Galactic Civilizations 2

[Chewbacca]

Hey has anybody played this yet? It is available for DL and will be in stores soon.

I read a glowing review and might go download it right now. I wondered if anyone else has tried it out yet?

[Luvian]

I'm interested in it, it seem nice.

There's also Star Wars: Empire at War that's interesting. I've been playing it for 2 days, and it't been entertaining. It remind me of a mix between Starcraft and Master of Orion.

[Chewbacca]

Yeah GC 2 is a pretty sweet game. Still no tactical combat like in MOO2 but as a 4x game it is quite deep and moves the genre forward nicely.

I skipped GC 1, but now I'm Thinking of going back and giving that a try as well.

Star Wars Empire at War is another on my list of reccomended games.

[Luvian]

I heard GC 1 wasn't that good. It didn't have that many feature or story. But I guess if you played all the other games of the genre if might be a good choice.

[Kakero]

Is this game similar to imperium galactica type? I've been looking for similar game for a long time.

[Dreamer128]

Originally posted by Luvian: I heard GC 1 wasn't that good. It didn't have that many feature or story. But I guess if you played all the other games of the genre if might be a good choice.

It was a truly awesome game. True, there was no story to speak of (unless you bought the expansion), but the gameplay was pure gold. The A.I was impressive, and there were many ways to complete the game. You could remain at peace and win through cultural indoctrination, economic might or technology, or you could built a massive fleet and beat everyone into submission. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[DBear]

Tried the GC1 demo, wasn't at all impressed.

[Luvian]

I borrowed GC1 from a friend and I didn't like it that much.

I had choosen a medium map with stars spread out, and even then in 10 minute of real time the whole star map was explored and all the "15+" quality planets were settled.

Then it took ages to get any ships. I had given myself as much research bonuses as possible, and I developed some defense and attack tech early. I build one defender at each of my system, and the game told me I was in the top militarily. Then a space creature came along and destroyed my defenses. Do we ever controls the space battles? Those I did were just automatic.

I wasn't impressed by the tech. I developped some engine tech, as well as shield and weapons, but beside the occasional ship there were nothing concrete. Just +10 laser, or such. It remove the interest in researching stuff if you get nothing to show for it.

I didn't like the pacing of the game. It was super fast to explore the map, then it take ages to create a decent fleet. Considering everyone had only 4 planets or so, the game would then have been fast once we did manage to get a fleet going. It felt like the game was a fast period of exploration, a long period spent making your army, then a fast period of total war. It didn't feel like there would be many skirmishes.

In my opinion, Master of Orion II is better than this one. I guess what disapointed me is that this game isn't an upgraded version of Master of Orion II.

I want to try the second one, but I wasn't impressed by the first one.

[Chewbacca]

No game yet has managed top MOO2 in all aspects in the space-based 4x game genre IMO. Glaringly absent is turn-based ship combat. Even MOO2's somewhat flawed and exploitable system is better than just passively watching for me.


GC2 does have cool ship customization and ship-building decisions are key to successful military strategy. So it far seems to come very close to great all other areas, including pacing. It's diplomacy and economic models are nice and deep BUT the espionage system is quite shallow. I like the tech tree. It is very large and yet still fairly streamlined.

So GC2 doesn't top MOO2, but it's a great step in that direction. I hear the Stardock is great about updating and expanding it's games, which is good for GC2's potential.

Overall I'm glad I bought it! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Dreamer128]

Hm.. tactical combat wasn't included in GC1 because the dev's wanted to stimulate players to win by using peaceful methods. To this end, they created quite the interesting diplomatic system. The computer measures factors such as their economic dependency on the player, the threat of cultural indoctrination and fleet size when deciding on their stance towards you. [img]smile.gif[/img]