split in two You have the Torians, who are 'super breeders' and are the cockroaches of the galaxy (green).

You also have the Purple (not pink, those are insectoid aliens from the future - perhaps Lovecraft's race of beetles?), which I have chosen to lead. The Yor are 'super isolationists', which means any ship traveling in their space can move no faster than 3 parsecs (or squares) per week (turn). If you combine this ability with a military starbase equipped with a 'warp field disruptor' module (-2 ship speed,) the flood of righteous invading fleets is slowed down to a pathetic crawl.

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And there will be righteous fleets, because the Yor are evil. Or rather, they are 'efficient.' Evil races enjoy numerous short-term benefits from the immediate exploitation of anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Good races tend to stick together and so you'll more often see a larger alliance of do-gooders take down all but the most powerful evil races.

The galaxy used to be fairly evenly divided amongst the races, with the exception of those wretched Torian cockroaches that just have to colonize EVERYTHING including that wonderful class 29 planet that was just within your grasp but whatever.

Then the Terrans started to 'flip' planets (conquer culturally) left and right until everyone got wise to their antics. With the exception of the Iconians (the light-grey group), the Yor were left generally unmolested by everyone else. We were able to trigger 2 major galactic wars! What else can you do when you have a small number of mediocre planets but bide your time and advance while everyone else is at each others' throats?

The major powers were satisfied with merely demanding the occasional tribute but eventually, the Hue-mons declared war on us. It was quickly obvious what had happened - the blue blob crushed the military of every other force and now only we remained. Even worse, we cannot rely on the other races to attack them - anyone strong enough to challenge them has allied with them. The Thalans (Pink) and Torians (Green) will soon declare war. It is only a matter of time.

But we are prepared! Our lack of resources has forced us to invest heavily in specific technologies designed not to help us expand, but to help us fully develop our planets and territory.




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Precious resources. Scarcely littering the galaxy are resources of a generic shape which, when claimed and harvested, can boost your race's military, influence, morale (population approval, higher means faster pop. growth and higher taxes before they get uppity,) economy, influence and research capability.

During the rise of the almighty Terran Alliance empire, we had claimed the numerous military resources fortune had blessed us with - no less than 4 out of 5-6 are close to our home planet. Yes, some were claimed, but they belonged to a minor race. We destroyed their starbases and immediately constructed new ones. Having only a single planet, the worms could never hope to challenge even our meager military might. In the event a resource was owned by a fellow major power, why, it was a simple matter of placing an attack vessel next to that base, then gifting it to whomever they were at war with. Next turn, BAM: it's destroyed and we don't have to get our hands dirty with total war.

As it stands, the military resources boost our weaponry by 103%! We were formidable back in the day. And once we get Black Hole Generators that are 103% stronger than anything the opposition can offer, our full robotic fury will be felt by these wretches!

The Terran Alliance's declaration of war came as a shock to us - while our invincible starbases, resource, military and economic, could shrug off any attack, the entire network (4 [max] per sector and fully armed resource extractors) was not complete. Though those crafty Hue-mons demanded tribute from us, which we paid, a few turns before they declared war. We were the last on their list and it's our own fault for not seeing it.

Nevertheless, our machine collective cannot be stopped. While they managed to destroy a valuable resource starbase, which was not equipped with the necessary missile-defense systems to counter the nukes that the humans are so fond of in this game, they cannot prevent us from rebuilding it.





Caution: Wide
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Overhead, zoomed-out view: A swarm of 'constructor' ships, each carrying a module for a starbase, moves out to rebuild and reinforce our destroyed extractor before they can claim the resource for themselves. Nothing short of disbanding their fleets and chasing after our individual ships can halt the reconstruction. Ground that we Super Isolationist robots take, we keep, period!






The current reports from the battlefield are promising. Zero damage to our starbases and total destruction of enemy fleets.
 
Caution: Wide

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Yet another Terran Alliance fleet annihilated. Their fleets are a few generations away from being able to even put a dent into our bases. However, being attacked from all sides means we cannot expand. Eventually they will target our trade routes which, while not essential or even economically significant, will hurt our neighbors, making them easier prey for the Hue-mons and their allies.

