Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (PC, 2006)

I have played a number of strategy games over the years--from "Spaceward Ho," Master of Orion and Sid Meier's games to the Empire Earth series--and Galactic Civilization II: Dread Lords now ranks up there among my favorites. You get to play one of the stock races or you can customize your race by choosing from a variety of racial bonuses that you can tailor to your play style. From there you begin with your homeworld and expand outwards, staking your claim in the universe. If you were a fan of the first two Master of Orion games you will really enjoy Galactic Civilization.

Graphics-wise there is nothing spectacular about this game. It is turn based and while you control the composition of your battle fleets, the computer always controls the actual fighting. However, you can control the design and look of your ships and can design individual ships. This gives you an enormous advantage if you play smart: for example if your opponents are relying heavily on rail gun weapon technology, you can counter by building ships designed to stop that sort of weaponry.

The game gets good support and has been updated regularly to address issues. The game has been tweaked a number of times to make it more enjoyable and there are plans to make it even more satisfying. The AI is quite good and apparently getting better with future updates. It can recognize an imminent attack (say when you mass a fleet on a border) and you'll sometimes get a diplomatic message warning you to back off. If you get too far ahead technologically, the other civilizations will refuse to trade any of their weapons techs with you. A civilization clearly about to be overwhelmed will surrender rather than fight to the bitter end; but usually they will surrender to one of your rivals, giving them a few extra planets and resources that will tend to balance things out.

Galactic Civilizations II is not for the "fast twitch" crowd; it is a slow paced, thoughtful game that plays out over days. I would give it 5 of 5 stars, however there are a few things I'm not satisfied with: for example, there is still a memory issue that causes lag in the latter stages of the games with larger universes, particularly when reloading a saved game. I'm sure this will be addressed eventually, but for now it is a remains a problem.

The game is a lot of fun, but two things mar the experience.

First off, the game is rather bland. Other than the Altarians, who are good human guys, and the Drengin, who are the bad klingon like guys, you'd be hard pressed to put a name to the face of any of the other aliens. They are just boring, just generic humanoids. The only alien to have any real personality are only a minor race, a race of evil Teddy Bears.

The blandness extends to the tech tree. Titanium Armor. Titanium Armor II. Titanium Armor III. Then a new armor name and repeat. Pretty much all the starship techs are like that. And are many of the planetary improvements.

While there are occasional random events, all of them have been recycled from the first game, and there weren't all that many different ones in that to begin with.


Secondly, the game feels unfinished and unpolished, and the game is rather buggy. The initial version was playable, but only just. After 2 patches, it does seem stable, but still not 100% polished. There are also still a number of "design flaws" to be worked out. For instance, the AI surrenders at the drop of a hat, which can be infuriating.

It's also missing a few features, like some bits of technology. Not enough to be a problem, and are apparently being added in patches, but somewhat annoying.

Still, the bugs and missing stuff are annoying enough that I am knocking off a point. In 2007, when everything is fixed and there, it will probably be a 9/10, but right now it's a 8/10. Still, definitely worth buying if you are a turn based strategy fan.

This is my first time into the galactic civ series. I am a big fan of turn-based strategy games like Sid Meier's Civilization series. And Galactic Civ II is like Civilization in space!

The developer, Stardock, has been providing great community support through updates and downloads. Also big plus to Stardock for putting no copy-protection. And no need for leaving the CD into the computer to play the game either.

The minor things I can complain about is the graphics is not the latest and greatest. Feels like it was developed back in 2000. Also no multiplayer.

The space graphics are fantastic. However the game loads and unloads at a snails pace. There were no rules or instructions, such as what knowledge gains lead to what advancement. There are 4 ways to win, but I have only figured out how to win using one method. I don't make individual moves of pieces, but set where I want the computer to move the piece to and autopilot takes over. I like this, but it does not stop when encountering another race's ship. It should so I can note where it is, attack or not and then resume. Because of this, I am not as addicted to this game as the original Civilization. For me this is good. Access to an information knowledge base would have vastly improved this game.

Very much like the "Civilization" game in that it is turn-based, you play against computer AI, customizable settings and lots of in-game information to process. Even includes governors to help avoid micro-managing headaches. Highly recommend title this to anyone. Can even run the game with older model system with lower end graphics (64mb RAM on-board video).