Galactic Civilizations is a strategy game in which all of the computer players are required to play more or less by the same rules that the human player does. The game requires OS/2 primarily because it is the best operating system for such a game. OS/
2 allows the AI engine (known as the SDS/AI) to work in the background while the human player goes about his or her business. This is necessary because an AI that is forced (in general) to use the same rules as the human player must take a considerable a
mount of time to compute its strategy. Under a typical PC environment (such as DOS or Windows) this would be difficult or impossible to do because the AI would have to wait until the player finished his turn to compute (because DOS is a single tasking sy
stem and because Windows does not support threading). Most game players are not willing to wait 20 seconds between turns no matter how nice a game is. In this same scenario, the human player may take 15 to 18 seconds to plan his move while the AI is com
puting. As a result, the computer players only cause the human to wait a second or two before he can move his units. Moreover, because of the power of OS/2's threads, even during that wait the human player can do anything he wants except move his ships.
With this said, we should explain what differences exist between the human player and the computer player:
The computer players start out with a planet already. This is due to the plot of the story and nothing else.
The computer players can send you little messages that you cannot do back. This is purely for entertainment value.
The point of all this is that the computer players do not cheat (except on the most severe intelligence level) to win. In fact, the difficulty levels (or intelligence levels) merely decide how much to penalize the computer player's production. The belo
w table illustrates how the difficulty levels work:
Level Production
Brain Dead Production x (1/5)
Dumb Production x (2/5)
Average Production x (3/5)
Smart Production x (4/5)
Genius Production x 1
Incredible (computer cheats) Production x (6/5)
If you are able to defeat the computer AI repeatedly on Genius then we will consider this a bug and ask you to give us your strategy to defeat the AI so that we can attempt to fix this bug.
Galactic Civilizations AI is split into two modules:
SDS/AI: General Artificial intelligence Engine
GC/AI Game specific AI.
The SDS/AI will be in all strategy games produced by Stardock Systems and will be able to be interchanged. In fact, you will be able to place the SDS/AI in your DLL path and only have one copy (just make sure you always use the newest version).
Chapter II: The Story
In the first half of the 21st century Humanity, using the Hubble II space telescope, first confirmed the existence of Earthlike planets around other stars. This discovery, along with Humanity's innate desire for discovery, united all governments of Earth
in a single effort to colonize these planets. A massive research effort was launched to provide a practical interstellar drive
system.
A century later, Humanity finally achieved a key breakthrough in Physics - the Micro Impulse Drive. The MID folds space allowing for an instantaneous transfer of a ship in the MID field from one point in space to another. The MID folds space in 500 AU's (
astronomical units) and each fold requires 20 hours plus set up. This limits the "speed" of the MID to one parsec (3.26) light years per standard year.
Three colony ships, tagged in the press "Colony Wagons", are built - the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. These Colony Wagons do not just transport the colony, they are the colony. These ships soft land on a target planet and act as the colony's base
while the inhabitants slowly tame the outside environment. This means that virtually any planet can be colonized but Earth-like planets are definitely preferred. Each Colony Wagon contains a database with all the technology and works of art known to Huma
nity. Since the colonies are likely to be many parsecs apart,
it is expected that each colony be to a certain degree, self sufficient.
The three ships set sail into the unknown seas of space. The Nina and the Pinta engaged the MID and streaked off into the vastness beyond. When the Santa Maria engaged the MID it encountered a cosmic "string". The combination of the cosmic string's gravi
ty along with the MID created a fold that transported the ship into a galaxy billions of parsecs away from our
galaxy. The Santa Maria arrived in a totally unknown part of space.
Now, while the crew sees many stars in the distance, it is impossible to tell exactly how far the stars are without any star maps. Therefore, the Santa Maria needs to reach within several parsecs of a given star to get a fix on it and its planets.
You are the colony leader of the Santa Maria. You must find and colonize a new world. Fortunately the cosmic string has enhanced your MID temporarily and the captain believes he can made about 12 parsec in the next year. Unfortunately the ships communicat
ions system has picked up numerous electromagnetic signals from many different directions. You are not alone, there are other civilizations - alien, here to keep you company. The signals seem to indicate a space flight technology on par with the MID. Huma
nity generated similar signals during the MID tests.
Chapter III: Installation
Galactic Civilizations comes on 4 disks. The first disk should be labeled Disk 1: Installation. Place this disk into your disk drive and click on the drive object. When the object opens, you will see install.exe on the drive. Double click on this obj
ect to open the installation program.
As mentioned previously, the full install of Galactic Civilizations will require 12 megabytes. To be safe, ensure that at least 15 megs of drive space is available to install it. There are two installation options:
Install MMPM/2 support
or
Do not install MMPM/2 support
If you choose not to install the MMPM/2 support then GalCiv will only require about 8 megabytes of disk space.
The next step is to include a drive to install to. Your disk drives and corresponding free space are displayed on the right side. By clicking on a drive icon, you choose which hard drive to install. Select the "Begin Installation" button to start inst
alling. A folder on that drive called GalCiv will be created and the files placed there. Galactic Civilizations, being an OS/2 program, does not require it to be in any particular place. You can move the folder anywhere you would like without fear of it
not functioning. While it is installing, your software license will be brought up. Along with the license will be the standard Federal warning against software piracy. Since Galactic Civilizations is a copyrighted work, it is a felony to make copies of
it for use beyond what is allowed by your license. If you are new to OS/2, you should know that you do not have to sit and wait for it to install (unlike a Windows or DOS program). You can do whatever you want, read the docs, play a game, etc.