We will punish their invasion force but not until they develop a counter-strategy. We can drain them but only to a point - safe behind our presently-perfect barrier, we shall instead strengthen our allies and try to knock the Terrans' allies out of the picture or, better yet, turn them against each other once again.

The Iconians have a planet which is the site of a Precursor Library (the Precursors are the ancient race that waged some epic war millions of years before). We've had our sights set on them for a long time. Their extermination and the absorption of their planets, unique manufacturing technology and resources will help us greatly provided we can make the humans look the other way for a short while. Their military has already been crushed thanks to the Terran juggernaut.


Soon...

(Wide x2)
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Other stuff:




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Terror star. A costly piece of equipment which is a hassle to research, build and protect. It blows up a star and all the surrounding planets and takes anything close to it out. Its use is very 'situational' - if your enemy has dozens of planets you can't invade, but you can overpower him in space, escort your Terror Star and pick his planets off one by one (or five by five).




Terran Alliance:

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(A chick leads it in the expansion)


Torian Confederacy:

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Roaches.



A 'United Planets' meeting:

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Enemy ship assessment:
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Design your own ships (My ships really push the graphics card, this ain't one of them):

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Aaaand.... done.


[I felt like typing]
 
Did they just flat out steal a Klingon logo in that second "starbase details" pic?

Seriously, I like the political intrigue as you describe it (although I smell allegory throughout; maybe that's unavoidable --or perhaps it's just me.) How does it compare with other similarly-themed games, like Starcraft?

Also, the ships look a little too much like Christmas toys for my tastes. Can you post a few of your own?
 
Insanely wicked write up there, Weevil. Makes me want to jump back in to GalCiv2 myself. I have burned so much time on that game it's unreal.

It's, in my opinion, one of the most near perfect games you can buy. It has been out for a good few years but has had numerous expansions and incredible love and attention showered on it by StarDock (the developers) which has ended up making it a truly complex game without the usual amount of useless "fluff" you can get in 4x4 games.

You can play the game is so many different ways and have such different tactical outcomes due to that fact, that the longevity is unsurpassed.

For instance; Civilization 4 is a truly fantastic game and much more comparable than the StarCraft comparison but where Gal Civ beats out Civ4 bang to rights is in its end game. Things stay epic right until the end and the tide can still turn on you very quickly from your own mismanagement even in the late game.

I would recommend it to anyone who has the patience to delve in to it.



I just wish they would hurry up with Galactic Civ 3.
 
Did they just flat out steal a Klingon logo in that second "starbase details" pic?
That was probably from a mod. The game comes with editors.

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Seriously, I like the political intrigue as you describe it (although I smell allegory throughout; maybe that's unavoidable --or perhaps it's just me.) How does it compare with other similarly-themed games, like Starcraft?
The diplomatic matrix is very simple. Relations are improved when both sides are of a similar alignment, have similar military strength (you are penalized by being weaker, likewise if you choose not to extort and demand tribute from others and are stronger the relations improve,) trade, diplomacy skill etc. Having close borders results in a penalty, and trying to flip their planets or positioning ships inside or at their borders will get you a "We know what you're doing" penalty. A typical report looks like this:

+Our Military strength
-Our diplomacy skill
++Our historic friendship
+Trading
-Our ethical alignment
etc

And everything else falls into place. If you keep warships at their borders for a few turns they'll hail you demanding you remove them. On lower skill levels they go into tirades like "Don't think we don't see what you're doing. If my generals were set to "Intelligent" or higher we would be preparing for war. I bet you think this is some sort of 'video game' but we are not computer characters, we are real, sentient creatures. I just want you to know that we know what you're doing." or "Stop making us both look foolish and attack already."


There is a campaign with something of a story but the game is basically a big sandbox with a bunch of races who all recently acquired a FTL engine. The first part is the 'colony rush' phase, then comes the intrigue. It's some type of god game but not an RTS. Everything is turn-based, so first you go through stuff like assigning social projects for colonies, selecting ships to build, selecting what to research and ordering ships to move here or there.

Also, the ships look a little too much like Christmas toys for my tastes. Can you post a few of your own?

