SHIP INFORMATION
Ship Navigation
Colonizing Star Systems
Transferring Technology
Fog of War
Attacking Enemy Ships
Invading Enemy Systems
More about Combat
Ships Demanding Attention

Game play in Galactica is a matter of building starships, and using those ships to colonize the galaxy, protect your territory, and defeat the other players in combat. Your level of technology is crucial. Higher levels of technology allow your ships to move faster, and give them an advantage in combat over ships with lower tech levels. Your star systems also defend themselves from attacking ships based on their level of technology.

All tech development takes place in your star systems. As your level of technology increases, so does the difficulty of advancing to the next level and the complexity of building starships. This is where Growth comes in. As your system grows, there are more laboratories researching new ideas, and more factories to build high-tech parts for starships. If your growth doesn't keep up with your technology, you might know how to build a really advanced ship, but it will take you hundreds of turns to actually do so.

Starting a game is similar whether you are playing a single player or multiplayer. Before you can start playing, you must setup your universe.

Computer Opponents:

Select the number of opponents you wish to play against. The default setting is two and is best for your first game. Skill and Advantage settings pertain to your opponents. You can make the game easier or harder to win just by changing these settings. The advantage is based on a plus or minus modifier. Remember that this setting effects the computer opponents... so a setting of +3 gives the advantage to the computer!

Network games can be played over the Internet or on a LAN (Local Area Network). You must have a working internet connection to play over the internet. You must have TCP/IP support to play on a LAN. AppleTalk only networks are not supported.

1. From File menu, Host New Game...

2. Choose number of humans playing

3. Set up remaining options like a single player game

4. Click "Begin Game" button - you will be asked to save a file called {gamename}.dat (where {gamename} is the title of the game that you entered in the setup)

5. The galaxy will be created, and a host starmap will appear in a new window

6. The join game window will be displayed

Note: If you want to have a dedicated host machine (ie, nobody is playing on that machine), you can hit "Cancel" and skip the game join

1. From File menu, Join Game...

2. Choose a game from the list on the left of the Join Game window. If the game you wanted to join doesn't appear in the list, click the "Search For Internet Games" button. It may take a few seconds for the list of games to refresh. You can also use the "Enter IP Address..." button to enter either the IP address (ie: 127.0.0.1) or host name (ie: annodominari.com)

3. Info about the game, such as the map size, number of players, and so on will be shown in the "Game Info" area in the right of the Join Game window

4. Click on the "Join" button (it will be named "Rejoin" if you've been in this game before)

The game begins with you and all your opponents at a very early stage of development. You occupy your home star system and nothing else. To the right of the screen is information about your home system.

In a game with Fog of War, you will not be able to see where your opponents are located, you will only see your own star system.

You will notice immediately that your system has nearly finished building a Colony Ship. The Colony Ship is in production first because it is the only ship that can colonize systems so they can be occupied for your empire.

The Tech level is the level of technology available at this star system. The higher the number the more technologically advanced the system is, and thus the stronger and faster starships built at that system will be.

The slider bars below represent that system's production levels. At the start of the game, the production levels are all equal. This means that each area of production is receiving the same amount of attention. Click on the slider bar to increase or decrease levels. Production levels are tied to each other, so when you increase one the others will decrease to compensate. Be advised that it takes a while to alter the economy of an entire star system, so it may take a few turns for your production levels to adjust to the new settings.

There are four classes of ships that a system can produce: Defense Satellite, Scout/Courier, Colony, and Battleship. Below is a brief summary of their stats.

Scout/Courier Ship: These small, fast ships have a dual role. As scout ships, they use their sensitive scanners to detect enemy ships and colonies. As fast courier ships they help your colonies stay up to date with the latest technologies. They will update their ships library whenever they come in contact with star systems that have higher tech levels than the ship itself. This helps with spreading your technology to all your occupied star systems without having to divert production from growth or ships. They have no combat abilities whatsoever.

Colony Ship: These massive ships are the backbone of your success. Only these ships can colonize star systems so your population can occupy them. While they are just as capable in a fight as a battleship, they are costly -- their build time is the longest of all the ships. Fortunately your ship commander understands this and will avoid a fight if at all possible, only entering the battle if all battleships have been destroyed.

