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 ................................................................................
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Galaxy Size Size in Sectors Tiny 4x4 Small 5x5 Medium 8x8 Large 12x12 Huge 16x16 Gigantic 24x24 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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
This slider adjusts the volume of the music and sound FX.
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. Sector Map. This is a “small” galaxy. This starbase is mining a galactic resource.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
rest of the occupants of the fourth transport) will remain as taxpayers on the planets of the system – 200 million on each of the 3 planets. We would still have 6 transports available to keep moving. Tip: If you want to add or subtract from any planet’s population, you can land a transport on a planet you control – the transport is available for ‘reloading’ with a different number of troops.
1) If you build a star base on a resource, you can mine those resources for additional ability advantages. Controlling and exploiting galactic resources with star bases can make the difference between victory and defeat. The different resources available are outlined below. 2) Support of star ships in the sector they are in - i.e. give bonuses to the weapons, defense, speed, or hit points of friendly ships.
civilizations ships seem far more powerful than you expect, look around to see if they have Military Resources being mined, and destroy the starbase responsible.) Influence Resources. These resources can increase your civilization’s cultural ability. Mining these will be important to any civilization that is hoping to convince other civilizations to defect to them peacefully. Research Resources.
Influence of star system. The higher, the better. Planet class. The higher the better. Anything over 15 is considered “good”. Who owns the star system Population in millions Current morale as a percent. Figure 4 When you click on a star system, the planets within are displayed. By putting your mouse over a given planet you can get an idea of what the surface is like. Figure 5 Typical view of an earth like planet Single clicking on a planet will bring up the planet view.
Figure 6 from the planet view you can determine what military and social projects you create. A planet can construct both a military project and a social project at the same time. The speed in which these get constructed depends on your overall spending level as well as what ratio you are spending on military vs. social vs. research. How many industrial units are being spend per month is displayed in the form of shields, hammers, and beakers depending on which category they are going into.
Tip: Subcontractors won’t deal with you while your treasury is below zero, but they will let you spend more money that your have. Beware! Social Projects There are four types of social projects that can be built: Planetary Improvements, Galactic Achievements, Galactic Wonders, and Trade Goods. Planetary Improvements These are things like libraries, news centers, soil enhancements that improve the quality of your planet in some form or other. The effects are limited to that planet.
propaganda has a major affect is if you are being destabilized by a foreign power (we’ll talk more about that shortly). Tip: When you conquer a planet, one of the first things to do is go into the Details view and destroy any buildings that you don’t want to pay maintenance on. The Planet List By pressing the planet list button on the bottom of the main screen you can list the planets in your civilization. This display shows what they are currently building.
Figure 7 The economic screen. Where your money can come from The main sources of income are: 1) Taxes. 2) Trade. 3) Tribute. Taxes and trade are pretty straight forward. Tribute comes in the form of other civilizations paying you money. This can also go negative if you are paying other civilizations money instead. Where your money goes Most of your money goes to pay for the production of ships, planetary improvements, and researching.
Tax Rate Your tax rate determines what percentage of the income of your people (and corporations) that you are taking in. The higher the tax rate, the more income you will generally get from taxes. However, the higher the tax rate, the more unhappy your people become and you will actually see cases where income will become lower. That’s because your population will report that it is decreasing. Your reported population is purely the number of tax paying citizens.
These governments come with their own pros and cons. On the one hand, they usually give you an economic advantage. On the other hand, they require that you control the galactic senate to make use of your political abilities. Here’s a sampling of forms of government: Imperial This is what you start out with. Republic This is where Earth has begun to allow its colonies to have representatives in the senate. This has the benefit of increasing your economic power by around 20%.
Trade By default, your civilization will be able to have 2 trade routes. Trade is a very tricky thing from a political standpoint. Getting alien civilizations to let you have a cultural and economic presence requires an immense amount of negotiating skill. Other technologies can provide you with more trade routes (and choosing the mercantile political party will allow you an additional trade route). However, you can never have more than 10 trade routes.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Treasury Total Income Research Influence Ethics (Evil to Good) Manufacturing Military Overall popularity Trade Power (Income from Trade) Overall Happiness Use these graphs to see how you’re doing compared to other civilizations. TIP: How the Economy Works The inner workings of the economy are subject to revision ("tweaking" is the word the developers use) from version to version, so Stardock have not published the actual formulae used in many of the calculations.
