Feb 21, 2006  Galactic Civilizations is a strategy game that takes place in the distant future where mankind has become a space-faring civilization and now must contend with other galactic powers who strive Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is the sequel to Stardock's hit turn-based strategy game. Galactic Civilizations. Galactic Civilizations is a turn-based strategy video game developed by Stardock and released in March 2003. The game is a remake of a OS/2 series of the same name. An expansion pack entitled Altarian Prophecy was released in 2004. A sequel, Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, was released February 21, 2006.On May 14, 2015 Stardock released Galactic Civilizations.

Contents.Gameplay The goal of the game is to eventually dominate the galaxy. It is possible to achieve victory through war, cultural domination, diplomacy or by developing overwhelming advanced technology. Story The game is set in the future. Humankind has made contact with the 5 other major alien races. Space travel is risky and expensive, requiring huge jump gates which only permit travel between two specific points. Because space travel is so difficult, the galaxy remains mostly uncolonized. The humans make a great discovery—hyperdrive.

It permits fast travel between any two stars. The humans share their discovery with the other five major races. All communication stops. The humans consider that sharing their discovery may have been a mistake.

Now that the galaxy is open for exploration, there's going to be a rush to claim all the uncolonized worlds.Development. GalCiv for OS/2Galactic Civilizations was first developed for OS/2 in April 1993. Although revenue from the initial OS/2 release was never paid by the bankrupt publisher, popular support encouraged Stardock to release Shipyards, an add-on pack that allowed users to design their own starships, and this provided enough revenue to support further development, with a simplified version being sold to in 1995 as Star Emperor.Galactic Civilizations II was released later that year, adding several new concepts and tweaks. It was followed by another version of Shipyards (which added both the ship design feature and improved governors/AI), and an expansion pack in April 1997, before Stardock was forced to withdraw from significant OS/2 development with the loss of their market.

It is possible to run OS/2 versions of the game under emulation using. Expansion pack An expansion pack, called Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy, was released in 2004. Reception Galactic Civilizations Galactic CivilizationsAggregate scoreAggregatorScore83/100Review scoresPublicationScore8.4/10GameZone7.5/108.2/1086%88%82%The game received 'generally favorable reviews' according to the website.

By December 2005, the game had sold 75,000 copies, which 's Bruce Geryk called 'impressive' for its genre.Galactic Civilizations was named the ninth-best computer game of 2003 by, and it won the publication's 'Best AI' award, tying with. A writer for the magazine called it 'the sort of game that will still be on your hard drive when all the other games you are playing right now are gathering dust on a shelf.' The editors of nominated Galactic Civilizations for their 2003 'Strategy Game of the Year' award, which ultimately went to.

They wrote that they 'found it impossible to ignore the game's almost overwhelming depth of strategy'. Makuch, Eddie (October 15, 2013).

Retrieved October 18, 2013. Wardell, Brad (April 5, 2006). Retrieved April 18, 2017. Armstrong, Benjamin (May 25, 2005). Retrieved April 18, 2017. ^. Retrieved April 18, 2017.

Geryk, Bruce (June 2003). Retrieved April 18, 2017.

Parker, Sam (March 26, 2003). Retrieved April 18, 2017. Rausch, Allen (March 28, 2003).

Retrieved April 18, 2017. Schutz, Jake (April 16, 2003). From the original on December 24, 2008. Retrieved April 18, 2017. Brenesal, Barry (April 8, 2003).

Retrieved April 18, 2017. Griliopoulos, Dan (November 2003).

Archived from on August 18, 2004. Retrieved April 18, 2017. 'Galactic Civilizations'. 2003. Peckham, Matthew (June 2003).: 82. Archived from on March 15, 2006. Retrieved April 18, 2017.

Jackson, Jonah (June 4, 2003). Archived from on June 8, 2003. Retrieved April 18, 2017. Geryk, Bruce (June 2006). ' Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords'. (263): 86–89. Staff (March 2004).

'Best of 2003; The 13th Annual Awards'. (160): 58–62. Editors of CGW (March 2004). ' Computer Gaming World 's 2003 Games of the Year'.

(236): 57–60, 62–69. CS1 maint: extra text: authors list. ^. Retrieved April 18, 2017.

Geryk, Bruce (December 2004). Computer Gaming World (245): 99. Retrieved April 18, 2017. Lafferty, Michael (January 16, 2005). From the original on March 31, 2009.

Retrieved April 18, 2017. Butts, Steve (January 12, 2005). Retrieved April 18, 2017.

'Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy'. PC Gamer: 71. March 2005. by Brad WardellExternal links. at. at.

The success of the last Galactic Civilizations was hailed as a David and Goliath situation, where Galactic Civilizations managed to out-perform the money-draped Master of Orion III. In the towering Goliath corner, a team whose art department was 'only' five people. In the David corner, a whole development team less than five people. While the details of the victory were somewhat less than stirring - in the same way the Biblical David and Goliath story would have been less impressive if David's victory was secured by Goliath walking onto the battlefield, immediately throwing himself off a cliff while punching himself repeatedly in the face - GalCiv was exactly what the space-exploration empire-building beard-sporting kids wanted. A big, complicated, dedicated, intelligent game of universal domination.

