USER MANUAL
Developed by
Written by Brad Wardell & Steve Rose
Table of Contents
Table of Contents............................................................................................................................ |
2 |
About the Demo Version .................................................................... |
Error! Bookmark not defined. |
Installation and Requirements ....................................................................................................... |
3 |
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... |
3 |
Victory Conditions.......................................................................................................................... |
3 |
Our story so far…........................................................................................................................... 5 |
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Starting a new game ....................................................................................................................... |
5 |
Creating your own human faction ................................................................................................. |
7 |
Choosing your galaxy size ............................................................................................................ |
11 |
Choosing your opponents ............................................................................................................. |
12 |
Getting around the Galactic Civilizations Interface.................................................................... |
13 |
Keyboard Commands................................................................................................................... |
13 |
Mouse Controls............................................................................................................................. |
13 |
The Options Screen....................................................................................................................... |
14 |
Elements of the Main Screen........................................................................................................ |
18 |
Your Ethics, Morale, Trade & Culture ....................................................................................... |
22 |
Combat.......................................................................................................................................... |
25 |
Star bases ...................................................................................................................................... |
27 |
Star System view........................................................................................................................... |
29 |
The Planet View............................................................................................................................ |
30 |
The Planet List.............................................................................................................................. |
33 |
The Fleet List ................................................................................................................................ |
33 |
Domestic Policy............................................................................................................................. |
33 |
TIP: How the Economy Works .................................................................................................... |
38 |
Production..................................................................................................................................... |
39 |
Setting Foreign Policy................................................................................................................... |
41 |
Diplomacy ..................................................................................................................................... |
43 |
Setting Technology policy............................................................................................................. |
43 |
Events & Ethics............................................................................................................................. |
44 |
Influence........................................................................................................................................ |
44 |
The United Planets........................................................................................................................ |
46 |
The Metaverse............................................................................................................................... |
47 |
Basic Walkthrough ....................................................................................................................... |
51 |
Reference....................................................................................................................................... |
53 |
Galactic Civilizations Tutorial ..................................................................................................... |
53 |
A Game Play Example: The Mirror Universe............................................................................. |
56 |
Getting Support ............................................................................................................................ |
78 |
Using Stardock Central ................................................................................................................ |
78 |
Technical Frequently Asked Questions ....................................................................................... |
82 |
Credits........................................................................................................................................... |
83 |
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Installation and Requirements
Galactic Civilizations requires a Pentium III level computer running at 600mhz or higher. We recommend a 1Ghz Pentium III level computer or better for optimal performance.
Galactic Civilizations requires approximately 300 megabytes of hard disk space for all multimedia features to be installed. However, minus the multimedia features it can be played with less than 100 megabytes of disk space.
It requires a display of at least 1024x768 to play. You can receive additional updates to the game at http://www.galciv.com.
People often ask if they can play on lower spec machines: I sometimes play the game on my old 266 laptop, and with the video and sound turned off and playing on smaller galaxy sizes, it is OK to play. But you really need some power when you get gigantic galaxies, with lots of planets and ships to keep track off. (Instructions on how to do this are in the technical FAQ in this manual.)
Introduction
Galactic Civilizations is a strategy game in which you take the helm of human civilization in the year 2178. It is a time of great change for humanity as a new technology, known as hyper-drive, has allowed civilizations to travel great distances in a short amount of time. This means that countless planets are now open to colonization and exploration. However, humans are not alone in the galaxy, several other space faring civilizations are doing the same thing. It is up to you to decide how humanity will interact with these other civilizations.
Victory Conditions
Galactic Civilizations provides four paths to victory.
?Political Victory
?Technology Victory
?Cultural Victory
?Conquest Victory
Most players will employ a variety of strategies to win through one of these paths. This document is designed to spell out what these victory conditions mean and some strategies on how to achieve them.
Political Victory
"If you and your alien allies are able to conquer all opposition you win."
In the diplomacy screen you can see the diplomatic relations you have with other players. At the start of the game they'll be neutral. But with the proper encouragement, you can get to "close" relations. Only at that point, you can negotiate an alliance treaty with them on the negotiation screen. If you do
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this will all the surviving major civilizations, you will achieve a political victory. Note that you need alliance technology.
Of course, how do you get foreign governments to like you? The short answer is - you make it their best interest to like you. In Galactic Civilizations, that means trade combined with sufficient military power. But trade is the key. By building freighters and sending them to other star systems you can begin to make their economy dependent on trade with you. Over time, their relations with you will improve. The more powerful you are compared to them, the easier this can be.
That said, there are other factors. For instance, if you play the role of an "evil" civilization, then things get a lot tougher. Good civilizations don't want anything to do with you, even if you do trade it will be a hard case to make them like you.
Technology Victory
"If humanity can research enough technology that it transcends to the next level of existence, you win."
What the heck does that mean? In short, if you manage to make your way through the technology tree you will eventually reach a technology called "The Final Frontier". Research this and mankind moves to the next phase of its existence and wins the game.
Of course, doing this is very challenging since it will require massive technology investment. The best way to achieve this is to make sure you control as many of the technology resources as you can. I have found that the best way to do that is to try to stay out of wars and keep constructors near starbases owned by players who are currently at war and hope that that starbase gets destroyed. Be wary though, the alien civilizations don't take kindly to this so make sure you are ready for the consequences of that.
Cultural Victory
"If you culturally dominate 9/10th’s of the sectors culturally and you are not at war with any civilizations you win the game via cultural domination."
So how do you do this? Culture. If you control the cultural influence resources (blue cubes on the map) and build them up this will get you a long way towards that goal. Then build star bases in sectors you don't currently have influence control over and build them up with cultural influence modules. Be wary, the alien civilizations are aware of this tactic (since they'll try to do it to you) so unless you are prepared for war, don't be too blatant about this at the higher intelligence levels.
Conquest Victory
"If you conquer all of the alien civilizations, you win."
