HELP - How Do I Play The Game?

GIN- Bobo say game not that hard. You not stupid, you just not play enough.
First pick faction that have high moral. Bobo forget which but look on set screen; it tell you what each party give.
Then, try build things that bring money. Before build anything, look see what benifits are. Also build things that help morale. Entertainment centers etc. Dont built many ships to start except colony ship. Buld lots of constructors. They not cost upkeep. Them do good things with starbases. Bobo say,if have lots warships, better use. They very expensive and eat up money. Best not have many. Not too hard to stay out of wars early.
Also, Bobo say, play on fool or beginner until know game better.
You play more. You figure out more. Also ask good people on board. They help.
Bobo play GalCiv at first and loose. Bobo now win sometime and Bobo only ape. Bobo think Gin good player in short time.

You want to keep your moral at around 55 after the beginning of the game.You dont need 100%Research to trade techand trade, trade, trade.Did I mention trade.Trade techs with the minor races to keep you in cash.

Bobo forget. No such thing as 100% morale alltime. Impossible. You try, you pull out hair. Bobo know and him have more hair than Gin. Lots more.
Bobo say, if you have 50 TO 60% you do good.
Sometime put people on transports if planet crowded. People not like crowded planet. Too many people. Too stinky. People get bad feelings. Make less stinky people on planet. That bring morale up. Transports not cost upkeep and come in hady when want to take over other race planet.
Go play now.

You don't need morale at 100%. You need it above 50%. You need to trade to really rake in the cash. You need to adjust the sliders to where you're always in the black. Sometimes the plus or minus thingy on the slider screen isn't correct due to monthly fluctuations in trade, so you have to kinda adjust on feel sometimes. And the game is much easier to get used to if you play in a small or tiny universe with rare planet availibility. Go forth and play. Only with practice will you get better.

I wish I would have waited and reloaded before posting . . . I didn't mean to say the same thing as the last two folks

Morale at 100% itself is of no specific use, you just have to avoid that it drops below a certain point unless you want your planets to riot or join another empire. Keeping it above 50% should do the work. There is no guide that will show you how to win the game. Fortunately not, because then you would be bored after playing only 1 game. Strategy means: finding ways to beat the AI in the game. Like playing chess against a computer. There are soo many ways to can win, there are soo many ways that you can loose. And Galciv provides you with the tools to adjust almost everything to your level of experience. So try everything out, that is the fun part of the game, and will ensure re-playability for years to come!

Foremost, you do not want 100% at start, maybe late game, but not at start. Around 60% is fine, especially now that they have finally nerfed the on and on and on and on extending game exploit to raise your score to rediculous levels by having morale high to get a huge population.

Make this simplier. Can someone just tell me roughly what to do? You choose what you want to research and then you'll be brought to earth where you can start military projects and enhancement projects. From there, what do you do?

Okay... First pick one of the lower difficulty levels first.. Get a political party that gives you either economy or morale bonus and pick modifiers so that your morale and economy gets beefed up.

Put spending to 100%, adjust taxes so that you keep around 90-100% morale at the beginning.
Crank up the military spending to 100% (or 80% and research at 20%). Nevermind the social at the beginning..
Now you should be able to get a colony ship in 2-3 turns.

Technologies you should research at the beginning varies between strategies.. But a good start would propably be: communications, universal translator, diplomacy. Now after your expansion phase put social spending up all the way and build diplomatic translators. Should give you pretty good head start when negotiating deals with ai races.
Next research the tree that leads to aphrodisiacs or tri-strontium alloy and frictionless clothing.. Trade aphrodisiacs & clothing to minor races if possible. Don't trade diplomatic translators, because you will loose your diplomatic edge.

After you are starting to settle down and you got those trade goods in your pocket, you can adjust the spending rates to something like 40/30/30... Just to keep those constructors coming.. Oh yes... Constructors... Keep 'em coming, you'll be wanting a lot of those starbases on resources gathering up all kinds of goodies..

Social things you should build at the beginning: soil enhancement (or entertainment network, if the pq of the planet is already high enough and you've got a hard time keeping your morale up), banking center, habitat improvement, entertainment network, news network (if cultural influence from other races is getting too high).

Ask away more if this did not clear things up.. And yes, some people will propably disagree with these starting strategies, but there are as many ways to play this game as there are players. And besides, this should give you a pretty good start at the lower levels.

~SDC~

You can also try to read Brad's game examples (AAR) in the encyclopedia. That helped me a lot to identify better strategies & paths to victory.
Good luck.

Yes, the game examples are nice... But mostly just a good read. Not very good for learning things. More like Galactic Civilizations fan fiction

~SDC~

Well, they did help me see some of the game mecanics. Since it's Brad/frogboy himself who made them, I don't think it's just "fan fiction" (I must admit that last time I had a look there, there were only his AAR, and that's the ones I'm talking about). It's more than a nice addition to a somewhat limited manual.
And, yes I must admit, they are also a "good read"

Just to mention, having a high morale early gives you one heck of a bonus in pop growth... so it is really important. The high level AI's pop growth will outpace you badly unless you keep your morale at above 80+ for much of the game actually.

And of course high pop growht means more pop which means more money/tech/production etc.

Bobo say Gin need to try. Good to ask for help but sometime need to do thing by ownself.
What Gin mean what to do next? After choose thing to research and ship to build hit NEXT TURN. Gin read posts above about how to make money, how to help morale, not build too many ships. Sometime need to play game for awhile to see what happens. Is no guide to take steps by steps. All games different. Game not that hard. Put on fool. Play game. See forself sometime what happens.

I kinda figured how to play. I guess I was stupid by keeping puchasing ships and social enchancements! LOL! Thanks folks, I learnt a lot from ya guys.

Bobo say Gin not stupid.Just need play more. Ask sometimes questions, othertimes find out by self. Gin be good player quick. Soon Gin tell others how play when new people ask for help.