Galactic Civilizations II Gold

List Price: $39.99 Discount Price: $28.00

Features:

• Direct your people's military as you battle to control the galaxy
• Deep strategic elements as you establish your place - Colonize planets, establish trade routes, fight wars, research new technologies and sign treaties
• Build up a planet's industry & economy
• Research and design new ships -- full customization lets players create completely unique ships
• Create entire fleets and develop them strategically

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

From MOO2 to GalCiv2 [Posted on 2008-03-25]
Wow, this thing is really like MOO2. It's a worthy effort with some cool twists, but over all I feel like it lacks the real punch that could've pushed it over the top. I've played 3 games so far and feel that the race relations haven't really evolved since the MOO2 and would've had a profound impact to the game.

Overall I find it fun to play, just lacks the WOW! factor. Maybe a GalCiv3?

Fun, but slow [Posted on 2008-04-11]
This game is pretty fun, but it is SLOW compared the games that I usually play. There are so many technologies to research that it's pretty difficult to figure out which technology enables you to do what, so that's a negative. I would also say that the game isn't that intuitive, either. There is little hope of starting the game up and figuring things out as you go along with clues that the game provides along the way. Plan on reading the overly wordy instructions. Having said that, who doesn't like space ships? The game has lots of prefabricated space ships and space ships that you can make yourself. Pretty fun stuff!

Good but not as good as Master or Orion II [Posted on 2008-04-20]
My own love of the game Master of Orion II may have prejudiced my review here but I stand by it. MOO II when it was released was considered the best 4X sci fi game ever made, & retained that title for several years, despite that several other games attempted to take it. For years I haven't seen a better game, & was disappointed with the attempts to top MOO II.
So I finally see ads that GCII is the only real 4x sci fi game that can take the "spiritual" sequel from MOO II. (MOO III got harsh reviews. I loved that game at first, even wrote a rave review of it, but several serious flaws in the game became apparent only after several days of playing it).
Is it good? Yes? Does it have the MOO feel? Yes, but its still not as good as MOO II.
Since almost everyone here has written a rave review, I'm going to focus on the things I didn't like about it (& remember I enjoyed the game overall)
-combat system lacks some of the dynamics of MOO-no Trek like transporters-your troops can't beam onto enemy vessels & take them over.
-No capturing of enemy vessels possible
-no retro-engineering of captured technology is possible
-the diplomatic relations section of the game is less sophisticated & more flat than that of MOOII. (Dark Avatar has some improvements over Dread Lords, but I expected more & better given that MOOII is years old!)
-several of the technologies don't have a cool factor: e.g. in MOOII, mass drivers had a bunch of cool things like armor piericng ability, rapid fire etc. In this game most of the weapons improvements only have a few points of extra damage, that's it. No other special features.
-a non-serious approach throughout the entire game: this can at times be funny, but nothing in the game seems serious. E.g. in MOO when you got a new tech, the scientists explains how the tech worked. I thought that was kinda cool. In this game the scientists makes some sarcastic comment like "lasers II are better than lasers I because I say so!"
-NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS!: MOOII allows you to assign special talented governors & officers in charge of ships & colonies. Wish this game had that. It would've been great to have been able to add in modded characters.

The game though is good overall, just not at good as MOOII. Here are some of the improvements over MOOII
-better graphics
-ability to MOD this game--allows you to make your own ship designs, & empires! MOO SHOULD'VE HAD THIS FEATURE!
-use of influence in being able to take over enemies instead of only being able to use combat
-ability to win the game from technological understanding alone

Overall a good game & worth playing, just not as good as MOOII.

Galactice civ [Posted on 2008-04-28]
Its a really fun game but would be better with multilayer. Id get the original game but i would not get the expansion like dark avatar and gold edition just not worth it with out online play.

Good, but not great [Posted on 2008-05-02]
Ok, this is a decent game. I love strategy and even turn-based stuff. I play it all the time. That said, I cringe to say this too: this game can become quite boring. Don't get me wrong: it's not boring all the time, but it lacks a certain spark. the tech tree is quite bland, and it lacks any useful info about WHAT the tech does. It is also a little TOO straightforward...for instance you research Torpedos I, then Torpedos II, and so on...with that being the only listed improvement.

All in all, its a fair game, but I am going back to some older turn based space strategies.

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