Specifically it means all the major alien civilizations. You don't have to kill off every last minor civilization if you don't want to. But you do have to conquer all the major civilizations (Drengin, Arceans, Yor, Torians, Altarians). Odds are though that the minor civilizations will fall along the way.
This path is the most traditional and straight forward so I'm not sure what I can add as advice. Let's see...how about, build really powerful ships and destroy the other side's really powerful ships? Then build transports, load them up with troops and send them over to undefended star systems and invade them.
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Our story so far…
The year is 2178. But our story really begins fifty years ago. For this is when humans first came into contact with an alien civilization. The faint signals of an Arcean probe were picked up on sensors in Australia. It didn’t take long for a very basic level of contact to begin between Earth and Arcea. It was the beginning of our interstellar education.
For thousands of years, several interstellar civilizations have been sending probes throughout the galaxy. Transportation between different outposts was done through star-gates. These star-gates were immense structures that were obscenely expensive to use and maintain. As a result, the civilizations actually have had very limited contact with one another (and none with humans obviously).
Once human scientists understood the concept of star gates and how they worked, they set on a course to try to improve on them. About a decade before the start of the game, these scientists introduce to the galaxy a new technology called “Hyper-drive”, which applied the principles of the gates in a new type of ship engine, making interstellar travel possible without a star gate at each end.
Humans by the 22nd century had concluded that any civilization capable of interstellar travel must certainly have long since grown out of their violent militaristic stage and one of the leading scientists involved with the project shared the design of hyper-drive with all five of the major alien civilizations. Almost instantly, communication with the other civilizations came to a halt.
After months of silence, government of United Earth came to the conclusion that hyper-drive would allow the colonization of the galaxy and what was likely to occur was a race to claim star systems that contained inhabitable planets. It was decided that Earth must not fall behind and the design for a colony ship developed.
This brings us to 2178, the beginning of the era known as “Galactic Civilizations”. The first colony ship has been created along with a survey ship to explore the numerous anomalies throughout the galaxy.
Now the race is on to find and colonize unclaimed star systems with good planets (class 15 or better), find and claim galactic resources (by building constructors that can then build star bases on them), and ensure humanity can survive in a potentially hostile galaxy.
Starting a new game
Upon loading Galactic Civilizations you are presented with 3 options: Start a new civilization, Load a saved civilization, and Restore your last civilization. Loading a saved one will allow you to choose a previously saved game. Restoring will bring back the most recent auto-save available.
When choosing a new game, Galactic Civilizations will ask you to create your civilization:
Designing a Civilization
On this screen, you can decide what kind of civilization you would like to have. Humanity is yours to mold. You can name your civilization anything you want.
You can select your political party from this screen. Political parties give your civilization advantages in specific areas. However, they only good when your political party is in control of your
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senate. The starting government type, imperial, ensures you will always have control of the senate at the beginning but as more advanced forms of government come into play, control of the senate becomes more difficult.
The political parties available are:
Federalists
The federalists are big believers in having the government be somewhat distributed. They tend to be fairly expert in financial matters internally. Choosing this party will give your civilization a 20% boost in tax revenue and a 10% boost in industrial production.
Pacifists
The pacifists are strong believers in peace. Any civilization capable of interstellar travel must be peaceful. Disagreements and warfare between civilizations is due to misunderstanding. Choosing this party will give your civilization a 30% bonus to your influence and 30% bonus to your diplomacy ability.
War Party
The war party sees the alien civilizations for what they are, vermin that must be controlled. The best defense is a good offense. The Terran civilization has a manifest destiny to control the entire galaxy. Choosing this party will give your civilization a 10% bonus to star ship weapons and 50% to hit points your star ships get and a 10% bonus to the quality of your soldiers.
Progressive
The progressive party sees things in terms of social progress. The galaxy is probably too big to be conquered with crude weapons and ships. The future belongs to the civilization that creates the most powerful society as a whole and abides by intergalactic laws. This party gets a 50% bonus to social project manufacturing.
Mercantile
The Mercantiles understand the true power of hyperdrive – trade. It is through trade that the galaxy will be united under human guidance. Exporting our goods and culture to other civilizations will make them more dependent and human prosperity for their own success. The Mercantiles receive a 30% bonus to trade via freighters and the value of human trade goods is increased by 30%. As an extra bonus, they give a 10% bonus to espionage.
Populists
The populists are the party of the people. They care. They really do. They believe in focusing on the needs and fears of the people and as a result, they bring a 30% increase to morale and increase our influence by 10%. They also highly encourage humans to be fruitful and multiply which gives a 10% boost to population growth.
Technologists
The technologists are the ones who have dominated the politics of the United Nations for the past few decades. It was their supporters, after all, who delivered hyperdrive in the first place. That is why the technologists give an impressive 30% boost research and +3 to sensor range.
Industralists
The industrialists are the antithesis of the technologists. Why worry about products of the future when you can focus on the products of today? The industrialists provide a 5% economic bonus and a 20% industrial production bonus.
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Universalists
The key to winning is really through a balance of all factors. Universalists don’t focus on any particular issue but instead moderate between many views. As a result, Universalists provide a 10% trade bonus, a 10% research bonus, a 10% bonus to ship defenses, a 10% bonus to ship repair, a 10% bonus to starship speed. While some argue that these miniscule advantages they provide are a waste of time, they counter that when combined with other advantages received in the future that they can make quite a difference.
Creating your own human faction
After choosing your political party, you can add up to 10 ability bonus points to key areas of your civilization. This is how you create your own human faction. The cost of increasing each ability varies. The available abilities and their costs are:
Courage
Bravery is not only respected by alien civilizations, but can also give your Soldiers the advantage when fighting a close land battle. Boost this by increasing your Bravery Ability.
Brave (+25%) Cost: 1 pt.
Creativity
Put the Right side of you brain to good use! Creative Empires will have a higher likelihood of making groundbreaking discoveries traditionally unavailable.