After the lengthy installation is complete, a desktop object called "Galactic Civilizations" will be created on your desktop. To start the game, double click on the object and it will start a new game.
It should be noted that Galactic Civilizations has been designed so that it can be pruned later by users who need the disk space and can do without the "pretty pictures". The following .DLL files are not required to play (but are highly recommended for
entertainment purposes).
Graphics.DLL Has pictures of people and aliens in it
Land.DLL Has Planetary surfaces in it
Scenes.DLL Has various scenery in it.
Chapter IV: Starting the game:
Once you start the game and press the first continue button you will be given a menu of choices:
Introduction requires the MMPM/2 support and will play an AVI intro explaining the plot background to our story. The quality of playback of the AVI file will depend heavily on the hardware capabilities of your particular system.
When you select Continue Last game you will be brought to where you were in the last game that was being played.
By selecting "Load a Save Game" you will be given an OS/2 file open box that will list the names of the games listed. These are the games you saved previously. It should be noted that if you are running the HPFS (High Performance File System) that you
can use up to 254 character file names for your saved games.
Starting a new game...
When you start a new game you will first be presented with a dialog asking you to set up your opponents. You need to have at least 1 opponent if you hope to have any sort of game at all. Figure x shows the dialog box for this. As seen in the figure, y
ou can configure the aliens to be intelligent in varying degrees. The smarter they are, the tougher they will be to beat. Moreover, you can also rename the aliens. For example, you could rename "Drengin Empire" to "Mordor" or some other name. If you d
on't want to play a particular player, simply choose "not active". In this way you can limit the number of opponents to as few as you want.
Figure x: Setting up your opponents.
Once you have selected your opponents, you will be asked to name yourself, your political party, and the name of your civilization. If you are going to modify the default names, you need to do that first. Once you choose the size of your galaxy, the di
alog box closes.
The reasons for naming yourself and your civilization are apparent. However, naming your political party is important when you move your government up from the Imperial System (the system of government you start out with) to a Democracy or Federation.
At that point, your political party (represented by you) will try to gain members in the Senate. Your actions will be subject to their approval in certain cases.
As seen in Figure x, there are 5 different galaxy sizes ranging from tiny to huge. The size of the galaxy decides how many quadrants, stars, and planets will exist in your game. You should be aware that the larger the galaxy, the more processor time th
e game will require. Below is a description of each of the galaxy sizes:
Tiny: 3 by 3 quadrant size map. Good for fast games with a lot of action. For the Caesar on the go!
Small: 4 by 4 quadrant size map. Very good for short games that are high on action.
Medium: 8 by 8 quadrant size map. This is for the typical player. Here you will have a few
hundred planets to choose from. At about this time, a slight increase in wait time
between turns might be noticed on slower machines.
Large: 12 by 12 quadrant size map. For the desktop general who wants to truly control the galaxy. This should probably be played only on high end 386 based systems and up. Games on this level won't be conquered in an evening.
Huge: 16 by 16 quadrant map size. For the ultimate desktop General. This should only be attempted on very high end machines. Be prepared for games that can take weeks
to complete in certain situations. It would be almost impossible to conquer this
size of a playing field. Best route is to unite the galaxy as soon as you can as you
unlikely to be able to beat the AI at this size of a galaxy.
Figure x: Choosing the Galaxy Size.
Once you have chosen the names you want to go by and the size of your galaxy you will be asked if you want to modify the personalities of the civilizations you have selected play against. As seen in Figure x, the behavior of each civilization defaults to
being random. Having your opponents be random has good and bad points. On the good side, it gives the element of surprise. You don't know how they're going to behave. You have no need to have prejudice towards a given player. On the bad side, if you
choose all your players to have random personalities then you risk having a dull game. For example, it would be possible for all of the players to be "Good". In this case, there would be no wars (unless you start them) and it can be a long dull wait fo
r everyone to get "Alliance" technology so that they can unite with you. A game of "We want to be your friend no matter what you do to us." Can take the fun out of even the most benevolent player. Of course, since it is random you never know whether this
is going to happen. However, there are other advantages of random behavior:
There are actually 20 different levels of behavior. From Being Super Aggressive/Super Ruthless to Super/Good Super Passive. When you choose random, any one of the 20 behaviors might be chosen. By choosing the behavior of a player by hand i.e. choosing
"Evil", You only get 5 different behaviors to choose from.
In practice, it is probably best to have a player or 2 be randomly chosen, and choose a couple of the other players to be a certain behavior so that you eliminate the risk of having an uneventful game.
Chapter V: User Interface
Part 1: General Design Issues:
We have attempted to make the user interface of Galactic Civilizations as intuitive as possible. Even the best thought out game can be a failure if the interface is too difficult to use. The User interface of Galactic Civilizations strives to be consis
tent in its use.
The screen is filled with various objects. The mouse is used to operating on these objects. Both buttons on mouse are used (if you have 3 buttons, the LEFT and the RIGHT most button are used).
The LEFT mouse button selects objects on the screen such as buttons, ships, and menu items. A SINGLE CLICK will accomplish this.
