Galciv2

hairball

looking to expand my gaming horizons a little and as far as strategy stuff goes Galactic Civilizations 2 seems to get a critical thumbs up everywhere...anyone here played it? Is it good?

steviec

hairball wrote:

looking to expand my gaming horizons a little and as far as strategy stuff goes Galactic Civilizations 2 seems to get a critical thumbs up everywhere...anyone here played it? Is it good?

It's fantastic.

I haven't played it as much as I'd like because I find once I start a game nothing gets done till it's finished.

It's a civ-in-space game, but one that just feels right, with the best AI out there. The ship builder alone could keep you occupied for hours.

I haven't played enough to go into details about why it's better than other games of the type, but it does just draw me in whenever I play.

hairball

cool, nice one, i'm downloading the demo now, not sure how much insight it'll give me, but i'm getting more and more into the idea of buying it.

hairball

anyone had probs with the demo?

Pugsley

Never played the demo, but the full game is excellent, the initial release is a buggy mess, and nigh on unplayable (loading causes crash's, so saves dont work), but patch it up to the latest and Id say its an even better game than Civ4, the AI is miles ahead of anything else in the turn based strategy market.

Maximilian

Its an awesome game. Crack Cocaine in fact. You could spend hours messing with the in-game Ship Designer itself. It took a long time for a proper follow-up to MOO2 but it was worth the wait.

You can buy the game from www.stardock.com.

It got patched ages ago, so all the bugs have been ironed out.

bizmark

Ya its good put it has horrible slow down problems caused mostly imho because teh ai isnt smart enough to upgrade the speed of their troop transports so all they do is spam the ****ing galaxy with hundereds of troop transports going to and from war's that half the time end before they even get their.

It really ruins the game and would be nice if you could close your boarders to keep the morons out of your space.

Sand

Anyone find the economic/diplomacy bonuses are far and away the most powerful? Even the game designer advises you not to hook up huge production facitilites early because itll drive your wealth into the gutter if you dont have the income to cover that production. Wealth to me seems to be the most important determining factor in allowing you to outproduce and outresearch everyone else. If you dont have income then you cant produce or research. Hence wealth bonuses would be the better pick as it gives you the flexiability and you cant exploit other bonuses without it anyway. Or am I missing something?

If you spend heavily early on and get into the neat position where your selling tech to the minor races especially youll (Obviously never trading diplomatic techs, but everything else is up for grabs imo - when theyre giving you all the money, theyll never be able to utilise their new techs) then your dominance is close to unchallengeable. Smart AIs will grasp what youre up to of course, but by that stage youll be so far in front youll never be caught. Everyone else ends up paying for your R&D, sucking money out of their own economy.

Pugsley

For the long term yea their the most powerful, but it cam also be very effective to ruse in that game, once you get about 6 colony ships out I usually get about 3 small fighters and put them in a fleet and then start escorting marine transports into enemy territory, can usually get 2 planets taken before anyone else has a military at all, by then the team Im attacking is beyond help and Ive just doubled the size of my empire, which is also quite powerful in the long term

bizmark

I just go custom race:

30% economic bonus
20% moral bonus
15% research bonus

Then pick the new propulsion/ion drive techs pump out colony ships like its going out of style on my home planet while researching up to total majesty so i can build the spin control center build that on my most productive planet then start pumping out uber defenders full of weapons you only need 12 constantly upgraded to make it seem your the most powerful milirty since Rome you are then free to build up your planets your technology and your real military while the others fight each other

I also normal use class 11+ planets as purely hive planets full of farms entertainment and economic buildings all class 10 get used as purely research/manufacturing with 1 farm/entertainment combo with class 9 planets down being used as research/manufacturing with no farms

Using that set up no empire has yet defeated me in god knows how many games

hairball

cool..i dont have to play it now:P

humanji

Well I spent about 2 days on the ship creator and then realised I'd forgotten about the actual game! :eek:

garrethg

Just to emphasise for those on dial-up like myself for which downloading patches isn't a trivial matter: THE GAME IS BUG-RIDDEN DISTASTER OUT OF THE BOX. It will not only crash on saving the game but also corrupt the save game itself, so be prepared for major frustrations.

When patched it's excellent - the best 4x released in years. Granted, besides CIV 4, it's the only 4x released in years...

When patched it's excellent and a huge step up from the first Windows version - the best 4x released in years. Granted, besides CIV 4, it's the only 4x released in years