No-Nonsense Newbie Tips & Tricks Guide (Updated for Crusades)

A collection of tips and tricks to assist new players to the game. Updated for Crusade and Intrigue DLC's. Game version 3.04

Early Game

• Administrators are the key to the early game in Galactic Civilizations 3. You need them to build Colony ships, Survey ship and Constructors. Administrators are limited so you must acquire more. The first, most effective way to get Administrators is to train your Citizens that you get every 10 turns. Your first 3-to-5 Citizens should probably be Administrators. The second most effective way to get Administrators is to Research down the trees of Diplomacy and Espionage. Those take more time. So in the early game make use of your Citizens.
  
  
• At the beginning of the game spread out and colonize every planet you can find. This should be goal #1. Real Estate, like the real world, is finite. Once the map is fully colonized, that is when things will get tense, as factions go to war with each other to gain more planets and resources. Once all the planets are claimed, the only way to get more real estate is to flip a neighboring planet or take it over in a hostile manner (war), or through an Ideology bonus. Use some of your initial money to rush-buy colonizers when you find new planets.
  
  
• To effectively colonize as many planets as possible you will need to use your Survey vessle to find habitable planets and not worry about surveying anomalies. Another really good option to help with Colonization is to hire a Mercenary from the Mercenary DLC. I don't normally advocate DLC content in my guides, but in the case of the Mercenary DLC I cannot understate the power and value of the Sensor ships that the Mercenaries can provode. For money (and sometimes a couple resources, like Thulium) you can hire Mercenary ships that have HUGE sensor ranges, like 11 or 13 in size. This helps you clear the Fog of War much faster, helping you to find habitable planets. Some Mercenary ships will require resources, which means you'll need to first lay down a Constructyor (Erector) vessle and create a starbase to mine the proper resources. But again, it's worth it considering the sensor power of the Mercenary ships. The monetary investment early in the game is well worth it.
  
  
• As soon as you colonize a planet (or take it over in a hostile fashion), go to the Govern Planet screen and immediately either (a) turn off the option to Auto-Upgrade the planet's buildings or (b) turn on the option to only auto-upgrade once the planet is full. Otherwise your planet may waste valuable turns upgrading to expensive next-gen factories when you really need to be adding new structures instead (this is especially important in the early game). You won't know this is happening because the planet does it automatically. So turn this off and manage your planets yourself. Every turn counts.
  
  
• In general, micro-manage everything yourself. Don't let the AI do it. You'll do a better job.
  
  
• If you're playing the Terrans (or another faction that has a small world next to your starting homeworld) don't colonize Mars right away. Instead, look for a bigger planet nearby. If another faction colonizes Mars, it will flip to your side because Earth's influence will be so high. Never worry about Mars. You'll get it eventually. Save your colonizers for bigger planets. It's crucial to spread out in the early game.
  
  
• When colonizing planets, pay attention to any planetary bonuses that it provides (like +Research or +Wealth). Try to focus your buildings to support that bonus. If the planet is a Ghost World (+ to Research), load it up with Research buildings and Cities to grow the population. Crusades: Use Citizens on these specialized/focused planets. Send Scientists to Research planets and Entertainers to Wealth planets.
  
  
• Rename planets after colonizing to make life easier on yourself in other screens, like Shipyard Sponsors. I use three suffixes that I append to planet names to make them more identifiable. (M) for planets that are focused on Manufacturing, (R) for planets focused on Research, and (W) for planets focused on Wealth.
  
  
• Use Influence Starbases to Colonize Hazardous Planets Periodically you will encounter a planet that cannot be colonized in the early part of the game. These planets will require a special kind of Terraforming research (Atmospheric Cleansing) in order to colonize. That technology will take time to research. I suggest dropping an Influence Space Station right next to these planets. As time goes by your space station will create a huge amnount of influence (with the proper modules installed of course). When an AI faction finally researches the proper Terraforming technology, they will come to colonize the planet. But because your Influence will be so high from your Space Station, the planet will FLIP to your faction. Thus, you gain another planet without ever having to research the tech or send a Colony ship.

Ideology

• Note: Ideology has been changed a bit since Intrigue and some recent patches. It is now much more expensive to attempt to purchase Ideology rewards across all three Ideology types (Benevolent, Malevolent, Pragmatic). It is best to focus on ONE Ideology type for your faction and reap the benefits.
  
