Galactic Civilizations 2

[Divinus Arma]

Feedback please. Pros and Cons?

Anything that drives you nuts or ruins the game?

How is the combat system?

Any additional info is greatly appreciated. I might be buying this tonight.

[Tratorix]

Feedback please. Pros and Cons?

Anything that drives you nuts or ruins the game?

How is the combat system?

Any additional info is greatly appreciated. I might be buying this tonight.

It's a good turn-based strategy, but there really isn't a combat system. Basically, your ships and the enemies ships take turns firing at each other and you have absolutely no control. This lack of anything tactical is what really turned me off about it. I still like the game, but I think it could have been so much better if they had just added some rudimentary tactical controls.

[TB666]

Well combat is just based on how you designed your ships(yes you design your own ships).
The better the ship, the great chance you have of winning the fight.
Planet invasions are alittle more interesting.
You pick various option on you wanna start the invasion, things like gassing the population, spread propaganda etc etc.
Each of these will give you a special boost for the common battle.
There your invasion force(numbers depends on the size of your transport ship which you also design) against a certain precentage of their population.
You then roll a dice that decides advantage and disadvantage and battle starts.
But overall combat is nothing special at all which is really the only con in the game.

The rest is superb really.

[CBR]

Heavy on empire building, light on combat. Played one campaign and it was nice but not good enough for me to try again.


CBR

[Divinus Arma]

Bought Civilization IV Gold instead. Installing now. How is it?

[Quirinus]

I'm actually more of a fan of the first game, the thing that broke my enthusiasm for the game (despite the very nice ship design feature) was how the planets were depicted-- it became virtually a Civ-in-space. There were actually other quibbles for me too, such as how you have to officially research an ethical alignment, which doesn't sound right to me. A cool thing about the game's combat, though, is that unlike most games where higher-tech/tier automatically means better, in GalCiv II spamming hordes of low-tier, low-cost cannon fodder is actually a legitimate strategy.

[Martok]

A cool thing about the game's combat, though, is that unlike most games where higher-tech/tier automatically means better, in GalCiv II spamming hordes of low-tier, low-cost cannon fodder is actually a legitimate strategy.

Indeed. Stardock wanted the game to be all about freedom of choice, and that's an excellent example.

It's also nice to have a strategy game where the AI is not only competent, it can downright kick your arse all over the galaxy (and without cheating!). I've only played a couple times on some of the higher difficulty settings, and I still get pummeled. I love it.


That said, I will agree with those who wish for controllable space battles. As it is, they're still kind of fun to watch, but I admit I'd prefer to play them out myself. Also, I wish that retreat would be a viable option -- I dislike strategy games where your only option in combat is to fight or die. (Whatever happened to discretion being the better part of valour? )

[professorspatula]

The game certainly has its merits, but for me it was a little pedestrian to get into. I loved Master of Orion 2 but struggled to get into this.

One thing I dislike intensely about ship combat is it's all about a series of numbers. The battle scenes are worthless as they don't really show what is truly going on as no matter how big the fleets are, only one ship is targeted at a time - the strongest. It ruins the level of immersion when you know you go into a battle and your best ship is guaranteed to be toast at the end of it. There's no random chance a smaller ship will soak up the damage first, just your best. You have no option to protect any veterans in the fleet, other than to send them home, whereas in MO2 you'd sooner sacrifice your small ships than have one of your elite Titans get destroyed in the first attack round.

I also didn't enjoy the economy system in the game. It takes a long time to be profitable, and in the opening rounds you're just playing around with various sliders that control funding to various activities and going on a colony building rush. With every patch and expansion they changed how it works, but for standard GC2 I didn't enjoy it. You also get penalised for building more advanced production facilities because the higher tier manufacturing plants produce more output but the cost per output unit remains the same. Even if you don't want to make anything, you're still footing a massive bill so early on building these advanced structures is too expensive. So much for economies of scale!

