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Good, but not great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Ok, this is a decent game. I love strategy and even turn-based stuff. I play it all the time. That said, I cringe to say this too: this game can become quite boring. Don't get me wrong: it's not boring all the time, but it lacks a certain spark. the tech tree is quite bland, and it lacks any useful info about WHAT the tech does. It is also a little TOO straightforward...for instance you research Torpedos I, then Torpedos II, and so on...with that being the only listed improvement.

All in all, its a fair game, but I am going back to some older turn based space strategies.

too many details

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 22
Date: September 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I used to play these type of games but this one is kind of boring - If there were ship captains that would be cool but it is too much micromanagement

From MOO2 to GalCiv2

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Wow, this thing is really like MOO2. It's a worthy effort with some cool twists, but over all I feel like it lacks the real punch that could've pushed it over the top. I've played 3 games so far and feel that the race relations haven't really evolved since the MOO2 and would've had a profound impact to the game.

Overall I find it fun to play, just lacks the WOW! factor. Maybe a GalCiv3?

Fun, but slow

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty fun, but it is SLOW compared the games that I usually play. There are so many technologies to research that it's pretty difficult to figure out which technology enables you to do what, so that's a negative. I would also say that the game isn't that intuitive, either. There is little hope of starting the game up and figuring things out as you go along with clues that the game provides along the way. Plan on reading the overly wordy instructions. Having said that, who doesn't like space ships? The game has lots of prefabricated space ships and space ships that you can make yourself. Pretty fun stuff!

Galactice civ

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Its a really fun game but would be better with multilayer. Id get the original game but i would not get the expansion like dark avatar and gold edition just not worth it with out online play.

Good strategy game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Strategy game is improvement over original, but graphics are harder to use and less clear than original.

Faulty product, horrible service

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 32
Date: August 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have ordered this game based on excellent reviews in many gaming journals. The game arrived quickly, was nicely packed and included 2 CDs, both of which were the same, CD 1 out of 2! In orther words, there must have been a game packadging mistake, and I got twice the first installation disk, and the second installation disk was missing. I tried to install it anyway, without success of course, because the CD number 2 was missing.

Frustrated, I registered on the site of the manufacturer, and tried to get some help, either to get a delivery of a replacement, or possibility to download the missing disk. The registration process was long and detailed, requiring to download software on my PC. Well,in the end I managed to send an email detailing my complaint. I have received an automated reply, giving me a link to typical issues with the game, offering no solution to my problem.

Since then, I have received about five junkmails from them, every time trying to sell me something, so I conclude that their assistance system is focussed on selling stuff to people, rather than helping them.

I still had not have a chance to try the game, even though I paid 60 dollars for it, spent 2 hours trying to install it and get help, and to add injury to an insult, my email is used now by one more junkmailer. Nothing but prolonged frustration.

Fairly good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: July 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I first learned about this game through a magazine I subscribe to. I then wen tot the the game's web site and down loaded the demo version, after that I was hooked!

There's still wonder out there

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: August 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing computer strategy games for a long time, and by now my attitude could be better. I wanted something new, but had drifted away from playing games and nothing seemed to impress anymore. I longed for the days of X Com: UFO Defense and the like, but nothing out there seemed to measure up, including the present day supposed greats. Then Galactic Civilizations II came along and made me stay up till dawn twice in a week and till 3 a.m. twice too. When I begin saying, "This has got to stop!", I know I've found something special.

GalCiv2 is loaded with personality and, unlike some of the best-regarded competition, does not substitute complexity for depth. The decisions you make feel like they are really impacting your results rather than just wasting your time on not just endless but, worse, ultimately nearly pointless micromanagement. This turns continuously learning ever more about the game so you can play it just that little bit better into something fun rather than a burden. That's quite a design accomplishment, and one of the things that gives this game a very long potential life span.

Players expand their empires and conquer the universe in about as many ways as they can dream up. The game is very customizable. You can play on random maps from tiny to immense, creating games that last a few hours to weeks or months, against almost no opponents or quite a few. You can even make up custom races of your own, and, within limitations, balance their strengths and weaknesses yourself. You can go for victories via war, diplomacy, alliance, influence, research superiority, and more. You can be a bully or a peacenik or a shrewd financier. You can fight less or more, with premade ship styles or ones you design yourself. But all the while, an AI widely recognized in the gaming world as of superior quality is making plans of its own for you, and you had better be ready. If you're not, well ... you can dial its capabilities up or down next time! Or go find a saved game and see if you can figure out or avoid your mistakes.

There are campaigns, but the game really opens up in "sandbox" mode, the design and playing of your own size, pace, and style of game. The game is a wonderful puzzle to figure out. And once you think you have, you can do it again by playing a different alien race and learning from the ground up.

This is all the more mesmerizing with the next expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, which requires this package to run. TOA makes the research trees of each alien race markedly different, which lends the races a distinctness that improves replay value even more.

If you have any love for single-player strategy games, GalCiv2 is not a gamble. It's definitely the prize among its peers, and the best game I've played in many years.

Galactic Civilizations II Gold

Problem with game freezing with some graphics card

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 20
Date: June 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was able to play the game for a few rounds when it froze. There's a problem with the Nvidia Geforce Go 7900 GS equipped computers with Vista. There are on-line forums that outlines which graphics cards don't work with the game. Supposedly, there's a bug in the driver and they haven't fixed it so there's no way for me to play the game unless I buy a different graphics card equipped laptop or get a little smarter in finding a program to update the driver. Which I am a little hesitant because I don't want to download something that can destroy my computer. Unless you have a different graphics card. Don't buy the game. It's actually a great game but because of the horrible support for the driver for laymen like me, I would rather not have purchased the game.... All it does for me now is taunt me whenever I see the game box sitting on my shelf.

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