The public beta of the expansion pack, Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar is scheduled to start on November 16th. We have the main features done, still doing AI which will continue right up until release.
The main features of the beta over Galactic Civilizations II v1.4 include (but are not limited to):
- Planet environments. You can't immediately colonize all the good worlds. Now players will need to research the correct technology for that.
- Agents. Players can spend money on espionage to hire agents who in turn are assigned to defend planets or do harm to opponent planets (they nullify the activity of most planetary improvements).
- Custom Opponents. You can design your own opponents including what they look like and what their ships look like (i.e. you can assign what the AI uses for various classes of ships). A lot of modding support has been done so that modders can upload their own ship styles rather than replacing what's on disk.
- Templates. Players can design a template ship and use it in the future.
- Two new civilizations. Are now in.
- Tons of new ship parts -- hulls, and extras.
- Ship Intelligence center.
- Asteroid Fields. Players can now harvest resources from an asteroid field and send it to a destination planet.
- Lots of new planetary improvements and techs.
- Diplomatic treaties. There are some new treaties players can make with alien players.
- Graphics. Overall the graphics in the game are noticeably better across the board.
What's not quite ready yet but will appear somewhat in the beta:
- The Epic Generator. It..kind..of..works...but...it's really complicated. This is something the betas will help pin down since it's so subjective.
- Super-Abilities. To make each civilization truly unique, they've been given their own special super ability (i.e. an ability with code behind it). These..kind of work sort of but not in all cases. Still working on these.
- Mega Events. Same. We have some in, but a lot more need to be added. These are like regular events in GalCiv II except a lot more of them.
What's not in at all yet: The new stream-lined technology tree interface. That should be in by December.
The beta will be available to everyone who has pre-ordered the game. See the link below to learn more about Dark Avatar and how to get it.
