Poll: Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition - The most impossibly good strategy game in the cosmos

[Dana22]

The only thing I dont like In GalCiv2 is the map. I prefer oldschool, solar systems connected with transit lines/wormholes/whatever.

 

[Phoenixlight]

Looks like an interesting game however you've written far too much and so I didn't read much of it.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Are you referring to the Peacekeepers? Because they are indeed colossal gits, as mentioned briefly in the review.

Actually no. Dread Lords are WORSE than the Peacekeepers but are much more rare to come across. The general advice it seems when it comes to Dread Lords is to delete your save game, because its next to impossible to defeat them.

I managed to though. =D And I blew up their sun to be sure.

 

[Tryzon]

True enough. It looks like an experiment is in order.

To eBay! FOR SCIENCE!

You shan't regret it!

Looks like an interesting game however you've written far too much and so I didn't read much of it.

Fair enough. I understand entirely, but my style has always been insanely comprehensive. This is the most extreme example yet, and I would certainly cut it down if it was for professional purposes, but the beauty of casual reviewing is that you can read whatever the frak you want, so I take advantage of that. Do certainly investigate GalCiv, though.

The only thing I dont like In GalCiv2 is the map. I prefer oldschool, solar systems connected with transit lines/wormholes/whatever.

I've never played anything like that, though it sounds intriguing.

Actually no. Dread Lords are WORSE than the Peacekeepers but are much more rare to come across. The general advice it seems when it comes to Dread Lords is to delete your save game, because its next to impossible to defeat them.

I managed to though. =D And I blew up their sun to be sure.

Well at least they're not invincible. I've ended a few matches with a Terror Star myself, and it's definitely satisfying.

Fantastic review mate, absolutely fantastic.
I love Galactic Civilisations II, however I've never managed to get a copy of Twilight of the Arnor.

Apart from being a brilliant strategy game, I just adore how you can customise races/ships into a variety of designs only limited by your imagination.

*Blushes* It's not everyday one receives such enthusiastic compliments! Many thanks, of course. I'm extremely glad to see that you also love GalCiv to bits, and cannot recommend getting Twilight of the Arnor enough. Can you literally not find it for some reason? There are plenty of copies on the Webternets, I'd imagine.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Are you referring to the Peacekeepers? Because they are indeed colossal gits, as mentioned briefly in the review.

Actually no. Dread Lords are WORSE than the Peacekeepers but are much more rare to come across. The general advice it seems when it comes to Dread Lords is to delete your save game, because its next to impossible to defeat them.

I managed to though. =D And I blew up their sun to be sure.

Good man. Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

[Tryzon]

I'm pleasantly suprised at how many people openly love GalCiv 2. It's not an entirely underground thing, clearly!

 

[Darth_Dude]

Nice review, is this game available anywhere? Like Steam? I don't think i've seen it in retail shops.

 

[Tryzon]

Nice review, is this game available anywhere? Like Steam? I don't think i've seen it in retail shops.

You can find it readily on Amazon and eBay or whatever, or in download form from galciv2.com. I always recommend physical copies of anything if possible, but it's up to you.

 

[Valkyrie101]

Excellent and comprehensive review, looks good. I may have a look at it.

 

[Tryzon]

Excellent and comprehensive review, looks good. I may have a look at it.

Yet more kind words from people! Thank ye kindly. And GalCiv 2 is EXTRAORDINARY if strategy be your thing. Make it a priority, particularly since even the Ultimate Edition doesn't cost a whole lot.

Hehe, more like I didn't realise that expansion existed. Thank you for informing me otherwise.

Ah. I misunderstood. Well that's great news all the same! Now you can have EVEN MORE fun!

 

[The Madman]

I'm pleasantly surprised a topic on Galactic Civilizations 2 is getting so much attention. I also agree with the review entirely, GalCiv 2 is by far my favorite 4x game and perhaps even my favorite strategy game in general. I struggle to think of even one other game which has provided the sort of unscripted narrative that this game can. Fondly I look back on various campaigns, remembering the rise and fall of empires, and the great battles that took place. I just don't get that with any other game.

With the Civilization series for example I can't really remember anything from any of my previous campaign. GalCiv2 however, ask me about my Altarian empire, or my Cimmerians, or any of the other race from various games I've played either with a custom race or not and you'll get a full blown mini-narrative as I recall the highs and lows of each match and the epic events which took place within.

Damn good game, damn good. Nice to see another fan!

 

[Tryzon]

I'm pleasantly surprised a topic on Galactic Civilizations 2 is getting so much attention. I also agree with the review entirely, GalCiv 2 is by far my favorite 4x game and perhaps even my favorite strategy game in general. I struggle to think of even one other game which has provided the sort of unscripted narrative that this game can. Fondly I look back on various campaigns, remembering the rise and fall of empires, and the great battles that took place. I just don't get that with any other game.