By DOUBLE CLICKING with the LEFT mouse button additional actions (if any) can be taken and list box items will yield more information. For example, double clicking on an item in a list box (such as your list of worlds, list of discoveries, etc.) will br
ing up more information about them. Doing this on a starship object will automatically put the ship into "Set Course" mode where you choose where you want it to go.
By using the RIGHT mouse button on an object you can bring up further information on normal objects (non-list box items). For example, the right mouse button click will bring up information on a star system if you click on it. If you are looking at a s
tar system and click with the right mouse button on a planet then information on the planet will be brought up.
Part 2: The Quadrant Map.
As seen in Figure x, the quadrant map contain two types of objects: Star Ship Objects and Star Objects. A star ship object represents a single space ship unit (such as a freighter). The ships you own have a light colored border around them. Alien vess
els vary from civilization to civilization. No two civilizations have the same types of ships. There are up to 3 different mouse actions you can take on a star ship object. You can select it (by clicking on the ship), open up information on the ship by
clicking with the right mouse button on it or by double clicking on the object you can put the ship into auto-pilot search mode. On foreign vessels, you can only click with the right mouse button which will reveal some minimal information about that shi
p. As you play the game you will get to know the strengths and weakness' of different players ships. It was because of the unique types of ships that you are only allowed to play as the human (this way you can't find out what the various types of alien
ships are easily). The star object represents an entire solar system. Since selecting it (the right mouse button) doesn't really do anything (it's not like you can move a star system around), only the Right mouse button has any real affect on it. When
you use the Right mouse button, a window that displays the planets orbiting the star is shown along with vital information about it.
Figure x: The Quadrant Map.
Part 3: The Icon bar.
On the left hand side of the screen (by default) is the icon bar. This bar has commonly access functions on it. It is there for your convenience only as all of these functions can be used from the menu or keyboard. The icon bar buttons' functions are
(from top to bottom):
Our Worlds:
Shows a list of all of the planets that make up your civilization. Vital information about the planets are shown here. You can quickly go to a particular planet by double clicking on the planet in question.
Our Fleet:
Shows the status of every star ship in your civilization. Vital information on them such as their class, name, current position, strength, etc. is shown here. You can go directly to that ship's location by double clicking on the ship.
GIA:
This button brings up the Galactic Intelligence Agency. The GIA allows you to conduct foreign policy along with constitution reform. More about the GIA will be discussed later.
Spending Ratios:
This allows you, the leader of your civilization, to decide the ratios of spending and taxation. It allows the leader to decide what his or her priorities are. There are three categories that can be ratioed: Military, Social, and Research. The ratio s
et here will determine how much is spent in those areas and how much will be taxed in those areas. Learning to use this ratio well can determine the difference between a successful civilization and a dead empire. More about this button will be discussed
later.
Graph Manager:
The Graph Manager allows you to see how your civilization and other civilizations are progressing. It has several different categories of statistics that you can view such as population growth, military strength, production, and an overall analysis. Yo
u will always be able to view how your civilization is doing. Moreover, foreign civilizations that you are friendly with will share their statistics with you so that you can compare yourself with other civilizations as time goes by. If relations sour, t
hey will take away those statistics and you will be unable to view them.
Economic Manager:
With the economic management dialog, you can determine how much your empire taxes and how much it spends. More about this will be discussed in Chapter 10.
Research Manager:
The Research Manager allows you to decide which particular technology you want to research. It will become increasingly important for you to keep pace with your competitors technologically. You can double click on a particular item to bring up further
information about it.
Galactic Map:
The Galactic Map is one of the most useful portions of the game. It displays the entire galaxy at once and allows you several different views of the galaxy. From maps that show star system populations, to which parts you have explored. The map also gi
ves you an easy way of moving around quadrants.
The Moves Displays:
The moves display shows how many moves the currently active ship has left. You can move a ship until it has no moves remaining. It should be noted that "Deep Space" costs 2 movement points to navigate.
The Find Button:
When you press the "Find" button the next active ship that has moves remaining will be brought up. The Find button is a good way of traversing through your ships so that you can move them in a certain order without having to abort their turn entirely.
The keyboard equivalent is us the Insert key (or 0 on the keypad).
The Pass Button:
The Pass button works like the "Find" button except it actually aborts the currently active ship's turn. This is especially useful when you have several ships you don't want to move. In this situation, the pass button will allow you to skip them for th
at turn. The keypad equivalent is to press the space bar or the Del key on the keypad.
The Turn Button:
As its name implies, pressing this button will end your turn and move to the next year for further gameplay. The keypad equivalent is to press the Enter key on the keypad.
Chapter VI: Using the Interface.
With the user interface described, you now are ready to use the interface. Developing an interface that was intuitive to non-OS/2 users but still took advantage of OS/2's advanced interface capabilities was a difficult task. Many a strategy game has fal
len simply because its interface was just too difficult to use.
Where appropriate, we have made sure that keyboard equivalents are available. For example, you can move your ship with the cursor keys as well as the mouse.
Section 1: Navigation
In any game, particularly one with a playing field as large as this one, navigation is very important. We have attempted to make navigation as painless as possible. Below is a simple table of how to move your ships:
Move 1 space in a given direction:
Click on the map where you want to go and the map and the ship will go one space towards your pointer location. You can click anywhere on the map and the ship will move towards it. Alternatively, you can use the keypad to move in the direction you want
to go.