  
• If you do want to try and get points for all three Ideologies, I suggest you FIRST unlock the starting Ideologies that allow you access to the buildings (*). Whatever you choose (Benevolent, Pragmatic, Malevolent), your first choices should always be the selection that gets you access to the buildings (Missionary Center, Prepardness Center, Intimidation Center). These buildings allow you to gain Ideology points over time. Otherwise, you only get those points when you colonize a planet or there is a galactic event; and colonizing planets will eventually end, so you will stop earning points that way. You want to be continually earning points in Ideology because some of the Ideology abilities are VERY POWERFUL.
  
  (*) My preference on any map of Medium size or larger is to always take Pragmatic => Builder first and get the three free constructor ships. This gives you three constructors for early resources capture, and with Crusades & Intrigue DLC, resources are king. You need to get them.
  
  
• Ideology Focus: Pragmatic => Builder => Coordinated. This reduces shipyard decay by 50%. This ability is crucial (on large maps) for expanding your empire, as you want to build new shipyards farther out from your core planets, closer to your front-lines so you can more quickly assemble and attack your enemies. To do this, you need to be able to assign your biggest manufacturing planets as sponsors to the new shipyards. But that production will be decayed, unless you unlock this Ideology. In addition, if you are using any faction (or custom faction) with the the Engineers Ability, this benefit STACKS. Engineers reduces shipyard decay by an additional 50% and stacks with Coordinated, for a total of 100% reduction, so any planet can sponsor any shipyard without experiencing decay. With 100% reduction to Shipyard Decay, you can move your main war-making Shipyard to wherever you need it most.
  
  
• If you are going to aim for Malevolent or Benevolent Ideology, and you are the sort of player who has a difficult time dealing with hostile factions, I STRONGLY suggest investing a few points in Pragmatic to earn the Pragmatic => Negotiator => Neutral option as it will buy you 50 turns without war. Once you have enough points to take this just HOLD ON TO THE POINTS and wait to play this at the best moment (usually around turn 80-100). Pay attention to the hostile factions in your Diplomacy screen. You can hover over things like Open Borders Treaty to see exactly what the numeric value of your relationship is. When a faction gets toi -10, they are ready to go to war with you. When a faction is about to go to war with you, that is when you spend the points on the Neutral option, as it buys you 50 turns where no one can delcare war on you.
  
  
• Ideology Focus: Malevolent => Motivation. This is the best line of Ideologies in the game. This line provides considerable bonuses to production.
  
  
• Benevolent => Englightenment and Benevolent => Outreach are two great lines to take if your going with the Benevolent Ideology.
  
  
• It's always okay to save Ideology points and wait to unlock things when you really need them. For example: Pragmatic -> Negotiator -> Neutral: This prevents anyone from declaring war on you for 50 turns. Don't use this right away. Wait until a faction is very hostile against you and you feel like they're about to declare war. then use it.

Planet Management

• Take advantage of special tiles. If a planet tile has +3 Tourism / +1 Wealth, use it for a Port of Call (Tourism) to get the max bonus. This goes for Manufacturing, Research, Wealth, Population, etc. The bonuses are there for you to use.
  
  
• When you start to build a good surplus of cash and are making decent money each turn, start building asteroid mines around your core planets for added production.
  
  
• Build Starbases with Economic rings around your core planets to boost wealth, research and productivity - and by core I mean the planets with the largest Production output which should be sponsoring your most effective Shipyard. This is important, but not more important than real estate early on. In the early game, if you have a choice between laying an Economic Starbase or mining some resource nearby, create the mine. Resources are crucial to being able to build weapons, special improvements, and Legions for war. Starbases are limited because they require open Administrator to build. So Economic starbases should be few and far between. But around core planets you should be able to use one.

Making War & Managing Shipyards

• You should create a new shipyard every 6th planet you colonize/acquire. Never have a planet that is NOT sponsoring a shipyard. Your lower production shipyards can be used for missions to find rare resources, like Helios Ore or Hyper Silicates (provided your Government allows it, if you are using the Intrigue DLC), while your higher production shipyards create war ships. This means you should manually assign sponsors to every shipyard, and you should change them over time as appropriate to make sure your biggest production planets are sponsoring the war making Shipyards. This allows you to spit out ships faster.
  
