Galactic Civilizations II

Deward · Post by **Deward** » February 28, 2006, 12:28 pm

Anyone else playing this? It just released last week. It is kind of Civ in space and there are a lot of improvements over the first GalCiv which I found a bit slow and boring at times. It is turn-based which I like and there is no multiplayer capability which I personally don't give a crap about.

I am not sure if it is quite as good as Master of Orion II but I am liking it more and more as I play. The AI is much better and ship design is probably the best of any space based game out there that I have played. In a few more games I may decide I like it even better than Moo2. It is certainly better than that steaming pile of shit Moo3.

The first couple of games I have played have started out really slow paced but that is actually nice when someone declares war on you. You actually have a chance to produce ships and defend yourself.

One really nice thing is that you can design ships to stop the enemy's strengths. There are three types of offense and defense ratings. In offense you have beam, mass drivers, and missile weapon types. On defense you have shields, armor plating, and point defense. Each defense can only protect against one offense, i.e. lasers stopped by shields, etc. You can build ships to counter the beams of the beams of the enemy. I have had battles where teh enemy had 7 strength lasers with no defense against my 3 laser strength with 5 beam defense and I have won because I can stop most of his damage and he stops none of mine. A ship (or fleet) with more than 7 beam defense would be immune to the enemy's weapons entirely.

The tech tree is also much larger than Moo2 with each tech being useful in some way. It takes quite a while to get to the bigger ship techs so you don't start a game and 100 turns later the computer is killing you with death stars.

The AI is also very very smart. I have gotten my ass kicked on the normal setting several times. In Moo2, I was the type of player that liked to race through teh tech tree until I pissed someone off and then start building ships and defenses. That won't work in this game. The AI knows when you are weak militarily and they will take advantage of it. Usually you can crank out a few ships but not before you have lost several planets. There are no planetary defense buildings that I have seen so the enemy will suddenly show up with troop carriers. In my latest game, I built a few ships earlier just to discourage the enemy and they haven't attacked me yet.

The Bad Parts:
The game has a new planet screen that requires a bit more micromanagement than I care for. Each planet has a set number of buildings it can handle. Handling this is easy the first few planets but quickly becomes tedious after you get 20 or so planets. They have a build queue but whenever you get a cool upgrade like factories then you find that you have to go into each individual planet to prioritize things again. The AI will automatically build upgrades for you but there is no option for saying "Hey build factory upgrades first no matter what".

One of the worst problems in this game deals with morale. The more people you get on a planet, the worse your morale gets. On small planets it isn't that big of a deal unless there are more people than the planet can support. On nice big planets it can be killer. For example, I had a size 26 planet (about top of the line) with a supposedly 26 billion person capacity. As the population got up to 20+ billion, the morale plummetted(?) even though I was nowhere near the planet cap. I almost lost the planet to the enemy in revolt. No amount of Happy buildings helped. What I finally did was kill a farm that fed them and caused the death of about 5 Billion of them. Suddenly they were back up to 100% happiness. That is fucked up in my opinion. Luckily, humans are just tax fodder and have no basis on manufacturing or research amounts. Those are all based on the structures on your planets.

One other bad thing is that it can be hard to maneuver around the game screen, I am currently playing a game on the largest possible map and trying to move around it is annoying.

I would recommend this game and I am finding it extremely addictive so far. It is a fairly easy download or available in stores. The developers are very proactive andthey are constantly fixing things. If you use Stardock to download then you can easily keep up to date on patches as soon as they are available.

Kwonryu DragonFist · February 28, 2006, 1:47 pm

I'm still waiting for a Sci-fi game better than Master of Orion 2!

That game just plain roxxored

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » March 8, 2006, 11:44 pm

These people charge 50 bucks for a beta test. What a buggy piece of shit.

Just go play Civ 4 instead

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » March 9, 2006, 4:36 pm

cadalano wrote:These people charge 50 bucks for a beta test. What a buggy piece of shit.

