I'm always interested in how others play. Count me in.

Ok. Let's do it. In the meantime I discovered how to make screenshots, by searching this forums. I will very likely spend way more time writing here as actual playing.

Pregame:  Settings and explanation of settings.

So some small information about why I take these settings, while going all factories. With an all factories game, the main weakness is slow research, however, focused research does get amplified by any research bonuses, this is why I go with maximum research bonus for a total of 65%, this makes sure that my research throughout the whole game will be on par with the other civilizations. I also take creativity, which I think is pretty overpowered in ToA, for an extra research bonus. Creativity can proc as long as you have at minimum 1 research point going on. The economic and morale bonus are pretty standard.

The combination of +1 sensors and +1 speed makes more then up for missing stellar cartography.

The big disadvantage of altarian is the logistics, it is the only race with only 5 logistics. 8 with basic logistics and 14 with enhanced logistics. This is really a disadvantage with small and medium sized hulls.

Gameplan:

Early game I make use of my 65% research bonus going for 100% research and taking all the techs that benefit my industry and economy. From experience I know I need about 800-1500 bc in my pocket leftover after colonizing to stay positive until my economy starts to be selfsustaining. At this point I switch to 100% social production, with a little research, trying to proc creativity at xeno ethics, while building up my industry.

A bit later, the early wars start and I am happy if an evil race starts right next to me and declares war to me.  This way I can perfectly make use of the altarian superability. The good races will destroy my neighbor and I will take its planets. If this succeeds I’m positive to finish the game successfully.

Some more info about all factories:

Like I said, all research bonuses are calculated in after focus making technological capital and research coordination centre excellent buildings. However some (I have to find out which), manufacturing bonuses apply before focus, like the manufacturing capital.

For example, a planet with 100 base production, a manufacturing capital and technological capital and no further bonuses would produce 200 industry points, then after focus it becomes 150 industry points and 45 research points, and then because of the technological capital it becomes 150 industry and 90 research points. (I’m not sure focus transfers 25% production and gives 10% penalty, the calculation is just an example)

So the strategy is to make one big industry capital with both the manufacturing and technological capital. Altaria is an excellent planet for this, mainly because of the asteroids next to it, but it is possible to find even better colonies to use for it. Another reason to want one big industry capital with the altarian is the doomsdaygenerator. Wisp will generally be used to make tradegoods and some research, while other colonies will mainly be used to produce income.

If I fail to colonize any planets besides wisp, I will have to greatly adapt my strategy, making altaria a mixed industry/economy capital or going for some early invasion, or maybe setup a lot of tradelines as economic drive. I don’t think I will be successful if this happens.

Cool, thanks for the clear explanation, I couldn’t find this exact info anywhere at the forums. I had no idea about my game not being up to date. Ill check it out.

Time to start my first suicidal game

Chapter 1: Colonisation, early tech developement and the race for good food!

1 jan 2227

Turn 1 is in my opinion the most important and fun of a game, the decisions in this turn, make how the game will work out, in this screenshot I orbited all my ships and entered and exited my surveyship at each site of altaria to scout for resources and anomalies, I read that tip in these forums.

This looks like a great start! Altaria doesn’t have any usefull tiles, but the solar system south of me has 1 habitable planet (you can see this info by clicking at a star), I could try to scout the solar system next to the drengin with my colonyship, but it is likely that I will be to late anyhow, and I don’t feel like making such risky play, since I already have 1 colony south of me. I decide not to change my miner into a colonyship, but just start mining. I will rushbuy the cheapest form of colony ship in 1^st turn to take wisp before arcean get it and cheapest form of constructor in 2^nd turn for the resource. There are a lot of anomalies it seems, so I can expect some extra cash from these. Especially since I don’t really have any scouting to do, so I can immediately start with surveying.

The ethic balance seems pretty good. There are 3 evil races, 4 neutral races and 2 good races (torian and drath) The evil drengin are surrounded by good races, and I feel very hopefull at destroying them early game. Also the Arcean might be an easy target if the korath decide to attack them, which is more likely as that they will attack yor.

My neighbours Drengin and Arcean are both low influence races, so that is nice, I will be able to get quit nice funding from tourism. Obviously my 3^rd neighbour (Krynn) are a very high influence species. If they catch some planet at the solar system between the drengin and them, then their influence might have some serious impact at mine.