I stopped making them because I got too sucked into editing them. Here are some I found (they aren't great but it's not easy capturing screenshots so they look better than this):



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Ship designer. That's the default Yor colony ship (the colony module is the big blue thing). Different hull sizes have more or less 'space'. At the top you'll see 56/60. Each module takes up a certain amount of space. Aesthetic addons (There are many, many many) weigh nothing. A higher 'miniaturization' level, which you research, increases the max. space. Likewise, more advanced weapons and defenses tend to be smaller and pack more firepower, but are also more expensive.

The red spots are 'hard points' which you attach stuff to. It's like Legos only you can change their size.



Here is a ship of another race:

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Which came out a little ugly...


There are only 2-3 ships which I always use from game to game. These are my Tiny Hull constructor ships (Constructites) and tiny colony ships. Tiny hulls are produced much faster than cargo hulls so getting the necessary miniaturization let's you swarm the field.


Here are some old ships of mine I found:


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It's something I tried to recreate just now. It was a troop transport with an excessive amount of speed and range to make conquering larger empires easier. The original 'Deliverer' looked better.



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The 'Acolyte' was a ship intended to be mass-produced to stay in orbit of my planets in a swarm. It's smaller than it looks and had at least 1 point in every weapon and defense category (Beams, Missiles, Mass Drivers).


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The 'Tick' filled the same role but in a different game.


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The 'Inquisitor' was an upgraded Survey Ship (they explore anomalies which yield various goodies). Everyone starts with a survey ship. Unlike those, this one could defend itself. It's about 2-3 times larger than the other ships.

All of these look much better in the actual game. The textures are fairly well-detailed and respond to different light sources (notice the glare on the bottom wing).




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That's a Dread Lord ship. They're an ancient evil race that was banished but is back. They fill the generic 'ancient super-empire' role and they sometimes appear in the Sandbox mode, sometimes with weapons hundreds of times stronger than anything anyone has. They are always at war with everyone.



I downloaded a mod that let's you use their hulls and most every model in the game in the ship designer (like asteroids etc).

So I made an 'assimilated' DL ship.


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An example of a Minor Race. These guys usually look like generic Star Trek: TOS characters with the poor makeup and everything. This one must have been like an easter egg of some kind:

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These guys are E-V-I-L! It's rumored that the Dread Lords, in a last ditch effort to destroy the Arnorians in the epic Battle of Kalis-Yu', focused all their dark energy, malice, and hatred into a army of war-hungry demons... the SNATHI! Now, after billions of years hoarding their proverbial 'Nuts', the Snathi have metaphorically 'climbed out of their tree' and will 'gnaw the galaxy with their big squirrel-like teeth'... so to speak.

"The Snathi exists to enslave all inferiors. We will soon learn if you are amongst them."
 
I just wish they would hurry up with Galactic Civ 3.
They should give it a Spore galaxy. Anyone who has played both games will know what I mean.

It would be cool if you could conquer the galaxy and move on to the next. A good race/ship/tech generator could let you play the game until the universe is yours.

...then with it's resources you build a giant gateway into another universe.
 
Ah, the spiritual successor to Master of Orion II. Been a while since I played it.

I wish multiplayer were an option here, but this is still an excellent game.
 
Archibald Nixon: more questions later
Liar.


You're right - they all look like christmas presents. I've mostly spent time making them look like... arrows or bullets. Next time I'm making an Ori Mothership:

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Liar.


You're right - they all look like christmas presents. I've mostly spent time making them look like... arrows or bullets. Next time I'm making an Ori Mothership:

Vlcsnap-284533.png
300px-Odyssey_beam_weapons.jpg
Yeah, sorry --I went through this same thing with Sgt Sniper and his Eve Online threads: I became intrigued, then once I saw how involved the whole thing was, I thought "there's no way in hell I'm going to have any time to get into this."

New ships are MUCH better-looking.
 
Weevil: Torrent. Give it a whirl for an hour.
Remember you're talking to the guy who plays MahJongg six hours a day and who only learned about a month ago that you can skip entry fields using the Tab key.:S:

(note to self: learn to torrent.)
 
Weevil: Have you tried Sins of a Solar Empire, and if so, what did you think of it? I've got it sitting in its unopened box atm.
 
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