Just go play Civ 4 instead

I just got this last night....I intend to dive into it tonight! I have read a number of reviews, and all of them sing its praises. I know a number of people playing, and all of them love it...but the bugs, I hope they get all this worked out!

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » March 9, 2006, 6:08 pm

Civ 4 was riddled with bugs when it shipped too

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » March 9, 2006, 6:22 pm

alright a little more detail:

First of all if you have a dual core AMD processor you need to get a patch or else all the 3d models in your game menus will be animating at insane speeds. We're off to a great start.

My primary gripe is the amount of fucking annoying little interface things with this game. For my next trick, I will vomit out a list of these things:

The main map has NO USEFUL INFORMATION. Unit stats? Planet quality? Planet projects?

Moving your view around the map is awkward even with a small galaxy.

Your minimap can optionally display one of two things: not enough information, or a completely unintelligible clusterfuck of pixels.

If an enemy vessel enters my sensor range, why the fuck doesnt anyone tell me? What the fuck do i pay these people for? I need to know these things

Why isnt a ship's flight path mapped out? All I can see is it's final destination.

Obsoleting ship designs can cause your game to crash. They go down fighting.

Why do I have to remove a ship from a fleet before I can upgrade it?

If youre gonna make me scroll through ten thousand technologies to find the one I want.. why dont you make the window big enough to display more than 4 or 5 at a time?

When I'm asked if I want to upgrade a starbase, you really catch me with my pants down. I sent that ship out like a year ago. I have no idea what starbase you are talking about. You need to show me the starbase first, or provide a "Maybe?" button.

Sometimes it simply will not allow you to create a fleet, even if it is within your logistics limit. I've also somehow created quite a few fleets with nothing in them through some fucking miracle. They're just these blank squares, cool!

You get prompts when your planets have constructed things that let you click a button to be taken into the detailed planet view.. but when youre done in the planet the fucking prompt is still there. Okay, you fucking prompt! I already read what you have to say! Now fuck off!

I've had the game crash on me 3 times right after winning land battles, which is peachy. And you know theres like a "good crash", where it cuts cleanly right to windows.. and there's a "bad crash" where the audio goes into a horrendous loop, the screen freezes, and the machine becomes completely unresponsive for a good 10 minutes before finally rebooting itself. Guess which one this game prefers.

You can view the entire tech tree.. but all it gives you is the names? It tells you nothing at all about what it actually does? You cant even click the tech to be taken to another informative screen? And you still cant see more than 4 or 5 techs at a time.. no zoom out? Fuck you, tech tree. I hate you

and correct me if I'm wrong, but I didnt see any way to remap the keyboard..

Too much micromanagement. There are governors that can manage your planets for you, but they never build the way you want. It also sounds fun that you can build your own ships until you realize that you have to go make a new god damn model of ship every few turns because you are constantly developing new equipment. That gets old fast. Or you can just use the idiotic models that the computer automatically presents for you.

The music.. It >IS< O.K. to make a space game without accompanying new age opera music. Fucking drop it

All in all, if i feel like playing a good strategy game I'll put in Civ 4. If it absolutely must be a space strategy game I'll put in Ascendancy or MOO2.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » March 9, 2006, 8:36 pm

cadalano wrote:Why do I have to remove a ship from a fleet before I can upgrade it?

I agree with everything except this, in typical military clusterfuck style a unit would be removed from a fleet prior to it receiving work like an upgrade, even if only administratively.

So it makes sense, kind of, but I agree with Cadalano that most of it does not.

Kwonryu DragonFist · Post by **Kwonryu DragonFist** » March 9, 2006, 9:58 pm

Moo2 had a great system. Easy to use and control.

You had a good view over your empire etc.