Set a course for a specific location (Auto Pilot): one ship
By double clicking (left mouse button) on your ship the pointer will change to the "goto" pointer. The next place on the map you press is where the ship will go to. The ship will use all of its turns to get to that point and on each turn after (at the
beginning of the turn) it will continue to try to get there. If you later change your mind about sending your ship to a given location you can simply click on the ship and this will disengage autopilot. Alternatively, you can click with the right mouse
button the ship and choose the "Auto Pilot" button to set your course.
Set a course for a specific location (Auto Pilot): for several ships at once
It can get tedious telling 12 ships to go to the same place. If you place those ships on the same location and then double click on them they will be massed into a fleet. Now, when you select their destination all of them will go there.
Section 2: Star Systems
You can look at any star system by clicking with the right mouse button. By doing this, you will be able to look inside that star system. The various planets that make up the solar system will be shown along with vital information about the star system
. When you click on a star system the mouse pointer will change to the information pointer. When you have entered the star system with a ship the mouse pointer will change to a star ship pointer. You can look at how good a planet is by clicking on the
planet with the right mouse button. By clicking with the left mouse button you will do the following (depending on your circumstances):
If a normal star ship is in the system:
If you own the planet the ship will start orbiting the planet. Otherwise the dialog box will close.
If a Colony ship is in the system:
If you own the planet then a second colony will be created on that planet. If you don't own the planet then a new colony will be made. In both situations, you must control the star systems. You can't share star systems with other civilizations, not ev
en allies.
Figure x: Star System view
The other information on the dialog is, in general, fairly obvious. The importance of the star system is determined by population and wonders built. A Galactic Wonder is very valuable to the civilization that holds it.
The second item of interest is unused resources. While some planets may not make very good colonies, they may be very valuable to existing colonies in that system in terms of raw materials. The more units of unused resources, the more your local govern
ments can improve their own productions. Note that once a planet is colonized, another planet cannot use it for raw materials in this way.
Section 3: Star Ships
The final object that can be manipulated is a star ship. We discussed earlier how one can navigate ships but there is much more to star ships than just navigating.
Figure x: Star Ship Dialog
Figure x shows all of the possible buttons to set up a star ship. Not all star ships can have these buttons. Below, a description of each button is given:
Decommission:
Maintaining a large star fleet is not cheap. Moreover, as your technology advances, older types of star ships become obsolete. When you are able to build Avatar Class Battleships there is not much incentive to keep Battle Axe class cruisers in service.
When you press this button, the ship is eliminated.
Auto-Pilot:
This button allows you to set your ship's course. It is equivalent to double clicking on your star ship on the quadrant map.
Re-Name Ship:
As time goes on, you will be able to build more and more powerful ships but they will also become so expensive and time consuming to build that each one may seem precious to you. As the leader of your civilization, you have the power to rename the ship.
For example, you could name your best ship "USS Liberator" or some other name that suits you.
Details:
As stated earlier, the AI in GalCiv does not cheat. In this case, this means that various civilizations will not be aware of your ships until they "discover" that ship. Just as you cannot see their ships until they have entered sensor range, the same a
pplies to the computer players. The Details view of your ship will inform you of which players are aware of your ships. The only time computer players can attack your ships without knowing about them is if they are in orbit of a planet. In this case, t
he computer player, like you, can see that a star system has been fortified.
Leave:
The Leave button only appears when your ship is in orbit of a planet. By pressing this button, the ship will leave orbit and appear on the quadrant map.
Add Troops:
Only Transports have this button. You can add troops to transports (inversely, you can reinforce troubled planets this way too) to your transports. When you press this button, a dialog with a slider bar will appear. The slider bar will allow you to ad
d troops to the transport by moving it to the right (inversely, you can reinforce the planet by moving the slider to the left). Figure x shows this dialog.
Figure x: The "Add Troops" dialog.
Chapter VII: Government - Foreign Policy
Using the GIA
The Galactic Intelligence Agency or GIA is how you, the leader, can control foreign policy. The GIA allows you to interact with foreign leaders, set up your spy network, allow you to set up destabilizing efforts of your enemies and allows you to reform
your own government.
Reforming Government:
GalCiv supports three types of governments, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. It is up to you to decide which form of government is best suited for you. Unlike other strategy games that support different political systems, GalCiv does n
ot attempt to force you into a particular form of political system. The political stems are outlined below.
Imperial:
The imperial system of government is what GalCiv starts you out with. You're civilization is really just an intergalactic empire. All star systems are bound to your commands. Planets do not have any local government whatsoever as everything is contro
lled from the throne directly. Internal commerce is somewhat restricted due to planets not being as intertwined with each other. On the other hand, this also means that planets do not rebel and cause a star system to fall into the hands of pirates and f
reedom fighters. In fact, you can make your people as miserable as you want. It should be noted, however, that your population growth is completely dependent on how happy your people are. If the people are miserable, your population will fall rapidly.
