There are a few games that I return to playing year after year. Every once in a while I have to rev up the ol' Sega Genesis and let Sonic run through the hoops again or get a group of friends together to race around the track with Diddy Kong on the N64. The two older games that I find myself playing the most however are Civilization (various versions depending on my mood) and Masters of Orion I. These games never seem to grow old and have an incredible amount of replayability. These games have their flaws of course, you often end up spending most of your time in the later part of the game tweaking various ratio throughout your empire which can get a little tiresome, but there's a something relaxing and comforting about these games, like curling up in an old comforter and watching a repeat of a favorite show.

Now game publisher Stardock has come up with a turn-based strategy game that takes the best aspects of the Civilization series and Masters of Orion, put them together, and eliminated many of the negatives in the process. Galactic Civilizations II, a sequel to Stardock's popular 2003 PC game, has everything that you look for in a strategy game: interesting play, a long and varied research tree, customizable units, and most of all a rugged but fair AI that really makes the game.

The game is set in the 23rd century. Mankind has recently discovered the 'hyperdrive' an engine capable to spanning the great distances between stars. What they find though isn't just habitable planets, but several other space faring races, all of which want to be the most important force in the galaxy. With diplomacy, economic power, influence, and if all else fails military strength, each of the races strives for dominance in the not-so-friendly universe.

Gameplay:

The game comes on two CDs, and installation was easy and straight forward. So far so good. One of the first things that you'll notice when starting this game is that there isn't any copy protection! In a very wise move, Stardock has realized the fact that software piracy is here to stay. As sad as it sounds, there will always be talented programers who consider it a challenge to hack a game or application. Instead of spending a lot of time and effort in the (futile) effort of stopping these hackers, Stardock has taken another approach; they give extra content to people who buy their program. When you go to their web site and enter your e-mail address and serial number, you can download extra content, new hulls, designs, tweaks, and patches, with more to come. I really feel that this is an excellent way of doing things. By putting out a well made product and giving buyers free updates and expansions they'll gain a lot of customer loyalty which will make people want to give them their money. The fact that I can have the game installed on my PC, laptop and computer at work without violating the user agreement or, more importantly, having to keep track of a keyed disc adds a lot to the value for me.

Battles can be seen on the Combat Viewer.

Getting back to the game itself...once everything is booted up and installed players have a choice. They can play through a set up campaign or go for a stand alone game.

The Campaign:

The campaign has an interesting story associated with it. Millions of years ago, two races warred throughout the galaxy: The noble Arnor and the evil Dread Lords. The Dread Lords were easily the superior force, and had conquered every planet that the Arnor settled with the exception of their home world. Just as the Dread Lords were about to launch their final attack on the Arnor, both races totally vanished.

Now there are ten new races in the galaxy, and there's still a lot of war. The Human Coalition has been battling with the Drengin Alliance. The Drengins have found an old artifact however that they think will tip the scales in their favor. Unfortunately, it just unleashes a force that is far worse than either side can imagine.

The campaign is a lot of fun (mostly...the Dread Lords can really get you pissed off) and it not only teaches the basics of the game but gives a player a simplified version of a stand alone game. These aren't three minute tutorials that quickly get boring, but a real game that ends when some predetermined goal is reached. This is nice way of figuring out the mechanics of the game without becoming overwhelmed in the stand alone version or taking all of the time to actually read the manual. (Though you will have to refer to it, so keep it handy.)

The only qualm I had with the campaign (aside from the fact that some of the missions were much more difficult than I was expecting) is that some aspects of the larger game are turned off, trade for example, but the game advisor will still pop up and recommend that you get some extra cash by opening trade routes. The only problem is the trade branch of the tech tree isn't presented, so you can't research it. This had me scratching my head for a while, but it is a minor problem.

The Stand Alone Game:

This is where you'll spend most of your time. After selecting the strength of the AI (more on this later), size of the galaxy, planet density and a few other factors, players get to select which race they want to represent. Each one has their own strengths, or a player can even design one of their own. Each race starts out having mastered a few technical skills, has a nice home planet with space port, and a colony ship and scout.

And the race is off! In a lot strategy games like this the one with the most planets/cities has a very big advantage. That's not necessarily so in Galactic Civilizations II. Some planets are so poor that they don't help you much in the way of adding money or research points to your side. They take so much time and energy to make them useful that they don't add a lot to the civilization that controls them.

Planets are rated by the number of improvements that can be placed on them. Homeworlds have 10, and you'll occasionally run into a planet rated 11 or 12. Much more common are 4's. These planets do give you a place to refuel your ships, expanding the distance that they can travel, but not a lot more than that. This is a nice feature, since two or three good planets are just as strong as four or five weak ones. If a player gets off to a slow start, the game isn't automatically lost.

On your plants you can build factories, research labs and economic centers to help you build, learn new techs and get more money respectively. As your technology level advances there are new planetary improvements that can increase the various outputs of a planet, ways of increasing the amount of land available, and super projects that aid your entire civilization. You can also build starbases out in space to increase your influence or economic power, and trade technology with other races.

