galactic civilization 2

[yourbestfriend]

Should it be my next game??? I played a strategy game demo once, I liked it. Different than FPS I play mostly. I am scared I will be bored with it

 

[llama_man]

You've only ever played the demo for one strategy game? 8O

If you're reticent about shelling out big bucks for a new game, try buying (or borrowing from a friend) an older game to see what type of strategy game suits you. A GOOD strategy game never grows old, even if the graphics look dated.

Personal favourites (all of which are on budget release these days):

Age of Empires 2
Caesar III
Civilization 2 (old as the hills, but it's still great. Civ 3 also good, but not as cheap!)
Master of Orion 2 (again - an old, old game but totally addictive)

 

[yourbestfriend]

i bought it... i like it alot. I think once i figure out how to play I will like it more. Should I be hitting the turn button alot? how much do you do in a turn?

 

[llama_man]

Not played it, but if it's a turn-based game I'd suggest doing everything you need to do before clicking the turn button! A whole game will take several hundred turns, so yes you'll be clicking the button a lot!

 

[infornography42]

Yeah, Galciv2 is awesome.

I particularly like customizing my ships. I'm addicted to ship creation now. Its almost as bad as CoH was with designing heroes.

I also am very glad that it has 0 copy protection. None. Not even a little bit. The serial code during installation is optional and if you register using your serial code then it entitles you to download the game from their website if you lose your copy. 8O

I had to buy it just on principle. I refuse to let a game that trusts its audience enough to not copy protect it go without sufficient sales.

My message to everyone, BUY THIS GAME! For the love of god encourage this stuff! You'll be glad you did because the game is great to boot!

 

[xaint]

I bought the game when it first came out, since I loved Master of Orion 2. And based on much of the gameplay, Gal. Civ. is what Master of Orion 3 should've been. However, the only gripe I do have is that there isn't enough description about the research fields that one goes into. All you basically get is... "You've researched this, so now you get to research this..." It would've been nice to know exactly what I'm getting weapon-wise if I were to research Laser II. The other research fields do an all right job of describing what I'm going to get regarding improvements and stuff, but weapons and shields just seem to lack the technical details and depth I would like to expect from a strategy game.

All in all, I had a somewhat hard time trying to actually get into the game, since for a long time, I didn't understand why farms were such a detrimental part of planet building. And in effect, I felt that made it very hard to win on a difficulty level more than NORMAL, since most times, the AI usually expanded incredibly faster than I did when it came to finding planets and colonizing them. So as a result, you would have to resort to the few planets you had and try to get as many credits from them as possible.

Overall, I liked the game. I'm just nit-picky, I guess. And in my personal opinion, it would probably not rank as high as Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which I still play to this day.

 

[Aaron McKenna]

It's odd that the game isn't explained well... it's exceptionally deep and exceptionally good, but you have to figure all that out for yourself. Still, I really liked the original, which was something of a surprise strategy hit that really came out from nowhere, and I think the sequel is a big step in an even brighter direction.

 

[llama_man]

But Alpha Centauri is a different type of game though. AC is basically sci-fi Civilization, whereas I understand that GalCivII is more of a MOO2-style game?

Off on a slight tangent... I never quite got into Alpha Centauri. Although designing your own troops was pretty nifty, it never quite "got" me the way Civ2 did. The graphics were depressing (all dark green and brown with a bit of dark red). The storyline is a one-shot wonder, which isn't great for a type of game that's supposed to have high replay value.

It was good, but I always preferred Civ 2. Hell, I even played Call to Power (and CTP2) more than I did Alpha Centauri. Civ 3 is good too, but I miss the wonder videos. Haven't tried Civ 4 yet, as I'm too busy with other games (I'll get it when it comes out on budget, or a "gold" version with the planned add-on disc).

 

[woshitudou]

Pax Imperia is my fav. I have Gal Civ also and they're similar but I played Pax more.

 

[stillerfan]

MOO 2 was awsome but MOO 3 sucked - Galactic Civ 2 is what MOO 3 should have been. Anyone here remember Starflight?

 

[woshitudou]

Of all the games I've played I'd have to say my favorites were from oldest played to newest

Zelda
Romance of the 3 Kingdoms
Civilization
Cyber Empries
Warlords
Masters of Magic
Warcraft 2
Duke3D
Unreal tournament (all Unreals for that matter)
Starcraft
Diablo 1 and 2
Heroes 3
Pax Imperia
Halo

Of all those my top favorites are:
1. Halo
2. Duke3D
3. Warcraft 2
4. Unreal

 

[Psimon]

I love strategy games with resource gathering, research, territory expansion & conflict. I've been looking for a good space-version one and I'll have to check this one out.

Anyone remember a game called "Elite"? It ran on the Commodore Amiga, but I think they may have ported it to the PC, or an unauthorized version was ported. . . space-trading game, I loved it. I also loved Star Control.

I still play Civ2-Call to Power.

 

[infornography42]

Ahh Elite.

I played a bit of Elite 2 Plus. It was fun but didn't last.

Elite 2 Frontier on the other hand was pure awesome. I lived that game for months when I was a kid. I amassed so much money that I could afford to fly my ship up to the three space stations around earth, kill every cop they could muster, pay off my fine, eject and self destruct the ship, then buy a new one and equip it on a whim.

Nothing could hurt the biggest ship in the game with a cargo hold half full of shield generators. ;-)

 

[woshitudou]

I used to play Trade Wars on the BBS. Too bad the Amiga ended up being managed by clowns because it roxor'd. I don't remember so much except for the agnus chip, denise chip, populous, 14 bit sound? a guru error. I download kickstart 1.3, workbench and an emulator years ago. I wonder how fast it'd run on the systems today

 

[infornography42]

Ahh, the Guru Meditation Error.

How many games did that error destroy for me?
*sigh*

I loved my amigas.