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

[Slaanax]

Its a goood game, but I like Masters of Orion 2 more. So when I want to play a game I play MoO2 over it.

 

[Tryzon]

It wasn't a 24-hour marathon session, it was 24 hours spread over 6 weeks.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't think anybody should actually attempt 24 hours non-stop gaming. Fun though it might be, you'd probably collapse due to lack of life eventually.

What I meant is that I've never had a combined total time for a match that's gone on quite so long yet. True, I haven't seriously attempted an Immense map yet, but there you go.

 

[Croaker42]

I love the hell out of Galactic Civ.
The humor is amazing. Nothing beats being confronted by a race of hyper intelligent and incredibly evil ground squirrels.

Thank you for reminding me that I was missing something in my life??.. *runs to reinstall*

 

[EmeraldGreen]

Did you really read the article? Yes, the AI gets an economic bonus that grows as you increase the difficulty, but he pointed out that he didn't hike the difficulty particularly high because he knew he'd be eaten alive. And if the AI has no idea what it's doing, how did it manage to deadlock itself into a political conflict between the two seperate AIs of the Drengin and the Terrans so complicated that they reduced the reviewer's race to a political pawn for most of the game without him even realising it?

To be honest, having read the article (it's certainly entertaining), I find it hard to believe that was actually AI strategy. It seems to me to be simply a case of a human interpreting strange (i.e. unintelligent) behaviour as meaningful, even though it probably wasn't. I adore GalCiv2 and would love to think the AI was actually that good, but I suspect the author of the article was just jumping to conclusions there.

I am in the unfortunate position of never having played the Master of Orion series and would really like to try #2 in particular. However, I'm worried that getting it to work on XP could be troublesome, since games from 1996 have a fair chance of not agreeing with my PC.

GOG.com sells a MoO 1 & 2 pack for only $5.99, and they make sure all the games they sell work on XP and Vista.

 

[Tryzon]

GOG.com sells a MoO 1 & 2 pack for only $5.99, and they make sure all the games they sell work on XP and Vista.

That's certainly convenient, but I always try to have physical copies of things if at all possible.

Hey, this is my 500th post. How irrelevant.

 

[veloper]

The reviewer must have been an idiot then.
The GC2 AI is hopeless and doesn't do anything right. It gets where it is by getting stuff for free or at a huge discount.

Did you really read the article? Yes, the AI gets an economic bonus that grows as you increase the difficulty, but he pointed out that he didn't hike the difficulty particularly high because he knew he'd be eaten alive. And if the AI has no idea what it's doing, how did it manage to deadlock itself into a political conflict between the two seperate AIs of the Drengin and the Terrans so complicated that they reduced the reviewer's race to a political pawn for most of the game without him even realising it?

What really happened was the AI made very poor decisions and the player started to rationalize those decisions with nothing to go on.

If the AI were cunning, every race would have rushed transports to take planets from the player, while he was down.
Grabbing as much undefended property as you can the only sensible thing to do in such a situation.

The civ4 AI is much better. Civilizations tend to dogpile on weak civs, if a stronger empire declares war first, so the rest may still get some scraps before the bigggest civ gobbles everything up.

 

[Tryzon]

The civ4 AI is much better. Civilizations tend to dogpile on weak civs, if a stronger empire declares war first, so the rest may still get some scraps before the bigggest civ gobbles everything up.

I've actually ordered myself a copy of Civ4, so I'll finally know what all these people are talking about!

Yay.

 

[The Madman]

The reviewer must have been an idiot then.
The GC2 AI is hopeless and doesn't do anything right. It gets where it is by getting stuff for free or at a huge discount.

Did you really read the article? Yes, the AI gets an economic bonus that grows as you increase the difficulty, but he pointed out that he didn't hike the difficulty particularly high because he knew he'd be eaten alive. And if the AI has no idea what it's doing, how did it manage to deadlock itself into a political conflict between the two seperate AIs of the Drengin and the Terrans so complicated that they reduced the reviewer's race to a political pawn for most of the game without him even realising it?

What really happened was the AI made very poor decisions and the player started to rationalize those decisions with nothing to go on.

If the AI were cunning, every race would have rushed transports to take planets from the player, while he was down.
Grabbing as much undefended property as you can the only sensible thing to do in such a situation.

The civ4 AI is much better. Civilizations tend to dogpile on weak civs, if a stronger empire declares war first, so the rest may still get some scraps before the bigggest civ gobbles everything up.

No it wasn't the best thing to do, you didn't read the article fully or you'd know that.

And no, the AI doesn't cheat at all, despite your findings. Proof can be found here:


There are also several articles by the same man, lead developer of the series, which you can read over and which go over every detail of how the AI works and plays. Stardock is extremely open with its development cycle to such a degree you can even help the developers out by downloading and playing alpha versions of their games and reading each piece of work and advancement as its implemented into the games. Right now they're working on a game called Elemental, and players who pre-ordered the game have had access to the game since before it could even rightly be called a game, with updated dev versions being released along with notes and developer diary on what's been changed and how. They did the same thing with GalCiv2.