In the end I tried to get some fun from the game by editing a custom race and giving myself lots of massive bonuses to my race's stats. This enabled me to become an overlord of the galaxy and directly influence what happens when it comes to war and politics. It was also good fun building a series of cheap fighters and ships to sell to one race to help them fight a war, then do the same to their rivals, and watch them kick the seven bells out of one another, before stepping in with a giant battle cruiser and silencing them all.

But that's not the proper way to play!

There's fun to be had with GC2 for sure, but you do, to some extent, need to persevere to find it. Should you find it, you can guarantee hours upon hours of gameplay.

[Zenicetus]

GalCiv2 is a great game, it's probably going to stay on my drive longer than anything else in the last year or two. Here's what I like about it:

* Very, very good strategic AI, because the developer doesn't split resources between the strategic and tactical level. It's tough to design a good tactical AI that a human player can't "game" by exploiting weaknesses for an easy win, so Stardock focuses on just doing a great strategic AI. I think GalCiv is the only game I've played recently where I can't be sure I'll win against an AI that has no programmed advantage in the game engine (other than being able to fine-tune economy settings better than I can, as a number cruncher). That's saying something. Usually as I get better at a game, I have to move into difficulty levels where the AI has hard-coded advantages in cash and resources.

* With the last expansion (Twilight of the Arnor), all the major races have unique elements in their tech trees. An expansion strategy that works for one alien race, won't work for another. You have to learn and use each race's abilities, and minimize their weaknesses.

* No invasive DRM, an excellent record of updates and patches (although that's going to taper off, now that the current game is near the end of the life cycle), and a pre-order/open beta for user feedback. All of that is worth supporting with my money.

* The current version of the game is at the end of this major version, with multiple expansions and it's very well-tested and solid, at this point.

* I like randomized map generation strategy games like this. Every game is a little different. Sometimes way different, and the latest expansion offers new ways to play (individualized tech trees). That's what keeps my playing, on and off, between other "major" game releases.

* Multiple victory conditions, not just military, and you can disable any you don't like.

Responding to some points made here:

There were actually other quibbles for me too, such as how you have to officially research an ethical alignment, which doesn't sound right to me.

Ethical alignment is just there to make the diplomacy more challenging, and it's also an option to make some paths to victory a little easier. For example, if you play with randomized opponents, you don't know the alignment of your opponents in advance. Being able to shift your starting alignment, to ease diplomacy and trade, gain allies, or manipulate wars, is a huge benefit.

A cool thing about the game's combat, though, is that unlike most games where higher-tech/tier automatically means better, in GalCiv II spamming hordes of low-tier, low-cost cannon fodder is actually a legitimate strategy.

Not true in the current (ToA) expansion. :) The current combat system favors larger ships for several reasons.... the gun firing system, and also the way ships gain experience/toughness by surviving battles. Spamming cannon fodder doesn't work, and I think that's a good thing, because it encourages spending resources on the military tech tree, as a balance against rushing other victory conditions.

Also, I wish that retreat would be a viable option -- I dislike strategy games where your only option in combat is to fight or die. (Whatever happened to discretion being the better part of valour? )

The problem there is the same problem we see in TotalWar and other games that include a tactical layer. It's very hard to program an AI that can't be abused by feints, like teasing apart a battle line with cavalry feints in M2:TW. And even that game includes a penalty for withdrawing from battle, as a sop to the AI's inability to deal with feint maneuvers. Anything that isn't symmetrical like that in AI ability can be abused by the human player.

One thing I dislike intensely about ship combat is it's all about a series of numbers. The battle scenes are worthless as they don't really show what is truly going on as no matter how big the fleets are, only one ship is targeted at a time - the strongest. It ruins the level of immersion when you know you go into a battle and your best ship is guaranteed to be toast at the end of it. There's no random chance a smaller ship will soak up the damage first, just your best. You have no option to protect any veterans in the fleet, other than to send them home, whereas in MO2 you'd sooner sacrifice your small ships than have one of your elite Titans get destroyed in the first attack round.

Have you played with the latest (last) Twlilight of the Arnor expansion? The combat system has been tweaked so it's not the same as earlier versions.

I also didn't enjoy the economy system in the game. It takes a long time to be profitable, and in the opening rounds you're just playing around with various sliders that control funding to various activities and going on a colony building rush.

