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Arcean speed penalty

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Arcean speed penalty

from GalCiv2 Forums
In one word: Ouch.

Arcean colony ships move at 2 speed, scouts move at one. Might as well not even build scouts, which means I'm expanding mostly blind. Regardless of map size, I'm finding Arceans dramatically more difficult to win with than any other race I've played so far. They have some good unique technology and the first strike ability is solid, but in most games I end up conceding shortly after the early expansion phase when I see the AI players all holding twice as many planets as I got. Won one game on large size, challenging difficulty due to a good starting position and getting lucky while blindly flailing about for planets to land on. Arceans don't seem to get Recruiting Centers either, so they grow population slowly too. I feel like I'm playing as cavemen here, not Klingons.
32,191 views 29 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
rakenan: Unless tech trading is off, you can and should trade for another species' engine technology. All of them seem eager to trade that away for a fair price. Navigation centers combined with alien engines lead to Arceans being extremely fast in the later parts of the game. I would argue that Tech Trading Off goes against the way GalCiv2 is meant to be played, given that diplomacy bonuses become almost irrelevant without tech trading. My only problem with the Arceans was how gimped they were at the start of the game. Not sure if I still see that as a problem now or not, I'll have to try another Arcean game or two.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
rakenan: Unless tech trading is off, you can and should trade for another species' engine technology. All of them seem eager to trade that away for a fair price. Navigation centers combined with alien engines lead to Arceans being extremely fast in the later parts of the game. I would argue that Tech Trading Off goes against the way GalCiv2 is meant to be played, given that diplomacy bonuses become almost irrelevant without tech trading. My only problem with the Arceans was how gimped they were at the start of the game. Not sure if I still see that as a problem now or not, I'll have to try another Arcean game or two.


I turn tech trading off because tech trading waters down the unique tech trees for the different races to be almost meaningless. Why make unique tech trees, when everybody ends up with the same set of techs anyway because they're all trading like mad?
Star Control: Origins
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I turn tech trading off because tech trading waters down the unique tech trees for the different races to be almost meaningless. Why make unique tech trees, when everybody ends up with the same set of techs anyway because they're all trading like mad?


I've never seen aliens give each other their unique technology, what are you talking about?
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've never seen aliens give each other their unique technology, what are you talking about?


Two responses to that one.

First, it sounds like a bug bordering on an outright exploit to enable tech trading when the AI is that pathetically unable to use it properly.

Second, some tech trees are defined as much by their weaknesses as by their strengths. The Yor with spammable econ buildings play like a completely different race. More on subject, the Arceans with advanced engine techs are a completely different animal from the Arceans without.

This leaves out issues with the techs the AI will trade - unless something has changed dramatically, the AI will still trade any non-unique tech with other AI's like it was baseball cards, while only parting with their own techs to a player for an arm, a leg, both eyes, a kidney, two thirds of your liver, a marrow transplant, a couple of yards of intestines, three units of blood, and your firstborn son.

[edit] In any case, this is all beside the point. I'm hardly alone in leaving tech trading turned off. I'm not even alone in doing so to preserve the unique nature of tech trees. It is fallacious to say or imply that a problem that can be solved by tech trading doesn't need to be addressed or isn't real. Many people have major issues with tech trading in the game, enough so that there is an official option to turn it off because of the widespread perception that it was just plain broken. If there are tech trees with holes so gapingly huge that the require tech trading be enabled to work properly, that's an issue worth addressing.