Battleship: These ships are the power of your force. They are designed for fighting and nothing else. Like Courier ships, their extensive ships library can be used to bring colonies up-to-date technologies. However, unlike Couriers their ships library cannot be updated, and they are not as fast as Couriers. They are best used in battle.

Ships can be selected by clicking on them in the Sector View, or through the Ships in System panel. When a ship is selected, the Ship Navigation panel is activated and the ships course is shown as a series of waypoints. The current destination of the ship is shown in bold.

Clicking on a waypoint will allow you to perform operations on that waypoint, such as deleting it with the '' (Delete) button or changing it with the '' (Set) button. The '+' (Add) button lets you add a new waypoint to the course, and behaves very similarly to the '' (Set) button. Both '' (Set) and '+' (Add) are activated with a click, and stay active until you click on a destination in the Sector View, or cancel them by clicking on the button a second time. If your intended destination is not visible in the Sector View while plotting a course, you can use the scroll bars to scroll to it.

There are also several buttons that affect the entire course. '' (Delete All) erases the entire course. 'M' (Mem) puts the current course in memory, or if there is already a course in memory, swaps the course in memory with the current course. '' (Loop) tells the ship to repeat the course: once it arrives at the final destination, it heads back to the starting point. Finally, '' (Call) tells the ship to bring itself to your attention at the beginning of the next turn.

Colonizing Star Systems

Sending a colony ship, alone or as part of a fleet, to an unowned star system will colonize it. The system will have the tech level of the ship that colonized it, but as a new colony, it will have very little production capacity.

Transferring Technology

You can also use your scout/couriers to spread your advances in technology to you less advanced colonies. Simply send your hi-tech courier to the colony you want improved, and upon arrival the ship will transfer the information from its library to the colony, giving the colony the same tech level as the ship. Of course, this does not change the system's growth, so it may be a while before the colonies production capacity catches up its tech level.

Fog of War

When playing with the Fog of War you will not be able to see your opponents unless they are in range of your scanners. Your colonies all have ground and orbital based scanners that will opponent's ships when they come in range. Your Scout Ships also have scanners, and can be sent out to look for enemy ships and colonies far outside the range of your colonies. The range of your scanners increases with technology level. At long range, a scanner can only detect the presence of a ship and who it belongs to. At mid-range, the tech level of ship can also be determined. However, some details, such as the class of ship, cannot be determined until it is in close range. Scout/Courier ships use a combination of costly stealth technology and small size so they are much harder to detect than other types of ships.

Attacking Enemy Starships or Fleets

When a ship or fleet intercepts an opponent's ship or fleet, it will attack. The higher your ships' power is compared to that of your opponent, the better your chances of winning the battle. The defeated ship or fleet is destroyed completely, leaving only debris. The winner will resume its course on the next turn if it has further destinations. When a ship or fleet is destroyed, you will see an explosion at the site of combat, and the winner will emerge from the explosion.

Invading Enemy Star Systems

When a ship or fleet arrives at an opponent's system it will attack. If there are ships stationed at the system, your ship must defeat each of the ships stationed there before you can attack the planet itself. The defending ships will have an advantage beyond their normal tech level based on the number of defending ships at the star. After all, they are coordinating their defenses. Your ship will then have to overcome the system's fixed defenses in order to succeed. The defenses are based on the tech level of the system, but the system's defense forces are at a disadvantage because they are under assault from mobile spacecraft. The system will lose some production capacity due to damage from the attack, and suffers greater damage if it loses.

More about Combat

Anytime more than one ship is involved in a combat, the non-combat ships are kept out of the battle until all the combat ready ships are destroyed. Both couriers and colony ships are considered non-combat ships. Couriers have no combat ability whatsoever, and are thus incapable of inflicting damage on the enemy. Colony ships are actually just as strong as battle ships for a given tech level, but since they are expensive special purpose starships they are kept out of harm's way whenever possible.

Damage to a ship that was not destroyed can be repaired by sending the ship to a planet that you own and leaving it there for several turns. The higher the tech level of the planet, the faster it can do repairs. A ship that is on patrol cannot be repaired -- take it off patrol and then repair it. Since satellites cannot ever be taken off patrol, they cannot ever be repaired.