I agree that's one aspect of the game that many may not like. It takes a fairly long time to get your economy rolling, and it's definitely not a game for someone who wants a quick fight with the neighbors, except on the smallest map sizes. The TotalWar games are better in that respect. You can fight your way through some immediate territorial expansion from the first move, while you're still building up from a primitive beginning. GalCiv2 is paced differently, with a slow start-up phase, but I still like it.

[PBI]

* No invasive DRM, an excellent record of updates and patches (although that's going to taper off, now that the current game is near the end of the life cycle), and a pre-order/open beta for user feedback. All of that is worth supporting with my money.

That's a good point. You do get a nice warm glowy feeling just for buying the thing and supporting an actual customer-friendly business model, instead of something that demands you log on to the internet for an hour every time you want to play it and makes you feel as though you must have done something wrong. That the game is good does help though.

And to be fair, it is a proper TBS so I think we've all been spoilt a bit by Total War if we're expecting fancy real-time tactical battles (although that would be fantastic). It does what it says on the box - it's Civilizations, in space.

[Quirinus]

Ethical alignment is just there to make the diplomacy more challenging, and it's also an option to make some paths to victory a little easier. For example, if you play with randomized opponents, you don't know the alignment of your opponents in advance. Being able to shift your starting alignment, to ease diplomacy and trade, gain allies, or manipulate wars, is a huge benefit.

Yeah, but IMO it feels too artificial, in comparison with the very organic morality system in the first game, where your ethical alignments are simply defined by the choices you make. Being able to set your alignment makes it feel too much like a game mechanic.

Not true in the current (ToA) expansion. :) The current combat system favors larger ships for several reasons.... the gun firing system, and also the way ships gain experience/toughness by surviving battles. Spamming cannon fodder doesn't work, and I think that's a good thing, because it encourages spending resources on the military tech tree, as a balance against rushing other victory conditions.

I see.... I've only played the original GalCiv II, haven't been tempted to buy any of the expansions because I don't really like the direction the game is going. One of the most appealing aspects of the first game for me was a real sense of it being a 'sandbox'. In the first GalCiv I've seen all manners of alliances and match-ups: Torians with Drengin, Yor with Altarians, Arceans with Altarians..... in GalCiv II, the races have inherent penalties or bonuses in their relationships (the Torians have a penalty to diplomatic relations the Drengin, the Altarians have a bonus with humans, etc.). That, combined with the inherent race bonuses such as miniturisation for the Yor or diplomacy for the humans sorta ruins the sandbox aspect of the game. Though I guess that's just a personal quibble.

The problem there is the same problem we see in TotalWar and other games that include a tactical layer. It's very hard to program an AI that can't be abused by feints, like teasing apart a battle line with cavalry feints in M2:TW. And even that game includes a penalty for withdrawing from battle, as a sop to the AI's inability to deal with feint maneuvers. Anything that isn't symmetrical like that in AI ability can be abused by the human player.

Isn't that what having a good AI is supposed to solve, though? I would say that placing limitations on the player so that the AI isn't disadvantaged isn't quite the philosophy of the GalCiv series. ;)



As a response to people who disliked the combat system, the GalCiv series is more empire-building than space combat (though I guess GalCiv II's fancy graphics and "combat viewer" kinda misleads...) In fact, the game is at its most satisfying when not fighting at all. It's hard to beat funding a proxy war or having another race tip the balance in a war by joining you against a superior faction, because their trade depends on you. As such the limp combat system doesn't irk me overmuch.

[JR-]

is there a boxed "Gold Edition" with the GC2 and the two expansions available in the UK?

there is a digital download Gold Edition, and some new version about tobe sold in europe that is a standalone version of the the two expansions, but it is not clear that it includes GC2 itself..........

[PBI]

AFAIK it's not available in the UK, I got mine while on holiday in the States but if that's not an option you might have to settle for digital download.

[Martok]

is there a boxed "Gold Edition" with the GC2 and the two expansions available in the UK?

No. (I'm still hoping this becomes a reality at some point, however.)