The missing races are korx and Iconian. Korx start with the trade tech, so are allways fast with the restaurant of eternity. Now there are no korx present in the universe, I feel confident to try and build this tradegood myself.

I move my colonyship with a long route (to scout as much as possible) to the closest asteroid, survey some anomalies with my surveyship and move my colonyship towards sander 1, which turns out to be have a moon and PQ11! Normally I would start a factory at Altaria, but since Sander has the potential to be a better industry planet with the right tiles and right ethic choices, I decide not to build anything yet at altaria and save up some cash.  I allways end my turn at the economy page, setting my taxes and spendings. In this case there goes just enough to research to finish artificial gravity and the rest to social projects, which is nothing , considering I dont have any social projects.

 

8 jan 2227

Wisp and Sander 1 get colonized. Both have 0 usefull tiles, 0 base influence and also no ethical decisions had to be made. Altaria will be my industry capital, Sander my economy capital and at wisp I will make restaurant of eternity. So I start building social matrix at Sander and a factory at both altarian planets. At Wisp I put focus at social projects to finish my restaurant as fast as I can.

The second technology will be planetary improvements, the only tech for altarean that increases research even more.

My survey ship does incredible good work. He finds 1000 bc, finishes 25% of my current research and discovers a military resource between the drengin and me, where I will send my first constructor. Even though it is likely to fall in the expected war between me and Drengin. The research bonus makes it possible to research planetary improvements in 1 single turn!

 

With the extra cash, I considered to rushbuy a second constructor for the influence resource, but decide this would be a bad idea. I could build one in the next few turns, but this will delay my research and restaurant of eternity pretty much. Mmm, I have to make my first important decision next turn.

15 jan 2227

The decision is made to go for the military resource. Even though this resource is likely to die in the first war, it will for now expand my influence towards the drengin and so increasing my tourism income (and decreasing theirs). I will now focus the next 2 turns at the 2 techs that increase my social production:  Industrial revolution and interstellar construction+xeno engineering (which can be learned together in 1 turn). Also the interstellar construction will allow me to build a cheaper constructor in a small hull. So if I find more cash with my survey (there are a lot of anomalies north of Altaria), I can decide later to buy a cheap constructor, the resource is within 1 turn from altaria, thanks to the altarian speedbonus. In the far corner is an anomaly that could possible give me 25% tech again.

 

Strangely I can move my tax to 19% this turn, while I needed 18% last turn for 100% approval.

22 jan 2227

Interstellar construction and xeno engineering finished. Since I didn’t know exactly how much research was needed to finish both together, I researched a bit much and some went into space mining  1 tech, which is ok, since I like to take this tech early game around the time my miner finished the initial mines.

The new constructor costs 1056 bc, which is very tempting. However I really don’t want cash to be an issue in my early development and still decide against buying it.

1 and 8 feb 2227

The next techs will be intersteallar warfare and space militarization, for both the military production bonus and the recruit center. I was exactly able to get industrial revolution in 1 turn, so I produce 200 research,  while these techs cost 300 together. I decide to put focus at altaria at military production to start building a bit of constructor, so I can instant buy it cheaper as soon as I see an opponent’s constructor come in 2 turn range. Wisp still focuses social production and sander nothing.

15 feb 2227

Except for space militarization, all cheap techs with industrial bonuses are researched now. I would also like the moral and economy buffing techs like temples and xeno economics, but it is time to work my way towards trade, so I can start building my restaurant as soon as the xeno factory at wisp is finished.

22 feb 2227

The surveyship finds a civilization anomaly next to Arcea and finishes planetary invasion by 25%!

After this anomaly I head back to the civilization anomaly in the far corner. Since the communication and translater techs are cheap, I’m making good progress at my social projects and constructor.

1 mar 2227

Both the xeno factory at wisp and trade will be finished in 2 weeks, what a perfect timing! Building the factory went fast when I could put some money towards social projects thanks to the help of the asteroid. There are still no foreign constructors sighted and Altaria keeps happily building at our constructor.

15 Mar 2227

Breaking news:

 

Trade Tech finished and factory finished, as you can see the constructor is almost halfway, and can be bought for around 600 bc now. A Yor collective flagship is trying to beat me to the likely last anomaly of the map, but will beat the dust vs my 5 speed flagship. All races still have neutral stance towards me and are to busy to risk war.