And lo! It was good. And lo! It sold. And lo! Here's its sequel. Sniper shooter stickman.

Conceptually, it's thankfully very similar ground, which is to be expected. (After all, Stardock's savvy enough not to introduce things like wandering off to have a look at what's in that field over there design-geographically speaking, which was part of MOO3's failings.) Playing one of the game's space races, you get into a race in space to dominate the universe, however you choose. From your initial planets, you send out colony ships to take over uninhabited worlds, develop your available landspace, build armies to conquer, merchant transporters to trade, engage in simple-yet-powerful diplomacy between your peer group, and research the proverbially sprawling tech tree.

There's a lot to do. There really is. It's the sort of game where the manual isn't something to pad out the game-box, but rather absolutely essential to providing the requisite infodump to play the bally thing. The game regularly stresses Douglas Adams' observation that space is big. Well, if Mr Adams was alive today and played GalCiv 2, he'd probably add the rider 'as is Galactic Civilizations 2'. And, if he played the narrative campaign, which offers a neat series of challenge missions to play through, he may add 'and the Dread Lords are absolute Basts'.

In terms of new additions, what's more immediately noticeable is the use of 3D graphics rather than the plain flat world of old, and while it's unlikely to feature alongside the painterly scenes from Shadow of the Colossus as an example of the subtle universes it's possible to construct in videogames, GalCiv 2's far more aesthetically pleasing. Spinning around the map, zooming out to get the bigger picture, zooming in to have a look at the fins of your spaceships - it's functional. For a game like this, functional is what really matters.

Another welcome improvement is the ship constructor. Rather than being stuck with basic ship models, you're able to construct your own. Each hull you research has a variable amount of space, which you can fill with engines, armour, weapons and the various components that make up a self-respecting interplanetary vessel. The tactical considerations for maximising your fleet's abilities will devour almost as many hours as the ability to add knobbly, attractive and entirely unfunctional bits FOR FREE onto each vessel. The mixture of hard strategy and gadabout feyness is generally inspiring.

Oh - a few special words for the AI, which is simply exemplary. I've spent much of the time playing it feeling really stupid, in much the same way you feel dumb when your partner comes in and points out that what you've been doing to clean the kitchen is both terribly inefficient and actually totally ineffective, and rather you should be doing this. It plays viciously, yet doesn't appear to cheat. It just seems to be better at the game than you are which is exactly how it should be.

It's big. Big and good. Big and good and big. And good.

And big.

Yes.

What prevents this getting the 9 harks back to what I said earlier. For a game like this, functional is what really matters and there's assorted elements that conspire to make it less functional than you'll wish. For a start, it's particularly hard to get into. The tutorials are videos you watch, explaining the mechanisms and all set outside the engine itself as you may have become accustomed to. While this will give you the basics of how to interact, you're left struggling in terms of actually having a clue how to play the game. Often it's a little like having a driving instructor explaining what all the various levers in the car are for then leaving you to it.

While learning on the job is one thing - and while the AI will punish you for your errors, watching what it does is the best way to pick up basic strategy - when you're left to puzzle out particularly obfuscatory mechanics by yourself it's somewhat less than ideal. For example, its production mechanisms are considerably different from many turn-based games you'll have played, with factories equalling maximum production rather than a bonus which.. oh, you don't really need to know the mechanics for a review. Hell - on a train journey with Walker a few days ago, I filled him with fear by reading out sections of the Galactic Civilization 2 manual casually mentioning that the bonus for one thing is the square root of another (which isn't to say that despite its space being full of numbers, the game's cold in any way).

On the contrary, GalCiv 2 has real personality and a distinctive atmosphere, with explanatory texts of a situation often being genuinely witty and playful. Special mention must be made to the computer AI, when set on lower levels, will complain that they'd be able to beat you if only they were turned on properly. As far as turn-based go, that's class.

The second problem is some general twitchiness around the interface. Many elements exist to make ruling your possibly massive civilization easier, but others are obscured. Managing fleets of ships occasionally proves tricky, in terms of wanting to interact with one member of a fleet. For example, setting a rally point over a planet pretty much makes selecting the planet impossible, and while setting rally points for construction queues is easy to manage via Governors, initially getting to it seems buried several screens into the interface.

And so on.. none of these are fatal, but they're slow abrasions against your experience.

You sense that this is going to be some people's game of the year. Hell, with the amount of actual game here, it's possible that could be in a purely literal sense: in that they won't bother playing anything else because this will happily occupy all the time you care to throw at it. If you're prepared to wrestle with the occasionally unfriendly interface and figure out the unintuitive systems, there's every chance you'll be one of them. Conversely, if you aren't.. well, it's unlikely you'll be even reading this review; instead you'll be sitting on the news pages and desperately refreshing news about the latest update to Princess Pooble racing.

You want more? You're willing to pay in sweat, blood and tears to get back the thrill-induced sweaty palms as an unexpected invasion closes in on your largest colony, drink the fresh blood to this genre and shed tears of joy at the amount of sheer, unleashed games on display here? Well, you've read this far. It's unlikely that you'll let whatever mark that's just down the page from this stop you. And I wouldn't try to convince you otherwise.

Have fun.

8 /10