Democracy:
A democratic government is only possible after the technology necessary for it "called Democracy" is achieved. While mankind is intimately familiar with a democratic system of government by the time GalCiv takes place, an interplanetary democracy with
its necessary institutions cannot be implemented by good intentions alone. A significant amount of technology and thought into how to maintain a stable intergalactic government, where planets may be hundreds of light years apart, is needed. A democracy
greatly increases internal commerce and allows for local governments to be formed. These local governments can use unused resources that are in the star system. On the down side (from the standpoint of a dictator), a senate is created and elections held
. Your political party must get enough votes before executive orders can be enacted. Moreover, if star systems get unhappy enough (approval ratings of about 30%), they may rebel and entire star systems may come under the control of "freedom fighters" or
pirates.
Federation:
A galactic Federation is the most advanced and difficult form of government to have. Your planets are independent but are loosely governed by you. Independent planets will tend to be less cooperative with the government. Expect it to be more difficul
t to maintain senate control under such a system. People will rebel much quicker in hopes of starting their own independent empires. Local government sizes are doubled which greatly increases the amount of resources available to your planets.
Espionage:
To know thy enemy is the key to ultimate victory. You can set up the GIA to set aside a certain percentage of income for their uses. By selecting opponents to spy on along with a specified percentage of your income you can learn more about your enemies
. As more information is collected, more data about those opponents will be displayed. Once you have learned all six areas of information about your enemies, you can even begin to steal technology from them. Moreover, you can learn a particularly valua
ble piece of information from spying -- The Military Advisor. While some games have static personalities for various players, GalCiv allows you to set up the personality of the players any way you want. However, the game will assign a particular militar
y advisor to act as the "Commander In Chief" of the armed forces. This General will conduct war according to how the SDS/AI personality instructs it to. It would do you very well to learn the different strategies used by the different advisors. The amo
unt you can spend is determined by what type of government you have. Under the Imperial system you can set aside as much as 1/5th of your revenue into spying. In contrast, a Federation will only let you put 1/10th of your revenue into this service.
Destabilizing:
Destabilizing may be the most powerful weapon in the game when used properly. Destabilizing can literally bring an opponent to their knees if you have a strong enough economy. In essence, Destabilizing puts your people's tax dollars to work -- making y
our opponents' people miserable (with previously mentioned affects). Be careful of who you use this weapon on. A larger power than yourself can use it a lot more effectively than you can and crush the smaller opponent like a bug.
Diplomacy:
The art of diplomacy can be tricky (though in GalCiv it has been made to be fairly simple). When you press the "speak to..." button in the GIA dialog you will be put in contact with an enemy leader. There you can discuss a wide range of topics. From e
xchanging technologies to signing treaties.
Treaties:
There are two types of treaties in GalCiv. Non aggression packs and Alliances.
Non-Aggression Packs:
There is very little to this kind of treaty. Both players agree not to attack the other while under this treaty. These can be broken at any time but at least they give you some security.
Alliances:
Alliances will probably be the most controversial part of Galactic Civilizations. Because of this, the rationale behind them should be given. Alliances in GalCiv are based on the unusually close friendship between the United States and Great Britain.
The behavior of these two allies has been the model for how allies in GalCiv should behave. Many will point out that many alliances can be made in haste or just for convenience such as the Allies during World War II when the Soviet Union, who initially
wanted to be part of the Axis Alliances, became part of the "Grand Alliance" after being attacked by Germany. However, we wanted to make Alliances a very powerful and serious tool. Once an Alliance is initiated, it is very difficult to break them. You
should only agree to be an ally with another civilization if you plan to be with them for the long run. If you ally yourself with an evil player. Your civilization is pretty much stuck with that evil player. If that evil player is stronger, then your ci
vilization will slowly descend into a dark evil empire too. Moreover, alliances work in favor of the defender and against an aggressor. You are not obliged to help your ally if they attack someone else. This applies to you as well, if you attack someon
e, don't expect all of your allies to come running to help you automatically. On the other hand, if you are attacked, your allies will automatically declare war on the player who attacked you. This is important to remember because if you ally yourself w
ith a weak player, you are obliged to defend them once the predators come in to annex his territory. It is through alliances and GalCiv's implementation of them that makes the game possible to win via alliances. If all the players are allied together, t
he game will be won by you and a united Galaxy will be formed. This is the ultimate victory (unless you consider conquest ultimate victory).
Other actions you can take with alien players are:
Ask for Help:
Even though you aren't allied with a certain player, friendly civilizations may lend their support to you in terms of military/economic aid or even starships.
Threaten War:
Unfriendly powers will do what they can to gain advantages over you. Whether that be to surround your star systems with their vessels or just to have too many ships in one of your quadrants you can threaten war to try to persuade them to remove their s
hips.
Chapter VIII: Government - Domestic Policy
Setting Up Your Planets:
The key to ultimate success in Galactic Civilizations is maintaining good economy and good defense. This all starts at the planetary level. Each planet is unique in its own way and the population there needs to believe that it is being taken care of.
By building various improvements, you can improve the future production of other improvements, make people happy, increase scientific research, or decrease pollution or some combination of the above.
Figure x: The Planetary Control Center
The Planetary Control Center lets you, the leader, decide what your planet is going to do next. This dialog allows you to change the projects you are working on, get to details screen (which we will discuss shortly), and even allow you to purchase proje
cts on the spot.
The information displayed on this dialog is also very important. The population of the planet of course determines how much you can produce. The approval rating displays the mood the population is in. The more unhappy they get the less productive they
are and the less they reproduce themselves. Of course, the more you produce, the more pollution that results. The more pollution you have, the more unhappy people get. You may end up having to build Pollution Control systems to keep the pollution down
. The Tax revenue displayed shows how much this planet currently pays to the federal government. Finally, the maintenance costs show you how much you are spending to keep already built projects going.