So no, the AI doesn't cheat nor get anything for free. Infact it's extremely clever in how the AI works as each AI works as an independent process as opposed to the AI in a game like Civ4 which operates in a 'computer vs player' system rather than each civilization running its own operations. What this means is that the computer itself, as it runs every races turn, does not actually know which other race is the human and which are other computer controlled AI's and as a result literally 'cannot' cheat against the human because it doesn't know which race actually is the human player.

Civ 4 on the other hand 'does' cheat, and isn't very subtle about it either.

GalCiv2 isn't without its flaws, but I can't help but think you're being overly harsh on the game for some reason.

 

[AwesomeExpress]

I hadn't even heard of the game, but after that review and a half, I think I owe it to you at least for putting so much time and effort into reviewing it, to at least buy the game. Great review, if a little long, but still, thanks for your work!

 

[veloper]

The reviewer must have been an idiot then.
The GC2 AI is hopeless and doesn't do anything right. It gets where it is by getting stuff for free or at a huge discount.

Did you really read the article? Yes, the AI gets an economic bonus that grows as you increase the difficulty, but he pointed out that he didn't hike the difficulty particularly high because he knew he'd be eaten alive. And if the AI has no idea what it's doing, how did it manage to deadlock itself into a political conflict between the two seperate AIs of the Drengin and the Terrans so complicated that they reduced the reviewer's race to a political pawn for most of the game without him even realising it?

What really happened was the AI made very poor decisions and the player started to rationalize those decisions with nothing to go on.

If the AI were cunning, every race would have rushed transports to take planets from the player, while he was down.
Grabbing as much undefended property as you can the only sensible thing to do in such a situation.

The civ4 AI is much better. Civilizations tend to dogpile on weak civs, if a stronger empire declares war first, so the rest may still get some scraps before the bigggest civ gobbles everything up.

No it wasn't the best thing to do, you didn't read the article fully or you'd know that.

It would have resulted in an alliance victory instead of defeat.
Follow your own advice and read. You'd have known the AI lost to a lousy player.

Ganging up on the weak is always the best thing to do. At some points in that game the AI actually appreared to be trying to do this, but failed due to it's stupid inability to even defend troop transports.

And no, the AI doesn't cheat at all, despite your findings. Proof can be found here:


There are also several articles by the same man, lead developer of the series,

That's not proof. He's the bloody dev.
Do you believe everything Peter Molyneux says too?

So no, the AI doesn't cheat nor get anything for free.

You would have known the AI cheats extremely even on medium difficulty settings, if only you played the actual game. My findings are verifiable and repeatable.

 

[darksaber64x]

I absolutely loved this game. I enjoyed it so much more than Civilization. I was always more of a fan of random maps, so I've never played through any of the campaigns, but I'd invested HOURS into it.

I love that I never even have to fire a shot to slowly take over the galaxy.

I thank you good sir, for turning at least a few people over to the awesomness that is GalCiv 2. If they ever make a 3, you can bet I'll be buying it, no questions asked.

 

[Tryzon]

I hadn't even heard of the game, but after that review and a half, I think I owe it to you at least for putting so much time and effort into reviewing it, to at least buy the game. Great review, if a little long, but still, thanks for your work!

One of my main reasons for reviewing is to introduce people to fun games they mightn't be aware of, so you plan to buy GalCiv 2, then that makes me very happy indeed!

And this is probably about two reviews in one, so I applaud your determination. Many thanks.

 

[Tryzon]

I absolutely loved this game. I enjoyed it so much more than Civilization. I was always more of a fan of random maps, so I've never played through any of the campaigns, but I'd invested HOURS into it.

I love that I never even have to fire a shot to slowly take over the galaxy.

I thank you good sir, for turning at least a few people over to the awesomness that is GalCiv 2. If they ever make a 3, you can bet I'll be buying it, no questions asked.

That's very much my view, except I have yet to play a Civilization game so I can't comment on the series. But fear not, for I have ordered a copy of Civ 4 and eagerly await it!

If Stardock don't make a GalCiv 3, I may just have to take back all the nice things I said about them.

 

[Fenring]

Same company is also coming out with Elemental : War of Magic in a few weeks. If you like GalCiv than seriously check out elemental.
http://forums.elementalgame.com/


As for galciv2, it's an amazing game who's problem is the poor combat and AI reactions. We're at total war : I've sent everything to my front to destroy you. You are badly losing. But you'll keep 2-3 ships at every planet, just in case.

That doesn't strike me as a hopeless strategy, if over-protective. I would like to try Elemental, but doubt my PC would handle it well. I'm much more interested in Sins of a Solar Empire for now, anyway!

Sins is great. It has some problems, like almost everything dissolves down to kill everyone, but it's very good. Both the addons are very well done and add some good mechanics.