Examples: In a game with total economy modifiers +50%, and a tax rate of 40% ? PQ 15 at population 110 million gives an income of 4 ? PQ 20 at population 110 million gives an income of 11 (lesson: grab the better planets first! The goal isn’t to try to colonize the most planets, the goal is to control the very best planets.) ? PQ 20 at population 32 million gives an income of 12 ? PQ 20 at population 1.41 billion gives an income of 25 ? PQ 20 at population 2.
funding, but 2/3 of the 'extra' IU do require funding. On the planet display, this planet's figures would read 102+6 - the figure after the plus sign is the free IU. Note: everything here is rounded down - a planet that would produce 100 IU (10 more), with a 20% boost will still only produce 118 IU (100*.2x.66 rounded down is 12, and 100*.2*.33 rounded down is 6 - you can think of the other 2 IU as 'waste'.
IMPORTANT: Active Spending is also negatively impacted by the tax rate - at rates over about 35%, you get less output per dollar used, on a sliding scale. For me, this is the most important indicator to keep taxes low – it is a sad state of affairs where I call 35% taxation "low"! – but often just don’t worry about it: it is a small impact in the scheme of things. General note: If you are making a profit with expenditure at 100%, get more bonuses (from social production or starbases).
Tip: To ally, you need to have researched the technology “Alliances”, and be in a “Close” relationship – just being a “Friend” is not enough. If you are the weaker of the two civilizations, you may also need to ‘sweeten the deal’ to get them to agree to an alliance. Foreign Statistics Learning about the various statistics of a civilization will help you figure out their strengths and weaknesses. The more you invest in espionage, the more you will learn about them.
Espionage is important because often times having enough intelligence on different civilizations can keep random bad things from happening. There are terrorist plots, intrigues and other things that are somewhat intangible that having a reasonable level of intelligence on those civilizations can protect you from. Tip: The amount of benefit you get for the money you spend is related to their population size, and a variety of constants.
When you begin the game, you are asked to choose a technology for your researchers to look into. Each of your planets contributes to this research (shown by the beakers on the planet management screen). Some technologies take longer to research than others. But technologies are what give you new abilities, new ships to build, new improvements to build, new trade goods, etc. Events & Ethics During the course of the game your civilization will have to deal with unexpected events.
Your influence represents how much sway you have in the United Planets. It also determines how much impact your culture has on other civilizations. The higher your influence, the more star systems near you likely to ask to become part of your civilization. Influence works as follows: Each star system has an inate amount of influence. A typical star system has no influence at all on its own. But those with good base planets may have an influence rating of 2 to 3 points.
Example: (This example is not meant to suggest that you loose one point of influence for every sector – just to have easy numbers for the calculations which do show influence dropping with range.) There is a planet worth 2 influence to you in the centre square, and to its left is an enemy planet, although the sector belongs to you. For simplicity, assume that besides the 2 influence for your planet, the rest is from your civilization’s influence attenuated by distance.
The amount of votes you have in the United Planets is based on your influence (which was previously discussed). The United Planets comes up every 4 years by default (though can be voted to come up even more often). Tips: ? You cannot control what issues comes up for vote. ? Consider supporting a friend, rather than letting an enemy get a benefit: but beware, sometimes the friend will be voting for you! The Metaverse Galactic Civilizations is a single player turn based strategy.
(GameDifficulty * SizeOfGalaxy * (Player01 * Intelligence01) * (Player02 * Intelligence02) *... * (Player05 * Intelligence05) * sqr(HistoricalPopulation) * VictoryCondition ) / CurrentGameYear where the VictoryCondition is a number reflecting how the game ended (YouLoseCondition = 1, MilitaryVictory = 10, EconomicVictory = 20 etc). Dividing it by the GameYear was to encourage fast wins.
(2) Copy two files from that game: the *.SAV file (showing the name of the saved game) along with the folder of the same name. These are found in Data->SavedGames folder. [With a gigantic galaxy (and lots of ships etc), one of my saves was 3.8MB. It zipped down to 154KB. With a tiny galaxy, a game was 1.2MB, and zipped down to 22KB.] (3) Go to the machine that is connected to the internet, and install the game there (ie. copy and paste the files into that same location on that computer).