So far so good!

Wow, thanks for that huge reply and the cool morale calculation. And you exactly answered a question I had. I was wondering if creativity was capped at 25 or if researching creative good is usefull.

I can unlock 3 tiles at Wisp with soil enhancement.

I did exact as you suggested and went for xeno ethics, more about that here in chapter 2, which I was just about to post if imageshack wouldnt have been down for maintenance, so I cant upload my screenies.

Meanwhile another question about dark energy lab: I think the ship quality bonus from it is global, but the production and economy bonus is local to the planet. Is this true?

In other words, at galactopedia:

-increment> planet bonus
-ability>global bonus

?

Ability bonuses have no caps. Only their effects have one in some cases. The Morale ability is limited to 100%. I'm not sure about Luck, but it is very likely also limited to 100% (not that you could reach that normally).


Damn. That means, that Wisp will only reach a PQ of 12 via terraforming. Well, it could have been worse. It could have been only two tiles.


Not quite. You're right about the production and economy bonus. However, the Dark Energy Lab doesn't grant a Ship Quality bonus. Only the Stellar Forge of the Arceans does that. What the DEL does, is granting a bonus to your Weapons ability.

Ability bonuses are always global. However, what is an ability bonus and what is a planetary bonus may not always be obvious. In most cases, they are both using the same name, and the description of the improvement doesn't necessarily make it clear either.

As for the Ship Quality bonus, that is a planetary bonus. It increases the damage and defense of ships build on this world.


Correct.


If you have the money, you could try to bribe the Drengin to declare war on the Torians or Thalan. That should keep them busy, while you prepare yourself.


The Shrine of the Mithrilar only provides 5rp. Not really worth it to build on a bonus tile. You've got better labs for that. In my opinion, you should build it on Altaria. The Shrine provides a 75% morale bonus, which really helps in keeping the approval high, while still allowing you to run a good tax rate. Otherwise, you would need much more morale improvements to achieve the same effect.


Trade income depends primarily on three factors: the population the two trading planets have, the distance between the two planets, and how long the trade route has been active.

You can further increase the income by building economy starbases along the route, and fit them out with trade modules. However, it's not really worth it on a tiny map. Once you build a certain number of starbases, you will have to pay an increasing amount of money for each subsequent one. The number depends on the map size and your Logistics ability. Plus, the maintenance of the starbases alone will most likely offset any bonus income. There are also some UP issues which affect trade, and a Mega Event. Plus, being a Good race increases your trade income from other Good races.

One more thing, the more of the income of the other races comes from trading with you, the more they will like you. Establishing several trade routes with the same race might be a good idea.

Chapter 3: Building some infrastructure, the first galactic war and preparing for our own wars.

15 aug 2227
It took some time to get through the York influence zone, but the flagship arrived at korath, they are also using missiles, like the drengin.  Since 8 aug I switched the research slider to 0 and have focus at research at each planet now, playing with the military and social bar to exactly complete either a ship or social project. I will likely run my sliders like this for the rest of the game.

8 sept 2227
3 defenders and soil enhancement finished. Now all my 3 planets are working on social projects again, Im slowly losing bc with 39% tax (still 100% approval at sander). Im researching shrine of mythraldir now and after that I will pump up the taxes to likely 49%. I switch the asteroids back to wisp to finish harmony crystals asap. It will take 9 weeks. Research is very slow now, because of focusing social project at Wisp for harmony crystals and focusing military projects at Altaria for the freighters which I want to have finished asap.

22 sep 2227
Ok, remember I putted 4 support modules at my custom freighter? This is the result:

 

I decide to upgrade a 5^th basic support for 54 bc since I don’t want to help the Terran with extra cash and don’t want to research basic life support. Wow upgrading takes 5 weeks this far away from home, I thought it was capped at 2 weeks .

1 okt 2227
Wow im lucky with these creativity procs :

 

Awesome timing again, exactly at the turn that soil enhancement was finished at Sander. According to the quarterly report I am the 3 most powerfull civ behind Drengin and Korath, I guess it is because of our MMR’s. I have a technological rating of 25. The Torian have starting building constructors with missile weapons attached to them.

