GalCiv2, finally you are mine!
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GalCiv2 Forums
GalCiv2 Forums
I've been reading Journal postings ever since being pointed here by a fellow Arsian (www.arstechnica.com) who was waiting for the game. I'm not heavily into 4X games, but this one seemed really interesting. Unfortunately, actually buying the game turned out to be nigh-on impossible. I couldn't buy direct, since Stardock's VeriSign system demands exactly-perfect address information, and nothing I gave it made it happy (including exactly what the CC company had on file). Went back and forth with Stardock CS for a while, which didn't help much (not at all their fault, although if I ever meet the guy at Verisign who designed that particular system, he's going to have a very unfortunate encounter with the business end of an icepick).
In a city of 56K people, retail opportunities are slim, basically EBGames and Wal-Mart, neither of whom had the game (although both have plenty of Xbox 360s, go figure). Amazon Canada was likewise out of stock. So I waited and waited, hoping that someone would eventually get it. The demo came out and I played it. It was okay, but not great; even so, I wanted this game, if only to support developers with an outlook on customer service and DRM that I approved of.
Finally, yesterday, while I was in Wal-Mart for some fish food, I happened by the electronics section, and lo!, partly hidden behind a copy of Sims 2: Open For Business, was one lone copy of GalCiv2! 
It looked like crap; the box was all beat up, security seals askew, as though someone had been playing hockey with it. I didn't mind its bedraggled state, for even though the jewel case inside was also broken, the discs were intact and undamaged, so I immediately seized it and brought it home.
After a quick install and tying in the unreasonably huge serial number at least three times, everything is up and running.
Just one man's tale of the lengths he had to go to in order to acquire this gem 
It looked like crap; the box was all beat up, security seals askew, as though someone had been playing hockey with it. I didn't mind its bedraggled state, for even though the jewel case inside was also broken, the discs were intact and undamaged, so I immediately seized it and brought it home.
After a quick install and tying in the unreasonably huge serial number at least three times, everything is up and running.
Just one man's tale of the lengths he had to go to in order to acquire this gem 