Highly Creative (+25%) Cost: 1 pt.
Tip: This manifests in your survey ships (initially USS Hero) finding tech breakthroughs when exploring anomalies.
Defense
Keep your pilots safe with a mighty Defense Ability. The hulls of your ships will be strengthened to protect from enemy firepower.
Advanced (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Master (+30%) Cost: 3 pts.
Tip: If your BattleAxe’s defense would be 6, and your have +50% Defense ability, then the ship has a defense of 9.
Diplomacy
Raise your negotiation skills with a boost in your Diplomacy Ability. When trading with other civilizations, you'll have an easier time getting what you want. The better your diplomacy rating
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versus theirs, the harder the bargain you can drive. It also affects your foreign relations as you will tend to be able to avoid war easier (as well as come to peaceful terms) with a better Diplomacy ability.
Talented Diplomats (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Skilled Diplomats (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Master Diplomats (+50%) Cost: 4 pts. Expert Diplomats (+70%) Cost: 5 pts.
Economics
Merchandising within your empire will flourish with a powerful Economic Ability, supplying your treasury with additional revenue.
Advanced (+10%) Cost: 2 pts. Gifted (+20%) Cost: 4 pts. Master (+30%) Cost: 6 pts.
Tip: Actually increases your revenue from taxation, with no effect on revenues from trade or tribute.
Espionage
Sneaking, Snooping, and Doubledealing all improve by boosting your Espionage Ability. Use it to find enemy weaknesses, or simply to keep tabs on your 'friends'
Advanced (+15%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+30%) Cost: 2 pts.
Tip: Also affects destabilization.
Hit Points
Strengthen your ships with an increase in your Hit Points Ability. With it, star faring vessels will be able to sustain more damage.
Superior (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Exceptional (+30%) Cost: 3 pts. Invincible (+50%) Cost: 5 pts.
Influence
Make it easier to spread the joys of your culture. By increasing your Cultural Influence Ability, word of your empire's mighty society will travel quicker.
Advanced (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Master (+30%) Cost: 4 pts.
Commercial Giant (+40%) Cost: 6 pts.
Interest Rates. This ability affects your ability to borrow money to purchase ships and improvements. The better your interest rate ability, the less you’ll have to pay in leases. (Tip: there is no way to explicitly improve this ability in the game, but it is listed here for completeness.)
Loyalty
When your citizens have a strong sense of loyalty towards the empire, outside civilizations will have increased difficulty influencing them. Rebellions will be less likely.
Mostly Faithful (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Devoted (+20%) Cost: 2 pts.
Luck
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Strategy and Tactics can only get you so far. At some point, pure luck will play a roll in shaping your empire. An increased Luck Ability will help out in these situations.
Exceptionally Lucky (+25%) Cost: 1 pt.
Tip: The only solid manifestation of this generally agreed is by allowing you more time and better odds during invasions. No other manifestations have been proven, although theories abound.
Military Production
By boosting your Military Production Ability you'll decrease the time it takes workers to complete ships. Half of this ability is provided as bonus production (i.e. production that doesn’t cost any money).
Advanced (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Master (+30%) Cost: 4 pts. Ultra (+50%) Cost: 6 pts.
Morale
The cornerstone of a prosperous empire is a happy society. Keep smiles on the general public with an increased Morale Ability. (Morale is the same thing as ‘approval rating’.)
Naturally Content (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Naturally Happy (+15%) Cost: 2 pts. Naturally Joyous (+20%) Cost: 3 pts.
Planet Quality
Keep your planets green with an increased Planet Quality Ability. Colonized planets will be nurtured and cared for, improving their grade.
Green Thumb (+7%) Cost: 3 pt.
Tip: Planet quality has a wide range of massive impacts on the game, to the extent that elsewhere in this manual the designer says the aim of the game is “have the best planets”. PQ (as players abbreviate it) is highly recommended.
Pop. Growth
Strength in numbers: an increased Population Growth Ability will allow your empire to grow and flourish beyond its general rate.
Frisky (+10%) Cost: 1 pt.
Very Frisky (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Fruitful (+40%) Cost: 4 pts. Don’t Ask (+80%) Cost: 6 pts.
Range
Allowing your ships to travel deeper into space, a better Range Ability can significantly extend the reach of your civilization.
+1 to Initial Range (+1 Parsecs) Cost: 2 pts.
Tip: Your range is also extended by colonizing a planet, or building a starbase.
Repair
Chicken Soup for your Ship. Add the proper self-repair mechanisms to your ships with a boost in your Repair Ability.
Gifted (+20%) Cost: 1 pt. Master (+40%) Cost: 2 pts.
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Tip: You don’t get any repair for free (like everything else, it starts at 0), so unless you take this ability at the start of the game, you will first get some repair capability when you learn the relevant technology. Note that ships repair a little faster if they don’t move, and a lot faster while in orbit. Star bases repair just like ships: their ‘repair modules’ enhance the repair ability of all your vessels in the sector.
Research
Decrease the time it takes to research new technologies with a boost in this ability. Scientists will raise their productivity. Half of this ability is provided as bonus research production (i.e. production that doesn’t cost any money).
Advanced (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Master (+30%) Cost: 4 pts. Ultra (+50%) Cost: 6 pts.
Sensors
Extend your sight limitations with an increase in your Sensor Ability. Ships and Planets will be able to peer farther into the void.
Advanced (+1%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+2%) Cost: 2 pts. Master (+3%) Cost: 3 pts.
Tip: While there is a Galactic Wonder that affects Sensors, there are no other ways to improve during the game.
Social Production
Boost the speed at which colony workers can complete projects of a social nature with an increased Social Production Ability. Half of this ability is provided as bonus production (i.e. production that doesn’t cost any money).
Advanced (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Gifted (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Master (+30%) Cost: 4 pts. Ultra (+50%) Cost: 6 pts.