8 nov 2227
All 4 freighters are competed now.  1 to Thalan, 1 to Torian and 2 to Drath. Focus at Altaria goes back to research. So I stopped producing any ships for now. I also take a break in researching creative good, I was just hoping to proc creativity at it and start researchin xeno research and advanced computing so I can start my technological capital. Somewhere in december.

22 nov 2227
Harmony crystals finished:

I can raise taxes to 59% now and still have pretty nice morale. I also get a not so usefull creativity proc this time at advanced computing, it saves me 1 week.

1 jan 2228
1 year has passed since the start of the game.  I just finished my technological capital and the research of shrine of tandis is also completed. 4 tradeline are setup and I got a positive economy. Dreging and korath are still cool towards me, the other races are all from neutral to friendly. I now have the number 1 population. Qua research im pretty serious behind, but Ill make that good soon with my tech capital.
The social production at Altaris is almost complete. After that I can start building some starbases before I start making a military power. 3 out of 3 races have chosen missile weapons so far, so I will likely focus at getting the good only missile defense and some lasers or guns.

15 jan 2228
After finishing the temple it is time for a screenie of altaris:

This is with 58% military production and 42% spcial production, so I finish a constructor each turn. The empty tile will be filled with dark energy lab and the recruiting centre replaced by the biomodule, which adds 3 tiles that get filled with 2 factories and doomsdaygenerator. Temple of drath can be replaced by anti spy centre or political capital.

I finished researching xeno farms and started researching sensors so I can build nano recorders soon to enhance my research output further. And the eye of the universe ofcourse. Relation from drengin to Torian changed to hostile. If they get in war now I won’t be able to help yet and the torian will lose badly. It is important that im ready for war by the time drengin get planetary invasion.

22 jan 2228
Arcean also start building military ships with missile weapons. So I absolutely need missile defense since that is the best answer to arcean super warrior ability.

8 feb 2228
Korath demand Sander, Obviously I refuse and both drengin and korath immediately change their stance from cool>hostile, skipping wary. A war declaration from the korath is a scary thought considering the good races are so far away from them and their sporeships can easily take my planets. I will need atleast until 2229 to get ready for war.

15 feb 2228
Meanwhile I finished sensors 3 and finally xeno economics. I’m making 60 bc each turn now and start building some spies. Creative good is next research, will be followed by some techs in the mysticism tree and republic to enhance my diplomacy some since many races reported my low diplomacy. Then it is time to get the needed military techs. Yor also starts ships with missile weapons, and change from neutral to cool.

1 apr 2228
Drengin and Torian both start building troop transports, wow they are fast! I builded 3 economy star bases north of altaria to make the route for sporeships to altaria 1 tile longer.

8 apr 2228
I get hit by 2 spies, luckily I have 3 to nullify them, more shocking news is the fact that the arcean finished a large scale ship with 75 hitpoints:

They changed from warm to neutral to me and are hostile towards the drengin and korath.

1 may 2228
The first war is a fact! Yor declare war to the Torian, my freighters will keep me up to date most of the time if there is any action. The drengin are surprisingly hostile towards the Korath. I lower my spionage spendings and start saving some bc so I could potentially bribe them into a war.

22 may 2228
Arcean feel confident with their battlseship vs no warships at all and declare war to the krynn. As you can see at the minimap, my influence starts to be pretty impressive. I discovered a moral resource owned by the krynn at arcean territory, quickly bring a constructor. I need to research some logistics to be able to make military starbases around my base to slow down incoming attacks.

15 jun 2228
Altaria got somewhat stronger after some improvements and produces a constructor each turn now with 1%, 99%, 0% settings. I’m currently the 3^rd civ on technology, only Torian and Terran doing more research, which is pretty impressive with 0 labs at suicidal difficulty .

Drengin and korath are still hostile towards me and Drengin is the number 1 race at many fronts. The Yor changed back to neutral again (thanks to their tradeline), but the arcean now became cool to me, and I’m very scared of them. I also take back not being scared of Drengin . I absolutely need to get mediumhull ships with telephatic defense before the wars become more serious. Since I want to spend as little as possible time at researching weapons, I think I’ll research missile weapon technology and rail guns, then equip my ships with 1 rail gun and put all 3 types of weapon buffs at my military bases, which I have 2, almost 3. Then after this defense ship is completed I’m going to have a new look at the weapon techs, or maybe upgrade some other techs first like my factories.

