Ships duke it out in deep space.

4x Space Strategy fans, your prayers have been answered. Although Gal Civ 2 isn’t quite what Master of Orion 3 should’ve been, it has a wonderful balance of the detail fun fans of the genre crave without the tedium that can be overwhelming. After that teaser trailer, how couldn’t you want to read on?

First off, let me say I never played Galactic Civ 1. So from that standpoint, I was a neophyte to the series, which greatly contributed to my learning curve issues. One of my biggest frustrations is it took me a solid five or so hours to figure out what the hell was going on in the game, but eventually it all gelled together. The manual was only of so much help, but after some trial and error, I was able to run my empire the way I wanted.

Since I am a player for gameplay, and not other stuff, I’ll get the graphics and sound over with up front. The graphics are great. The universe is displayed in a fantastic manner, with planets and star systems separate (you can colonize multiple planets in a solar system). Ships look cool, with base style and colors user selectable, on top of which is a huge ship customization system (more on that later). There are some neat cut scenes when you do things for the first time (colonize a planet, etc), that are fun to watch, and the planet screen is crisp and functional. The music and sound are great. The music for the general game is very Lord of the Rings-esque and classical, but as a geek, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Boom.  I'm rick james, bitch!

Ok, let’s get on to gameplay, and I don’t even know where to start. First off, the game does an EXCELLENT job of balancing detail with tedium. First off, planets are customizable in that depending on the quality of the planet, you get so many “slots” to stick buildings in. Slots can also have bonuses to them ( hot springs for approval, artifacts for research, etc). You can expand these slots via terraforming technologies, for later expansion. But for the standard slots, your choices are pretty basic: You have a set of basic improvements to different resources (such as production, food, money, etc). As you advance in technology, you get upgraded equivalents of each building—but, best of all, your planet automatically upgrades. So if I currently have “basic factories” and research the tech for “factories”, all my planets automatically queue upgrades, reducing micromanagement and making life much easier.

Initially, I was a bit bummed that the upgrades were so boring: MOO2, for example, had three different named production buildings. But after playing GalCiv2 for a bit, I’ve decided I like the way they’ve done things, just because it reduces massive planet management. In addition to these basic resources, you also can build Super Projects (think small wonders, every civ gets one), Galactic Achievements (think big wonders, unique to the galaxy), and “trade goods”, which are a neat class of items that provide a bonus that you can use and trade with other civilizations. First person to make them gets a galactic monopoly, so they are a wonder unto themselves.

All your base are belong to us.

The next awesome feature is starbases. Yes, you can build Deep Space 9 (and I’m not even a trekkie). Starbases can be built anywhere there’s not a planet, star, or another starbase within a few parsecs. They come in several flavors: mining starbases are built on interstellar resources to, well, mine them, military starbases boost the performance of nearby ships, influence starbases export your culture in a big way, and economic starbases improve local planets. You build the initial starbase with a “constructor” ship, and then with additional constructor ships, you upgrade it based on your current tech level. Different techs bring different modules. All starbases can also be upgraded with defenses, so that when your neighbor gets pissed off you’re exporting culture into his space (and thus causing his planets to rebel and join you) and sends a fleet at your starbase, the starbase can dish out some serious punishment if you’ve upgraded it appropriately.

One thing I really like about GC2 is that it isn’t simply a war game. There are very advanced diplomatic and trade options as well. You can build freighters and send them to other planets, whereupon reaching their destination they formed a route across the galaxy (depicted by a line colored with your galaxies colors), “shrink” in size, and begin running back and forth between the two planets. BOTH civilizations benefit from this arrangement, so you can run into games where everyone is making so much money, there’s less reasoning for war. Another aspect is the United Planets council, the GC2 version of the United Nations. The UP meets every so often for some random absurd decision—from where to put a space prison, to limiting trade routes for evil civilizations, or even taxing the most prosperous nation and spreading the wealth to the rest of the galaxy. You can withdraw from the UP, but it’s interesting to see what comes up.

Oh, the Space UN.  What retarded resolution are we going to vote on this month?