A: Follow these steps: (1) Create a new forum posting account (don't put your real name anywhere in there) (2) Go to the metaverse section and click "Register your player" (3) For "Player Name" put in the nick for the new, anonymous forum account you created in Step (1), and put your game serial number where it asks for it (4) When a game ends, use your new Player Name and put the e-mail address used to register that new name.
Most other players prefer to leave Earth with a large population, and send out 100-300 pop ea, depending on how Earth’s population growth is going.] Remember to use the spending sliders: focus your spending on military for a few turns to churn out colony ships, or on research to grab that important tech. When you don’t have an urgent goal, a somewhat even spread (subject to your style) is a good idea. Learning to use this slider a lot is one of the key tricks to getting better at the game.
elements on the game screen. These will give your civilization or your ship additional abilities. LEFT-CLICK on your survey ship and then RIGHT-CLICK where you want to send him. LEFTCLICKING will select things and RIGHT-CLICK will send them to where you want them to go. On the colony ship, select that and look around for a yellow star. Yellow stars tend to have higher quality planets in orbit. If you don’t see any, look on the mini map for a near by sector that has lots of stars in it. Send it on its way.
On keeping your people happy Don’t worry too much about keeping people’s morale terribly high. Even the most popular leaders have a hard time keeping their approval rating over 55%. Try to keep it over 50% so that you have a good chance of winning elections. On increasing your influence There are social projects that can build up your influence. But more importantly, you can add modules to your star bases that will magnify your influence in a given sector.
easy (though potentially boring) game would be to play as a good civilization with other good civilizations. We suggest you play a small galaxy for starters. The game supports galaxy sizes up to gigantic but those games take months to finish versus a small galaxy which can be finished in an afternoon. Starting out You’ll begin the game with a summary of what’s been happening prior to the game starting. Then you’ll be asked to choose a technology.
If you’re going for the cultural domination path, upgrade your star bases with modules that magnify your influence in those sectors. You can actually get star systems to defect to you if you have enough influence in a sector they have a planet in. Be wary though, the aliens won’t just lie down and let you walk over them. If they feel culturally threatened they may either try to counter what you’re doing with their own star bases or take them out through more violent means.
cases) to explore the galaxy with remote probes, they already know where all the best planets are located and they will actively pursue them. In the initial years of the game, you may wish to adjust your allocation of resources to favor military projects and research (into Propulsion technologies) to ensure that the Terran Empire doesn't become a forgotten backwater in a corner of the galaxy.
When set up, I had picked the "Pacifists". Their bonuses would increase my natural influence and diplomacy in the galaxy which I would need to avoid war. Here's where I set the various players to being the opposite alignment than usual. But I did something else, I set the intelligence levels to be different on some races. Whereas some are "Intelligent" which is quite tough, the Yor are set to only be bright. This would have serious repercussions later on. And off I go...
By playing as a good guy, I would win the favor of the good civilizations. They would be less likely to go to war with me (in theory). Plus, as a backup plan, I could ally myself with the good guys. Again, as I land on planets I come across various unique things. There are a lot of these and some are less likely to come up than others. Ah the evil Altarians. Bit of an attitude change. Only thing they're missing is a mustache. Okay, time to try out the built in MP3 player in the BonusPak.
Ah evil Torians. Not so cuddly now. Now they're interested in eating my skin! And the Yor. No longer interested in converting me into bone flecked jam, now they are happy to report that they exist to provide "pleasure". The benefits of high influence, I am able to get my way in the United Planets. Evil Altarians. Bastards.
The Drengin and Altarians spend a lot of time at war with one another. The Altarians are pretty tough because they got a really good start. I have a sensor drone broadcasting live images from the front. Lots of action. Time to get some basic defense. Even the best diplomat can't be completely undefended. The Altarians come after me. It is so weird hearing the Altarians speaking this way. Of course, I also tell him where he can go..
Now I'm setting up my governors. I don't have that many planets but I have certain basics I want them all to build and I don't want to have to mess around with them manually. I'm not exactly a power house but my diplomacy ability is strong enough to keep me out of trouble still. The Altarians keep trying to intimidate me. They fail. Though actually I am a bit worried. So what I end up doing is using my considerable wealth to purchase ships from other races. In GalCiv, you can buy pretty much anything.