If they just could improve the graphics and techs on MOO2 i'd be satisfied with that new sci-fi game.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 10, 2006, 11:49 am

Hey Cad have you used the patches? They have released at least 3 or 4 already to solve many of the bugs you mention. I still crash occasionally but my machines are old and crappy. I know they fixed the Dual Core bug. They originally had it set to use every possible resource a machine could provide, this proved too much on some machines causing the processors to heat up too much and crash. They had people getting over 200 FPS which was way more than necesary. They put a small throttle control in the game and fixed this problem.

There are certainly issues with the UI in this game but once you have played a few hours then it really isn't that big of a deal. Just remember that this isn't MOO2 that we are all used to. In some ways it is better and worse in others. MOO2 was great because it didn't have nearly the complexity that GalCiv2 does as so it didn't have to try to provide every bit of information available. I will admit it takes some time to get used to all the different screens. If you click the bottom left button, it will give you a planet list along with what they are building, quality, morale. CLick the planet and it finds that planet. CLick the build boxes adn it will allow you to change them there.

The minimap is definitely counter-intuitive. The mouse wheel can zoom in and out on this little map as well and that allows you to see more details. Also there are several buttons to allow you to see resources and enemy forces and other information. It does give a good amount of information once you get used to it.

The tech window is very annoying but once you play a couple games then you kind of know what each thing does and where to go for it. A zoom in and out feature would be very nice though. If you click a tech it will give you information on what it does, even future techs.

I have rarely had the problem with starbases that you have had. I usually keep mine closer to home. Also you can always cancel an upgrade if you decide you don't want to use the constructor on it. Starbases are one of the neatest things about this game except when that damn AI builds them right next to your planets. A fully decked out military starbase can make your fleets nie invincible in the area.

Go get the patches they will greatly improve your game enjoyment. I remember when MOO2 first came out, I hated it because it was so freaking buggy and actually gave it away in the first week. I tried it again after they released the patch though and it is my favorite game of all time now.

One thing this game definitely has over MOO2 is smart AI. I can consistently beat MOO2 on the hardest settings. I am getting my ass handed to me on normal in GalCiv2.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 10, 2006, 12:27 pm

bleh damn lag got me double posted

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » March 10, 2006, 1:09 pm

Yeah that makes sense Kylere, but in this game you can upgrade anywhere. So its more like a navy fleet dropping anchor in the middle of the ocean so one destroyer can float away for a week or two to install a new gun turret that was somehow magically delivered through teleportation before rejoining the fleet. They didnt design it that way intentionally in the game

Now that I think of it.. why the fuck can I upgrade anywhere? Whats stopping me from loading a ship frame with nothing but engines and life support to take it across the entire galaxy before magically refitting it with a trade module when it reaches its destination? BAH.

And yeah. All games have bugs and design flaws. Everything is patchable. And the game isnt flawed to the point of it not being enjoyable at all. But reading the official forums makes you realize that this game is being beta tested. You just get to pay for it.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 10, 2006, 1:40 pm

The cost for upgrading is kind of expensive but you could theoretically build a ship to race across space adn then add the junk you want on it. One thing to remember though is that you are a sitting duck and the farther you are from a ship yard then the longer the upgrade takes. For example you could build a speed 10 ship that gets somewhere 5 weeks faster but you may have to spend five weeks upgrading at the end. I haven't looked at the numbers so I have no idea if it is worth it or not.

In one of the campaigns I was steadily getting my ass kicked by the dread lords. They were pretty much camping my planets. My only choice was to build fast ships and out run them and then upgrade in the field. I figure in my mind that I was carrying the crap in my holds and burning fuel to escape before activating it.

As far as Beta goes. This game spent over a year in beta and it changed a lot. I actually thought the release went smooth as hell and the tech support at stardock is really working their ass off. You won't find a better company trying to produce a good product like them.

Kwonryu DragonFist · Post by **Kwonryu DragonFist** » March 10, 2006, 2:27 pm

Dew

I'd like to see some screenies of the races and their special ships!