Soldiering
Strong soldiers will make it easier to dominate when invading planets . Improve your training skills with a boost in your Soldiering Ability.
Hardy (+10%) Cost: 1 pt. Tough (+20%) Cost: 2 pts. Invincible (+30%) Cost: 3 pts.
Speed
Shift into overdrive with a boost in your empires Speed Ability. Ships will travel at greater speeds, allowing easier tactical mauve ring. (Also referred to as the Navigation ability.)
Extra 1 Parsecs/Month (+1 Parsecs/Month) Cost: 4 pts. Extra 2 Parsecs/Month (+2 Parsecs/Month) Cost: 8 pts.
Trade
By improving your Trade Ability, the about of money you receive from trade routes will increase considerably.
Gifted Traders (+10%) Cost: 1 pt.
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Superior Traders (+20%) Cost: 3 pts.
Master Traders (+30%) Cost: 5 pts.
Trade Routes
A better Trade Rout Ability will raise the level of trust between alien civilizations and your merchants. The initial number of allowed trade routes will be raised.
Gifted Traders (+1 Trade Routes) Cost: 3 pts. Superior Traders (+2 Trade Routes) Cost: 6 pts. Master Traders (+3 Trade Routes) Cost: 9 pts.
Tip: There is a hard maximum of 10 trade routes in the game, and enough technology etc to get to this level, so while this pick can have a significant impact in the mid game, it is of less use towards the end.
Weapons
What good is a War Ship without a healthy set of turrets? State of the art artillery can be given a boost with an increased Weapons Ability.
Superior (+15%) Cost: 1 pt. Master (+30%) Cost: 4 pts.
True Warrior (+50%) Cost: 6 pts.
Tip: If a battleship’s base attack strength is 10, and your weapons ability is at 60%, the ship will have an attack of 16.
General Ability Tips:
?Some benefits don’t really kick in until the later game (like Trade and Soldiering) while others have greater effects early and are worthless during the end game (Range and bonus Trade Routes). Some are more valuable on larger maps (like Range – more space - and Economy – more planets).
?In general, any civilization needs to have some balance in how it behaves – a great military nation needs a strong economy and mighty military production to maintain its warlike behavior. So consider choosing abilities that make up for whatever is going wrong in your games: for example,
o if the other civilizations tend to threaten and attack you very early, take some Weapons
o if you tend to lose battles, try HitPoints and Repair (very powerful together), or some Defense
o if you can’t seem to find enough worlds to settle early on, try Navigation (Speed), or Range
?During the game, you can see your civilization’s abilities on the Stats screen of the Domestic Policy tab. You can see the manifestation of these abilities on the Planet Details screen, and on the Ship Information screen (these latter are cumulative with other impacts on those items).
Choosing your galaxy size
There is also the matter of choosing the size of the galaxy you would like to play. The size of the galaxy helps determine how long the game is going to last. A tiny galaxy can be played in an hour or two at most. A gigantic galaxy may take weeks or months. The galaxy sizes available are:
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Galaxy Size |
Size in Sectors |
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Tiny |
4x4 |
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Small |
5x5 |
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Medium |
8x8 |
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Large |
12x12 |
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Huge |
16x16 |
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Gigantic |
24x24 |
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You may also choose the likelihood of inhabitable planets. The options are:
Rare: Inhabitable planets are very unlikely and each one will have to be fought over. Uncommon: Nice planets are hard to find but they’re out there.
Occasional: There are nice planets available but not in large quantity
Common: There are a lot of common planets but don’t expect every star system to have them. Everywhere: The galaxy is just teeming with life.
Choosing your opponents
Once you have set up your civilization and the galaxy you want to play in, you can also set up how you want other players to behave.
There are five major civilizations in the game. Other civilizations may appear during the course of the game but they do not affect the victory conditions. Similarly, minor civilizations do not affect victory conditions either.
Each civilization can be named to whatever you wish to call them. You can also set their intelligence and their morality. These will affect the game dramatically. Each civilization can have intelligence ranging from “idiot” to “genius”. Warning: Setting to genius should not be done unless you are an expert. A single “genius” player can dominate the galaxy very quickly. Morality is a little more nebulous. It determines the personality of the civilization along with what technologies are available
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to it. Alien civilizations make foreign policy decisions based on the ethical values of other civilizations.
Getting around the Galactic Civilizations Interface
When the game begins, you are first given a progress report and then taken to the technology policy screen to choose what to research first. We will discuss the technology screen in detail in “Technology Policy Screen”.
Keyboard Commands
Key |
Effect |
Cursor Keys |
Moves ships in specificed direction |
Keypad |
Moves ships in specific direction (check Numlock) |
keys |
|
S |
Sentries a ship (ship will not be called on unless an alien ship comes within sensor range. |
G |
Guard mode (ship will not be called on unless an enemy alien ship comes within sensor |
|
range. |
TAB |
Finds the next available ship with moves remaining. |
SPACE |
Currently selected ship chooses to pass on its turn. |
F |
Turns multiple ships on the same tile into a fleet. |
U |
Un-Fleet. Breaks a selected fleet back into individual units. |
C |
Center on currently selected ship. |
F1 |
Galactic Map Window |
F2 |
Planet List |
F3 |
Ship List |
F4 |
Domestic Policy |
F5 |
Foreign Policy |
F6 |
Technology Policy |
F7 |
Open Planet View for first planet in civilization |
F9 |
Bring up Tactical Map |
Ctrl-R |
Refresh your sensors across the galaxy. |
ENTER |
Go to next turn |
Esc |
Dismiss a dialog or bring up the Game options dialog |
A |
Will tell a survey ship to “Auto Survey” |
Ctrl-N |
Generate a new galaxy, using the current settings |
The mouse also provides a large number of options as well.
Mouse Controls
Left clicking on a ship selects it. Right clicking on the map sends it on its destination. Clicking on space and holding down the left mouse button will “grip” space and allow you to adjust your view.
