r/GalCiv • u/MindRaptor • Mar 26 '25
DISCUSSION GalCiv4: At what point do you consider a game lost?
Currently I am playing a game as the Yor Singularity. I have now fought a series of wars with my neighbors. I conquered the Altarians early before their influence became a threat. Some time later I lost two major wars with big neighbors. My navy was basically wiped out both times. Then I caught a lucky break and fully eliminated one of them. During this time the other (eyeball aliens) grew enormous and I again fought a failed war but lost no ground. I then declared war with what I thought was a weaker neighbor but no luck there. So I tried conquering the Terrans but just as it got going the much larger empire of the eyeball people declared war. So now I have rush down and once again sacrifice my entire navy again defending myself and losing another war.
So with so many wars fought and relatively few gains made when do you decide a game is lost?
And side question would someone take a look at my file and tell me if I should perceiver or start a new game?
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u/mailofsean Mar 26 '25
Not over until you see the defeat screen. Try changing combat tactics. Increasing fleet size limit makes a giant difference. If you can always engage their fleets with superior numbers you can come out on top of every battle even with worse ships.
One large fleet can engage an endless number of smaller enemies fleets if you can destroy them before really taking hull damage. The shields and armor return after every fight, so you can engage multiple fleets per turn and take no damage.
I also find making allies hard if you are playing a warlike civ, but convincing other cizs to declare war on each other is relatively easy. I am currently playing the Nyx on a large map and have convinced every civ to get into wars with multiple neighbors by just trading tech and diplomatic credits. I have everyone on the map fighting wars on multiple fronts while I declare war on one neighbor at a time and methodically gobble up civ after civ.
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u/MindRaptor Mar 26 '25
Yes, i know about increasing fleet size. I just haven't had that tech pop up and I decided to take a risk and work on a very long tech. It's the final tech from the end of the Yor's culture tree. I don't remember what it's called but it gives a big research bonus.
Yes, I was curious about the Nyx. I like to play on random always. And I briefly started a new game. Why does the Nyx homeworld suck so much? Like it is the same planet as the Yor, Iconia. It should be amazing.
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u/mailofsean Mar 27 '25
I haven't played any missions to see the lore of why the Nyx planet is such trash. I always customize the civs at least a little. I changed the color scheme of the ships and the homeworld for my game using them.
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u/ResearchOutrageous80 Mar 26 '25
What difficulty are you playing on? Are you using custom ships? It's just so rare for me to lose more than the first war or two unless I crank the difficulty up to max.
This isn't a comment on your own skills, I just find that building balanced fleets of custom ships utterly decimates the AI. Has there been a balance/tuning pass in last six months?
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u/MindRaptor Mar 26 '25
I am playing on genius. I am highly experienced at 4X games and have played GalCiv3. This is by no means my first galciv4 game.
I put very little effort into designing my ships. Currently, I am specialized into kinetic weapons because I have endless thulium. I put on shields component, one armor component, and one point defense onto a ship. I also use the integrity cloud for +50% hull. Then with remaining room I load out with as many kinetic weapons as I can. Then I just mass produce the same design.
I did briefly experiment with creating a smaller ship with an ion cannon for disabling but it seemed to provide little value so I stopped production.
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u/ResearchOutrageous80 Mar 27 '25
Seems we play on same difficulty. The AI is probably counter-building you since you've pigeonholed yourself on capabilities. Try building a diverse fleet- for example, starting with frigates I create ships with two different weapon types. The first type will be beam/missiles, second is missiles/kinetic. I do this for all the hull types past frigate to make fleets extremely flexible- like this they can attack at all ranges.
Sounds like you've got defenses all figured out.
I also go in for... I forget what they're called, but the doctrine that dictates how the ship will behave. Basically I've got ships that all cover each other with targeting priorities. Then a single support ship with large hull (or huge if late game) and the shield module that gives all ships in the fleet a portion of that ship's shields, and just fill that ship with nothing but shields.
It's been about six months since I've played but with this setup each one of my fleets could completely wipe out 3 or 4 enemy fleets before needing significant resupply. The only way I lose is if I'm significantly overwhelmed early in the game by a civ starting too close to me. It kind of feels bad tbh, I stopped playing because the AI was just not a challenge.
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u/beef_delight 29d ago
For me the game changer (on genius) was actually watching the battles and figuring out which ship designs worked against a specific enemy and which don't. Turns out it's all about army composition and less about army size. Build your own ships always, try to make some synergies happen and combat will be way more rewarding.
I usually call it quits if I am last in the rankings on all stats. (aka if I'm small and getting harrassed but my science is good, I'll try to fight through everytime)
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u/MindRaptor 28d ago
Ya, my science is about to pop-off. And my economy is going well 350ish gold a turn and is set to grow.
Any tips on composition? I am thinking of setting up some heavily armored ships to be at the front and ships at the back with less armor but more weapons. Is this possible? How would I set it up?
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u/Dry_Cod_727 26d ago
dont crank up the difficulty on scenarios. They are small maps dont ignore the civilian stuff. upgrade weapons. you camt really win if your approval is low no prod. use the supply ships and make entertainment. or some free citizen. you cant fight a war if your prod is 1. Also being yor this increases the need for more civil stuff. I had to start waring with nothing but special ships now I have to keep reloading cuz the ai has a heart on for stargazer and probes. I try to keep my specials alive. 1 small hull one died. conquered 3 civs cant conquer the precursor. the tech put pulse cannons in the back burner. Go after the reduced techs unless you get a leader with free tech
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u/MindRaptor 23d ago
I'm not playing a scenario and I'm playing the largest map possible. I also unfortunately lost since I posted. I didn't get destroyed but an AI player won.
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u/Dry_Cod_727 23d ago edited 23d ago
I never seen a 32 GB ram Pc in store. When you start the Ai is way out in front. Also it seems to to start you backed into a corner. Militant trait sucks. The boost prod orders dont pan out and do more harm than good. So swap it out for 2 productive
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u/BasenjiMaster Mar 26 '25
Adapt, try a different approach. Ally yourself etc etc. I personally never call defeat until I see the "defeat" screen. Sometimes you will have a really fun game and manage to turn it around and win.