With the Civilization series for example I can't really remember anything from any of my previous campaign. GalCiv2 however, ask me about my Altarian empire, or my Cimmerians, or any of the other race from various games I've played either with a custom race or not and you'll get a full blown mini-narrative as I recall the highs and lows of each match and the epic events which took place within.

Damn good game, damn good. Nice to see another fan!

Could we be kindred spirits, you and I? Or possibly seperated at birth?

 

[Dana22]

I've never played anything like that, though it sounds intriguing.

Wow, now I am intrigued. Haven't you played Master of Orion series ? The mother of all modern 4X's ? You should do that

You can also try Space Empires 4 or 5, and highly underrated "Sword of the Stars"

 

[Tryzon]

Haven't you played Master of Orion series ? The mother of all modern 4X's ? You should do that

You can also try Space Empires 4 or 5, and highly underrated "Sword of the Stars"

Sadly I have yet to play a single one of those, though I'm well aware of the rivalry that GalCiv and Master of Orion have had for nigh-on two decades. I also know that MoO 3 is apparently something of a fluke, but not everything can be perfect like GalCiv 2 XD

Anyway I'd only vaguely heard of Sword of the Stars, but shall investigate that a bit more too on your recommendation.

 

[veloper]

There?s a system of sliders that control your tax rates, production capacity and how your cash is budgeted out between military building, social improvement construction and research. This is extremely reminiscent of the budgeting screen from Fragile Allegiance, and you see them nearly as much as you do in that, which I actually like, partly because it?s a convenient way of doing things and partly because sliders are just comfortingly familiar.

And the slider system is very broken in that research is linked to production, so that neither can be 100% and even at a 100% spending rate, your fabs and labs will only run at 50% of their capacity.
In Dreadlords (before the expansions) it was more than twice as efficient to just go either all labs or all fabs, set the unused slider to 0% and then convert 25% of the one to the other using planetary focus.
Then in the expansions, instead of fixing the slider problem (separate research), the devs just nerf planetary focus. Lame.

You always start with an Imperial government, where you have complete power over your people but the economy is relatively weak. However, you can research three alternatives: a Democracy, a Republic and a Federation. These all give the people the right to vote on their leaders, and they will quickly oust you if taxes are too high and so forth. This doesn?t end the game or anything drastic, but robs you of your nice extra numbers until you get re-elected. A Federation grants the highest possible bonuses, but keeping the masses happy is much harder. None of the options are definitely better, since sometimes it?s worth having a mediocre economy so that you can control your civilisation easier. After all, a planet with extremely low morale will eventually break off and form its own nation, which doesn?t do you a whole lot of good.

You only have to keep the morale at 31% to keep planets safe from revolt and you can lower taxes just in the week before the elections to win the senate before raising taxes again. The senate is a complete joke. Go federation.

GalCiv II has some technical merits on top of everything else. It?s easy (they tell me) to make a game hard, but making it hard and fair is another matter. Stardock have done a remarkable job with the opponents here, since they are cunning and smart but never appear to be magically spawning ships or running impossibly efficient factories. To put it simply, they play the same game you do and must get their brains round the same problems. Turn the difficulty up to one of the higher options and the stuff they can do is unreal, particularly when they start tricking you into doing stupid things. It must be seen to be believed and is a core part of what makes GalCiv II so accursedly good.

The AI cheats atrociously even on medium difficulty levels and still doesn't pose much of challenge unles you got to hard, where it still manages to lose in fucken IDDQD mode.

Just capture every planet the AI civs have with conventional warfare and see for yourself how low you have to drop the production slider, before you get any captured planet with a positive credit balance.

The AI is just incredibly stupid. Transports without escorts? I can hold of 100x bigger AI civilizations with only tiny ships armed with 1 dam peashooters: just don't garrison them at your planets, but rather keep them patrolling in space.

The civilization games (3 and 4 atleast) have a much better AI, though that's not much of an achievement.


I could go on, but that would make me seem more negative about the game than I really am. GC2 has a simplistic charm to it.
I still occasionally play it sometimes to spank the cheating AI bastard.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Played the demo and liked it. I never got the actual game though.

 

[Tryzon]

*snip*

A strong alternative viewpoint, though you still like the game somewhat, so that's something. I've heard most of these complaints before, and maybe they should bother me more than they do, but I've always just accepted them as part of the game and not been dragged down by them.

Many thanks for making it clear that GalCiv 2 is not entirely perfect, close though it is. But I must disagree about the cheating completely: I've never seen any evidence that it does, so if you could tell me where to look, please do.

And I don't know what you mean by "IDDQD mode". I'm probably just ignorant.

I would like to just enquire, if I may, as to what difficulty you usually play on? From my experience, the AI tends to guard its transports at least a bit when it can, and this is on Painful, so...I dunno.

Please clarify.

 

[Tryzon]

Played the demo and liked it. I never got the actual game though.

There's never been a better time. Odds of your liking it if you enjoyed the demo are astronomically high.