  
• As your empire expands, create new shipyards around planets closer to the borders of the enemies you are at war with. Reassign sponsers as necessary, but pay attention to Shipyard Decay. If you are not using the Engineering trait and have not attained the Pragmatic Ideology bonus, then you will be forced to use local planets to sponsor your new shipyards. So take care to choose the best sponsors.
  
  
• When it comes time to make war, or defend yourself from an aggressive faction, be devious. The enemy will be. Create fleets of ships with lots of moves so you can get into enemy territory and destroy their starbases. Destroy the enemy's infrastructure to slow down their production. Use spies to sabotage important factories.
  
  
• Pay attention to your enemy's ships. If they're using missile weapons and shields, then you build ships with point-defenses and kinetic weapons/missiles. Know your enemy, and build ships appropriately.
  
  
• A word on weapons: Each weapon type is defended by the same color defense. Chaff defense Missiles. Armor defense Kinetic. Shields defend Beam. If your enemy is using Armor to defend, you should use Beam and Missile weapons to counter, because Armor does not defend against those.
  
  
• Enlist the other factions and get them to declare war against whoever just attacked you (I'm looking at you, Drengin, and you Snathi Revenge). Not every race will be able to declare war against your foe (they have to have contact with them), but try and pursuade those that you can with research trades or money (if you have the funds). The point of this is to get your neighbors to commit resources at your enemy and annoy them like flies. Your neighbors probably won't do much damage or capture any planets, but they may just buy you time and destroy a few key enemy fleets. Intrigue Note: This tactic is much more difficult to pull off with Intrigue because several Government types will prevent the declaration of War. You will hover over the button and see that the faction cannot delcare war because of their Government type. Still, it's worth going through all the factions in the Diplomacy screen to check. Even having one other faction declare war will help you fend off a hostile faction.
  
  
• Legions are scarce resources, so use them wisely. They should be used for invasions only. Don't waste them by garrisoning them on a planets for defense. Instead, use fleets of ships for defense of planets if you must. Legions are far more valuable as invading forces.
  
  
• You will not have enough Legions for all the Fleets you can produce. That's fine. Some fleets should just be used for assault - to wander around enemy territory attacking Shipyards, other fleets and Starbases.
  
  
• Because Legions are restricted by the scarcity of resources (they require a Citizen to be trained as a General or for a planet to train them one-at-a-time using Helios Ore) they will not be available on every planet you attempt to take. Therefor, when going to war with an enemy, if you do not have sufficient Legions to attack their most heavily defended planets, then go for the planets that are lightly defended instead. Take the enemy's weaker planets from them and then leave fleets of ships on the newly acquired planet as a garrison (instead of Legions).
  
  
• Plan your wars. Pay attention to the Diplomacy screen and keep an eye on factions as they turn ever more hostile. It is rare for a faction to go from Cordial to "Furious" in the span of a week (Snathi might be the exception). In most cases, you'll see it coming. So instead of being caught with your pants down, get your fleets, Legions and Transports in position to immediately take their border planets away.

Ship Building

• Moves and Logistics are critical. So is Hull space. You want to research all Tech that provides +Moves, +Logistics, and then anything shrinking technology. More moves means you can get to planets and resources faster than your neighbors, and getting both of those is the key to expanding your empire and ensuring a win.
  
  
• When all you have acccess to is Small or Medium hulls, just build ships with the best engines you have access to and then all weapons. Don't worry about defense or any other perks. Small and Medium hulls don't have enough room for fancy bells and whistles.
  
  
• Once you get to Large Hulls and Repair technologies, start building fleets of ships that work together with designated roles. The AI is setup so that the enemy ships will always attack the Escort ships first, no matter what (as long as the hulls are Small or bigger). With this in mind, build fleets consisting of Escort, Support and Assault/Capital ships. Your Escort ship should be ALL DEFENSE. No weapons. Just defense and support systems. Shields, Armor, Chaff, fleet-wide weapon augmentations and most importantly Repair Modules. Your Escort is going to take all the damage, repair itself, and leave your other ships unharmed. The remaining ships in your fleet (allowed by Logistics) should be all offense. No shields or defense. Just offense and offensive augmentation modules (like Armor Piercing). The Escort ship will get all the action, and your offensive ships will be let alone to fire at will.
  
  
• As you progress in technology your earlier fleets can be used in two roles: (A) as a defensive garrison for border planets or (B) as pirate hunters and Starship/Shipyard destroyers.
  
