BUGS BUGS BUGS BUGGY...

Have you considered it might be something else?  If the game crashed all the time for even a fairly small percentage of people, don't you think the forums would be a riot?

Did you check the readme? Did you update your drivers? What kind of hardware you running? 

Supplying the Stardock guys with more detailed information about your crash might be a good way to help them make the good patcher you're looking for.

Its a great game but it has so many bugs.. it should not be sold like this!

Well, I'm glad they sold it "like this" because it works fine for me. (And the vast majority of other forum users, it would seem...)

Yellow Sign's right, you're probably going to have to give a slightly more detailed error report if you expect anyone to be able to help you.

sounds like the problem is more on your end friend.

yep - I have to agree - it sounds a lot like ther is something wrong with the computer in question. I have not suffered one crash since the release - im playing the largest galaxy and its ok -- it slowed down a lot now as there are so many ships etc but im very impressed - there are still bugs (i downloaded the update to day) but compared to the beta - which crashed routinely the game is much more stable -- try completley reinstalling stardock ? or your computer - or add more memory and of course .. read the readme ... good luck

Yes, it's a new game and there are inevitably some bugs including the occasional CTD that can usually be traced to specific conditions when suitable information is provided (try installing Stardock's Smart Exception tool to assist the devs in identifying your problems).

Posting such a negative tirade against the company that has, in the opinion of many here, the best pre & post-release support policy bar none is not going to win you many friends or elicit much assistance.

The problem is surely localised, so uninstall, check your drivers are up to date, defrag your HD, make sure the PC is free of spyware, adware and viruses, check page file settings etc etc and you will probably fix 90+% of the problems faced.

"Another bug is the credits.. I have lost credits when I load a saved game. For example I had 2700 and after load again it was only 600...! Thats makes me mad."

Hi! I have heard in other posts that this is something that has happened to others. If it is the same issue as other reported, the issue is that the game does not save your economic slider settings... so when you reload the game, it resets your economic sliders to the default settings. Its not that credits are lost, it is that your tax/research/military spending settings have been adjusted. You may just need to readjust your economic settings. Not sure if that's the problem you are having or not.... hard to tell from the description you left - but you might want to give it a shot



This is a fantastic game with fantastic support. I am sure if you are having problems with your computer and ask for help - you will get it if you want it.

Yea, I gotta say, I don't know where all the bugs are coming from. I haven't had a CTD once and I'm playing on a less-than-gaming-optimal laptop...

I didnt post any details because I know I have nothing wrong installed, or old drivers etc. My computer is always updated.
I havent any problems with any other software or games...
However some of the bugs I described like the fleet bug or credits lose have nothing to do with driver or system configuration...!

But here the details.

Athlon 64 3200+
1GB DDR RAM 400Mhz
Ati Radeon X800 PCI-Express (Catalyst 6.2)
Creative Audigy 2
Windows XP SP2 (always up to date)

I had a crash once, and I get some flickering graphics on the 3d ship and planet models, but my laptop is most definitely NOT designed to play this game. It's a tablet PC with an intel extreme chip.

My desktop runs like a champ

My impression of the game is also that it's buggy. I've played other games--well okay, lots of other games--and this is simply significantly buggier than average. It's not the worst I've ever seen, though--Morrowind for Xbox was worse. "Real War" was pretty bad, too, oh my gosh.

Based on what I'm reading in the forum, others are reporting lots of bugs, too. My impression is Stardock is attempting a different kind of business model, where they enhance their support, but did less QA prior to release. It takes less manpower to fix known problems than it does finding them in the first place. You get more work done with less resources, but it does come across as sloppier.

If you don't have it installed already pick up Stardock's SmartException https://www.stardock.com/products/smartexception/ and send along anything it catches.
[email protected]

Maybe it's the GPU overheating problem that seems to be the cause of many crashes:
https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=164&AID=103280
In this case, there is a patch coming tomorrow - hope it fixes the problem for you.

If not, I'd recommend SmartException from Stardock - this program will create an extensive log file in case of the crash. Sending this data to Stardock will help them hunt down the problem.

I can understand the frustration, but I haven't had that many crashes. For myself I have only had the game crash once. I hit the "Turn" button and the game seemed to stall for a bit, and then it just crashed and went back to windows. With auto save this isn't the end of the world but annoying none the less. Also I have had bugs with the loading of saved games as far as player designed craft go and a few other minor bugs, but those can be expected and I am sure that they are working on a fix for these issues. I haven't noticed the credits issue, but I haven't really paid attention to that part when I save and then load.

