The "creative" of Gal Civ?

from Stardock Forums
Remember in Moo2 how the "creative" ability was hands down better than anything else? How it was hard to lose a game when you had the ability? Well, Gal Civ doesn't seem to have anything *quite* as advantageous, but my vote for best way to spend 9 points goes to planet quality. I've found that this gives me a huge advantage, especially early on when everyone else is struggling to find decent worlds. With the 15% ability, a class 14 planet (and there are always a lot of these) becomes a 16 immediately. Sure, you could always colonize those before, and use soil enrichment/habitat to improve them, but morale (while building these) was always wretched, and the planets averaged losing about 10 bc per month. Quite often I'll find a sector that has yellow stars with several class 14's in the orbit. Normally, you would just leave those alone, but with the green thumb bonus, you can use them and create "super sectors".

I love this ability. Its going to be hard to play with anything else for a while.


BTW, has anyone ever found the "planet quality" resource? The manual says that it is very very rare, and I've yet to see it in any of the games I've played.
315 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Fully agree, Darv. In fact, the game is so easy with PQ+15, I've stopped taking it as a skill. It's just too easy to outcolonize the AI.

I, too, have yet to see the PQ resource.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Yup.. I may well stop using it myself. Take that, with the +1 'frisky' bonus so your planets get pop a bit quicker early on, and you can colonize like crazy. It is hard to lose if you start off like this. Later in the game, you snag up all the systems no one wanted. All in all, it may be a bit to powerful, imo.

I think that should be a set +5 points to raise your PQ by 1.. I think this would be more fair, in the long run. Raising my PQ by 2 is just insane early in the game. I have a list of 20+ planets very early.

fleabitfox
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually, a major breakthrough in the learning curve of MoO2 is when you realize just how much can be done if you DON'T take "creative".

That said, perhaps the +PQ is a bit overpowered. I'm still getting killed, though, so I'm not going to really start complaining yet!
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Hey, I'd miss it if it were nerfed! My favorite defense-in-depth strategy involves colonizing the Class 12s. With just soil enrichment and +15% PQ, it becomes a Class 15, but drops back down to a 13 if the AI sucessfully invades. Instant red angry face. Oddly enough, I've never seen the AI maintain any level of agression when it starts taking a bunch of these planets ;)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Once I really got into Moo2, I quit using creative totally. It took too much of the fun of trading/spying out of the game.


I don't know that I can do without my treasured green thumb bonus though. When you think about it, planet quality is the one thing that you simply cannot get a bonus in (again, I've never seen the planet quality resource)...You can always improve economy...you can always improve military or research. But beyond three techs (and terraforming way late) you are stuck with your planets. 16's and 17's just don't get it done when you need quick production....It is the treasured 25's that do all the work. With the green thumb, you'll have plenty of these.