  
• Use Commanders on your most formidable fleets to give them additional moves and Logistics.

Starbase Management

• Starbases require "Administrators" to function. The number of Administrators you have available to you is listed in the upper-row of the screen. Crusades: New Administrators can be gained by training Citizens. You first 50 turns or so you should be making nearly all Citizens into Administrators, for colonization and to build space stations for resource harvesting.
  
• When setting starbases to capture resources, look for clusters of resources and Relics that are together. You have a limited number of starbases you can deploy due to the Administrator cap, so use them wisely.

Additional Tips

• Turn off Tech Brokering in the startup configuration screen. For new players especially. This will prevent the other factions from getting way ahead of you by trading all the tech among themselves.
  
  
• Avoid trading tech that you don't want landing in enemy hands. If you have not turned off Tech Brokering, then all factions will trade with anyone and everyone, so your valuable tech will eventually wind up in the hands of your enemies if you trade it away, and that will only make your job more difficult. Keep things like Large/Huge Ship Hulls, Fleet Logistics, Engine Upgrades and Extreme Colonization tech to yourself. Make the other factions research it themselves.
  
  
• Periodically go through all your starbases and see if any upgrades are available. Make sure you have appropriate resources and then select the upgraded modules.
  
  
• If you want to keep your neighbors from declaring war before you are ready, stay out of their regions. Don't fly into their zones without an Open Borders treaty. If you want to mine a resource in an enemy's territory, build your starbase on your side of the line. Open Border treaties, Diplomacy research and a Diplomat or two can help you keep some of the factions friendly for a longer period of time.
  
  
• Finesse the other factions to keep the peace for as long as you can. You can engage in diplomacy one turn after you meet a faction, and then every 8 turns thereafter you can trade. You should offer an Open Borders treaty immediately after meeting a faction, and then maintain relations every 8 turns. Pronounce friendship every chance you get (it buys you +1 in the Diplomacy screen). The longer you can maintain friendly terms with a faction, the better off you'll be and the more time you'll have to research tech and build fleets. Once your relationship with a faction goes downhill, it's usually lost for good, and only war will end it.
  
  
• If You Want To Win Peacefully: Then Research the tech tree that gives you the Embassy and it's upgrades. Do this as soon as you reasonably can. Then build Embassies and any other diplomatic buildings available. The Embassy grants additional Diplomacy, and the bonus can help a lot.
  
  
• Mange your survey ships yourself. Yes, it can be more tedious, but you'll do a better job.
  
  
• Put a Port of Call on every planet. Tourism is the best way to earn credits (better than Trade).
  
  
• There are two special anomalies in space that you should be aware of and actively chase after. The first kind of anomaly looks like two bronze bricks laying in parallel. This anomaly has a chance to progress your current Research project by 15%. You should always go to the Research screen and switch your current research project over to something really expensive before your Survey ship gobbles up this anomaly. That way, if you do get the 15% bonus, you will basically get several weeks of free research. The other kind of anomaly worth chasing is the Precursor Anomaly, which kind of looks like a vinyl record. These anomalies are protected by several pirates. You will need a Survey Ship and several Small Hull ships (at least) to defeat them. However, the bonuses from these anomalies can be really good.

Custom Factions

Building a custom Faction is one of the more fun ways to play the game. Custom Factions allow you to pick Traits and Abilities to suit your style. Here are some Abiliites to consider when building a custom Faction:

• Engineers: Shipyard production decay reduced by 50%. This is critical on larger maps. When combine with Pragmatic -> Builder -> Coordinated, this reduces decay to 100%, so you can sponsor any shipyard with any planet. This means you can put your most powerful shipyard right on your enemy's doorstep and have it sponsored by your most powerful planets way on the other side of the map.
  
• Crusades: Starfaring. This gives you access to the Hyperion Building Improvements. These are buildings that grant bonuses to the ships constructed at the sponsored shipyard, like additional Logistics, Hull capaticy and range. With Crusades installed there is NO OTHER WAY to get access to these buildings. These are great tools in the war effort and you should have them.
  
• Vigilent: Your starbases have a larger area of effect. You can capture more resources and relics with a larger area of effect.

Citizens (Crusades DLC)

• Your first few Citizens should be Administrators. You need these for Colonizers and Constructors. You want to be colonizing as many planets as you can as fast as your population growth will allow, and you want to be grabbing every good resource cluster you can find. To do that you will need Administrators.
  