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » March 10, 2006, 9:44 pm

I am sure they did not design it that way myself, I have taken it apart and played all the races and tried all the techs etc now, and honestly, the micromanagement is a bit bloody much.

The most fun I have in game is designing ships most of the time.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 13, 2006, 11:55 am

I for one don't bother designing the ships often. If you are into that though then you can design some really cool stuff. check out http://www.galciv2.com they have some custom ship designs on the home page that players did.

The micromanagement can be a pain but what I do is I decide what kind of planet I want from the beginning. i.e. money generator, factory or research planet. On a new planet, I always build two factories and a shipyard first. I usually quick buy the shipyard since it is only like 150. After that I fill every other space with the type of planet it is. If it is a size 10 or greater planet then I will add a farm. Population doesn't do crap except as a tax base. In my last game I always kept one space open in case I wanted to build something special but that really isn't necesary because you can "upgrade" a square and whatever is built there will add to the new construction. Micromanagement sucks in the late game because it costs so much to build the later upgraded factories and such. But overall, doing it this way will cut down on the micro-management needed.

In my latest game, I was in last place overall and got into a war with the top guy. He had some pretty massive fleets but mine were built to counteract his and I was able to kick his butt all over the place till he begged for mercy. He did start to adjust tactically to my Mass Driver attacks but at normal intelligence it wasn't quite quick enough. Now I am slowly gobbling his planets up through influence takeovers. The batles are the fun part of this game because a small fleet can get lucky and take out a stronger fleet. The attacking ship always gets the first shot off and that makes a huge difference. I am going to try building a fleet of tiny/small gun ships and see what happens.

One big tip I figured out last night is if you get a chance, then take over capitals whenever you can. If they have a hyperion logistics center (+6 logistics) then that adds to your own. Normally you are only able to build one on your own planets but I was able to get three planets with them on it and I have a Logistics scoe of 30 now. That makes for a tough fleet. I am not sure if that was a bug or intended but it is a pretty big deal that I doubt would go unnoticed if not intended.

Kwonryu DragonFist · Post by **Kwonryu DragonFist** » March 13, 2006, 6:07 pm

Dew, are the fights turn-based? Not like Empire at War space battles then?

I remember that MOO2 added initiative on the ships (tiny ships had more initiative).

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 13, 2006, 7:29 pm

That is the one thing missing from this game that I think they needed. There is no tactical combat. Pretty much you point the fleets at each other and the computer does the rest.

Kwonryu DragonFist · Post by **Kwonryu DragonFist** » March 13, 2006, 9:40 pm

Deward wrote:That is the one thing missing from this game that I think they needed. There is no tactical combat. Pretty much you point the fleets at each other and the computer does the rest.

Well, what i loved with the space battles in MOO2 was that you could see the difference on each weapon/system you installed in your ships.

Continous Gravition Beams had their distinctive look and sound while Plasma Cannon had their!

Is it like that in this game?

Do big ships move before smaller ships in GALCIV2?

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 14, 2006, 11:30 am

From what I can tell, the more technologically advanced ships fire first. The enemy will fire on your best ship first as well. All the attacking ships fire first regardless though.

You can see a difference in the type of weapon used. It is quite cool how they did the modeling. One thing you can't do is load up a big ship with 99 plasma cannons and nothing else. Space is much more limited now. I have an 8 damage railgun that really kicks a lot of ass. I could probably fit 5 or 6 max on a large hull but I would leave myself open to outside damage. I balance it with shields against whatever the computer is currently fielding ship wise.

Kwonryu DragonFist · Post by **Kwonryu DragonFist** » March 14, 2006, 4:45 pm

Deward wrote:From what I can tell, the more technologically advanced ships fire first. The enemy will fire on your best ship first as well. All the attacking ships fire first regardless though.

