"Jeez, wish I knew that..."

Guynemer · April 24, 2003, 13:01

So in my last game, I discovered (much to my chagrin, nearly at the end of the game) that starbases can be constructed anywhere, not only on resources.

What an idiot.

So what sorts of things have you guys found out that, in retrospect, are big fat duhs?

Harry Seldon · April 24, 2003, 13:10

Propaganda for individual star systems is set by clicking the Details button from the production screen. You can also see what projects have been built there and disband a colony.

I can't take credit for finding this though. Someone else from Poly showed me how.

Garth Vader · April 24, 2003, 13:29

Not much in this game, it took a long time to find the details button.

Not GalCiv, but mu biggest "Duh" was in the first Panzer General. I thought you could only upgrade your stuff during the combats, which I thought was dumb, because I basically had to take each unit ont of action for a turn or two to move it to a city and spend a turn upgrading.

I finished the game before finding out how you upgraded before the mission

Draginol · April 24, 2003, 16:12

Do you guys know how to auto survey? At least you guys have the excuse of not being the designer of the game. During the beta, that feature was kind of sneaked in and I didn't know about it, but I love it.

Click on the "I" button on your ship panel.

vmxa1 · April 24, 2003, 16:21

I know it is there, but I do not know if I should use it or not. IOW how it would go about the survey.

Harry Seldon · April 24, 2003, 16:34

So it will search out anomalies and survey without having to hunt each one down? That would be cool. If you do that, you lose the cheese tactic of highlighting a ship that's on autopilot and reentering the destination. I'll use it sometimes when my survey ship and an enemy survey ship are closing on the same resource so I can get there first.

Cookie Monster · April 24, 2003, 20:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Draginol
Do you guys know how to auto survey?

I didn't know that one either. I can honestly say however that I wouldn't use it only because I love moving my ships around the galaxy manually.

yin26 · April 25, 2003, 09:17

My biggest moment like this was realizing that even after you research the Alliance tech, it will only appear if the other AI is 'Close' to you.

Harry Seldon · April 25, 2003, 09:35

I have another one. Planet quality's relation to collectable taxes from a planet. It makes sense that the better the planet the happier the people and the more money is collected but I was more than willing at first to plunk down on a class 13 planet. I couldn't understand why I would build almost no social projects on a planet but it was costing me massive amounts of money to sustain.

vee4473 · April 25, 2003, 11:37

Auto survey rocks.

i think that alot of these things elude us because i think you have to double click the survey ship to see the auto survey option, it isn't available otherwise is it?

and how many actually double click a ship to give it orders.

Harry Seldon · April 25, 2003, 13:26

If doubleclicking means a left click to highlight and a right click for "Go Here" then I do.

vee4473 · April 25, 2003, 19:09

nice

Boris Godunov · April 25, 2003, 22:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Guynemer
So in my last game, I discovered (much to my chagrin, nearly at the end of the game) that starbases can be constructed anywhere, not only on resources.

What an idiot.

So what sorts of things have you guys found out that, in retrospect, are big fat duhs?

No ****! Well, I'll be... Durrrrrrrrrrr

Thanks, Guy!

Guynemer · April 25, 2003, 23:12

Happy to be of assistance...

Think of how much a happier place Apolyton could be if people occasionally admitted that they didn't know something... especially the OT...

Boris Godunov · April 25, 2003, 23:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Guynemer
Happy to be of assistance...

Think of how much a happier place Apolyton could be if people occasionally admitted that they didn't know something... especially the OT...

Such admissions of defeat are intolerable.

ucla_vince · April 29, 2003, 16:59

yeah, me too... I didn't realize until my 3rd or 4th game that starbases could be built anywhere... I kept being dissapointed by the fact that there were never any resources to build on near Sol...

I don't think the instructions were very clear about that.

And as for auto-survey, it will automaticly go to the nearest anomoly if any are visible, if not, you have to tell it where to go, and you can get to that options screen by pressing the "I" button inb the little panel on the bottom of the screen when you have a ship selected.

I'm #3 in the Apolyton empire!

Biggles · April 29, 2003, 20:22

When loading settlers or soldiers on a transport, if you left click on the arrows, you can then use the mouse wheel to precisely and smoothly set the numbers.

It works with setting the values during trading,selling or buying.

Felch · April 30, 2003, 01:07

I find something new every game. Just this last game I realized how to tell total culture numbers in each sector, by clicking a little button near the mini map.

Ray K · April 30, 2003, 11:37

I thing I found out later was what those three buttons on the diplomacy screen (right under the graphic) did.

They give you information on the civ you are dealing with. Very useful.

Harry Seldon · April 30, 2003, 13:14

I kind of knew what they did but never factored in the value of the information. I kept giving great tech to a minor civ and couldn't understand why the Altarians, my mortal enemy, kept catching my pace in research. I finally opened the Relations screen and saw my minor civ had Close relations with the Altarians. D'oh!

dr. blackclove · April 30, 2003, 20:07

My biggest discovery in this past game was that when you have multiple planets you can colonize in a system and you build a colony ship there, if you click on another planet in the system it will automatically SPLIT your population. I made the mistake of colonizing a class 13 planet in the same system as one of my really nice ones... OUCH!!

I also realized that the survey ship makes a pretty good warship even in the early stage of the game. I squished the Altarians by killing their flagship and a bunch of colony ships. More colonies for me

Felch · May 1, 2003, 19:36

Those little buttons in the diplomacy screen are really a cool little feature. Does the information expand through espionage?

LotC · May 4, 2003, 20:59

I believe I take the prize for the biggest oversight. Just today, 3 weeks after buying the game, I found the little arrows on the planet screen sort list.

Of course, being a stubbornly proud know-it-all, I will blame this on poor UI design.

Mannamagnus · May 7, 2003, 06:11

Auto survey: press A
And yes it took me also two games to find out that you can build starbases anywhere

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