• Scientists should be next on your list. Scientists are one of a handful of Citizens who can only gain XP/Levels by being stationed at a planet. You want to have 2-3 Scientists stationed on your homeworld early in the game while that planet is your biggest research producer. Each one will grant a 30% boost to productivity when stationed at a planet, or 3% when left in the Galactic pool for your faction.
  
• Periodically you should check your overall Research amount vs. your planetary research amount. Do some math and figure out where the best bonus is. If you would get a bigger bonus from recalling the scientists, then recall them to the government pool (this requires a "Promotion" and 10 Prometheon). As an example: Let's say you have a scientist on a planet that is producing 140 Research and your government research total is 2700. The scientist on your planet is granting a 30% bonus, so he is responsible for an additional 42 point of research. Removing him from the planet will drop the planetary research to 98 points. However, he adds 3% to the entire government-wide research of your empire. That means he'll add another 80 points of research to your government, even after the 42 points is lost when he's "recalled". This is a net gain of about 38 research points.
  
• By the time you get Medium Hulls you want to start training a couple Engineer Citizens and placing them on your homeworld. They'll boost Shipyard production significantly. Generating ships is necessary, even if you don't want to go to war (having capable fleets will keep the other factions from seeing you as "weak").
  
• Generals and Spies will be next in line, depending on which tech you research first. You'll need Generals for Legions, which are necessary for invading defended planets. The training of a single General will yield 5 Legions. Generals can be promoted (for 10 Prometheon and 1 rare Helios Ore) to a Supreme General, which yields another 5 Legions.
  
• Spies will help you keep an eye on your enemies (so you know how many ships and colonies they have left for you to conquer). Spies will also periodically, but rarely, steal technology for you. You have no control over what they steal. Finally, Spies can be placed on a specific building improvement on a specific planet to reduce the effectiveness of that improvement. This is a great way to hamstring your enemy's shipbuilding production, for instance, when you're at war.
  
• Commanders are useful for fleets as they grant a 50% bonus to the fleets Moves and additional Logistics. I like to train 2-3 Commanders and put them in charge of Fleets with Huge Hulls that have so much armor, repair and firepower there is no way for my enemy's to take them down.

Governments (Intrigue DLC)

Governments are a whole separate guide unto themselves. I am working on that guide! Stay tuned!

[Belaaron]

Yeah...this reminded me why I stopped playing. Moving on.

[Big_JiLm_39]

Great Job. You didn't Blow it.

[TwistableBow]

@Sovereign

Also a month late, but citizens, which are the primary way to train administrators, were added into the game with Crusades. So, to answer your question, yes. The base Galactic Civilizations 3 game should come with Crusades, though.

[TwistableBow]

To maximize the amount of time that your escort ships spend drawing enemy fire, I'd recommend either giving all the ships in your fleet the same tactical speed or making your escort ships the fastest ships in the fleet.

To read more about ship combat in Galactic Civilizations 3, check out the wiki page [galciv3.fandom.com] on ship roles.

[TwistableBow]

@NoMasPollo

This is 2 months late, but your assault ships will get targeted first if they're the only ships in range of the enemy's weapons. Once your escort ships enter enemy weapon range, then they will be targeted for the rest of the battle.

Your escort ships should usually start out in front of your other ships, preventing any of your other ships from being targeted first. Sometimes, though, for weird reasons, this doesn't happen. The only other time your non-escort ships will be targeted is if those ships are faster (meaning they have a higher tactical speed) than your escort ships. If the tactical speed of your escort ships is lower than your assault ships, your assault ships will zoom into battle and your escort ships won't be able to keep up. In that scenario, while your escort ships are racing to catch up, your assault ships could, briefly, be the only ships in enemy weapon range, meaning they'll be the only ships targeted.

(cont.)

[Sovereign]

Administrators can only be trained if I have the crusades DLC?

[NoMasPollo]

Does that escort thing still work or is it only for quick battles instead of view battles? my assault ships always get targeted so i've been using all rounders

[asfariel]

Thank you. Wonderful and useful guide.

[Chip0lok0]

good

[ColorsFade]

@Memhave I would, but here's the problem with that: Stardock changes the tech tree a LOT. Like, every major update and DLC changes the tech tree. It's been revamped so many times I'm not even sure what's there anymore. I can only really give you rough guidelines to follow.