Holding down the Control key (Ctrl) while left clicking on multiple ships will allow you to select multiple ships. Holding down the Shift key while left click-dragging on the map will allow you to also do the same.
Double clicking on a ship, anomaly, resource or star base will bring up additional information on that object. Double clicking on a star will bring up the planetary management screen for the first colonized planet you control.
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Tip: To put people onto a colony ship or transport, make sure the planet is not set to “autolaunch” when they are produced, and then click on the ship in orbit. Click on the ‘move out of orbit’ button, and you will see a new slider appear in the bottom right, where you can control the number of people onboard, and a “launch’ button.
Tip: If you are moving the people to another planet in the same system, you don’t need to launch: choose the number of people and click directly on the destination planet.
The Options Screen
Auto Turn
ON – With this option turned on, your turn will automatically end when all of your de-orbited ships have moved. OFF – With this option turned off, your turn will not end until you click the Turn button.
Auto Build
ON – With this option turned on, your military queue will continue to build another ship of the same type once the current project is finished. OFF – With this option turned off, your military queue will be emptied once the current project has been completed.
Draw Grid
ON – With this option turned on, the sectors on the main map screen are divided into parsecs by lighter blue lines.
OFF – With this option turned off, the only lines visible on the main map screen are the ones marking the sector boundries.
End Turn Skips Moves Left
ON – With this option turned on, the turn will end even if you have units with movement points left that haven’t been skipped (space bar). OFF – With this option turned off, the turn will not end until all ships have used all their movement points or have been skipped (space bar).
Galactic News
ON – With this option turned on, Galactic News reports appear in a popup windows. OFF – With this option turned off, you will not see the popup windows.
Follow Autopilot Ships
ON – With this option turned on, the view will automatically focus on, and follow the movements of, your ships on autopilot. OFF – With this option turned off, the view will not follow the movements of your ships on autopilot.
Follow Alien Ships
ON – With this option turned on, the view will automatically focus on, and follow the movement of, alien skips in sensor range. OFF – With this option turned off, the view will not follow the movement of alien ships in your sensor range.
Show Ship Damage
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ON – With this option turned on, your ship will show electricity sparkling over the ship when it has sustained damage. OFF – With this option turned off, the appearance of your ship will not change when it has sustained damage.
Show Human Ship Battles
ON – With this option turned on, the view will automatically focus on any battles that involve human ships, starbases or planets. OFF – With this option turned off, the view will not focus on the battles involving human ships, starbases or planets.
Show AI Ship Battles
ON – With this option turned on, the view will automatically focus on any battles that involve any AI ships, starbases or planets. OFF – With this option turned off, the view will not focus on the battles involving only AI ships, starbases or planets.
Explosions
ON – With this option turned on, ships and starbases will explode when they are destroyed.
OFF – With this option turned off, ships and starbases will simply disappear when they are destroyed.
Active Gov. Ignores GNN
ON – With this option turned on, the active governor ignores the Galactic News reports. (not sure if this is right…) OFF – With this option turned off, the active governor will react to the Galactic News reports. (not sure if this is right…)
Show Anomaly Pop-ups
ON – With this option turned on, you will see a popup with information on the effects of any anomalies that are surveyed. OFF – With this option turned off, you will not see any information on the effects of anomalies as they are surveyed.
Animate Ship Data Win
ON – With this option turned on, the ship data window will be animated.
OFF – With this option turned off, the ship data window will display static images only.
Message Options
The settings in this section affect message prompts that you get during the game and a few miscellaneous options.
Build Starbase Prompt
ON – With this option is turned on, you will get prompted for confirmation when you click the Constructor’s build starbase button. OFF – With this option is turned off, you will not get prompted for confirmation when you click the Constructor’s build starbase button.
Upgrade Starbase Prompt
ON – With this option turned on, when a constructor moves onto a starbase, you will be asked if you want to upgrade the starbase.
OFF – With this option turned off, when a constructor moves onto a starbase, it will automatically display up a list of the available upgrades.
Harvest Resource Prompt
ON – With this option turned on, when a constructor moves onto a resource, you will be asked if you want to build a starbase. OFF – With this option turned off, when a constructor moves onto a resource, it will automatically build a starbase.
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Gov. Overrides Projects
ON – With this option turned on, if a planet completes an improvement in the assigned governor’s queue and has improvements left to build, you will not be prompted to select a new project.
OFF – With this option turned off, even if a planet completes an improvement in the assigned governor’s queue and has improvements left to build, you will still be prompted to confirm the selected (queued) project.
Tutorial Mode
ON – With this option turned on, you will get informative prompts to teach you some of the basic game controls.
OFF – With this option turned on, you’re on your own. There are no additional help dialogues or prompts while playing the game.
User Defined Playlist
ON – With this option turned on, a new button will show up under main menu, Load Playlist (*.m3u format). Once a playlist has been loaded, the game will play the files in the playlist instead of the normal in game music. The files must be MP3 format, 160kbs bit rate (or lower). OFF – With this option turned off, the game will play the normal in game music.
Background Loading
ON – With this option turned on, the game will load necessary files while playing the intro movies (this could cause choppy playback). OFF – With this option turned off, the game will wait until after the intro movies to load game files (increases initial load time).
Autosave Options
This section with allow you to adjust the autosave feature of the game.
Autosave
ON – With this option turned on, the game will automatically maintain two saves of your current game. OFF – With this option turned off, the game will not automatically save your game at any time.
Autosave Frequency Slider
This slider will allow you to adjust the duration between each new autosave. The slider goes from 1 turn all the way up to 24 turns. When a new autosave is made, a backup of your previous autosave is created as an extra precaution against data corruption. The game will only maintain one current autosave and one backup autosave.
Sound Options
This section will allow you to adjust the music and sound FX of the game.
Music
ON – With this option turned on, the game will play the normal game music, or the user selected playlist. OFF – With this option turned off, the game will not play any music.
