GalCiv2: Dread Lords

[Kalah]

I've just played my first game... won by cultural conquest after 5 hours. It's now 4:30 in the morning and I'd better get to bed before regretting buying this thing...

[jeff]

Sounds like it might be a good expansion. I have bought and installed Gal Civ II, but had only made it through the tutorial before H-V sucked all gaming desire from me. Happily I am re-engerized after a month long gaming break and about to relook a GCII.

[Campaigner]

I've played about 4-5 missions in the campaign. I'm sure it's really good if like slow TBS games where it's the planning that's important (what to build and what first?) and there's no real action at all. Kinda regret buying actually....
Anyway, I got dragged back into the RTS grene recently and will go back when patch 1.3 comes out.

Oh, and play on Tough/Intelligent since that's where you and the A.I are on equal footing.
And you gotta try a gigantic map on tough with all races enabled. Just having races of your own alignment is kinda abusive with good diplomacy. And don't forget to turn techtrading off.

[DaemianLucifer]

I really rarely update my games,but due to an interesting error I decided to download the patch for GCII.And to my suprise I found out that not only does this game has better AI than HV,not only has better anti-piracy doctrine,but it also has better support.It seems that patches are released as soon as theyre made.So,after some 30 minutes,I can finally go back to enjoying anihilation of the dread lords (their anihilation of me,that is )

Interesting though how one of the best inovations is missed by almost everyone.I replayed MOO2 recently,and in all games like this that Ive played(MOO,civ,ascendancy)in each planet/city you can either build a building or train a unit,but not both.Only galciv alows for both to be done simultaneously.So managing your colony became just a background process(which it should be),while your military comes in front.

[Avonu]

Not only better support but also better patches than HV.
You could download GalCiv2 patch 1.3 beta (I really think that this idea should be in HV - not only for few testers but for all players- wel, we all have our dreams) and when GalCiv2 1.3 patch arrived, week later was patch 1.31 fixing bugs which probably you will never notice.
It is shame that HV hasn't such developers support.

And one more thing - if someone didn't notice it yet:
GalCiv2 expansion:Dark Avatar (soon)

[DaemianLucifer]

And its not tm,its this fall Im so getting this one.Considering the world atmospheres theyll add,we will finally have a game that continues MOO2

[Kalah]

It's a very nice game that can be replayed for ages. Not sure I'll buy the expansion.

[MistWeaver]

Outstanding game! I love it

not only does this game has better AI than HV

No, you cant say like this You see.. HV has no AI .. just some cheating garbage. While GC2 has one of the best AI in the history of TBS games.
So its wrong even to compare them

in all games like this that Ive played(MOO,civ,ascendancy)in each planet/city you can either build a building or train a unit,but not both.Only galciv alows for both to be done simultaneously.

Imperium Galactica 2 (one of my fav. space strategies) has same mechanics. Also unlike many 4x you command planet siege as well as space battle.
I know, one can say that IG2 is RTS, but its not true (at least not in singleplayer). While it realy does not have "end turn" button, it has Time control wich is allowing to pass time from usber-fast till pause. So no big diffrence for me.

[DaemianLucifer]

Imperium Galactica 2 (one of my fav. space strategies) has same mechanics. Also unlike many 4x you command planet siege as well as space battle.
I know, one can say that IG2 is RTS, but its not true (at least not in singleplayer). While it realy does not have "end turn" button, it has Time control wich is allowing to pass time from usber-fast till pause. So no big diffrence for me.

Interesting.Ill try and find it if I can.

[Kalah]

Yes, the AI is quite good when you up the difficulty levels (yes, Ethric, I know I started at a low one, but that was because I wanted to learn how to play).

[MistWeaver]

Interesting.Ill try and find it if I can.

Here's some screens to get the idea
http://www.ag.ru/screenshots/imperium_g ... ances/3290

[MistWeaver]

Patch 1.4 is out

[Kalah]

Eeeexcellent.

[The Mad Dragon]

It's been quite awhile since I've played this game. Though I'm lacking a graphics card right now, that game is quite challenging, but fun. I love the voting part.

[Caradoc]

I'm looking at buying GalCiv2. How does it compare to MOO?

[DaemianLucifer]

Two completelly different games.Though they do have some touching points like ship design,planet managment,and the like,they play completelly different.

[MistWeaver]

Yet, GalCiv2 has much better AI.

[Caradoc]

Ok, so now I know it's different from MOO. But what makes it fun to play?

Things I like:
- elaborate tech tree
- special powers
- trading
- ship design
- ancient artifacts


Things I don't:
- managing economy
- fleet level combat
- linear missions
- diplomacy (unless very well executed)

[Campaigner]

Techtree - Grand one

Special powers - There are buildings there can only be one of which you can build after having researched a certain part of the techtree like Eyes of the Universe (which requires the entire sensor tree) which gives +15 view range around all your planets.

Trading - You can trade and request anything. There's an option for turning techtrading off which is recommended to use though since the game becomes too easy with techtrading.

Ship Design - This feature has become a major thing and is superpopular. You can take any hull (need to download something first) and put on as much extra parts as you wish but for useful stuff like weapons, engines and shields the hull decides how much you can put on with a point system.

Ancient artifacts - There's plenty of "treasure" that your starting surveyship will find but no artifacts as you mean (relics in HoMM).


Managing economy - You set the economy with sliders for every planet (in v.1.0 it was one slider for all planets and it's MUCH better now) in military, social and research. Military decides how long it will take to produce ships (I think 10 BC is 1 "military icon"), social decides how long it will take to build stuff on the planet and reasearch how long it'll take to get new technologies.

Fleet lvl combat - You mean tactical combat? In GalCiv IIs current state the ships fire simultaneously on the weakest/most threatening enemy I think. You can't control it.

Linear missions - The campaign is against a superpowerful race with ships that got 100x the weapon you got but they still only got 16 hp so they're quite easy to kill with all-out offensive ships. THe campaign isn't wellmade IMO but the real game is in the sandbox which generates a new map every time you play according to some things you set such as galaxy size, amount of planets, tight or scattered star clusters, amount of anomalies, amount of habitable planets....but you can't set a NUMBER. Only "none", "few", "uncommon", "common" and "abundant".

Diplomacy - It's very smart (at least on the difficulty where he plays to the best of his ability).


But personally it was a mistake to buy this game. I don't like it since it's simply dull IMO. There's no cool stuff, no tactical combats, no action...just planning....I want to sell it....(but you can't download updates if the serial is tied to an account already).

[DaemianLucifer]

Ancient artifacts - There's plenty of "treasure" that your starting surveyship will find but no artifacts as you mean (relics in HoMM).

There also can be found special planets with life forms,artifacts and the like.There are numerous random events,plus more can be downloaded via mods.

But better buy it with the expansion.It brings asteroid mining,more race uniqueness and similar things.