Sounds pretty standard so far, right? The there are a couple of things that really sets this game apart from others in the genre though. One of these is the fact that diplomacy and influence are just as important as military might, more important in some ways. When I played my first game, I approached this with the same strategy I use in other games of this genre: grab as much land as you can at first, then research military techs, build ships and watch the others fall. I wasn't surprised that I didn't conquer all my first time around, but I was amazed at how badly I did. The various attributes of a civilization, (diplomacy skill, influence, economic ability, etc.) are all very well balanced. If you ignore one, it will hurt your civilization. If you aren't diplomatically adept, other races won't trade with you and are more willing to attack. Influence increases tourism, which adds money to your coffers, and if you don't have money it's hard to support all of the planetary improvements much less speed up the rate of ship production. Playing through several different strategies I discovered that it's very perilous to ignore any one aspect of the game. (Something that I would have discovered if I read the instructions BEFORE I played the game instead of after....but where's the fun in that?) Not only that, but it's possible to win a game without invading every planet in the galaxy. There are actually four ways to win. In addition to conquering everyone, there is a diplomatic victory where you basically are allied with all of the surviving races, an influence victory where your culture dominates the universe, and a technological victory in which your race no longer needs their physical forms. Each of these victories are very satisfying to achieve and they don't feel cheap and easy at all.

Another thing that really makes this game fantastic is the AI. The engine that drives this game is very sophisticated and follows the same rules that the real players have to. The AI also behaves differently when set at different levels. If you select "Fool" the AI won't just go easy on the players, but it will do dumb things and play in an illogical manner. This is a good level for someone who wants to get used to the user interface and just get the feel of the game without having to worry about being taken over half way through. "Normal" is a nice level of play. It's possible to win with a little work, the computer races act in a rational way and the game is very exciting.

I have to say that the "Bright" level of play is my favorite. The computer is hard to beat at this level but it is possible. You have to really think and plan your movements carefully, but the battle isn't one sided. It really feels like your playing against a real person, one that is just a little better than you are.

At higher levels the AI doesn't cheat, but it sometimes looks like it does. At the "Genius" and "Incredible" levels not only is the AI running at full speed, adjusting all of the various parameters every single turn to maximize return and attempting to anticipate the human player's tactics, but they also get an economic bonus in the form of higher influence. This extra money is used to purchase ships and planetary improvements outright, making entire fleets appear over the course of a few turns. It looks like magic (or cheating) but it really isn't. I didn't enjoy playing at these levels because I basically was creamed in short order, but it is nice that they are there for those times when I really want to test my abilities.

It's possible to play the entire game on the strategic map.

Of course an important part of this game is the user interface, and to be honest this one is a bit cluttered, but that's because there are so many parameters that a player can adjust and use. A little intimidating at first, by the time I was finished with the first campaign mission the various buttons and controls were second nature to me. Though there was a trail and experiment phase at first, it soon gave way to understanding.

That brings up another aspect of the game that I touched on earlier: This is a complex game. A novice player might feel a little lost at first, but that's not a bad thing. In this day and age when every game has to be accessible to new players, experienced gamers can get a little frustrated. Where are the games that are for people who want to think a little? Does every function have to be represented by a single icon? What about things that are more complicated than that? Without getting into a rant on the state of some role playing games, let me say that games that have a learning curve are a good thing. Just like some movies are aimed at mature viewers who don't mind wrestling with the symbolism and meaning of the film, some games should be aimed at people who don't mind working a bit in order to get a more enjoyable experience out of the game. This is one such game.

Graphics:

The graphic on this game are pretty good, especially for a turn based strategy game. The user interface makes it easy to zoom in and out of the galaxy. From looking at a single ship to the whole galaxy, the game has a nice level of detail. Ships are customizable so you can even make each new dreadnought visually distinguishable from the rest. The cut scenes are acceptable, though they looked a little soft, and the planet screens were functional if not visually exciting.

Audio:

The sound wasn't that impressive, but then again this game doesn't need to be flashy. The music can get a bit monotonous after a while, and the space battle sound effects are acceptable but that's about it. The audio does come through without any major defects or imperfections.

Conclusion:

It is rare that a game totally blows me away like this one did. After taking a short amount of time to learn the game, Galactic Civilizations II becomes fairly addictive. I play a lot of games that are fun, but there are few that keep me up until three in the morning like this one did one night. (When you click on the quit button someone with a cruel sense of humor programmed a pop-up to appear that says "A few more turns wouldn't hurt...are you sure you want to quit?" That doesn't help at all.) The game gives you a lot to think about too. Many times I've found myself driving somewhere thinking "if I can finish researching Lasers IV, then I can mount those on a medium hull with some Titanium shielding and..."

The excellent AI, well balanced game play, deep technology tree, and infinitely customizable spacecraft make this a game that I am sure I'll still be playing ten years from now. If this doesn't deserve our highest rating, I can't imagine what would. This is a Videogame Talk Collector Series game.