Sound FX
ON – With this option turned on, the game will play the sound effects.
OFF – With this option turned off, the game will not play any sound effects.
Volume Slider
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This slider adjusts the volume of the music and sound FX.
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Elements of the Main Screen
The main screen
This is the screen you will see most often. It includes the main map, the mini map, the graphs screen, the control panel, the star ship bridge panel and the info net.
Options Menu Button |
Sector Influence Button |
Colonized star system. Shield indicates that it is defended which means you will need to destroy
those defenses before using a transport to invade.
This starbase is mining a galactic resource. In this case it is a morale boosting resource.
Your current treasury. If it turns yellow, it means you’re losing money.
Pie graph of overall galactic spending by each civilization.
Command buttons |
Ship Panel |
Sector Map. This is a “small” galaxy.
Graphs Window.
Selected Ships Window.
Info Net.
Figure 1 The main game screen
Let’s discuss all of these:
The Map:
The map will display select the USS Discovery, the first colony ship created by the human civilization for colonizing another world. It will be parked just outside the Sol star system where Earth, Mars, Saturn, etc. are located.
A second ship, the USS Hero, is a survey ship that has been constructed at great cost to help explore the galaxy. Survey ships are a special class of ship, they contain equipment and special crews that allow them to seek out strange things and boldly go where no one has gone before. As you begin to explore the galaxy, it won’t take you long to find strange things worth investigating. Move your survey ship into an anomaly and you will discover what benefit, if any, it provides. Anomalies will continue to appear at various rates throughout the game. Many of them provide special ship-specific bonuses. As time goes on, your civilization will research technology that will provide star ships that are formidable military craft in their own right while also allowing them to explore anomalies.
On the main map there are 5 different types of objects that may exist there. Ships and stars are pretty straight forward. Anomalies are special objects that exist on the map that can only be explored by certain types of star ships (ships with a survey ability). Resources look similar to anomalies except
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that if you build a star base on them that has mining abilities, you gain advantages from them. Star bases are built and upgraded with constructor ships.
In all these cases you can find out more information on them by double clicking on the object.
Fog of War
There are two types of fog of war. (1) The unexplored area of the map and (2) The area that your sensors currently can’t detect.
The Mini-Map
The mini-map on the top right allows you to view the galaxy in different modes. At the top right of the mini-map are small + and – buttons that will zoom in and out of a particular sector.
The bottom buttons provide the following displays:
Normal View: Shows explored sectors and star systems (undefended star systems appear darker).
Sector Owner: When a player achieves dominance in a sector (determined by population) that sector’s color changes to the player who controls it.
Ship View: Star ships are displayed as small triangles. Privately controlled ships appear as a single dot on this screen.
Show Autopilot Routes: Shows the routes currently set for your starships – from the small triangle of its current location to its current destination. (Shows freighters, but does not show trade ships.)
Production View: This displays in circles of various sizes the production levels of different star systems.
Population View: This displays in circles of various sizes the population levels of different star systems.
Tactical View: On top of the Mini-Map are “Standard” and “Tactical” buttons. Tactical view provides an abstracted tactical display of use in making major military maneuvers.
The Graphs Window
Any civilization you have diplomatic relations with will appear here. You can track how well you are doing compared to your interstellar rivals and friends in terms of population, military might, economy, technology, and manufacturing.
Tip: The graphs are relative to one another, and reflect the current focus of a civilization, not their capacity or history. So if you turn your research spending to zero, these graphs will show a zero, even though you have previously researched lots of techs. This is great for knowing what the others are focusing on at the moment. (cf. Foreign Statistics tab within the Foreign Diplomacy screen.)
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The Control Panel
The panel at the bottom of the screen allows players to control what view the game is in. The main map is the default view.
The available views are:
Main Map View: This is the view we just discussed.
Planet List: Displays your list of planets
Ship List” Displays a list of your available ships
Domestic Policy: Set your civilization’s domestic policy
Foreign Policy: Set your civilization’s foreign policy
Research Policy: Set what technologies you want to research
The Bridge/Advisor Panel
Sentry
Guard
Disband
The currently selected ship will be displayed with its name, which you can change by clicking on the field, the class, the number of hitpoints it has, the Attack rating, the Defense rating and what level the ship is. As ships do battle, they gain experience which increases their level. The higher the level, the more bonuses in attack and defense they receive. If you are selecting a star ship that carries colonists or troops, the number on board is displayed instead. You can also press the “I” button to bring up the ship dialog.
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Figure 2 If you click on the I button or double click on a ship you can bring up its info panel
The InfoNet
Events occurring in the galaxy that are of interest to you will appear on the InfoNet on the bottom right of the screen. Events can include ships being attacked, new projects completed, new star ships built and more.
If the event mentions a planet, clicking on the event icon will take you to the details screen for that planet.
The Find Button
This is equivalent to the TAB key. It will find a ship in the galaxy that needs to be moved.
The Turn Button
Tells the game to cycle to the next move.
Tip: depending on your option settings, if some ships have not moved yet, this will either move to the next turn with those ships not moving, or do the same thing as the Find button until all ships have had their orders for this turn.
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Tips:
?In general, any civilization needs to have some balance in how it behaves – a great military nation needs a strong economy and mighty military production to maintain its warlike behavior. So consider choosing abilities that make up for whatever is going wrong in your games: for example,
o if the other civilizations tend to threaten and attack you very early, take some Weapons
o if you tend to lose battles, try HitPoints and Repair (very powerful together), or some Defense
o if you can’t seem to find enough worlds to settle early on, try Navigation (Speed), or Range
?Planet Quality has large and significant impacts on everything else – population growth, morale, taxes – many players take PQ+5% as a matter of course.
?Some benefits don’t really kick in until the later game – like trade bonuses and soldiering…
Your Ethics, Morale, Trade & Culture
Good & Evil
What kind of civilization would you like to create? Galactic Civilizations allows you to travel in either direction. In Galactic Civilizations, good and evil are very specifically defined (lest we get into endless pointless debates).
