Galactic Civilizations Ii: Dread Lords

[Rogue]

Sequal to Galactic Civiliations, game that I never heard off. (and I'm civilization fun :blink: )

You can find more about it at GameSpot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/galacticcivilizations2/index.html).

[The Niles]

I have played Galactic Civilization and disliked it. It is nothing more then Master of Orion 2 did years earlier but with a more clumsy interface. It does not even support multiplayer (something MoO2 does).

[Marek]

Galciv 1 was fairly enjoyable for me but in comparison to MOO2, there were a lot of extra features that MOO2 had that Galciv did not.

When MOO3 came out I was expecting a game similar to MOO2, but with a more modern look and feel and more stuff you could do. Of course I, and most other people, were bitterly dissapointed.

GalCiv II, however, promises to be the game I was hoping for.

Its gonna be very similar to MOO2,
You can now choose what race you want to play,
design your own ships,
zoom into your colonies etc.
but with the more modern GalCiv interface and they are gonna put in some 3d stuff and whatnot.

Its been a while since I checked the GalCiv2 website so I am not up to date with all the enhancements.

I am looking forward to it... :ok:

[Flop]

I have to admit that I never played GC1, but it looks fairly interesting, and I'd be much surprised if the sequel turns out to suck worse than MoO3 did. It actually looks as if it has the potential to be quite good. There's only one thing I'm a bit worried about:

The campaign will have a branching mission structure, so the story will adjust depending on whether you win or lose a mission.

What is this? A missionbased campaign in a 4x game? It sounds strange, and not very good, IMO. It's pretty vague excactly how this'll be implemented, but if it's like Heroes of Might and Magic, for example, where you go to a new map whenever you win a mission, I'm pretty sure I won't like it.

[Marek]

No the game originally worked just like MOO2,

Specify setting Generate map and play...

However, int he Altarian prophecy expansion, they introduced an option to create your own maps before hand, and to publicise it they created a few that linked on from each other and followed a story...

Its actually pretty cool...

Now the story will differ depending on your success. You can still play a normal randomly generated map... :ok:

[Stroggy]

I liked Galactic Civilizations, I found the AI to be much better than the one featured in MoO2 (a very clever AI actually)

[Marek]

Absolutely correct, I guess I should have mentioned that... :wall:

[Flop]

I just got my hands on the first one, after reading this thread. I must say that I'm positively surprised, at least so far. Thanks for the tip guys. It goes without saying that I'm now looking forward to the next one.

[Marek]

Hhhmmm,

Maybe I should pull it out again and give it another spin...

My poor pc at home though, I haven't even switched it on since I bought my PS2 with GT4

[Borodin]

Originally posted by Stroggy@Apr 7 2005, 04:07 PM
I liked Galactic Civilizations, I found the AI to be much better than the one featured in MoO2 (a very clever AI actually)
AI is the best thing in Stardock's games. I only wish they'd add more treaty options, opponent dialog, larger graphics, etc. The different races in GC simply felt like bad windowdressing, especially since Stardock didn't take them seriously at all. ;)

[Kezz]

I have and love galactic civilizations, but for two things.

one, the research tree is downright maddening. You can -barely- figure out what exactly you are researching, and its even harder to figure out where you want to take your research tree or even if you'll be getting anything cool from it.

The second thing I abhor is the combat system. Gone are the shield, armor, and structure of MoO2, and replaced, is it, by a watered-down point system.

"OOH! my ship had 23 attack points and their ship had only 22 defence points! I win!"

there will ALWAYS be a clear victor between any given two ships, and it really annoys me, especially after the massive battles you could get in MoO. In MoO, it not only depended on what you put into your ship, but tactics came into play as well. Have a capital ship blowin up your fleet? send a fighter to snipe it from behind where it cant get at you. Missles comin in on your behind? blow em out of the sky!

I really like GalCiv, the graphics are snazzy and the game just generally rocks, (especially that kick behind AI!) but the lack of a combat system and a research tree that was so tangled it lived in five dimensions really killed the game for me.

--FUN FACT!: In Galactic Civilizations, your scientists didnt invent teleporters by doing lots of tiring research; rather, they invented it entirely by watching old reruns of Star Trek. Beam me up, Scotty!

[Marek]

Yeah I haven't played it in a while and I forgot about the annoying Tech tree, and from what I've seen of GalCiv II, the Tech tree is not gonna be much better.

Its gonna be a little more complicated I think, thats about it

[Kezz]

I didnt mind the tech tree so much, I mean it all gets researched in the end and if you pay close attention you can figure stuff out, but what I want is the ability to make my own ships! Diplomacy is so boring.

[Borodin]

The tech tree was actually improved in the new add-on. You can now bring up one of those mini-screens that show where a particular tech leads, and other techs around it. It's not perfect, but it helps.