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Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Announced!

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Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Announced!

Sometimes, evil wins...

https://www.galciv2.com/darkavatar/
from GalCiv2 Forums

This Fall Stardock will be releasing the Dark Avatar expansion pack for Galactic Civilizations II.

Dark Avatar is the first official expansion pack to Stardock's award-winning PC strategy game, Galactic Civiliations II.

The expansion pack goes far beyond the typical expansion. Not only does it add new units, new races, new maps, and a new campaign as is expected in an expansion pack, it greatly expands the feature set of the base game in very significant ways.

Here are some of the features that will be in the expansion pack:

  • Custom Opponents.  Just as players can design their own civilizations; in Dark Avatar they can design their own opponents to play against. This isn't just cosmetic either, players will be able to set up their intelligence, personality, playing style as well as what they look like, what ships they use, what dialog they use, etc.  These opponents are then saved for later use.
  • Agents. Players will be able to hire agents via espionage to wreak havoc on their opponents or to counter enemy agents operating in their own empire.
  • Special Worlds.  Worlds in Galactic Civilizations II will have an additional classification -- environment type. Different races will start with the ability to colonize only certain environment types.  Through research and technology, additional planet types can be colonized and conquered but it will totally change the way the initial colonization phase of the game plays out.
  • The Epic Generator.  One of the things Stardock has put out that people seem to like are epic stories of game play examples.  Dark Avatar will generate such stories automatically and export them as HTML so that players can share their stories with others and look back at a good game as the epic saga they imagined.
  • Asteroid Fields. The economics in Dark Avatar will be altered to make strategic control of additional kinds of resources important. Amongst those will be the asteroid fields which, when utilized, can help the closest colonized planet. In additional, asteroid fields act as a natural barrier slowing down incoming ships.
  • New Treaties. Diplomacy will get beefed up with the additional of new diplomatic treaties. These treaties not only provide mutual benefit but give players more tools to forge their relations with other players.
  • New Races. Two new civilizations will be introduced to the mix including the evil Korath who are bent on genocide at the galactic scale.
  • New hulls and ship components. A ton of hulls and ship components are going to be added. This really can't be overstated enough because not only are there going to be a lot of these components but the quality is far superior to what we've done before thanks to having mastered the art of making ship hulls and components.
  • The New Campaign: Dark Avatar. This time, the Drengin Empire are the good guys. You must make the galaxy safe for oppression and tyranny...because the alternative is worse.

The expansion pack will list for $29.95 but users will be able to pre-order it for $24.95.  The expansion will be initally released digital only via TotalGaming.net (and the store on GalCiv2.com). though players can also have a CD sent to them as well. 

The release date is this Fall.

128,762 views 123 replies
Reply #51 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
However, I have absolutely no interest in the new campaign. Call me weird, but I've never gotten off on playing the epitome of evil.


There's nothing stopping you from picking the good events during colonisation and turning the Drengin into a load of goody two-shoes...
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Excellent...I was really hoping for a beefing-up of espionage; spying is all well and good, but what about some saboutage? Now my prayers have been answered! I know its still quite early, but do you guys have a vague idea of how large the expansion will be? My internet connection can be pretty grumpy sometimes, and has been known to crap out over large dl's.
Reply #54 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's interesting, being in Japan, how I can go to sleep, wake up, and, holy crap, thousands of things have happened on my favorite sites while I was unconscious -- like a Gamespot interview, and a press release, and 53 replies to it. Go figure.

Anyway, asteroid belts, espionage and planet types all made my morning. Completely awesome. To be completely honest, I'm most excited about the new design parts and (maybe I misread this), but we're getting new weapons too, right? I can't wait.

Keep up the good work!
Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
wo0tabulous!!! Any chance of having up Fleet Admirals with which to manage our tactics non-intrusively?
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Two questions:

1. Could you allow an option that lets the player play the non-expanded game after the game is installed?

2. What would happen if a civ's planet is taken oven through influence and the receiving civ doesn't have the tech to colonize it?


Oddly enough, the addition that I'm most excited about is the "epic generator." I'm also amazed that no one has complained about MP yet.
Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I love the new expantion pack! I am even willing to overlook the fact that astroids are not thick enough to have any effect on ship speed! I do have one question: will it be available in stores? If not, then I may not be able to get it.
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If I was French, I might say, "le sweet."
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
the new ship components will hopefully also come with some reorganization of the Extras menu in the ship creation screen?

there are already so many things in that list that it takes forever to scroll. adding more to the list is just going to increase the pain.

the "Your Style" tab is a nice start, but who decides what MY style is? is it just the style of jewelry suggested for the race's hulls that i've chosen?

maybe instead the "Your Style" tab could contain just the extras that i've actually used so far?

or maybe there could be a checkbox on the Extras menu for "Sort by most recently used", that would put the items that i've most recently used at the top of the list?

of couse, do feel free to implement something far cooler in the way of re-organizing the extras... just as long as it's something better than what's there now!

in any case, the expansion sounds great!!!
Reply #61 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If I understand correctly the list of features, this means that some hinted features in this article http://galciv2.net/4/166/294/ haven't made into the final cut.

It is strange since one would have thought when reading that article on the apolyton site that hotseat was described as a planned feature for the first expansion.
Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oooh, asteroids.

I just looked at the preview.

Spies?

Rebels that extend beyond their races?

Female avatars?

Asterioid fields?!

I'm SO excited for this.
Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This looks to be awesome. Well done Stardock. It sounds pretty much perfect.
Reply #64 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can preorder now for those who have asked, just follow the link on the first page of the article.

My question to Stardock is will my credit card be charged now if I preorder or at the time the game releases?
Reply #65 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could any Americans help me out with what "fall" actually means? I remember a game I was waiting for last year was scheduled to come out in the fall. It acually turned out to mean late December. Is that an unusually late definition? Cos to me that's winter!