In the center of the dialog you can see three categories with graphical icons displayed near them. They are what you are currently spending. When you build a military project, you begin to spend money on military projects. When you build a social proj
ect or wonder then shields will appear under the social project. The light bulbs at the bottom display how much research is going on this planet.
At the bottom, you can choose what you are building and the time to produce these works will be displayed to the right of the list box. You always have the option of purchasing the project immediately (or at least attempting to) by pressing the "Purchas
e Now" button. Purchasing will be discussed later in this chapter. You can double click on the items in the list box to bring up further information on the given project. When you double click on a military project, it will tell you vital statistics on
that military vessel. For example, you can double click on a battleship and it will bring up a small dialog displaying the weapons and defenses of that ship. Similarly, when you double click on an improvement it will display the adjustments that it wil
l make to that planet.
Improvements, Super Projects, and Galactic Wonders:
Social Projects are comprised of Improvements, Super Projects, and Galactic Wonders. As your civilization reaches new levels of technology, new types of social projects will be made available to you. These projects can, in varying amounts, greatly enha
nce your civilization by increasing productivity, happiness, or decreasing pollution.
Improvements:
The mildest social projects are called Improvements. They mildly enhance the productivity of your planet or decrease pollution by some amount. They can also make your weapons more powerful or your defenses stronger. They are available to anyone who ha
s the technology and every planet can build one of them. The downside to improvements is that they have maintenance costs.
Super Projects:
Super Projects are similar to Improvements except that they are much more expensive to make and their enhancements are far greater in reach. However, only 1 planet per civilization can build them. On the bright side, they cost nothing to maintain.
Galactic Wonders:
A Galactic Wonder is the same as a Super Project except only 1 civilization can build them. For example, the Trison Ring can only be built by one civilization. Once someone completes this wonder, it is no longer available to anyone.
When Super Projects or Galactic Wonders are completed, the prestige of having done such a thing is added to "Wonders of the Universe". Even if that civilization is eventually wiped out, their name is forever kept in the Wonders of the Universe.
Purchasing Your Projects:
During the game, especially at the beginning, you may be in a hurry to build various projects. For example, when you begin the game, it is important to colonize planets as quickly as you can. Purchasing a new colony ship immediately is vital to this en
d. By pressing on the "Purchase Now" button in the Planetary Control Center dialog you will be brought up the Contractors dialog (seen in Figure x).
Figure x: Outside Contracting.
It is up to you to decide what you are willing to pay. You have 4 different companies with four different prices. These companies were on board your original colony ship (which was not just a scientific venture but also a commercial venture). Here in
this new galaxy, they have set up shop. Each company will bid a certain amount along with giving a lease charge. Managing your money is very important and you must be ready to decide how much you want to pay up front and how much you want to pay over ti
me.
The Bid:
The "Bid" is how much you have to pay right then and there. If you select to purchase from one of these companies, the "bid" money will be taken from your treasury immediately. The Given ship will be built the next year.
The Lease:
Leasing is a much nastier business. You should try to avoid leases if you can. A lease is means you are paying interest on a loan. A low bid usually is accompanied by a significant lease price. To the right of the lease price is a lease length (in ye
ars). The lease amount will be taken out of your treasury for the number of years specified on the right. For example, If you purchase a Entertainment Network for 100bc with a Lease of 5bc for 50 years you will have paid $350bc over time. This is over
3 times as much as you would have had to pay if you had built it on your own.
Local Governments:
Under a Democracy or Federation your planets gain a certain amount of autonomy. With this in mind, a local government begins to determine how local tax money is spent. Because you are the leader of the central government you don't actually get to deter
mine how much the citizens pay in local taxes (besides the money is negligible compared to the money the central government receives). However, for the purposes of gaming, you can decide how the money is going to be spent. You control how it is spent by
choosing what types of governmental employees to have. Of course, the local government will rarely be able to be as productive as private business but that doesn't stop you from influencing the local economy somewhat. The types of governmental employe
es are:
Engineers:
Engineers help increase the amount of research that goes on locally.
Workers:
A general term for manual labor. These people help increase the productivity of your factories such as your military construction.
Morale:
Local morale can be boosted by adding local entertainment such as Television stations, Recreational Centers, etc. Government sponsored morale boosting isn't as efficient as private business's doing it but it does help significantly.
Construction:
When money is spent on improving construction, Social programs (which typically are building some type of structure) are built faster.
Economic Planning:
Every government needs to have income in order to exist and must have expenditures in order to provide for a common defense and provide basic services to its people. The Economic Planner allows you to set your tax rate along with your spending rate.
To keep matters simple, your tax rate only affects direction taxation on your population. The tax rate on intergalactic trade and tourism is always the same.
The designers of GalCiv had their own bias's in economic theory. To be fair, these bias's should be known to you, the player. The GalCiv tax system is based heavily off of the infamous "Trickle Down Economics" theory. This theory, in short, states tha
t if you free the movers and shakers of your society from horrendous tax burdens, they will create jobs and other economic opportunities. The end result is that by lowering taxes, you can in the long run actually increase your tax revenue because your ta
x base has grown (due to new jobs created by less burdened businesses). The optimal tax rate is in the area of 20% to 40% depending on your particular situation in the game.