Game Pieces that Demand Attention

Normally, game pieces will do what you told them without further intervention. But at certain times, a game piece may need instructions and will ask for your attention. For example when a ship reaches the end of its programmed course, rather than sitting idle in space till you notice it, it will call in. Likewise, when a ship is first created, it brings itself to your attention so you don't forget it was there. At the start of each turn, the first item that needs attention will select itself, and play an attention sound. After you've dealt with that item, you can use the TAB key to go to the next item that wants attention. If you try to end a turn while there are still items that need to be dealt with, you will be reminded that there are still pieces that want attention, and will be given the opportunity to go back and deal with them.

When ships are in a fleet you will notice the power of all the ships is added together. The higher the power, the better chance of winning a battle.

In battle, overwhelming force is the best strategy, and a coordinated attack with a large force is often the only path to victory. Fleets are a major element of this strategy. They are a group of ship operating as one unit. The advantages are obvious; more power and better coordination! Building fleets is a must to win the game. There are several ways to build a fleet, two will be discussed here: rendezvous points and ships meeting in space.

Here is a breakdown of command buttons and functions:

The object of Galactica is to colonize all the star systems in the galaxy. How you go about doing that is up to your commanding genius. Resource management is a big part of this game. Careful attention to your occupied systems will maximize your productivity and prevent waste.

• Firstly, I try and colonize as many nearby planets as possible, without getting into a fight. At this stage I only make colony ships - not even satellites.
  

• Newly colonized planets either make colonies or battleships, depending on how many uninhabited systems there are locally. If lots, I need all the colonies I can get! Otherwise, it's time to start building a battleship fleet.
  

• When I have a few systems going, I change the home planet to produce couriers. As it churns them out very quickly, I can adjust the sliders to decrease ship and increase growth and technology. I make it produce a courier every 6-8 turns. The more planets in the game, the more couriers you need. So, on huge games I might make them every 2-4 for example.
  

• Once couriers are produced at home, the need to research tech on colonized planets is unnecessary, so I set the slider to zero. I then fly in or capture tech. This is a bit hard for a human to coordinate as it involves clicking on heaps of systems to find ones that can benefit the most from new tech.
  

• In a game with fog of war, I also send out some scouts to look for the enemy and position some outside the range of my scanners to try and spot incoming enemy ships.
  

• When I get near other players, I put up satellites.
  

• Systems well behind the "front lines" are now able to start building battleships. I dedicate 1, 2 or 3 planets to supply a fleet with ships. So, the auto-dest feature comes in handy. If your fleets survive a few battles, the new ship supply usually makes the replenish quick enough for a new battle. If not, start again.
  

• If the enemy starts sending ships towards home, I start defending back line planets with satellites. But only if they are threatened.
  

• Once a few fleets are around, I dedicate a system to build colonies. This is best up near the front lines because of the slow speed of colonies and therefore the system needs to first build satellites. Sometimes I need more than one if, e.g., I'm backed into a corner of the map and have 2 or more fronts.
  

• When old fleets have been around for a while, they then tend to be much slower than the newest ships. If this happens, I send a new colony to join them to instantly colonize systems. This is why I mentioned then need for fleet management as you need to dump the slow colonies as the slow battleships get destroyed and get a new colony ship sent in.
  

• Normally, though, the colonies are too slow and I just send them all over the map as they are built. I try to keep one within one move of every enemy planet so they are there when the battle fleets get there. Sometimes they get picked off but not as often as they probably should.
  

• I now just pick off systems one-by-one, or by as many strong fleets as I can muster.
  

• Couriers are sent all over the galaxy to keep my planets up to date.
  

• As the enemy fleets get stronger, I re-fortify my systems' satellites to make sure they can cope with an attack. Normally, this means strength 10, then 50, then 100 and in really close games, 1000.
  

• Any damaged fleets get to rest on a planet until it's colonized and they are fully repaired. Then they have to get back to work.
  

• I also use a fleet to mind a planet until the satellites are strong enough.
  

• I don't attack with individual ships, only fleets. And then only when the fleet strength is about double the target! The exception to this is when a single enemy ship is heading for one of my ships or systems and I add a waypoint to two of the ships heading to join a fleet to intercept the enemy and then join the fleet after - if it survives....