If anyone is interested in specific screenies or thinks I completely forgot to explain some strategy I'm using or thinks that I write way to much standard boring decisions, then please tell me and I'll try to adapt future chapters to your comments.

Here is a screenie of Wisp:

After the starport is finished, Wisp can take over the function from altaria of building non-combat ships, like constructors, transports, freighters and empty hulls like you suggested. This way Altaria with the future doomsday generator can fully focus at building warships. I will likely soon replace the recruitment centre with eyes of the universe and if things go well and I manage to take over soem planet then I might tech habitat improvement and build aphrodisiac. The altarean dont have the best pop growth techs, so pumping out transports can really hurt the economy aswell, if you only have 3 planets.

For now I keep sander at 12 billion civilians. Xeno farming 2 is not a cheap tech. If I learn xeno farming 2, then I will likely replace 1 farm by an economic structure and stay at 14b population.

You were right that without morale resource, the morale at altaria is going to drop deeply with 59% tax, I think it will become something like 43% once I got 16b civilians, maybe 45% with the spionagecenter. But if I fill up a transport ship every now and then, it will stay around 50% and that combined with the high morale at sander, I dont risk losing to many votes at the senate I think. Wisp might also get in morale problems, if I dont send out to many transports.

Do you think it is better to lower tax to 49% and go for 20b pop cap at sanders?

I think it's worth a try. You may not be able to run as high a tax rate as you could if you stay with a pop of 14b, but, as soon as you conquer another race's homeworld, you would need to reduce the tax rate anyhow.


You can trade treaties a few weeks after the beginning of the third year.


The "We know what you are doing..." line usually refers to high cultural pressure. Do you have anything belonging to the Terrans in your territory?


Not necessarily. Just flying a troop transport through another race's territory isn't seen as an act of aggression. However, if you take too long, then you might get their attention.


Argh. That's bad news. Still, why did the Krynn declare war on the Arceans? They are Neutral, so your Super Ability can't be the reason.


They've build no Weather Control Zenith or Navigation Center? Why am I not surprised?


Well, the Arceans didn't like you very much, and you appeared as easy pickings, due to your lack of military. I think it's very easy to understand why they attacked you. Still, there is always a possibility that the Drath are behind it.

Nice job!  Only eight more to go.

Thanks a lot kichijoji!

I havent played any galciv since my last post. I wanted to play several times but the amount of work to write this AAR held me back, and since I game for fun and not for work. I wil stop continueing this AAR, but obviously will tell the final result here once the game is finished.

If you have read the total AAR I wrote down here and then read back the gameplan of post 2, then you see I did exactly according to plan. research>production>war preparation>neighbour declares war and gets destroyed by the good races>I take neighbours capital planet.

All races except drengin are far much weaker as I am now I have 2 capital planets. Soon I will be the strongest of the galaxy. Remember I also controll almost all galactic resources, only missing the research resource. The Ai will soon notice my strength and start the spybombarbment, so the anti spyware will quickly be the next research.

All I have to do now is defend arcea until I have proper weapon technology to fight outside military starbase range and take over all other races without making mistakes. It is likely that half the galaxy will be very close to me making this a pretty easy job, just fighting whoever has lowest relation to me to prevent getting in multiple wars. And each time I picked my target I can make them declare war to me by putting transporters next to their planets, so the good races will continue to help me with my fights, keeping them and my enemy weak.

I did some thinking about the doomsdaygenerator. The smartest reason would be to build it at altaria for many reasons, mostly because this planet is well defended by military starbases and has massive production.

But I decided I am going to build at at Arcea, I allways wanted to have doomsdaygenerator and stellar forge together at 1 and the same planet for completely imbalanced warships and this is my chance. Funny that I finally achieve this "fun" achievement at my first suicidal game.

Short term challenge is likely to take over drath with the transporter+warships that I did send over before drengin takes Drath. Currently it has 4b population and 1 unarmed ship. Also build eye of the universe and aphrodisiac, that will both be of great help finishing this game quickly.

Well done.  You have saved/dominated the galaxy once again!