Galciv II--How important is the print manual?

[ExecutionerFive]

I know Stardock sees more of the money (I think) if I buy the game from Stardock Central. But I know the print manual can be important to have sometimes to get the hang of a game. What to do?

[Destarius]

Somehow, I'm waiting for the inevitable response to an E5 post.

[RichVR]

Purchase the boxed game from SD. You'll get a temporary serial number and access to the download version. Play that until the box arrives. Then put the serial number from the CD into the game and continue to play. It worked fine for me.

[Nellie]

You can learn more than what is in the manual by searching these forums or the wiki that I'm to lazy to link to.

But if anyone wants to do an econ society 101 then I'm listening.

[Nellie]

http://galciv.wikicities.com/wiki/Galactic_Civilizations_Wiki
The wiki. That keeps vanishing whenever I try to make sure I'm not making an idiot of myself.

Much more informative than the manual.

[ExecutionerFive]

Let's see...Stardock charges $5 MORE than the store--even for only a digital download?

Sorry, Brad. Off to a store tomorrow. Ridiculous to expect people to pay a PREMIUM for a digital download...and ridiculous to be charging $5-$10 more than anywhere else to buy a boxed copy online. I'd think you'd want to encourage people to buy direct from you--and your pricing policy does nothing but push them away.

[Odysseus]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=24638

[rei]

Before you snort and get all indignant (too late!) cut Stardock and Brad some slack. If you were the store, would YOU carry their game if they were undercutting you online? I didn't think so.

[Alan Au]

Yes, the pricing thing has been covered already. For me, the important thing is that Stardock makes a fair bit more money if I buy directly from them. (Of course, I wouldn't complain if a SD store token randomly happened to show up in my account one day.)

- Alan

[Chris Nahr]

Besides, the download version contains the manual as a PDF file so you can print it yourself. And read it, even.

[instant0]

I'm sure there is some sort of upgrade system from Stardock where you can buy the eVersion and pay eMoney for a pManual/pDisc .

Maybe Brad has an answer, alternatively somewhere on their web page(s) the answer lies.

[Matt Perkins]

Speaking of the wiki...They describe Morale in their quite well, but they give no real ways to fix it. I run with planets that are often at 40% or lower when the rest of my planets are near 90+%. I can't fix those low guys...build a couple of extra entertainment centers (or whatever is next up after research) and it might effect it for a bit, but then it goes back down. I can't lower taxes down to nothing (often ride them many points lower than the starting number) and can't figure out those few planets. It's always the higher quality planets and it's mostly due to population...but what am I going to do, kill off my population so I can have fewer people on the planet?

[Nick Walter]

Speaking of the wiki...They describe Morale in their quite well, but they give no real ways to fix it. I run with planets that are often at 40% or lower when the rest of my planets are near 90+%. I can't fix those low guys...build a couple of extra entertainment centers (or whatever is next up after research) and it might effect it for a bit, but then it goes back down. I can't lower taxes down to nothing (often ride them many points lower than the starting number) and can't figure out those few planets. It's always the higher quality planets and it's mostly due to population...but what am I going to do, kill off my population so I can have fewer people on the planet?

This often happens on high quality planets. Basically what happens is that population grows until one of three limits is hit. Limit one is the amount of food. Limit two is determined by PQ and is silly high. Limit three is determined by morale, as population stops growing when morale gets down to 40%.

The trick to regulating morale is to make sure that planet max pop is controlled with food, because that is the easiest factor for a human to regulate. There is a diminishing return to entertainment improvements, so just allowing unlimited population growth is a recipe for morale problems.

Here's a little chart of how I build farms/entertaint improvements

1 farm - 0 entertainment centers.
2 farm - 1 entertainment centers.
3 farm - 3-4 entertainment centers.
4 farm - 4-6 entertainment centers.
5+ farm - Don't do this.

Obviously this might need some tweaking based on racial morale bonuses, techs available, etc. But that's my baseline.

[Raife]

Speaking of the wiki...They describe Morale in their quite well, but they give no real ways to fix it. I run with planets that are often at 40% or lower when the rest of my planets are near 90+%. I can't fix those low guys...build a couple of extra entertainment centers (or whatever is next up after research) and it might effect it for a bit, but then it goes back down. I can't lower taxes down to nothing (often ride them many points lower than the starting number) and can't figure out those few planets. It's always the higher quality planets and it's mostly due to population...but what am I going to do, kill off my population so I can have fewer people on the planet?

On the larger planets (10+ billion people), you really need to set aside a couple of spots for morale buildings. As you advance, periodically research new entertainment tech and upgrade to it. Once the population is static, morale will also be.

I hold off on upgrading any food buildings unless I planned for it, and really only build them on planets that I have decided will be for tax income. On those, I'll also pile on the financial structures to maximize the gain.

[Matt Perkins]

See, I usually build 2 farms standard on any planet that isn't a 5-6 banger, more citizens to tax is my theory...but on the bigger planets that doesn't work out, for some reason. And I've always got at least one entertainment center AND I'm always researching whatever I can that will help with morale and making sure I end up with the morale enhancing tradable and governments...and I run at about 60% on average because of a couple of planets that just hate me (word on the street always says over population).