OT, galactic civ II

WraithLord · #1 March 14th, 2006, 12:38 PM

Based on its reviews I have already made up my mind to purchase it.

Before I do, I am very interested what are the opinions of dom II players wrt to it.

So, whomever have had the chance to play it may share his impressions.

OG_Gleep · #2 March 14th, 2006, 01:55 PM

Its pretty cool. The ship builder is amazing. http://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=1...=104951#817132

NTJedi · #3 March 14th, 2006, 02:10 PM

The other really nice feature is the developers... mainly Brad... frequently posts on the forums and the website has him giving daily updates.

The only downside is the game does not have multiplayer... a multiplayer expansion is not official. Personally I'm not buying the game until I see it will have multiplayer.

Cainehill · #4 March 14th, 2006, 02:20 PM

Not sure I'd want it for MP - too many turns where one person wouldn't be doing anything, while the other player may be adjusting his economy, designing ships, and taking forever, so it wouldn't be all that good for LAN party style games.

And given the number of turns where you're just waiting for some research to complete (in, say, 14 turns) and a ship to be built (in, for instance, 27 turns), it'd be boring and disappointing as a PBEM or even server style game, imo

But it's quite good - the interface has some very irritating quirks* - but the gameplay is pretty cool, with the best diplomacy I've seen in 4X style SP games. And what you can do with the ship designer is amazing - people have made ships that look like transformer style robots and more. (In fact, Stardock already addressed some performance issues related to people going to such extremes in designing ships.)

* Example 1 : No consistent way of going to the next ship that has movement left.

Example 2 : As documented, Esc and Return keys are supposed to close windows. They don't - I've found a grand total of one window that Esc closes, and Return simply, always, ends the turn, which does match documentation in that "will close the current window _or_ end the turn" (emphasis mine). It just always ends the turn - even if you're in a ship designer screen, world production screen, etc. Very dumb design.

NTJedi · #5 March 14th, 2006, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Cainehill said:
Not sure I'd want it for MP - too many turns where one person wouldn't be doing anything, while the other player may be adjusting his economy, designing ships, and taking forever, so it wouldn't be all that good for LAN party style games.

Easy fix... you simply place a timer inside the game same as seen with AOW:SM. DOM_2 multiplayer games even have a timer. No reason GAL_CIV_2 can't use a timer as well.

Quote:

Cainehill said:
And given the number of turns where you're just waiting for some research to complete (in, say, 14 turns) and a ship to be built (in, for instance, 27 turns), it'd be boring and disappointing as a PBEM or even server style game, ...

I haven't seen anything in the game which would not make a timer work for keeping a good pace.(a friend has the game) And same as AOW:SM... every time the game is loaded the host can adjust the timer.

Quote:

Cainehill said:
But it's quite good - the interface has some very irritating quirks* - but the gameplay is pretty cool, with the best diplomacy I've seen in 4X style SP games. And what you can do with the ship designer is amazing - people have made ships that look like transformer style robots and more.

Yes this game has great potential, but SP only really limits replay value. SP is fine for a start, but it should definitely add MP. Nothing compares with human opponents/allies.

OG_Gleep · #6 March 14th, 2006, 04:31 PM

I agree with Cainehill, MP wouldn't fit this game very well. It can take a very long time to build something. Its not like dominions where you get a set amount of resources a turn to play with. In this game, the cost is turns. So, you can literally spend multiple turns just hitting next waiting for something to happen.

This leads to a very poor setting for PBEM, which is the common medium for TB games. The only viable way to play this MP would be via LAN and even then.....

The Timer addresses how long you have for each turn, it can never address how exciting each turn is.

As far as the replay value, theres a random galaxy generator for sandbox mode, and a campaign. Theres multiple races to choose from, and a whole slew of difficulty settings. But it comes down to how each person values a game. For me, I don't need to play a game for months or years to be satisfied. If a game lasts over 20 hours, I am ok with it. If it lasts 40 hours, I'd say that it was more then worth it. I can easily see 40 hours going into this game. At $40...that comes to $1 per hour.

Cainehill · #7 March 14th, 2006, 05:18 PM

Yeah - I mean, some of us easily got hundreds of hours out of Master of Orion / Master of Magic, neither of which had any MP - just different combinations of races, magic paths, special abilities, etc.

That said - I'm not sure GC2 will have the same longevity, because the races are essentially pretty similar, and the tech tree, while sizable, is ... bland. Essentially, drives get smaller and sometimes faster; weapons (only 3 varieties) similarly get smaller and sometimes stronger, ditto for defenses.

But definately 40+ hours, especially as the game apparently really changes as you bump up the AI levels ( the AI strategies actually change, as opposed to simply getting more power, as per Dom2 and most other games ).

Daynarr · #8 March 14th, 2006, 06:13 PM

Galciv II AI:

PrinzMegaherz · #9 March 14th, 2006, 06:40 PM

I have bought it some days ago and must say that I am pleasantly surprised, because all the things I didn't like in the first game have been improved.

Especially the fact that you can watch the battles dominion stile is nice.

However, I would have prefered a multiplayer mode, because there is no point in customizing the look of your ships, as there is no human enemy to appreciate your work.

Edit:

I like whole alignment thing. Last time I played the evil Yor, I had a weak start and were surrounded by stronger enemies. One of the good guys declared war on me, but before he could defeat me one of the other bad factions came to my aid and so on, until we had a galaxywide war

Agrajag · #10 March 14th, 2006, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Daynarr said:
Galciv II AI:

Reminds me of Deadlock2: Shrine Wars.
Besides being a wonderful spaceish* TBS, it had 7 races, and each had pre-recorded custom messages that fit the race, and some of them were pretty funny.
The Cyth for example, a scary, slightly Darth Vaderish race have a message that goes <in a slow and deep voice>"Use your deep voice to intimidate them, and speak very slowly"</in a slow and deep voice>, the insectoid ChCh-T have a "Praise" the goes something like this: "Your colony blossoms! You must be as happy as a devoured drone!".

*-It doesn't take place in space environments, but rather on different types of planets, on dominions-like maps.
You should give it a go, its a pretty old game (98 IIRC), but its very fun. I'm sure you can get a demo somewhere, and the real game somewhere else.