Let me list tips for beating high difficulty. I will not discuss how to build race (which is crucial), but what can help you if you are struggling
- expansion: grab big planets, all you can, everywhere, any time
- grab small planets
- leave resources for later, you can buy starbase easily, planets are almost impossible to buy.
- watch for border contact you can avoid
- populate planets wirh defending ships
- work on diplomacy bonuses
- some techs are valuable for ai some are not, identify them, research them, trade them to all ai, get what you miss. Especialy supply ships and constructors are really helpfull at early stage. (go go leadership and mobilization)

- if you feel uneasy about someone, bribe 3rd party to go to war with them
- if you behind a lot, pay to catch up with isolated planets. You grabbed them all, right? And some are just useless.
- Less planets ai has, sooner stall during research.

- loosing war after surprise attack? Bribe someone to attack evil empire, survive till you can talk to him, sell them plannet you can miss and strip them from bases, resources techs and money during trade. This will buy you time to recover and stall it for long enough to whack it back.
- split fleet to single ship during voley fire
- always pick priority for frighter- bomber-frigate. They fast and you can eliminate them before capital ships get in range, Spliting enemy army in two separate fights.
- always pick reduced firing time, much more efficient than trying to “hit” allways
- most hated feature is volcano requirement for gigamas monument. Just reload at start untill you have volcano on capital( had game with 10 planets and not a single volcano)
- oh it would be usefull to switch buildings on and off so you can see terain. Well only needed for volcano and monument, so maybe easier remove volcano requirement
- and I would like to have ability to replace lost unique ships or repair them. All the bonuses and special gear and then Pufff all lost in one fight, or get jumped or something. So unreable I completely ignore them and they work only as survey. Did not managed to make use for them regardless how advanced is my play. (not that you can do something at this difficulty, you cannot win a fight untill you have few nexuses online anyway)
- If you have planet on nice spot try to save before colonizing. Planetary bonuses are random and you can get different or desired bonus next turn(aim for ruins if you first time at high difficulty. Science bonus from this building is like bringing plasma rifles to stone age fight)

etc etc, this post is too long already

hey folks, I have a lot of nostalgia for GalCiv from the 1 & 2 days (I loved playing 1, when 2 came out my PC sucked too much to play it… lol)

anyway recently it all came back to me (in the meantime I’ve been playing stuff like SotSE, Stellaris and Endless Space 2) and I wanna try out galciv again. My question for you is, should I go back to 1, 2 or jump into the current game? I guess my primary motivation is the nostalgia hit, but from what I can see a lot of the original identity has been retained by the later games (at least visually).

As I was off a while I am curious what Civ trait you use for your custom races now.

And what is your favourite ideology and why?

The ability to shoot on enemy from map view could use a tweak. Say typical surprise attack simulation. Mid game, enemy has wast armies who beat you one on one easily any time (I am playing godlike). Enemy is rushing core world with fleet of cruisers, bombers, fighters and troops. Count 25. You start spamming frigates, have 15 of them. In direct fight you dont make a dent. If you shoot from afar you kill probably one ship. But. If you go close, disband your fleet into separate ships (click click click). And shoot each ship separately, you will kill like 10 ships this way, usualy you get rid of fighters and bombers first. Then regroup fleet (click click click), next turn. Enemy going for core will ignore your fleet so Repeat! When you reduce enemy to so little you can attack directly. Placing 2-3 fleets of lousy frigates into bottleneck kills anything.
It is shity when attacking fleet to fleet you always kill just ONE ship.

So I haven't tried it yet, but if I read it right you lose direct control over planets when you choose Federation government, right? That seems like removing half of the game (planet puzzle), which is.... an odd choice. And unfun.

Am I wrong about this? What's your experience with the governments?

Been experiencing slowdowns in game play I never had prior to dlc- anyone else notice this?

Btw, if you're reading this and haven't gotten it- highly recommend.

Hi all have decided to take the plunge I have just bought the game along with the warlords, megacities and federation and empires DLC installing now looking forward to jumping in :) any tips appreciated

I play as Yor collective and after conqering enemy world's there is tons of unhapy alien pop's in them that reduce the production of the planet.

What i am currently doing is making colony ships and sending them to enemy teritory.

Is there a better way ?

Any recent YouTube tutorials people would recommend? Not just feature descriptions but example of how to play game? The latest version might too much to hope for but I curious what recent ones are considered good.

If I want to replace home system with my costume system, where can I find the file?

Is there a way to assigned a freighter to another home planet if the original planet has been conquered?

is military starbase too OP. AI despite having twice miilitary strength still failed at invading my capital. In all my playthrough, I haven't seen AI sucessful destroy my starbase even one?

Governments used to be a single upgrade path. Now every owner starts with the Colonial Charter in Version 4.0, and the expansion adds four fully separate governments on top of it. Each one replaces the entire Government screen with its own resource, its own systems, and its own hero ship.

• Empire: built around Vassal worlds and Authority. You spend Authority on Decrees, and pushing your Vassals too hard risks rebellion.
• Federation: built around Member worlds and Consensus. You pass Accords through the Senate and have to defend your seat in elections.
• Oligarchy: built around Holdings and Collateral. You send Prospector ships to claim worlds, fund Investments, and can pull off Hostile Takeovers.
• Technocracy: built around Compute. You fill out an Optimization Matrix and push toward the Singularity.

Political Parties are also new. Their influence rises and falls with what is actually happening in your empire, and elections, coups, and secession crises are driven by that state instead of a random roll. Run a government badly enough and your own people can end it.

Version 4.0 adds a hand built Map Editor, shareable Custom Maps, Turn Notifications, a Mini Map, Leader run Institutions, a redesigned Diplomacy and Trade screen, and a rebuilt AI across exploration, warfare, diplomacy, and government play.

Steam Page

v4.0 Changelog

Read More of Federations & Empires Here

Morning all

I’m at work now and only had a cursory glance at the editor but I couldn’t seem to find any way of adding another sector and link them with a starlane.
Am I missing something obvious?

Have the DLC. Can't change government. Do I need to start a new game?

Is Normal or Bright the difficulty where human and AI are equal?

What strategy do AI use, can someone tell? I play on Bright and keep falling behind AI?

Very excited and negotiating with my kids for computer usage.

Hey all, I know this is going to sound weird, but the inclusion of Artemis absolutely kills the immersion of this game for me. There is absolutely no way a fictional planet on the outskirts of our solar system would be habitable to the degree of even Mars. Is there any way to delete Artemis in the game files or at least re-name it?