Thinking About Buying this Game

How long do games last?

Up to you, although IMO longer games are better. I've finished games in under an hour. I've also played games that took all weekend, plus hours of procrastinating on homework on weekdays. Now that an even bigger galaxy size is being offered to us in TA, you can expect that estimation to rise.

How long is a single turn?

Again up to you. I average between 40 and 3 turns an hour. If you're playing in a huge map with a lot of inhabitable planets, then you'll probably spend a lot of time doing tedious micromanaging (this is what the Govenors screen is for.) If you're asking about game time, it's a week. Ships on Autopilot that still have move left follow their courses when you click the Turn button.

How good is the micromanagement?

You have a very fine degree of control over what goes on in your colonies. The ability to have super-customized fleets improves this somewhat. Each planet can support a certain number of buildings (of your choice,) and you can order the planet to focus on a certain area, at the expense of the others. You can also shift the empire's funds away from one project and towards another. You can't micromanage every last point, but if you had the patience and concentration of a machine, you could come close. This is one reason that the AI tends to own you so hard even without "cheating."

Is there multi-player?

No. The admins posted their reasons for this on these forums.

Hi welcome to the forums

In answer to your questions: -

1. On the largest settings it is possible for games to last more than a month!

2. At later stages a single turn can last 2 days or so (been a long time since that happened though)

3. It strips most other games! You can manage pretty much all levels of your empire from designing new ships to explore the dark corners of space to deciding if 'x' colony should get one more factory or not. There are also a set of decent governors that can help you in this task.

4. No and there will not be in this version. I believe there are plans to include it in GC3 if and when it happens.

As for lastability just take a look at my profile and it will tell you how long this game and its predecessor have kept me a part of this community!


User made mods for the Galciv II community

Thanks, I think I'll get this game either this week or the next. Its Gold Edition BTW.

I recommend the purchase, you'll probably be mad that you didn't find or buy this game earlier... it's on my Top 5 of all time list. the developer support for this game is unmatched... galciv2 and DA are both still being updated, (with FINAL revisions coming soon 2.0)after nearly 2 years thats something to say!  

I would suggest you to download the gold demo and play it out and see if you like it. I did it and I must say, I am not very impressed with the game mechanics, especially the research part.

Hmmm, thats a thought. Top Five, heres a try

Sim City (PC - 90's ish)
Elite (PC 90's ish)
Mafia (PC - 2000 ish)
GTA Vice City (PC - 2005 ish)


Does GC come on as 5th, not sure but its got to be close.

And in answer to the OP, as long as you want. If you want games that last pretty much any amount of time you can have them here.

In response to Shmn_y's point (no not a "burn the heretic at the stake post...) I tried the demo first, and I did enjoy it enough to buy the game I did not enoy it anywhere near as much as I have enjoyed the full version.

The game is not for everyone, but if you enjoy space based strategy games this is as good as any out there.

Demo? Can you tell me a bit about it? Alsom whats the learning curve like; does the game have tutorials?

the demo is so under-developed compared to the game, it'd be like comparing orange pez to fresh tangerine slices. it gives you an okay sense of the game's mechanics, but so much has been improved since the demo that it's a very poor representation of the game in its full and most recent updates.

the game does have tutorials, in the form of movies. i never used them because of an odd bug that used to affect my system, causing movies in game to be jumpy. they have since fixed that, but i've never tried examining the tutorial movies again to see if they're better.

however, when it comes to support and learning, yes the game has a very steep learning curve. however, you'll find that these forums here are the best resource there is. people are far more friendly here than most other gaming forums, and for even the most newbie questions there will always be a few more seasoned players there to answer kindly and even point out related pit falls and extended strategies. i feel like i don't need a manual, given the support you can get right here.

cheers

Probobly a bad thing that this will be my first turn-based strategy... ever.

Nah, you could do a lot lot worse. Just set the AI to low levels to start, and learn from there.

Alright, just 30 mins till the demo is downloaded. Any beginner tips that could help me from screwing up early in the game?

This is the first turn-based strategy game I've ever played,and I haven't put it down since I bought it back in january.I've bought several pc games since then and still haven't touched them.So as a word of warning this may be the last game you ever play,because it seems that is the way it is turning out for me. Enjoy!

#1 it's just a game, so don't be afraid to screw up!

#2 mess around with stuff. there's so many details to learn, if you tried to analyze them ahead of time you could give yourself a headache. if instead you develop a more intuitive understanding of the game mechanics, you'll be in a better position to advance to the higher difficulty settings. IMO, anyway.

Make sure you download the demo for gold edition. It should be more updated than say demo for dread lord per say.
https://www.galciv2.com/Downloads.aspx
I don't think it comes with a tutorial. It just let you create a small universe and start of with Terran Alliance. It takes a bit of experimenting to get things going your way. And yes, start with 1 opponent, beginner or easy level, to reduce stress .
The demo has not convinced me to buy the game. Perhaps with twilight of Arnor, in it, it can. I will wait and see.

Okay, I've played a total of... 3 WHOLE TURNS!!! I bought a factory and am I building a lab and a market. I am researching Universal Transloator.

Woot!


Seriously, have fun.

If you have trouble making money, and everyone does, then build more markets and banks... or trade techs for cash.

have fun

If you are wondering what to research, researching one line of weapon types deeply is more cost effective than trying to research all of them a little bit. The opposite is true with defenses.

have fun

Do silly things, and know that it ok to restart and try something else, or save and try something else.

If something odd happens or a scary sounding mega event occurs then stop and come and look in the forums for advice on how to handle it.

and finally, have fun....

and remember no matter what you think of the demo, the full game is deeper, broader, and more enjoyable.

when you get more experienced, some of those early turns can become the most anxious! (well, not the first few, but the early game definately becomes the most tense once you know what you're doing IMO).

one last piece of advice: there's no best way to play except the one that's most fun for you.

A note, think of the lower difficulties as a "sandbox." The AI will be utterly useless at this level, and even if you spend the entire game barely hobbling along, they won't do anything threatening to your empire.

Use this first game to learn about the interface. Poke through every feature you can find, buy and sell stuff in negotiations, and declare war with wild abandon. You'll quickly learn how do do everything.

Okay, I'm getting used to the interface. I've met the Korath Clan, and have a total of 2 PLANETS COLINIZED!!! My surveuyer was warped by a wormhole, lets see what happens.

Okay, I made a custom ship, but now it says that it will take -1 Weeks to make? How do I stop this bug?

Not sure it's a bug - do you have your military production at zero?

-1 week is an alternate way of saying never. You apparently haveno military production set for that planet.

Actually, I did have military production for that planet. Anyway, my time ran out and I could be getting the game this Sataurday! It will be fun!