You can see a difference in the type of weapon used. It is quite cool how they did the modeling. One thing you can't do is load up a big ship with 99 plasma cannons and nothing else. Space is much more limited now. I have an 8 damage railgun that really kicks a lot of ass. I could probably fit 5 or 6 max on a large hull but I would leave myself open to outside damage. I balance it with shields against whatever the computer is currently fielding ship wise.

How about this?

It was possible in MOO2 to stock up long-range weaponry on ships(missiles,rockets etc) and place them in the back while having more defensive ships in the front(better armor,shields,defensive systems), forcing the comp to attack the ships in the front first.

The charm with MOO2 was that you could totally design a ship how you wanted it (A ship that could cloak, teleport, place a plasma field around a ship/or generate a black hole around another and then fly away in the back while you sent forth other ships) for ANY kind of purpose.

They also added that smaller ships had higher initiative in a patch for MOO2, which was great!

So in GalCiv2, i assume all weapons have same range then? No equipping longest range weaponry(missiles, rockets, torpedoes) on some ships and putting them in the back?

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 15, 2006, 11:25 am

No there is no tactical combat at all in this sense. It might be possible to load up a big ship with shields and have lots of smaller ships doing the damage. In fact I might try this. It is a great strategy if it works. I am not sure how firing order is determined but it seems to be based on ship size. Your ships do gain experience though and that could affect things.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » March 16, 2006, 1:58 am

Funny story about this game
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/news/stor ... 864&page=0

Copy protection company encourages piracy?
StarForce site forum moderator posts link to download pirated copy of Stardock's Galactic Civilations II.
In an ironic twist last week, a moderator on the forums for copy protection software StarForce made it easier for people to pirate a game, posting a link directing users to a site from which they could download illegal "warez" copies of Stardock Systems' PC strategy game Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords.

Kwonryu DragonFist · Post by **Kwonryu DragonFist** » March 16, 2006, 5:08 am

Deward wrote:No there is no tactical combat at all in this sense. It might be possible to load up a big ship with shields and have lots of smaller ships doing the damage. In fact I might try this. It is a great strategy if it works. I am not sure how firing order is determined but it seems to be based on ship size. Your ships do gain experience though and that could affect things.

Well, it wouldn't be any use stocking up lots of defence systems on the big ship if it won't attract enemy fire.

If the enemies attack all the small ships (only equipped with as many or as big beam weapon as possible) the plan won't work.

It worked in MOO2 since weapons had range.

Missileships in the back, big fat ship in front with shield and all defensive thingies attracting fire while the smaller offensive ships did the rest.

While the missileships way back just kept firing without being fired upon.

Deward · Post by **Deward** » March 16, 2006, 12:18 pm

I did some experimenting last night. The enemy attacks your ship based on it's threat level to them. I believe the formula they use is Attack Strength/Defense Strength + HPs.

I created a fleet of tiny ships with one big gun (8 dam), 0 defenses, and 9 hps. In the same fleet I put a couple of medium ships (8,15,24). The enemy went after the smaller ships first and consistently wiped them out quick. I always made sure to get the first attack because I wanted to see if I could get quick kills against the larger enemy ships. They usually had enough strength to weather the first round of attacks and then could kill my little ships in droves. They worked good as fodder though and kept my larger ships from taking damage for a few rounds.

The cost of the tiny ships was about half the cost of one medium ship so I don't think the trade off was really worth it. In the future, I will just use tiny ships as scouts and troop transport sniping. THey are also good for taking out enemy starbases. Most games I have played so far have the AI doing minimal upgrades on its starbases so a tiny fast ship is good for running in and blowing them up. I did have one game though where teh AI maxed out a starbase. The was quite a beast.

On the topic of starbases, I would have lost my last game without them. About midway through the game I was spread out pretty far when I was attacked. I had to retreat to my core worlds where I had a military starbase. It made my weaker ships monsters and I was able to kill the invading fleets and eventually mount a counter-attack. I still lost 4 or 5 fringe planets but I was able to take three of the enemies that were in my sphere of control and then the bugger surrendered to another AI.