May the gaming nerds reign supreme I mean well; the whole multi-player crazed thing is afterall from what i've observed in my city is by far supported by social folk who can't even go to sleep without talking themselves to sleep on their cell-phones. Nothing wrong with that either; everyone has their prejudices though.

GC2-DA although is a definately an extra support beam to GC2 as a whole

I know I've added fuel to this fire in the past, but I really do wish this game had MP. Last year I convinced a friend of mine, who likes the Meier Civ games, to buy it, but he's never gotten into it. I can't help but think that if I could play co-op MP with him over the 'net (he lives a couple of hours away), he'd get into it. How could you not have fun ganging up on the other races with a real-life buddy?

-HM

Multiplayer equivalent of "political correctness"? What a bunch of bullshit. Multiplayer is neccessary for a very simple reason and that is that a human player can reach levels of skill that a AI player simply.... can.... not.

Someone finaly agree's with the general comunity for there not being any great NEED for multiplayer, let alone it being a fesible concept! As kingmob said, the game simply is too time consuming for it to work if the other person will just rage when they start to lose, bot's dont do that!

Im not trying to take anything away from Stardock, I bought both DL and DA and Im still playing. Stardock did a good job with the AI but it is still no match for a reasonably intelligent and experienced player (without bonuses).

What I meant was that it has nothing to do with "political correctness" that people want multiplayer. People want it because it is more challenging and more fun to play against a real human being, specially if you do it regularly with people you know.

But I dont need to have multiplayer, apparently since Im still playing the game, but it would take the game to a whole new dimension. As it did with MOO2, for me.

It is like great gfx, I dont need it but a game with great gfx makes it automatically a better game (observe that better doesnt neccessarily mean it makes the game good). Same with multiplayer which is implemented well.

Well, I see your point and understand it from a pure business perspective. But it feels cynical and dishonest. Either you don´t mention reviews at all, or you take ALL reviews into account, good and bad. Why don´t they (Stardock) instead just link to the Game Rankings site for GalCiv2 DA so gamers can check out for themselves without being manipulated? By the way, the expansion has an impressive 92,6% ranking at that site, making it nr 23rd highest ranking PC game of all time.

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/934081.asp

Then explain to me



With



If you truely didn't doubt that DA is great; then why insist that Stardock/GC2.com waste their time on neggative advertisements? Do you truely believe the majority of people out there are going to buy anything where there's a whole pile of neggative "CONS" ? Would it be too much for you to understand that Companies such as Stardock like to think positive? Do you really think they created a multi-million dollar bussiness from posting positive reviews ONLY and believing that they didn't need to improve? Why of course not; so this is why I can't even understand why you believe it absolutely neccasary for stardock to find/waste time to search the web for a sour review.

I mean; I didn't post




for nothing. I thought about what I posted before I posted it; I can't think of any logical explanation to support your hunger for neggative/critical reviews. Obviously the existing community posts bugs, and things they'd like to see and GC1/GC2 have been known for decent constant updates whenever Stardock Staff can spare the time.

I mean perhaps geniuses like you,you and me should be writing up our resumes to show these experienced professionals how it's done right? I mean would you spend all your time reading posts like yours/mine questioning your motives were you in their shoes?

It's true I'm a fan and I've been critical myself of certain things in the past. Truely however there must be a small harmony in this community where the Game developers listen best they can right?

In my insignificant oppinion; everything boils down to "time".



Aggreed. One thing I think is awesome about Stardock though; and do excuse this "fanboy's" perspective... is that they have been constantly improving it.

I've been arround to see how the AI behave from GC1,Altarian Prophesy , GC2,DA... and I must say from my memory the AI has significantly improved allong the road.






I agree we don't -need- multiplayer but I also agree with you strange as it sounds, that MP would be a nice feature for those who want it or wish to use it at any given time.

What would need to be done though from my point of view is that there would have to be a "real time mode" and a sort of calibrated timer for research/construction. It would involve a little work but it would definately eliminate the obstacle of having to wait for the other player to press the turn button.



Wholeheartedly with you on that one. I'd like to thank you Yamota for being so kind as to further explain your post and not taking my little rant that honestly carried on from my reply to the other poster.

The entire point to my reply that entire time posting on two fronts was to express my strong feelings for the need of a positive outgoing attitude one which I see Stardock's CEO and Company seem to have. Holding on to a positive attitude and trying to explain that the world as a whole needs to as well to spread the positive spirit is important in my oppinion. Through all my querks and 'fan-boy' appearance this is my goal.

The internet is a difficult place to communicate I'll admit though. Thanks for the replies; both of you

And frankly who has the time to find every review out there and post a link to them?! Maybe Stardock peeps are taking a well deserved holiday

I think these days we're all grown up enough to go out and scroogle our own reviews.

I can't blame Stardock for getting enthused and posting positive reviews, they are proud of Dark Avatar and why shouldn't they toot their own horn?

We're a minority I'll admit. Some people play chess by mail. I like to play Civ 3 by e-mail. I would very much like to play GalCiv 2 by e-mail, but it's clear that will never happen.

Everyone that plays a game is affected by its graphics and sound, not everyone is affected by its multiplayer component because many, many people don't MP. This is the fundamental problem with gaming press, they assume everyone is a multiplayer gamer and review accordingly. Largely this is because people that are in the gaming press have a large group of other folks to play games with, and simply can't be bothered to realize that many other people don't game the same way they do.

So no, MP is not necessary or even relevant to a large portion of the gaming population. Marking down a game for lacking MP, then, is a disservice to all of us that play pretty much exclusively single player.

You'll note that the reverse never happens, by the way. A game whose SP sucks but whose MP is excellent will frequently get excellent reviews all across the industry.