The amount of taxes you collect from your population is dependent on the following:
* The population on a given planet.
* The types of jobs your people hold
* How productive your people are in their area of expertise.
The types of jobs your people hold (In GalCiv at least) is dependent on how you set up your ratios. The higher your military spending, the more factory workers there are. The higher your social spending the more farmers and (to a lesser extent) enterta
iners there are. The higher your research ratio the more engineers there are. The productivity of your population in their given area is dependent on what types of improvements and other projects you build on the planet. A research facility will aid the
productivity of your engineers which will increase your tax revenue from them. Moreover, money you spend on research will be used better.
On the left hand side of your Planetary Information dialog you can see how much you are collecting in taxes from this planet. When you go to build projects (which cause your government to spend money) you can see if you're spending more on the given pla
net then you are receiving from it. Remember, you should also include the maintenance costs of your existing improvements (also shown on the dialog) to know how much you're spending on that world.
Of course, taxation merely gives you income. You also have to spend money to get anything done. When you decide you want to build a Colony Ship, your government has to put up money towards its construction. When you want to build a project, the govern
ment will put out money to construct that too. On the Planetary dialog, when you select a project to build, little graphical shields will appear to tell you how much you are spending. Large shields represent 10 billion credits. Small shields represent 1
billion credits. As mentioned before, already existing improvements cost money to maintain as well.
Now, how do you decide how much of your various planets' manufacturing capacity should be put to use? In the Tax Dialog box there are two sliders. The first one sets the aforementioned tax rate. The second slider sets up your spending. In GalCiv, thi
s spending is based on your civilization's total manufacturing capacity. For example, you can set up your slider to be 100% and your factories, engineers, farmers, etc. will put everything they have into producing whatever they can. The more you spend,
the faster things get done but beware of deficit spending. Luckily, in GalCiv, there is no pork barrel spending. Your spending only feeds active projects. For example, you can have your spending at 100% and still not really be spending much more if yo
u aren't having your planets build ships and improvements. That is because the money you send to the planet is automatically sent to the treasury if the planet in question is not building anything. In the real world, of course, this money would have gon
e to a research study on the mating habits of moths or something.
Figure x: The Purse Strings
In Figure x, You can see your Revenue and Expenditures itemized. Note that they are color coded. Items with a white color associated with them are things you can directly control with the 2 slider bars. Generally, this will represent most of the money
going in and out of your government (though not always). The item in green (GIA) means that its budget is unique in that it grabs its money from your income (a certain percentage of your revenue does to the GIA, your spending rate doesn't affect it). F
inally, the items in blue such as Trade, Leases, and Tourism, are things you simply cannot control no matter what. For example, you are legally obligated to pay your leases and maintenance costs (we chose not to delve into the complexities of defaulting
on payments).
You can also note that on the right of each slider is the amount that the slider in question is bringing in (or putting out). The total tax revenue is going to be the same as the "Tax Revenue" under the itemized lists. The Active spending is your const
ruction plus research. Remember, if you aren't doing any construction or research then no matter how high your spending percentage is, nothing is being spent -- your factories are idle.
While in real life it is impossible to have a tax rate of 0%, in GalCiv it is possible to live off of trade alone if you are lucky enough to be a large trader in a relatively peaceful galaxy.
Just remember, it is up to you to maintain economic sanity. Watch your spending closely. Your population will frown more and more if you go into heavy deficit spending. On the other hand, watch your tax levels too. Tax your people into slavery and th
ey may rise up against you.
Spending Ratios:
Galactic Civilizations allows you to divide your direct spending into three categories: Social, Military, and Research. The way you set up these ratios will determine the course of your civilization and the eventual outcome of the game.
There is no single ratio that is best, it all depends on your strategy. Without a doubt, however, being an extreme spender in a single category will likely lead to eventual ruin. For example, if you spend all your money on the military you will, in the
short term, have a powerful military but will likely fall behind technologically. Just remember, a single Battle Axe can destroy hundreds of ion fighters and a single Battle Ship can destroy hundreds of Battle Axe's. Similar situations can arise by bei
ng extreme in another area.
Figure x: Resource Investments
Your spending must equal 100%. Obviously with 3 categories it may not always add up to 100% visually but GalCiv will automatically adjust it upon closure. For example, say it only adds up to 98 visually, when you exit the dialog, GalCiv will automatica
lly adjust the research up by 2% to make it equal 100%. To change a ratio, grab the slider handle and move it. The dialog will automatically adjust the other two sliders accordingly so that it equals 100%. This may take some getting used to be you will
soon be an expert at quickly setting up your ratios.
It is these ratios that determine how much money will be given to your planets in the different areas and how much the taxes are collected in the different areas. If your planets have built a lot of research facilities and you set your ratios to favor r
esearch then you may earn more. Similarly, if you have built a lot of Manufacturing plants (such as a Fusion Plant) then if you favor Military and Social Spending you will collect more taxes overall and spend more overall.
We have tried to make this as simplistic as possible but a certain amount of complexity is needed in order to have any sort of realism whatsoever.
Politics:
While the Imperial form of government has its advantages (namely no one opposes your will), you will find that they have some economic disadvantages as well. Once you move to a democratic form of government (Democracy or Federation) you will soon come t
o learn the art of politics. Every score of years an election is held and your public approval will determine how many seats in the senate your political party holds. It is your political party that will help you carry out major civilization actions suc
h as changing the constitution or going to war.
