Others say...

"Great game, lots of hours of play"
It gives as much hours of fun as Civilization 4, it is hard to stop and go to sleep. Very addictive.

And even more, it doesn't have any kind of DRM, one can install it on desktop, laptop and play on both. One of the few games that are really bought ant not just rented.
Stardock keep up the good work.


"There's still wonder out there"
I've been playing computer strategy games for a long time, and by now my attitude could be better. I wanted something new, but had drifted away from playing games and nothing seemed to impress anymore. I longed for the days of X Com: UFO Defense and the like, but nothing out there seemed to measure up, including the present day supposed greats. Then Galactic Civilizations II came along and made me stay up till dawn twice in a week and till 3 a.m. twice too. When I begin saying, "This has got to stop!", I know I've found something special.

GalCiv2 is loaded with personality and, unlike some of the best-regarded competition, does not substitute complexity for depth. The decisions you make feel like they are really impacting your results rather than just wasting your time on not just endless but, worse, ultimately nearly pointless micromanagement. This turns continuously learning ever more about the game so you can play it just that little bit better into something fun rather than a burden. That's quite a design accomplishment, and one of the things that gives this game a very long potential life span.

Players expand their empires and conquer the universe in about as many ways as they can dream up. The game is very customizable. You can play on random maps from tiny to immense, creating games that last a few hours to weeks or months, against almost no opponents or quite a few. You can even make up custom races of your own, and, within limitations, balance their strengths and weaknesses yourself. You can go for victories via war, diplomacy, alliance, influence, research superiority, and more. You can be a bully or a peacenik or a shrewd financier. You can fight less or more, with premade ship styles or ones you design yourself. But all the while, an AI widely recognized in the gaming world as of superior quality is making plans of its own for you, and you had better be ready. If you're not, well ... you can dial its capabilities up or down next time! Or go find a saved game and see if you can figure out or avoid your mistakes.

There are campaigns, but the game really opens up in "sandbox" mode, the design and playing of your own size, pace, and style of game. The game is a wonderful puzzle to figure out. And once you think you have, you can do it again by playing a different alien race and learning from the ground up.

This is all the more mesmerizing with the next expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, which requires this package to run. TOA makes the research trees of each alien race markedly different, which lends the races a distinctness that improves replay value even more.

If you have any love for single-player strategy games, GalCiv2 is not a gamble. It's definitely the prize among its peers, and the best game I've played in many years.



Galactic Civilizations II Gold

"Good, but not Great"
The Good: Hours of addictive empire building
The Bad: Weak AI and no multiplayer makes for little challenge beyond building the perfect empire

Let me start by giving you some context - I'm a Noble level player on Civ 4. I've been playing Civ-style games since the old Empire game on Macs and the original Civilization on PC, and I won't make any claim to have ever reached the upper difficulty levels. I get plenty of enjoyment out of the bottom half of the difficulty tree.

So when I start my review by passing along that I have yet to find a level of AI in this game that is a significant challenge, that should tell you something.

I purchased GC2 with all the expansions, including the recently released Twilight of the Arnor expansion. Overall, I have spent many hours playing the game, and thoroughly enjoyed building up empires and conquering the galaxy. It's good, classic, Civ-style fun.

That said, it has all the weaknesses of classic civ. An "infinite-city-sprawl" strategy still wins every time - grab more planets than the other civs and it's hard to lose. The AI doesn't seem to "think smarter" at higher levels, it just gets to cheat; e.g., you just get more penalties and they get more bonuses. The problem is, the AI is so poor that the cheats aren't really sufficient to overcome its weaknesses.

You can tell the designers were concerned about the lack of challenge from the AI because they have added "mega events," which tend to be game-breaking, random events. Having experienced most of them, I turned them off. The whole point the mega events appears to be to give you the human player something else to worry about besides the AI - whether it be ridiculously numerous fleets of super-teched pirates, the return of the super-advanced precursor race, or economy-crippling viruses... (In one case, one of the AI discovered a lost pre-cursor warship that was so advanced that the combined fleets of every race in the game probably could not have destroyed it. Completely at a loss as to what I could do, I offered the AI all of my techs in trade for his ship. Amazingly, he gave it to me. Needless to say, my invincible armada quickly wrapped up the game.) The problem with these events is that the AI is even *less* capable of dealing with them than you are. So the human player must spend endless turns returning things to the status quo, just so he or she can get back to conquering the now-even-more-pathetic AI civs.

These flaws are very disappointing, especially considering the advances that have been made in the genre in the last 17 years.

That said, there are things about the game to like.

If you like customization, it's here in spades. Not only can you customize the design and look of your ships, but you can name *everything* in the game; ships, planets, stars, starbases, etc. You can design your own civilization, including looks, names, and abilities.

The combat system is straightforward, with a good rock-paper-scissors feel. And there are plenty of ways to win that don't require planet-to-planet conquest.

There are plenty of avenues for empire building. Whether it's getting your planets up and running, crafting that perfect fleet, or cobbling together a network of starbases to enhance your economy or spread your cultural influence, you'll find lots to keep you wanting to take one more turn.

In the end, I've returned to playing on the tiny map - its makes for a faster paced, more challenging game, as there are less planets for you to gobble up to get an "ICS" advantage over the AI.

If you're looking for a decent civ-style game to keep you busy while you wait for the next offering from the genre, I'd recommend this game. Just don't expect the depth and challenge you get from a game like Civilization 4.

Finally, Vista Users - I don't know what the other reviewer's issues were, but I'm running the game on Vista and it works beautifully.

"Good strategy game"
Strategy game is improvement over original, but graphics are harder to use and less clear than original.

"Good, but not great"
Ok, this is a decent game. I love strategy and even turn-based stuff. I play it all the time. That said, I cringe to say this too: this game can become quite boring. Don't get me wrong: it's not boring all the time, but it lacks a certain spark. the tech tree is quite bland, and it lacks any useful info about WHAT the tech does. It is also a little TOO straightforward...for instance you research Torpedos I, then Torpedos II, and so on...with that being the only listed improvement.

All in all, its a fair game, but I am going back to some older turn based space strategies.