The Arceans are fairly neutral. But they're worried about the Altarians as well. But the media seems fixated on the Drengin. With the Drengin and Altarians battling it out, it could go either way. It's very close. Meanwhile, several of my worlds start inching towards defecting. My influence is so low that my people start to lose faith. A new election is only a few months away so I do what any politician would do, I lower taxes to increase my approval rating.
The dying Torians. Not much left now but a few crumbling old buildings. And the owners of them left and formed the Torian Imperium. The Drengin have been busy. They've allied themselves with the Yor which brought them into the war against the Altarians. The evil Altarians lost the evil Torians and are now alone. Things don't look too well for the Altarians now. Battleships arrive.
I start focusing on social programs. Not just because they make my people happy (though I learn bitterly at the end that social programs, gone too far, can bankrupt a civilization) but to generally build up infrastructure for later on. The Arceans are ticking me off. I know I had planned not to go to war but these lamers are too uppity. Who do they think they are? Trapped in the corner, they'd be nothing if it weren't for my money. The Arceans just have the worst diplomacy.
I'm not strong enough to take on the Arceans. But I know someone who is. A certain someone who depends on me for a third of their revenue... Heh Heh. Crap. The other side of the coin. The Altarians and Drengin are at war again and I get dragged in. So now my fate is hitched to that of the good Drengin Empire.
And the Yor, friends of the Drengin and therefore friends of mine help me out but don't get involved directly. The ships are critical though -- 4 Dreadnoughts, and a half dozen cruisers. Okay, I admit, I'm a little bit lame. The Altarians are down for the count but I really can't deal with them right now. The Drengin won't care about this as long as they don't need my help. I capture an Arcean planet and steal their technology. The Arceans though manage to find a powerful starship.
Yes and no. Humans at strategy games tend to make peace so that they can rearm and repeat. The aliens in GalCiv will do this too. If they can. Of course, the Drengin are still all over them. I just love seeing the aliens grovel though. Mmmm. More trade routes. Now I can work on the Yor. They will ally with me, or they'll be culturally assimilated... Meanwhile... I build up to attack them. The Arceans, though not as intelligent as the other civilizations, recognize this and point out their unhappiness.
And then I strike. Good by Arceans... By now my goodness has changed the interface of GalCiv to reflect my benevolence.. I am also building a lot of missiles (new unit in the BonusPak). Missiles are cheap but you have to be careful, they give you the illusion of power. Like real missiles, they are one shot deals. The cultural domination starts to work. Influence is a tricky thing.
Taking a look at my new planet. Mmm propaganda. So close, if I can get the Yor to ally with me, game over. Cultural Conquest would be a lot more work. So I'm going to try to get the Yor to like me enough to ally with me. Not an easy task. So here's the problem. The Yor only get 9% of their income from me. If I'm going to become an ally, that needs to change. I need to trade with them. But I've used up all my trade routes already.
A new minor race shows up. They're pretty deviant I hear.. So now it's time to switch production. Now, I could go to all my planets and do this manually. Or I can do it through the use of governors -- everyone that's building a Dreadnought will now build a constructor instead. One click. Next step, where are my trade routes? Ideally I want a trade route that is a straight line so that I can build star bases.
So I start adding trade posts and other modules to my star bases along that trade route. I also use a captured Arcean sensor drone to keep an eye on that Jarkians and Drengin. Trade per turn now up to 796. And I reached Star Federation so my economy is even stronger than before. Up to 20% of their income. Relations are now improving.
But I do want to get to higher level weaponry so I research Organic armor. My plan has an unexpected snag. The galaxy has entered an economic boom. This is normally good but the result is that my trade, as a percent, is significantly lowered. Combine that with the Yor's huge military buid up and things look bleak. But you know what? Starbases have a dual role. They can also be used to magnify culture. Now, this is a bit of a gambit.
Earth is looking good. Arrgh. Space monster. But I have missiles near by so I wipe him out easily. Now we'll let Nike and McDonalds and Disney do the conquering for me. Day 2...
Here's where I left off. I'm pretty close to winning via a variety of ways. I shift-Drag to select a bunch of units and send them over to be near the Yor, just in case. Not in their sectors mind you, just nearer. Look at that fleet. I don't want to have to battle that.
Success! The Yor are not amused. They see through my plan. But it is too late. Even though I am forced to hand over that star base, the cultural inertia is too far in my favor now. Here's why: The loss of those planets has caused the Yor to go bankrupt. They have too many expenses and while they have tried to downsize their military, it's just too late. They have too many leases and expenses and such built up throughout the game to adjust to the loss of so many worlds so quickly.