Obviously, the key to dominating the senate is to make your people happy and there are obvious ways of doing that. However, there are many downfalls to that as well. For example, one apparent way to make people happy would be to lower your taxes to 0%.
You sure would get popular in a hurry but there is a negative affect of doing this (besides losing some money). When you inevitably raise your taxes again you will find that people will be much more unhappy than they were originally because they got us
ed to having no taxes (even if it was for a short time). Having an unhappy population can have disastrous results such as rebellions!
Research:
As mentioned previously, the Research Manager allows you to choose discoveries. Your pathway to knowledge will help guide what type of civilization you will have. Moreover, it will soon be apparent that choosing key technologies early in the game will
be vital to being successful. It will be up to you to make the right decisions when it comes to choosing new technologies.
For example, do you choose Photon Weapons which will give you Star Fighters or do you choose Nano-Electronics which will allow you to build the Nano Robot wonder. These sorts of decisions are very important (especially early). There are enough unique t
echnologies in GalCiv to keep you busy for a long time with research.
Chapter IX: Getting Information
One of the most important features of GalCiv is the ability to look through gobs and gobs of information in almost every possible way. You can view information about other players in two different types of graphs and several different categories of stat
istics. Nearly every major statistic has at least one graphical representation, a numerical representation and a ranking among either the players or in the galaxy total.
The Galactic Map:
Probably the most used portion of the game is the Galactic Map. It is this map that allows you to look at the universe in several different ways.
Figure x: Typical scene on a map. This one shows population centers.
The Galactic Map can show information on:
Exploration:
Which parts of the galaxy have you explored.
Control:
Who controls which quadrants. Quadrants, of course, are just political and navigational boundaries.
Star ships:
Displays where various discovered starships exist.
Population:
Displays population centers in the galaxy.
Production:
Displays production centers (will be quite similar to Population).
The Graph Manager:
Another source of useful information is the Graph Manager. The graph manager displays history line graphs on several different subject. You can always view information about your own civilization but not necessarily the information of other civilizatio
ns unless:
A] You are on good terms with them.
or
B] They have perished
or
C] You have spent enough on espionage to know everything about them.
Demographics:
Knowing how your civilization stands in terms of raw numbers and relative to your competitors is vital to any good leader. By selecting Demographics from the Information menu item you can view this kind of information.
Bar Graph Reports:
The Bar Graph Reports under the Information Menu item is similar to the history line graph (Graph Manager) except it shows only the current year and have a couple of extra categories.
Chapter X: Developing your Civilization
One of the most important things to remember is that the game is called "Galactic Civilizations" and not Galactic Diplomacy or Galactic Conquests or some other title. The object of Galactic Civilizations when it comes right down to it is to develop your
civilization. In this new galaxy, you have the opportunity to guide mankind to a new end. Depending on your actions you will be judged as being a good or evil civilization. You will be seen as a greedy or generous race. You will be seen as a Cooperat
ive empire or an isolationist. Of course, like real life, nothing is as clear cut as this.
Every now and then various almanacs or encyclopedia entries or foreign media will be displayed or picked up by you. You will get to see what kind of civilization you are developing into, or at least, what kind of civilization that other civilizations pe
rceive you to be (tainted with their own feelings about you).
What decides how you will come to be viewed, how your civilization will become? You do...
Chance Encounters:
During the game, particularly in the beginning you will find strange situations popping up. For example, you may colonize a planet that has a pre-industrial civilization of several million. What do you do? Destroy them? Relocate them? Live amongst t
hem? How you deal with these situations will help determine what type of civilization you develop into.
Moral Dilemmas:
On top of random encounters with strange events. You will also be faced with various moral dilemmas. How you handle these will also help determine how you come to be viewed.
General Policy:
Do you attack without warning? Do you betray friends? Do you abandon colonies without evacuating the people first? You help your friends and try to be peaceful or do you try to conquer and exterminate your friends and foes alike?
Each game will be different and will bring up different problems.
Chapter XI: Finishing the Game...
There are 4 ways of ending the game (other than retiring).
Conquest:
Your civilization destroy all opposition leaving only you.
Developing beyond mortality:
If you gain enough technology, you will be able to leave this reality and go into others. Chunks of rock floating in space won't be of any matter to such a being, you'll be beyond such petty material concerns.
Uniting the Galaxy:
If all of the players who live unite together under a single alliance, then the game is won. This is very difficult and the more players you can successfully unite the better.
Destruction:
Of course, if you lose a war utterly, you will be destroyed along with your civilization.
Trouble shooting:
Enter data here.
Operating System: IBM OS/2 2.1 or later
Hardware: System capable of running OS/2.
Memory: 8 megabytes total on system.
Disk Space: Approximately 12 megabytes for full installation.
Pointing Device: A pointing device compatible with OS/2 2.1 is required.
Graphics: VGA or better graphics. Super VGA highly recommended.
Sound: MMPM/2 optional but highly recommended.
Typical system for Galactic Civilizations 1.0:
386DX-33 with 8 megabytes of memory, 170 megabyte hard drive, SVGA graphics accelerator running at 800x600 with 256 colors with a Logitech mouse.