Well according to the calendar no matter where you are on the planet in the Northern hemisphere, Fall is from Sept 21st/22nd thru December 21st/22nd. What people might think of fall is different. Fall in the northern half of the US may be considered Labor Day (first Monday in September) thru Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November). But down south September is still summertime.

But when a company talk a release date, use the calendar, not regional thoughts on the season.

Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Digital distribution is great, if you got a credit card. And live in some remote part of the world. No shipping, no delays, unless you count the download time. ( Which takes an hour or something for me. It's a no-brainer with a fair internet connection. )

This is good stuff. Will buy.

Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In my opinion the campaign and the history in dark avatar will get no fashion because what's the difference between Drengin and Korath if planetary invasions are always genocide!There is no way to enslave population nor population can be differentiated in soldiers and unarmed population.
Making a campaign with this history required at least that you can have a greater control over your population.For example if you are drengin and have captured a Torian planet through influence you should see on population table that on this planet there are torians not Drengin.On your alien citizens you should have some choices about their use (like use as slaves, normal citizen or ecc.).
Like invasions and population are implementated in the game there is no difference between Drengin and Korath, so history makes no sense in my opinion.
Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Marioflag. 1: Spaces between sentences, argh.

2: There is a difference between game mechanics and story mechanics. The story can be one thing, the game another. If you've ever played a console RPG, there is often a series massively devastating magic attacks that could burn, blast, freeze, drown, or otherwise completely decimate the entire landscape, but outside of battle...nope, nothing happens. If you seriously can't draw the line, then think about this: the "population" of a world is simply the number of taxpayers. After an invasion, you can assume various things depending on your civilization: you did commit genocide, or you enslaved everyone that survived your invasion and as they're not tax payers they don't count on the population graph, or you slowly reintegrate them into the new society which counts for population growth, or you forcibly "enlighten" them and force them to fit inside your moral society.

I'm sorry, but Stardock has said it best [and this is not an exact quote]: "It's easy to think of features, it's harder to make it so the AI can use those feature effectively."
Reply #69 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
We need to differentiate between civillians and military, as marioflag aid. I have some ideas how to do this.

We need to seperate millitary from unarmed civillians on planets. Millitary personel would pay no taxes- or, if this is too harsh, just less taxes. To make things more interesting, there could be two types of millitary: highly trained troops that are less numberous but are very effective, and drafted troops that are more numberous but drop like flies.


To balance the smaller armed forces on the planet, we need to lessen the power of attacking forces. The most obvious way to do this is to make invading armies smaller. In addition, the planetary defence improvement needs to be more effective, and there should be options of how to defend (just as there are options on how to attack) These options would be unlocked by the planetary defence tech line.

And of cource, as marioflag said, the conqueror decides what to do with the civillians. All attack options would kill off ciillians, some (like tidal forces and gas warfare) more than others. One or more defensive option(s) could also draft civillians for millitary use, like the attacking option of information warfare.


Perhaps this should be in its own topic. At least here, someone from stardock will see it.
Reply #70 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I wish that stardock can give a little more insight to the ability of hiring "agents" and what their roles can be ... for example, are agents going to have a choice and concentrate on a certain action like blow up an enemy building or steal a particular ship or even expose governments to cause rebellion by lowering approval ratings and so on and so forth. In interesting concept can be dividing the destablization into 4 like research, economy, influence and diplomacy.For example, in research your agents can blow up facilities or assasinate key researchers so that they can start from scratch. For economy, your agents can sell fake goods or blow up economic buildings. For influence and diplomacy, it can be blowing up specific buildings to assasination or exposure. The stories that they can come up with is endless and it will be up to the script writers to make intriguing plots that will show on our screens.
Reply #71 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the enviornmental idea, it will totally stop the initial colony rush (Even thou now its stopped by stupid maintenece cost, which I hate :O )
Reply #72 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Marioflag. 1: Spaces between sentences, argh.


I don't know why, but some of us are having problems with line breaks. For some reason, no matter how carefully you arrange a post, they all disappear once you submit it. =/
Reply #73 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
However, I have absolutely no interest in the new campaign. Call me weird, but I've never gotten off on playing the epitome of evil.


There's nothing stopping you from picking the good events during colonisation and turning the Drengin into a load of goody two-shoes...


We're talking campaign. Obviously, you can do that in a random game, but the conditions are much more controlled in the campaign. In the Dread Lords campaign, you can't choose to ally with the Dread Lords, no matter how evil you are.

Anyway, being a complete goody two-shoes is almost as being ultimate evil. How about you do what you need to do to succeed without being evil just for the sake of being evil? If you rely on intimidation and cruelty as your only tools for population control, sooner or later someone will grow a backbone and make your life miserable.

Reply #74 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well 30$ or even 25$ I think its too much for an expansion
its more than the half of the game itself..
thanx Im a european and the cost in euro is less for me
if I still play the game in fall maybe I will buy it and I hope to
see something new than ships going around and building up.
You see.. I like the game but it doesnt have something.. wow.. something to see
videos, graphics something you expect to happen something wonderful or
horrible..
thats what I would like to see in an expansion..
this list is great but something that could make the game more like adventure to expect the unexpectable.. something occurs and the whole game changes..
and not just a screen says.. my civilization is interested to others..
or economy booming..
also there could be artifacts around galactic map.. objects, asteroids, planets, devices different from any other one.. they give you for example a special technology or something else..

thats just my opinion and desire..
agree or reject it..
Reply #75 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't know why, but some of us are having problems with line breaks. For some reason, no matter how carefully you arrange a post, they all disappear once you submit it. =/


Oh dear, if that's the problem, then I apologize.