Playing as the Dread Lords[]
To play as the Dread Lords, you need to start the game with cheat codes enabled. Go to "Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe", right-click on it and choose "Send To > Desktop". Right-click on the desktop shortcut that is created, choose "Properties" and edit the "Target" entry. It should look like this:
"C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\GalCiv2.exe" cheat
Start a new game and choose "Dread Lords on Parade" from the scenarios drop down list. Start the game. Click on one of your ships, move your cursor and press CTRL + T. If the ship is teleported to your cursor, then cheats are enabled. If it does not move, you did not start the game in cheat mode.
You will need to have a Dread Lord ship within sensor range. You can teleport your survey ship to all over the map until you find Amalda (Dread Lord homeworld) or wait until a Dread Lord ship appears nearby. It is better to look for them, as sometimes you can go a whole game without ever seeing a single Dread Lord ship.
You can also unfog the map by pressing CTRL + U, but I don't recommend this. It will dramatically slow your game.
If you find a Dread Lord planet with a ship in orbit, you can click on the ship in the starport. Make sure to click a star first, or one of your own ships might still be selected. When you have a Dread Lord ship selected, press CTRL + SHIFT + Z. Click off the ship and then click on it again and you should have control.
You are now the Dread Lords. Have fun...
Note: You no longer control the Terrans and they will now be set to "Fool" intelligence, regardless of the settings of the other civs.
Notes[]
- No Dread Lord planet may have more than 20 million people on it. This means that you cannot make money, no matter what you do. You will have to continually press CTRL + M to add money to your treasury
- It takes several turns to restore the population of a Dread Lord planet. Try to avoid reducing the population below 10m, because then it just takes longer for the planet to repopulate.
- The Dread Lords have insane soldiering ability (800 default, or 880 if you do the "all techs" cheat code). The most effective way to invade planets is to use "Information Warfare" on any planet with less than 95% approval. This adds soldiers to your invasion force and dramatically increases your chances of taking the planet. Otherwise, use minisoldiers.
The extra troops will disappear on the next turn, leaving the planet at 20m population. You can follow up an invasion by landing another troop carrier in the same turn, then launching it with all but 20m of the population. You can load up to 3b troops on a default Dread Lord troop transport.
Make sure you guard your newly captured planets. Despite your soldiering abilities, all it takes is a single enemy troop transport to recapture it.
- On newly conquered worlds, cancel all non-factory related upgrades in the build queue. You don't need labs, stock markets, entertainment centers or farms. Then upgrade the non-factory buildings to factories, then build more factories on green tiles, then upgrade yellow/orange/red tiles.
Do it in that order, because it usually takes less time to upgrade a building than to build one from scratch.
- Eyes of the Universe is unavailable to you, so you will need to add sensors to your ships (assuming you have not unfogged the map).
- In "Dread Lords on Parade", the Dread Lords typically increase their logistics to 10 by invading the other civs and stealing "Basic Logistics". This is unavailable to you, so you will not be able to use fleets.
You can get around this by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + R. This will give you all techs (which oddly enough, you don't already have). You can either limit yourself to logistics of 10, like the Dread Lords, or you can make regular fleets. You will also be 3ps/turn faster than normal and have higher hit points. Using CTRL + R for individual techs does not work with the Dread Lords.
- You can modify or create new Dread Lord ship designs. However, they will be invisible on the map until you save and reload.
- You cannot do espionage, so you will be unable to see the surface of enemy planets. You will be able to see the destinations of enemy ships, presumably because cheat codes are enabled.
Update: As of 1.3 [final], you can do espionage as the Dread Lords.
- Strangely, you are part of the United Planets. This means you can vote in the council and can send freighters to minor races. The trade will never be enough to get you out of debt however.
- You cannot make peace with any of the major civilizations. This is a setting in the scenario file and cannot be circumvented. Edit: In TA (Twilight of Arnor, it is possible to make peace with other civs both minor and major, and if you are militarily stronger or offer enough cash they will accept, though your relations with the other races will still be cool to hostile for the remainder of the game unless you give tons of tribute and trades.
- Range limits are ignored. Do not bother putting on life support modules.