During the course of your civilization you will be exposed to various events that you have to make a moral choice. These choices determine the course your civilization takes. The choices are not meant to be that significant in themselves but rather provide you with a way to choose your path.
Neither path is better than the other in terms of advantages. But they are quite different in their particulars. Good civilizations tend to get along with other civilizations easier. An evil civilization in a galaxy full of good civilizations is going to have a tough time. On the other hand, evil civilizations gain advantages as a result of their choices along with receiving certain technologies available only to evil civilizations.
On the other hand, good civilizations tend to have an easier time diplomatically but pay a hefty shortterm price for their benevolence. However, they are rewarded with certain technologies that give them special types of improvements that affect the course of the game.
That said, good and evil is not determined by your in game actions. For instance, do not equate “goodness” with pacifism. History is replete with examples of evil that was not externally aggressive. And all it requires for evil to triumph is for good to be idle. Don’t expect good civilizations to not declare war on other civilizations or demand tribute.
Galactic Civilizations doesn’t get into the business of trying to make political statements such as whether imperialism are good or evil. History is replete with examples of otherwise noble cultures making war or acquiring territory from other cultures that were equally “good”. To that end, we have made sure that the line between good and evil is very obvious – the random events in which players can choose which direction they’re going.
Tip: You can see your current morality rating under Stats on the Domestic Policy tab – it ranges from demonic (0) to angelic (100). Humans start out with a morality rating of neutral (50). When your
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morality is over 80, the user interface becomes WHITE, and at below 20, it is RED, reminding you of your (extreme) moral nature.
Tip: Being ‘Neutral’ can seem the best of all worlds – you get the better choices when they matter to you, but stay out of ‘evildom’ by taking benevolent choices sometimes. However, Neutrals don’t get either set of additional technologies, and don’t get as much positive support from the good civilizations. When starting, I think try being Good first – a few non-hostile other civilizations can be important while learning the game.
Tip: The planetary events that occasion these choices primarily occur when you are colonizing new planets (say a third of the time?), and each one only affects your morality by so much, so in a galazy where you don’t settle many planets you might not be able to get out of neutrality…
Morale
Income and expenses are pretty straight forward concepts. But what about morale? What about influence? What the heck are these things? You build all these nice things for your people and they still only give you a 50% approval rating? I should be able to build a gulag and re-educate them to appreciate my benevolence…
Having a high approval rating is very difficult. That’s because the nicer your planet, the more people who will want to move to it, have children and increase the population. This in turn creates the situation where there’s a lot of people having to share a limited number of planetary services. Hence your approval declines. The population of a planet will grow as long as people are happy and as long as the environment (planet class) can sustain them.
Even the most popular leaders in history rarely enjoyed an approval rating greater than 60%. But if that doesn’t console you, you can always take the path of evil and actually build gulags to send the people to learn to more about your greatness. That’ll improve their approval rating or at least what they answer to polls. And isn’t that what really counts?
Tip: While in deep sleep on a colony ship or transport, people don’t affect morale, so one ‘cure’ for overpopulation is to ‘recruit’ some colonists/soldiers, and put them into deep sleep until they are needed. Whats the difference between colony ships and transports? Either can transport people to another of your planets, but only colony ships can land on an unoccupied planet, and only transports can land on a enemy planet. Note that colony ships can carry an infinite number of people, since there is a set amount of hardware needed for a colony regardless of its size, but transports have limited capacity since they include combat armor/support vessels/etc. Transports take 1000 million, and Combat (or Battle) Transports take 5000.
Tip: In addition to ways to affect your civilization-wide moral ability, and social improvements to affect your morale on a particular planet, you can also use propaganda to prop up the morale on a planet – the slider to control this is on the Planet Details screen.
Cultural Influence
There are other ways to conquer the galaxy than through weapons. Your cultural influence reflect how much the way you live, the philosophies you espouse, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the movies you watch affect alien cultures.
Different star systems have different base levels of influence that are generally based on the quality and position of the star system in the galaxy. This is then enhanced by the population of the planet along with what social projects you build. You can intentionally try to increase your cultural
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influence by building social projects such Cultural Exchange Centers where alien travelers are more effectively exposed to your way of life.
Whichever civilization has the highest level of influence in a given sector (above a certain threshold) gets that sector color-coded to their civilization. If the level of influence exceeds all others by a certain amount, then a given star system has a chance of defecting to a different civilization.
You can magnify your influence in a given sector by building star bases and upgrading them with constructors to have cultural influence modules (more on this is in the Star base section).
Being on the receiving end isn’t a lot of fun though. We can speak from experience when we say that there’s nothing worse than seeing teenagers running around in native Drengin clothing. Particularly since their clothing requires the importation of the Kandarian Silk Lice which we won’t get into here. Suffice to say that this is not a desirable outcome.
So how do you prevent this? Factors that come into play include looking at how much military might is in orbit of that star system. The locals on Deneb IV may think that Arcean music is great (and let’s face it, there is some debate on whether we can even hear all of the chords on a typical Arcean harp). But the locals aren’t going to realistically be able to defect if you have enough battle ships parked in orbit. Another factor is the morale of your planets. Torian blood larva may be taste great but if the people are happy they’re not going to be nearly as interested in joining up with the Torians.
The most effective way to combat alien cultural influences is by building social projects that combat it. Anything that increases your cultural influence will certainly help. But you can also build things that have a propaganda value. I.e. you can build news networks and propaganda centers that will help keep alien culture just that – alien.
This is discussed in more detail with specific numbers in the chapter on Influence.
Trade
Once you have researched Trade, you gain the ability to build freighters. Freighters are a special unit that once built, can be sent to a foreign star system to create a trade route. Once this is done, a trade ship then travels between the source star system and foreign destination star system and back. The income you receive from trade comes as that trade ship moves each turn.