So close... One...more...sector.. Here it comes! Only 9 months left and I win. The last gasp of dying regimes.
VICTORY! I only had to destroy 35 ships throughout the entire 2 day game. It was a very close thing and quite a challenge. It takes a lot of diplomatic juggling to do so. It also required some good geography, I was able to trade with races unmolested and the extra 2 United Planets given trade routes put me to the maximum 10 trade routes which I used to good effect. Submitting my score to the Metaverse. Yay, I'm in the top ten. But look at those bastards.
In GalCiv, you have both individual rankings and empire rankings (think "clans"). My empire "Arnor" is lonely now but you just wait! :) There's my profile. Your hall of fame is kept track of on the web. That way, let's say you play GalCiv on your laptop as well as on a second machine. You can have a single global high score list to see how you're doing. Plus, I've won my first medal for being in the top 10. GalCiv tracks I think the top 5,000 players. Might be higher than that (might be top 10,000).
maintenance are the responsibility of different people, and we (GalCiv players) are only one of the constituencies it is designed for. Unfortunately, it was not designed for novice computer users. SDC permits easy access to interim releases to the game. The user launches SDC, and it compares the version you have with the version on the servers, and if there is an update, offers an update button. If the user chooses to update, the update is downloaded and installed. Very quick, clean, and efficient.
Here's how you use it. To download the latest version of Stardock Central go here: http://www.galciv.com/download.asp [1] After you install, it will ask you to create a Stardock.net account. This information will allow you access your games from any computer, participate in message boards, and streamline any technical support you may need. If you need to edit your account later, you can go to the Tools->Edit Stardock.net Account... When you finish creating your Stardock.
Debugging ? ? ? SETI@home - Compatible only if SETI is in screensaver mode. Otherwise, SDC wont work. Some people have reported that their firewall product blocked SDC - works fine for me, though. For further help, you have 3 good choices: o Ask for help on the FORUM. Prompt responses, but mainly from players who have no special knowledge or ability to help. But if someone has had your problem, they may resolve it for you very quickly. o Use the "Support" tab of SDC to send in a support request.
A: In Settings you can turn on "show prerelease versions". Note: Only users with Drengin.net accounts (see www.drengin.net) can obtain betas. Q: I wanted to do an update, but something else happened – help! A: DON’T doubleclick in SDC - by default, doubleclicking an installed application doesn't update it - it uninstalls. Q: How can I change the default directories for SDC? A: For temp files and install files - in the SDC, Under tools->Settings->Advanced.
Tip: I got this on my laptop even with the sound turned off, until I deleted all the video and sound files. Then it didn’t seem to care that I had the wrong version of DirectX. The game keeps returning to desktop unexpectedly. Makes sure you are not running the debug (or developer version) of DirectX 8.x. There is a bug that is fixed in the release version of DirectX 8.x that causes Galactic Civilizations to crash.
Additional Graphics Russ Schwenkler Music Eric Heberling GalCiv OS/2 Music Eric Johnson Metaverse Programming Pat Ford Johanne Chainé Writing Brad Wardell Scott Tykoski Alexander Antoniades Biz: Larry Kuperman Kris Kwilas Angela Marshall Belinda Banks Kim Kolaz Website Design Johanne Chainé Renato C. Veras Jr. Pat Ford Licensed Technology (www.radgametools.com) Beta Testing Stardock would like to thank the hundreds of external beta testers who helped out throughout the beta cycle.
Jeffery s Legere Frank Leon Martin Leuschen Kris D McCann Brian McClure Paul McEvoy Ian Meddings Simon Morgan Robert F.
Strategy First 3rd party Producer Nabil Yared 3rd party Executive Producer Adam Phillips Product Manager Prokopios 'Pro' Sotos Director of Marketing Steve Milburn Assistant Product Manager Ryan Bastien Packaging and Design Philippe Brindamour, Julie Binette, Anne Lalonde, Marline Belanger Web Design Hugo Trepanier, Serge Mongeau PR Associate Kelly Elkins Marketing Associate Raluca State President Don McFatridge Senior V.P. Brian Clarke V.P. Acquisitions Steve Wall V.P.
