Gaming Trend Review
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
- Official Site
- Platform: PC
- Publisher: Paradox Interactive
- Developer: Stardock
- Release Date: 02/21/06
- Genre: Strategy
Pros
- Deep but accessible
- Nearly infinite replayability
- Multiple victory options
- No copy protection
Cons
- No real multiplayer
- Environments are a bit static
- Music is OK, but sound effects are lacking
by Keith Schleicher
Back in college a friend introduced me to game that took a bunch of sci-fi races and mashed them all together. The object of the game was to gather resources, build ships, make trades, and destroy the rival races that interfered. Each of the races had different advantages and disadvantages. The game had you playing against other people, taking turns, and then you’d send a file to the game master and then receive a file with the other players’ turns taken into account. That game was called VGA Planets.
While I enjoyed playing VGA Planets, there were a few faults with the game. There really wasn’t any kind of tutorial and the manual was a hard to read text file. You had the play the game as a multiplayer game as there wasn’t any kind of single player game available. You didn’t have any kind of help screens either. Once you got the hang of it though, the game was a lot of fun with friends.
When I first loaded up Galactic Civilizations II, I was reminded of VGA Planets. While the graphics were much better and this was a single player game, it brought back memories of college. The 4X strategy game in space was reborn to me, and I couldn’t wait to get playing it again.
The best word to explain the graphics in GCII is clean. Looking at the overall map you can see nebulas in the background. While zoomed out, you see all of the objects as icons. As you zoom in on the map, you can see more details on the ships, stars, and planets. When you zoom in far enough, you can actually see the landscape of the planets and sunspots on the stars.
The fog of war is ever present on the map, giving a light haze to map in the areas where you don’t have a presence. Once you have a ship or occupy a planet in an area, that area becomes clear, unmasking the secrets in the area.
When examining the surface of the planets for building, it looks a bit like a mini-map of the entire planet. A grid is laid out over the land and areas that can be built on have a green indicator inside the grid square. If an area can be built on after a bit of soil enhancement have a yellow indicator inside. Some look like Earth’s surface, while some look more like a desert wasteland.
The interface has a futuristic metallic look. However, it is the same for all of the races, except for a color change. It would have been nice to have each race have a slightly different look to the interface.
All of the ships have great textures, and they really have some unique designs. However, when zoomed in close, the polygon edges for the ships become more apparent.
Sometimes a cutscene is shown after a major discovery is made. These are very well done. However, there does seem to be a little bit of skipping at times, but it’s not a major issue.
While the graphics are very nice looking, everything looks a bit static. The ships fly around, but it would be nice if some more activity around the planets was shown. Overall, the graphics are very nice looking, but it’s almost too clean for its own good.
The music in GCII is very atypical of what you’d expect from computer gaming. The music is melodic, almost having a soothing sensation to it. The female singer adds to the tranquility of the music. It is rather relaxing.
During the tutorial, a female voice instructs you on how to play the game. However, I heard some static or muffled background noise. While this wasn’t an issue in listening to the tutorial, it was a bit distracting.
Unfortunately, there really isn’t much else as far as sound effects go. There are a few beeps and clicks when selecting different options, but not much else. It would have been nice if there was a little voice acting for the different races when you get transmissions from them, even if it was garbled nonsense before being translated by the universal translator.
Screenshots
GCII can be played almost completely with the mouse. This could be the death knell of the game if the interface wasn’t designed well. However, GCII’s interface is streamlined so well that playing with the mouse exclusively is a pleasure.
Using the galaxy map, you can use the scroll mouse to zoom out to see the entire grid, or zoom in so close to see the details on the planets. Even while zoomed out, you can get a general lay of the universe because of the way the icons on the screen are done. Zooming in you can get more information about the specific planets and spaceships. Clicking on the map and moving the mouse moves the map along with it. While zoomed in you don’t move as quickly across the universe, but zoomed out you can cover a lot more ground.
Most of the game is comprised of different menu options. Select the technology you want to research by clicking on it. On the planet map, click on an area and then select which structure you want built there. At the Star Port, click on the ship you want built. Want to see the ownership of the galaxy, click on the ownership icon next to the map. Everything is very intuitive because of the interface. However, some of the buttons are hard to find because they aren’t marked as well as they could be.
A lot of information is displayed on the main screen. An information area shows the specifics for an object that is clicked on. The control panel on the lower left shows the technology you are researching as well as how many more turns before the research is completed. A vertical bar shows colored segments for each civilization showing their general strength in the game. Below this is a space showing the population and your treasury.
Just because the interface was designed for the mouse, that doesn’t mean you have to use it exclusively. Most of the commands have shortcut keys available.
GCII has the typical 4X gameplay you’d expect from a title like this. You start out with a home planet with a Star Port and a flagship. You build structures on the home planet and explore with your flagship. By building other ships and possessing other planets you expand your influence across the galaxy.
On the main galaxy map, you see the planets available for your conquest. However, the fog of war won’t let you see the specifics of the planets until a ship you control goes through the area. Then you are able to see the class of the planet and which civilization controls it. Owned planets also display icons that indicate if a project is being developed on a colony, if a Star Port is built on the planet, if a ship is protecting the planet, and if the residents of the planet are unhappy.
Colored borders on the galaxy map show the different civilizations’ influence. Influence is important in that it determines the number of votes each civilization gets and the amount of money each civilization gets from tourism. If a planet is under another civilization’s influence, it’s likely that planet could rebel and join the other civilization.