How much you receive from trade per month varies somewhat as the trade ship travels. The further along the route, the more the trade route brings in. For instance, a trade ship may only bring in 1 bc per turn when it first leaves. But on its way back, it may be bringing in 5 bc per turn.
This has an important implication: The longer the trade route, the more the trade route is worth. It also means you can create an effective economic blockade. In essence, you can cripple the economy of an enemy by keeping trade ships from being able to travel the whole route. If a particular civilization can’t keep their trade ships safe, outside their immediate territory then their economy will suffer.
The other factor in determining how much a trade route is worth is the combined wealth of source star system and destination star system. Generally speaking, it is best to have your freighters come from your best star system and go to the best star system in a particular player’s civilization. (Tip: If you decide to have multiple trade routes with the same civilization, it is perfectly OK to have them between the same planets – or not, as you please.)
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Trade has a few side effects as well. First of all, both civilizations involved in the trade receive equal compensation from trade. So it’s probably best not to trade with civilizations you later expect to go to war with. Secondly, such trade influences diplomatic relations. Since war cuts off trade between the two warring factions, if your trade represents a sizeable percentage of their income, they are a lot less likely to want to go to war.
Star System notification icons
Some star systems are special to a given civilization or have something special about them in a negative sense. For this reason, there are several different types of notification icons that are displayed near a star system. These include:
Civilization capital. The Sol star system, for instance, has the civilization capital icon by it to represent the fact that it is the capital of a civilization. Losing your capital due to invasion can have very damaging results to your civilization (a whole raft of different unpleasant things can occur).
Tip: You may notice the other civilizations “moving” their civilization capital to the boarder of their expansion (ie newest planets). They get some benefits to their influence and cultural resistance from this behaviour. They are older civilizations emotionally used to the idea of having multiple planets, while we Terrans are still so emotionally tied to the Earth that we would never do this.
Economic capital. If you build the galactic achievement, “Economic Capital”, not only does the tax income of that system double but it shows the economic capital icon by it. However, this also makes it a target for your enemies since it’s a sure sign that this is a wealthy star system.
Manufacturing capital. The system that has this achievement built gets the manufacturing capital icon and has twice the manufacturing ability as other star systems.
Culturally rebellious. Star systems that are becoming dangerously enthralled with other civilizations will receive this icon. This means that the people are thinking about defecting and that you need to do something about it.
Unhappy citizens. If morale gets low enough in a given star system, an unhappy icon will show up by it. This is a good way of seeing if something is going wrong with a particular civilization. If they are unhappy long enough, they may break away and form their own civilization or join the league of non-aligned worlds.
Tip: You can’t tell which planets have wonders or trade goods built on them, but they are most likely to have been built on planets with lots of production capacity, which are also likely to be the ones with capitals… A favorite invasion tactic is to pay special attention to the enemy capitals.
Combat
Ship to Ship
When two enemy ships intersect in space, they do battle. Battles work as follows:
Attacking ship rolls a number between 0 and its maximum attack and the defending ship rolls a defense value between 0 and its maximum defense value. The difference between the two is then subtracted from the number of hit points. If the defending ship survives they then reverse positions
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and the defending ship rolls it attack value and the attacking ship rolls its defensive value. This is repeated until one of the two ships has 0 hit points and that ship is destroyed.
Ships with a defense value that is greater than their attack value get a special bonus – when attacked, half their defense counts as an attack. A Battle Axe with 3 attack and 6 defense actually gets to roll up to a 6 for its attack roll when it is attacked.
Tip: While combat is resolved one-on-one, if the defender is in a fleet, they do get some bonuses, reflecting the support the other ships can provide.
Tip: If a fleet is attacked, the vessel with the highest combined attack and defense values will defend first. If there are two ships with the same value, then the ship with the highest remaining hit points defends. On the plus side, this means that the damaged ships will be sheltered by other ships of the same class. On the down side, you can’t get a BattleAxe commander to throw his ship away defending a damaged Dreadnaught: the BattleAxe will hide behind the Dreadnaught until the Dreadnaught is destroyed, and only then fight.
Tip: When attacking, you can choose which ships attacks first, allowing you to throw away cheaper vessels to ‘soften up’ your target, but only by selecting the attacking ships individually – if you attack with a fleet, the ‘strongest’ ship attacks. NOTE: In attacking, every vessel in the fleet uses up a movement point for each attack, even if it is not actually attacking itself.
Invading Star Systems
A defended star system has a small shield attached to it. These star systems cannot be invaded. Starships must first take out those defenses. Those defenses come in the form of star ships orbiting the star system that have a defense value. Attacking those starships is like attacking any other ship, move your starship to intersect the star system and it will automatically attack the first starship in orbit.
Tip: Defenders in orbit do get some bonuses reflecting ground support.
When a star system is defenseless, the shield is gone and is ready to be invaded. To do that, you must construct a transport and load troops onto it.
Invading a star system shouldn’t be taken lightly. They can contain many billions of people and invading them can take billons of troops. Transports have little defense so those billions of lives should probably be escorted by starships who can defend them.
When a transport intersects a defenseless star system, the invasion screen will be displayed. This screen displays the advantages of both sides. The attacker automatically gets a significant advantage since transports don’t just come with ground troops but an entire air armada and thousands of ground support craft. But other factors do come into play such as the technology difference between the civilizations, general soldier abilities on both sides and what planetary defenses have been constructed. There is also a luck factor. The battle will not begin until you have pressed the space bar so that you can determine how much luck is involved on the invasion (it’s usually a fairly modest amount but it can make the difference in a close battle).
Tip: A fleet with multiple transports is great to use in an invasion. Let’s say we are invading a system that has 3 planets, using a fleet that has 10 billion troops (10 transports, loaded full up). In this particular battle, 3.4 billion of our troops die clearing away all the defenders. Now 0.6 billion (the
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