First off, I had/have very, very high expectations for this game - and I think many others do too, and that's a big reason why there are so many "constructive" posts about feature/enhancement requests and/or bug reports. For me I think this high expectation level has made me hypercritical of even the most tiny flaw in the game.

I think the game is a bit buggier than I expected it to be, considering how long the relatively open beta was and how long the gamma was. I would expect a lot of issues I've seen to have been caught long, long ago. There will always be bugs in software - it's nearly impossible to test every possible combination of rules, events, etc. But simple things like selecting ships, social production, and lots more not working properly kinda boggle the mind.

I'm also experiencing periodic CTDs on a reasonably clean system with up-to-date drivers. Some may be due to known game issues but that doesn't make them any less unpleasant. Fortunately the game saves quickly so setting autosave to 3 turns or less can usually safeguard against CTD woes. I play a lot of games and a lot of high end games and they don't crash this much (or at all) unless they have known issues (that are often never dealt with due to publishers - I do believe Stardock will take care of everything that can be taken care of).

What I consider to be AI flaws are also bumming me out. "Intelligent" AIs suiciding transports into my fleets, not always developing planets well, suiciding fleets into a starbase and barely scratching it, AIs not using ships you gift them - especially after they request aid, AIs declaring war when they have no hope of ever reaching me (not huge, but it makes me doubt the AI in general), etc. AI is touted as one of the best things about GalCiv I and II - and things like this just bug me because they are not examples of good AI. (Sorry, but it's true.) How could issues like these not have come up in beta, gamma, or internal testing? These are commonplace events, not special cases.

I've also think I've had some wierdness with saving/loading.

One problem for me is that when I notice or read about things I *can* see not working properly it makes me doubt the things that I can't see or that I don't pay as much attention to. Are my bonuses working right? Is the AI doing other little things well? Etc.

All told, I'm not as into this game as I expected and I too await patching to get to the point where I can play without being annoying by all these various things to some degree. I can play the game and have some fun - but I haven't been totally blown away by the game as I expected to be due to these various issues. I want a full blown and challenging strategy game, not just a ship design simulation.

My impression of the game is also that it's buggy. I've played other games--well okay, lots of other games--and this is simply significantly buggier than average.

Sadly, I would have to agree.

If you're not noticing bugs then more power to ya, game on.

Show far I have just played the first two missions of the campain. During these missions I have had difficultly adding weapons/defense to my starbases (tried with starbases mining resources) after researching Starbase Fortifications. I never had this problem in the Beta5 but then again it did not have a campain. Tonight after a reclaim my computer from my wife I'll see if it happens with other types of starbases and send the details to [email protected].

Also sometimes the graphs/stats get corrupted. I'll send a game with both problems to [email protected].

Anyone else seen these issues?

Despite these bugs, GalCiv2 is more stable than the typical released game!

What I consider to be AI flaws are also bumming me out. "Intelligent" AIs suiciding transports into my fleets, not always developing planets well, suiciding fleets into a starbase and barely scratching it, AIs not using ships you gift them - especially after they request aid, AIs declaring war when they have no hope of ever reaching me (not huge, but it makes me doubt the AI in general), etc. AI is touted as one of the best things about GalCiv I and II - and things like this just bug me because they are not examples of good AI. (Sorry, but it's true.) How could issues like these not have come up in beta, gamma, or internal testing? These are commonplace events, not special cases.

It was noted during the Beta cycle that the AI would not escort transports (I thought that was resolved). I found and reported during Beta that the AI would not attack my war ships parked next to his planets when upgrading (and thus easy marks); I have not yet retried in the current release to see if the AI on Intelligent still makes this mistake. Brad has reported in one of his Terran vs. Drengin dev posts that the AI was sometimes failing to development high PQ planets; he is working on that.

But here the details. Athlon 64 3200+ 1GB DDR RAM 400Mhz Ati Radeon X800 PCI-Express (Catalyst 6.2) Creative Audigy 2 Windows XP SP2 (always up to date)

Well, you should look at the debug.err file in the Galciv 2 directory. It has lots of information about your configuration, like the date of the drivers you are using.