## WARNING! THIS POST MAINLY TALKS ABOUT A GAME EXPERIENCE. READ AT OWN DISCRETION!##
My first game on Challenging today was interesting. Everyone was going for missiles so I decided to go for beam weapons, thinking that they would be focusing on missile defence instead. Unfortunately I underestimated how quick the AI was at adapting and the Arceans had quickly put beam defences up on particular ships. And since relations between the Arceans and I were getting quite tense, I decided to ally with the Altarians and Terrans. Eventually the Terrans were wiped out by the Altarians of all races and the Terrans handed the rest of their empire to me for protection.
The situation between the Arceans and I was getting more and more tense as a culture war was raging but my break came when the Arcean leader was assassinated while on a good-will tour on Altarian soil and a massive war broke out between the two powers. I decided not to support the Altarians because I drastically needed more time to research better missile defences. At first it seemed like the Altarians were going to win despite their inferior military, they had already taken two worlds from the Arceans. However soon the Arceans regrouped from the quick attack and took back their worlds.
I was going to help the Altarians with their war when an event happened, it turns out that the Altarians had found some kind of powerful artifact, and they would slowly become more and more powerful over time until nothing could stop them. So I quickly invaded their homeworld and satellite world and they surrendered the rest of their worlds to the Arceans. Time passed and the peace was becoming quite uneasy and I knew their military machine was unstoppable. So in order to preserve my empire and my people, I gave the Arceans what they wanted, the Altarian homeworld and Wisp. That pleased them enough to let them consider alliance in exchange for a lot of my technology. So in the end, the breakaway human empire that is my usual custom race continued its existance as a vassal empire under the watchful eye of the Arcean empire. And the galaxy was united in peace.
What GalCiv II-bashers should take note about from this game I played
* I had to betray my closest friends and allies by helping their worst enemy in order to save my ass in the long-run
* I actually felt bad about the Altarians
* The only reason I survived was because of a lucky break. Which means I'm kept on the edge of my seat hoping that next turn the galaxy superpower won't declare war.
* Culture wars are tense and fun. What other game has enemy empires sizing you up as a threat because its people are starting to enjoy your empire's drinks and virtual reality pods instead of theirs?
What GalCiv II AI-bashers should take note about from this game I played
* The AI in this game was set on a level below intelligent (Bright)
* The AI evaluated when I wasn't a military threat anymore and decided to stop putting effort into countering my beam weapons.
* The AI knew that I was in a powerful alliance and it never declared war on me despite relations between it and I being in the gutter and that it was far more powerful than me.
* Once the Altarians starting attacking the Terrans and they surrendered, the AI seemed to decide to start building up even more near me in preparation for an attack.