Expanding your control over the galaxy includes managing your finances. This includes managing the taxes on the population and controlling the amount of spending you do. You can raise taxes on your population, but raising them too high causes your popularity to go down. Market centers on your planet also bring in more money. Supplementing your income with trade and tourism helps your finances a lot. The amount brought in through tourism is dependent on your influence. Establishing trade routes with other planets increases your finances. The amount brought in through a trade route is dependent on the distance and the population of the planets. The further the route and the greater the population of the planets in the trade route, the more money you’ll get.
Once you have created Colony ships, you can go to other planets and colonize them. Each planet has a different class determined by the number of usable tiles on the planet. While some tiles are readily available when the planet is colonized, some require specific technologies to be researched before they become usable. The classes range from 0 through 25, with the higher the number being better. The higher the class, the lower the probability of finding it on the map. Planet classes of 16 and higher being incredibly rare.
Capturing a planet is simple. If you land a Colony ship on an uninhabited planet, that planet is automatically colonized. However, sometimes you might want to colonize a planet that’s already inhabited. To invade a planet you first must destroy any ships orbiting the planet protecting it. Then you need to build Transports to take your troops to the planet. Once you are orbiting the planet you can invade that planet with the troops. A screen comes up showing the sides and a little video displays the action. If you are successful, the planet is yours.
Each usable tile has the ability to have a structure built on it. These structures generate manufacturing points, technology points, food, influence, approval, and income. Balancing these structures is key to your growth and the method you win the game.
Certain technologies are available to you as you start the game, but most of the technologies in the game you gain as you research them. The technology tree in the game is huge. Research areas include Diplomacy, Propulsion, Engineering, Weapons, and Defense. Attempting to research all of these areas on the technology tree is nearly impossible, even for long games. The technology tree expands logically, but there is a lack of variety in the type of technologies. For instance, you need to research Warp Drive I through Warp Drive V before being able to research HyperWarp. Then you have HyperWarp II and HyperWarp III.
Ship to ship combat occasionally happens as well. Fleets can be created, and when they meet, you can watch the battle from several different camera angles. While a status screen would have sufficed, the inclusion of this makes the ships and their battles more real.
Four Victory Conditions are available to win the game. Single games allow you to win with any of these Victory Conditions, but playing in the Campaign mode will specify which of the conditions you need to win by. A Conquest Victory is a game where the last man standing wins. A Diplomatic Victory is achieved when you form an alliance with all the surviving major races. An Influence Victory occurs when your influence covers a certain percentage of the universe. A Technological Victory happens when you research a specific technology at the end of an expensive branch at the end of the technology tree.
A campaign is available that covers the struggle between the humans and the Drengin Empire. During this time you research new technologies and make alliances with other races. While the individual games are fun to play, the storyline helps drive these missions and your desire to continue playing.
Trade, diplomacy, political parties, ethical alignments, and espionage are all part of the game. Anyone looking for a fun, involved, deep, but easy to play turn-based strategy game needs to look no further. Remember the days of "one more turn before I quit?" You'll be reliving them with GCII.
The amount of replay in GCII is incredible. Six galaxy sizes from 3x3 to 16x16 are available. Several different scenarios that change the starting conditions change your strategy in the game. The Habitable Planets, Number of Planets, Number of Stars, and Anomalies all have five settings, while the Star Density has three settings. Once you have your galaxy configuration set, you choose from ten preset races, or you can create your own custom civilization. Then you choose bonuses in certain categories for the race’s abilities, as well as its political party and ship appearance. For the ship appearance, you can change the colors of the ships used for that race. Finally, you select which other races appear in the game and one of twelve difficulty levels for the AI.
Another part of the game not mentioned so far is the ship customizations. At the Star Port you are able to create your own ships. First you select a hull. Then you add components to the ship. Components include engines, weapons, armor, sensors, and life support. Modules allow you to customize the purpose of the ship, including increasing the number of people to take to found a colony, survey anomalies around the map, collect resources, and establish trade routes and increase their cargo. At first there aren’t many options available to you in the shipyard, but as you research technologies more options become available. You can create some incredibly unique designs, and it’s easy to get lost in all the options and how you want to balance the components on the ship.
A few extras are included with the Collector’s Edition. One of them is the Galactic Civilizations II Desktop. It dramatically changes the look of Windows XP, much more so than the typical desktop themes you get with Windows XP. Other Desktop Themes are also available through download at Stardock’s web site.
About the only knock against GCII is the fact that it doesn’t include any multiplayer. While I can understand that a “hot seat” implementation or online multiplayer game isn’t included because game could last for several hours, but this would be a great game for play-by-email players. The Metaverse really doesn’t feel like a “multiplayer” experience as much as it is more like a leaderboard. However, with all the configuration options, you won't miss the multiplayer.
Stardock has made Galactic Civilizations II a great game, and they have made an even bolder move by not including any type of copy protection with the game. Their sense of humor shows not only within the manual but in the game as well. It has personality throughout. It looks and sounds very good. The thorough manual explains to you the building improvements, super projects, and differences in difficulty levels. Tables showing the Star Base enhancements are also included. Stardock has gone a long way to make this look like a professional effort, even with a development team that is small compared to the ones used by the big publishers, and it shows throughout.
Gamers looking for a strategy game that has the depth of Civilization IV but want a more futuristic setting should definitely look at Galactic Civilizations II. It’s perfect for laptops since it doesn’t require a CD to be in the drive. The replayability of the game is almost infinite. The response to the game has been overwhelming, with the first printing flying off the store shelves. If you have any interest in turn-based strategy games, be sure to pick up a copy or download it from Stardock’s web site.
