So I'm glad that GalCiv (and Stardock's other games) are finally available DRM-free and I'm trying them out. I previously had a (disc) copy of GalCiv1 and never was able to get into it too much. I've played a couple games of GalCiv2 now and it's certainly hooked me.

But, there's one thing I'm wondering what settings I should try to minimize items such as:?
* The random events are far too overblown. Example, I've quit 2 games of the few I've tried already because, even early on, a giant game-changing event happens that screws someone too much. The most recent game, for instance, the rebels Jagged something appeared (supposedly as a minor civ), taking plants from a bunch of people, including one of mine. They started with the COMBINED tech of everyone and immediately were a huge power to overcome. I altered my trajectory to get Planetary Invasion (yes, it was that early) to try to take my planet back and... Their soldiering was around 60 already! There's no way I'm going to do that; plus, that counted as a war declaration and they immediately went on to destroying every last one of my [few] star bases.

Related question: What defines a "minor" civ from a major? Doesn't seem to me to be anything. Is there any way in the UI to "find" them on the star map? Foreign screen doesn't even list their star or anything.

Unrelated question: I'd desperately like to remap keys so my arrow keys are pan viewport instead of moving the currently-selected ship.

So, reading:

The awful events I'm talking about are "Mega Events" and there is a toggle for them. They absolutely will be off for the rest of my games; I'm sick of them completely altering if not ruining my games.

Minor Civs apparently won't colonize or invade foreign planets.

Yes, the Jagged Knife is a Mega Event. One of the most hated ones to boot.

Mega Events are an advanced option, and are meant to destabilise the game. They should only be used by experienced players that find the regular game not exciting enough anymore. That's only partially true. Minor races will invade foreign planets, if they have troop transports. They also might colonise planets, if they get access to colony ships. However, they will never build colony ships on their own. You will need to gift one to them.

Another difference between minor races and majors, is the minors cannot vote in the United Planets. Their AI is also specifically written to make best use of their one planet. Plus, they generate lots of money. You can use them as cash-cows, by selling them your techs. However, you need to increase your Diplomacy-ability a lot in order to get good results. The minors all get a +50% bonus to Diplomacy by the game (that's on top of any other bonuses they might get).

Thanks for the clarifications. There's a lot to learn coming to a game late.

Any idea on keyboard mapping changes? :)

Do you mean "how to change it", or whether there have been changes to it? The former is sadly not possible. As for the latter, there have been no changes in this version.

For the current keyboard shortcuts, there is a list on the wiki.

Thanks! I'll refer to that, and good to know a good wiki to trawl. Shame I can't remap; I might be pushed to using one of those global remapping tools (because arrow keys should be pan!)

One warning about how the economy works, as it's vastly different from any other 4x (including GalCiv3) and not immediately obvious.

When you create science and industry, you aren't really making those resources. Instead, your are converting money to those things, always at a 1:1 ratio. This means that if you build a bunch of production facilities without building an equal number of banks, your income will tank. Rapidly.

Just keep in mind, every science or industry point is 1 bc drained from your economy.

Interesting! Good tip. I noticed none of my planets ever turn a profit except my capital, basically. I hope to move up from Beginner to sub-normal soon.

It's very much normal for your economy to be losing money for the entire early game. Just don't spend all the money you start with and if you build a few strong economic planets, you'll start breaking even by mid-game.

I can give you a few tips how to supercharge your game....

1) Large or huge map... plenty of minor races, Set planets to abundant, set stars to tight clusters and less common. use CNTRL plus N key to reload a new map. Keep reloading and try to get a cluster of stars away from the other stars. Save the game, then do a quick explore to see if any other race (not minors) spawned up your ass, if so, new game, if not, reload from the start and play for real.

2) you will benefit from more than one sensor ship (3 or 4) Use a cargo hull, plenty of engine, plenty of range. Expensive but usually worth it..... although sometimes not if the anomalies want to be stingy.... it does happen.

3) trade techs! This is a huge benefit.... use minor races for an early leg up since the major races will leave you in their dust early on so you won't be able to trade squat. Also Minor races are brilliant for selling techs too ..... i cannot tell you how many times they have saved my ass financially early game.

4) Early game, pretty much just build markets. If you get a high level factory or whatever terrain bonus that's different. Later on build over the markets on your specialist planets.... usually i have 2 or 3 factory planets and 4 or five science planets. On a huge map, that is about all this disaster of a suckful black hole basket case economy can support. Otherwise its all just about money, money money money.... i usually end up with like 40 planets swimming in markets + a few farms of course..... markets markets markets, its madness, but that's the game, and the rest is brilliant.

I'd guess you've already discovered this by now, but I'm passing some time tonight catching up on this board, and I don't see it mentioned above, so:

Trade is vital to having a strong economy in GalCiv2. Don't forget to build freighters and establish trade routes.

Actually it is not at all 'vital' on the low difficulty level, but no harm in learning it all the same.

But regardless, trade is pretty useless without trade stations along the route which you forgot to mention, lol

So the optimal trade setup is to send all your freighters from one of your better quality planets at the far end of your empire to a friendly race ensuring your trade route intersects through the center of your empire on the way there. All your freighters should go to the same friendly planet, and it should be more closer to your empire rather than further away if practicable because its easier to protect.

Once the trade route is established you can start spamming trade stations along its path.

Then because you intersected your empire with the trade route, you can start upgrading any trade stations that range your planets.... and you should arrange them to range as many planets as possible while staying in touch with the trade route.

Look on the bright side - if you had GalCiv 3 then you'd have to pay extra to have Mega Events ruin your game. ;)

Not true. The base game already contains Mega Events. The DLC just adds more of them.

Hmm... I have played only GalCiv2, sadly too long ago to give usefull hints, but I must comment, things of GalCiv2 and 3 seem to be liberally mixed in this tread.