Along this level of depth is the feature of your civilization choosing an “alignment.” This occurs through a variety of events (some random, some triggered upon colonizing a planet). In each event, you are presented with a leadership dilemma, and have a good, neutral, and evil option. Typically, the good option imposes the most penalties, the neutral has minimal costs/bonuses, and the evil option usually is a benefit (although often at the cost of your population). Once you research the appropriate technology, you can pick your alignment. The direction you “lean” affects the cost of choosing your path (if you have been evil, going good will bankrupt the treasury). Each alignment opens up different bonuses and technologies, adding more replayability. Plus, some of the decisions are quite funny—in one situation, your citizens on a planet have contracted a horrible plague. But the juice from the plague boils is considered an alien delicacy. Do you—A) spend money to find a cure, and ignore this odd phenomena B) Sell the juice, but use the profits to finance the cure, or C) Maximize your profits from the juice? It’s hard being an intergalactic leader.

Ship design is a marvel. There are several base “hulls” depending on the size of the ship provided by the game. Each hull is coated in hardpoints, and I mean COATED. These hardpoints then can be used to attach your standard array of weapons, shields, engines, etc, BUT, for the designer geek, you also can attach any number of the dozens of “extras” included. Extras cost no space, and make your ship look awesome. Think legos. The extras themselves have more hardpoints on them, so you can add wings with missiles under them, or structure upon structure to make some really neat stuff. I usually hate this sort of thing, but I find myself spending inordinate amounts of time customizing my ships. Further, you can save designs, and they carry over game to game (becoming available when you have the right techs). Really a great feature.

The standard screen. Colored lines are trade routes. Ships, planets, stars, and starbases all shown on screen.

Ship combat is automated, which annoys me. There are three types of weapons, and three corresponding defenses. Beams and deflectors, missiles and point defense, and mass drivers and armor. Initially, I was really down on this setup. I was very much a fan of MOO2, which had “classes” of weapons, but then each system was customizable, and defenses were armor + shields. In GC2, the “optimum” defense works best against a given weapon (see the pairings above), and the other two defenses operate at an extreme disadvantage. This creates an interesting rock paper scissors dynamic, where you want to build specialized ships, and combine them into well rounded fleets. It also forces you into tech tree decisions. If you run up specific trees, you pidgeon hole yourself. Conversely, if you spread out research, you limit your overall damage potential. It makes for interesting decisions and the need to customize based on your opponents tech.

And like I said, it sucks that the battles are totally automated. You get to watch the fight, but the computer dukes it out for you (the methodology is “most lethal,” “easiest to destroy,” ship is targeted first). Further, some of the fights I’ve watched were kind of bizarre, with ships wandering around and firing at awkward angles. Still, the fights were pretty otherwise, with ships shields (if they have them) flashing when hit by deflectors, and so on. Overall, if ship combat was more like say, Homeworld, the game would be a BEYOND awesome. But I recognize that the resources to implement that kind of “mini RTS” inside of what is already a very detailed strategy game.

My newest creation, the Annhilator. May it slay my foes, rape their women, and enslave their children. Or at least win in automatically resolved combat.

By far, the single, most absurd, huge, glaring deficiency in the game: no multiplayer. Apparently it is intended for an upcoming expansion. The AI is quite good, so the absence isn’t as bad as it could be. But come on. In this day and age it’s amazing to me that a developer would make a game without any multiplayer capabilities. Even MOO2 was a multiplayer game, and it was released in the late 90’s! There is an interesting essay on the GC2 forums by one of the developers, giving the rationale behind the decision: essentially, multiplayer devours a huge part of a game’s budget, and only benefits a small portion of the population. Grudgingly, I have to accept this: although I love the CONCEPT of multiplayer turn based games, the truth is they tend to suck: typically, there are stretches of the game where you just want to keep clicking turns by. In a multiplayer game, there’s always someone who has some empire maintenance to do, thus forcing everyone else to wait, and making the game less fun. So there is something to be said for a robust single player experience. Still. No multiplayer? Come on.

In conclusion: GC2 delivers. Excellent planetary system, the universe is great. The graphics are a pleasure and the sound is very mood setting. Ship design raises the bar for the genre as a whole. The only thing truly missing is multiplayer. If you are a fan of this genre, buy this game. You will not be disappointed.