EDIT: But I'm pretty psyched for Star Ruler, which looks like a more war based version of Sins, with more room for tactics. Comes out in about two weeks, however, the specs are noticeably higher than Sins. http://starruler.blind-mind.com/

 

[The Madman]

It would have resulted in an alliance victory instead of defeat.
Follow your own advice and read. You'd have known the AI lost to a lousy player.

Ganging up on the weak is always the best thing to do. At some points in that game the AI actually appreared to be trying to do this, but failed due to it's stupid inability to even defend troop transports.
...
That's not proof. He's the bloody dev.
Do you believe everything Peter Molyneux says too?
..
You would have known the AI cheats extremely even on medium difficulty settings, if only you played the actual game. My findings are verifiable and repeatable.

Heh, you really didn't read that article did you? Or the comment your quoting for that matter. The AI runs independent of one another for each race rather than 'all vs player' which is what you get in Civ4 for example. Sure, the Terran could have easily crushed the player. Problem is, the other races in the Terran Alliance were still trying to themselves win and deny the Terran AI a victory. Allowing the Terran to defeat the player would have meant their own defeat. Thus, it makes perfect sense, but then I'm sure you knew that because it's all explained.

And no, I obviously don't believe everything Molyneux says, but this isn't Molyneux we're talking about, and frankly I'm more willing to believe the staff and developers of the game as well as my own experiences over one embittered troll on the internet. Bluntly put, I know it's impossible to change your mind. Your mind is made up. I just want other people to see these things and see someone arguing with you so they either take the 'I'll see for myself' approach or simply ignore your post as another angry rant on the internet. The game is good enough I think it deserves that chance.

 

[veloper]

It would have resulted in an alliance victory instead of defeat.
Follow your own advice and read. You'd have known the AI lost to a lousy player.

Ganging up on the weak is always the best thing to do. At some points in that game the AI actually appreared to be trying to do this, but failed due to it's stupid inability to even defend troop transports.
...
That's not proof. He's the bloody dev.
Do you believe everything Peter Molyneux says too?
..
You would have known the AI cheats extremely even on medium difficulty settings, if only you played the actual game. My findings are verifiable and repeatable.

Heh, you really didn't read that article did you? Or the comment your quoting for that matter. The AI runs independent of one another for each race rather than 'all vs player' which is what you get in Civ4 for example. Sure, the Terran could have easily crushed the player. Problem is, the other races in the Terran Alliance were still trying to themselves win and deny the Terran AI a victory. Allowing the Terran to defeat the player would have meant their own defeat.

Wrong again. This isn't the "Terran alliance". The Drengin are allied to both the Yor AND the Terrans. It was all 3 vs the player.
That means the Drengin would have WON an alliance victory, if the player were eliminated.
So would the terrans and the yor for that matter, though the Drengin would have won with a higher score.

You didn't even have to be capable of reading to figure this out. It's displayed graphically in a simple figure on the site.

Thus, it makes perfect sense, but then I'm sure you knew that because it's all explained.

Giving up a sure victory never makes sense, but that is beside the point, because there was no rhyme or reason to the AI behaviour in the first place. The AI was just fumbling as usual.

And no, I obviously don't believe everything Molyneux says, but this isn't Molyneux we're talking about, and frankly I'm more willing to believe the staff and developers of the game as well as my own experiences over one embittered troll on the internet. Bluntly put, I know it's impossible to change your mind. Your mind is made up. I just want other people to see these things and see someone arguing with you so they either take the 'I'll see for myself' approach or simply ignore your post as another angry rant on the internet. The game is good enough I think it deserves that chance.

Your experiences with the game? The AI cheats alot. Pay more attention to the game next time or start playing at a higher difficulty than easy.

 

[Tryzon]

I'm pretty psyched for Star Ruler, which looks like a more war based version of Sins, with more room for tactics. Comes out in about two weeks, however, the specs are noticeably higher than Sins. http://starruler.blind-mind.com/

Intriguing. I have significant doubts that my PC could handle such a demanding game, but it's in my "future" pile.

 

[RocksW]

Read the whole thing, then went to play.com, searched for it and bought it. great review man!

 

[Tryzon]

Read the whole thing, then went to play.com, searched for it and bought it. great review man!

Why thank you, and I fully expect that you'll get your money's worth with your purchase. Having read that titantic-sized review, you'll know I'm rather fond of the game.

 

[Extraintrovert]

Sweet Krop-Tor's testicles, that was a wall of text. This is an amount of effort that I have rarely seen for any review, let alone for a forum, and I am most certainly impressed.

Slightly more relevantly, the only time I was made aware of this game was when I read a Lets Play of it (involving an entirely peaceful civilisation that originally never waged war but was eventually detonating stars on a regular basis), and I must say it intrigues me immensely. I want to purchase it if only to support the developers, as I have immense difficulty with even standard strategy games and something of this complexity will leave me gibbering in a corner. I suppose what I'm attempting to type is that the review is fantastic and the game seems equally so, but it doesn't appeal to me. Oh well.