CHOOSE ANY SIZE GALAXY?

Gigantic is the largest sized galaxy.
So, 'any size galaxy' would mean anything between 'Tiny' and 'Gigantic'.


So the answer to your question is, 'no'.

You are allowed to choose from the smallest to the largest of the 'offered sizes'.


And to be fair to the game devs, larger sized galaxies require a corresponding increase in memory usage. Going beyond Gigantic is really not 'playably feasable' with current hardware.

Hi Moosetek13:

Thank you so much for your extremely helpful reply.   

Yes, I certainly understand the principle of hardware constraints - especially as my present system is nowhere near "cutting edge". However (largely by necessity), I am hoping to upgrade to something significantly better early next year and am looking forward to testing my new system with a truly epic (strategy) scenario.

It would be great if devs (not only Stardock but all devs) could design their games to support future (even up to 5 years ahead) hardware developments. However, I fully realize that this development could well be seen as being "counter-intuitive" as it might well undermine the sale of future games (that would take cogniscience of such hardware advances). Therefore this is a most tricky subject indeed ....

Afaik, Civilization 4 does not feature a hard-coded limitation wrt the size of its maps - but the intense memory demands (as well as some of the gameplay dynamics) would however make it somewhat tricky to build a truly massive empire. Nevertheles, I know that it is possible to mod the (year-specific) length of each turn and the time (in turns) required to search the various techs (as I was involved in the fairly lengthy discussion regarding a mod at the CivFanatics forum).

Just my 2 cents worth ....   

I like playing on the larger maps in order to feel like I'm really playing a "Galactic" game, but I think there are some additional considerations to increasing the map size beyond just raw hardware capability:

- The user interface would need to be substantially changed in order for you to be able to manage more planets and more ships.

- There would need to be more control and management features, possibly even sub-AIs assisting the player.

- Stardock would really need to set up some type of DL/DA Anonymous 12-step program to cope with massively increased addiction rates. Big games already take a long time, imagine the impact from playing 7 or 8 hundred hours. Maybe some free legal support to help with the divorce cases...

All kidding aside, I think you can get around the memory and CPU limitations by running on a network of systems (and many people have more than one PC now), but the market would be so small that Stardock would never recover the investment, and the majority of users would lose out because other features wouldn't be implemented.

Hi ColdSteelRain

You have introduced some extremely interesting (and highly valid) points.  

I will try to answer them (as best as I can):

"The user interface would need to be substantially changed in order for you to be able to manage more planets and more ships."

If this is indeed necessary, I would then tend to agree that this is a potential "show stopper" as the hard-pressed Stardock designers certainly have other more important matters to address.

However, it should prove possible (albeit rather challenging) to play on a substantially larger "campaign map" (featuring the stars and their individual planets). Hopefully it might prove feasible to merely lengthen the list of planets controlled by the player to accommodate even greater numbers.

Perhaps a similar principle could be applied to other relevant components of the user interface.


"There would need to be more control and management features, possibly even sub-AIs assisting the player."

I can certainly see how an enhanced level of automated play might well serve to assist the player by relieving some of the (potential) tedium associated with managing a huge array of planets. However, there just might be a few micromanagement fiends who would be happy to fine-tune the economic and industrial capacity of their individual planets.

I must admit that this is a tricky issue that might not appeal to most of the GC2 players.


Stardock would really need to set up some type of DL/DA Anonymous 12-step program to cope with massively increased addiction rates. Big games already take a long time, imagine the impact from playing 7 or 8 hundred hours. Maybe some free legal support to help with the divorce cases...

I fully appreciate the underlying serious message. However, surely there must be other people who would truly relish the opportunity of playing at least one GC2 megascenario - I would imagine that this development would do wonders for the Metaverse (with the potential for multi-million point games).

This would surely represent the ULTIMATE CHALLENGE (and correspondingly the ultimate "bragging rights") to the hard-core GC2 fan. I have read posts (in the metaverse forum) from some very competitive and hard-driven players ....


but the market would be so small that Stardock would never recover the investment, and the majority of users would lose out because other features wouldn't be implemented.

As implied above, I certainly appreciate this fact and would most definitely not wish for Stardock to waste too much time with this endeavour. However, it would be great if something like this could be fairly easily incorporated into their next patch. After all, the ability to play really large (and complex) game scenarios is the reson detre behind TBS games ....

I like playing on the biggest maps as well, just put a disclaimer saying you need Dual Core 3GB of ram MIN. I would like to see a map rougly 4 to 8 times the size of Gigantic. The long game are great. i like playing them over the work week. I don't like playing the small maps.

I am very new to this game. I play Supreme Commander and Lots of MMO. just taking a break from them all to Play this one. Very cool so far. other than the Turn base thing, I have looked but does this game have a multiplayer mode???? sorry for asking such a noob question.

Hi ID10TCAD:

Unfortunately GC2 does not offer a MP mode.

A kindred spirit (wrt the ability to play an epic heroic game).    

Afaik, one can play with extremely large maps in Supreme Commander - but one most definitely requires a "rambo rig" to manage this.   

Curse you, SonofMoose

Now I'm thinking about what you'd really have to change in the interface....

Maybe a couple of tweaks that would help the existing large games, even if the max map size stays the same. Expand the colony list screen to include more alert info, and allow filters and sorting. You'd probably need to split this into several screens: Economy, Morale, Military.

For example, on the Morale screen, show influence, approval, foreign influence, etc., and highlight when a planet is in danger of flipping. Then let me sort by this info, or by approval rating, or filter out planets by some criteria.

On the Military screen, highlight planets with enemy fleets nearby, and if there are transports in the area, and tell me what defenders I have in orbit and if I've got an Orbital Fleet Manager on the planet, and what the planet defense rating is, and so on. Then let me sort and filter.

Oh well, long car trip this weekend, guess I'll have more time to think about this...

Hi ColdSteelRain

Now you are talking!!   

Maybe something useful might yet emerge from this thread - whereby modders or even the Stardock team (in their next patch) might be able to successfully "tweak" various aspects of the GC2 interface to help ALL players maintain better control of their empires.

I look forward to reading your next reply - or those of anyone else who might have something interesting to contribute.   

I am really not sure why they never put in a Multi P mode with this game. This game would be great if it had a MP mode. Maybe 1.7.1 hehehe or skip to 2.0. I host LAN parties at my house and a game like this would be good when you can get people to commit for 24 hours. I think they could Triple there sales if you could do Multiplayer in this game. I know i would buy it, just need another 300K to sign up LOLOL

Just FYI I have a Dual core 6600 2GB of ram the biggest maps it does get slow on the 2nd day all 8 subs and 8 races. there is always one race that Zerg the entire map. LOL i moved down the large maps so it more manageable. Never noticed any video problems, don't think this game is video intense at all but I don't have a cheap card either.

1. Go on up to the sticky thread "The Case for No Multiplayer". MP is a dead horse that has been beaten beyond pulp.  

2. Check out SINS of a Solar Empire. That will be multiplayer.   

TBH with Lost Empire out now, why keep on playing Galciv?

One long car trip later....

I think the following colony management tab changes would be relatively easy and be useful for all players:

1. sort by any column, up or down
2. change col. width
3. add/hide cols, and change order
4. add user definable text columns (ie: notes, zone, purpose, major projects)
5. allow grouping the rows based on a column, and be able to collapse those rows
6. allow saving/restoring these settings as different views

These features are (somewhat) common in project management, trouble ticket, and ERP systems, and really help manage the data.

Hi ColdSteelRain:

Your suggestions seem highly appropriate and potentially hugely beneficial. Hopefully the devs might seriously consider implementing these changes to the benefit of all players (not only those who might desire to play with really large galaxies).   

I have often thought that it might prove beneficial for game devs (especially those creating detailed and complex TBS games) to model their gui on an established business model (like you have suggested).