PREVIEW: Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor

Can hardly wait for it to come out (I've been playing with the beta but the final version will be sweet that's for sure)     

meanwhile, Dark Avatar is still broken...

When is the Ascension victory condition going to be in the game?

Hmm, looks interesting.   

Remaining Beta releases:

20-Dec Thalan Added, Altarians Added
3-Jan New Invasion Screen, New Victory Condition
15-Jan Polish of previous editions

when will it come out?

Well, with a pre-order you can play it now (minus what isn't released yet) w/o Metaverse though. I'd think a week or two after the final beta release it'll go live. They seem to be polishing the racial problems pretty quick (except some tech typos and placeholder text) and I don't foresee them needing much more time after the Victory Condition and Invasion Screen.

But that's just my 2bc.

You guys seem to forget about the improved AI. To me it's the most important feature and hopefully they will take their time to get it right.

How is it broken?

I will respond with thread posts instead of typing everything, however one glaring issue, is that despite DA 1.8e being pretty much unusable due to the fleet movement bug, it has remained on SDC for over 1 month, when it definitely should have been removed and reverted back to 1.8c/d or put the beta 1.8f/g.

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=167594

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=163249

https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=168337#1389881

These threads all represent very serious flaws in the curent game, and/or its beta incantations.
and to a lesser/less serious extent, https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=169715

Also I'm not too sure of the status of many users with nVidia cards with the device buffer error from alt-tabbing/etc either, but I'll find that thread too.

Dark Avatar has been broken since November. While I do have Twilight, and a enjoying it, it isn't without its quirks (which is fine because its beta), but it seems I cannot play a stable(!) game in DA either, which is very frustrating.

I wonder if you would be able to create your own mega events in the editor? I love the mega events but they are to few of them. Now it feels that the only reason for war is to expand, I would love it if there were more political events that could risk war. I simply want a lot more events that can result in better relationships, or the other way. I wound also think it would be cool if there where a carrier module that only can be placed on larger ship hulls witch makes it possible fore al Tiny sized ships in the fleet to have the same speed and range as the ship carrying the carrier/hangar-bay module. Maybe this module should cost a lot but also eliminate or reduce the logistic cost of Tiny ships in the fleet.

when is release date for TA? and in shop, it says u can buy a combine pack with DA and TA and then DL,DA,and TA..but not TA individually...are those 2 on preorder or is stardock just waiting till a l8r time to release it by itself?

You can buy TA separately - I know I did a bit over a week ago.

Is TA going to be in stores? Or is it only avaliable by download?

TA will only be available direct from Stardock for the forseeable future. You can get a disc mailed though if you're not able to download.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat  

Is this a sick joke? What... is Stardock going to turn to using Steam or some other rediculous copy protection scheme?

Has Stardock come to the point to where they can't sell a piece of software in a box... in a store.... with a CD key in the box.... NOT REQUIRING user to have net to

INSTALL the game??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


I understand the system for patching needs net, blah (it's the reason I'm still on DA 1.5), but if Stardock makes it NECESSARY for me to have internet JUUUUUST to install...

What option do you think I'll be left with?





Recently I've purchased a LOOOOT of games from Frys, and some of them need internet to update/patch and they made NO mention of that on the box.

I hope to God that Stardock isn't going that route.

You can get a disc mailed though if you're not able to download.

Did you not read that bit before the rant NeuralTech?

I can understand that it might be annoying if your one of the tiny percentage of gamers who still don't have internet access. But you can still order it on disk, they just aren't publishing in the shops because it keeps costs down and allows them to self-publish without going to a big corporate entity like EA.

This is a good thing overall.

Like I said, you can order a disc and merrily install and play from that without internet.

Getting a game to retail is neither simple nor cheap, so for smaller releases like the GC2 expansion packs we've opted to forgo it for the most part. It allows us to work on our own schedule (no street date and marketing window to hit or miss), and put the entire budget into development, resulting in more a featureful product at a lower price.

Actually, it's for this very reason that I bought TA (with CD). I'll be getting the final (or very close to it) version of DA on the CD so I won't need to use SDC to upgrade. The fact that it will have some playable version of TA on it as well that assumedly will need eventual upgrade is just gravy.

Yes sir I did.

As loooong as I can get access to it in a 'normal' fashion like most games, then I will be happy.

I just wanna shell out my $30-40 for the game, and enjoy it w/out having to "need net" for anything.

Yes, I am in the minority of PC gamers who still don't have net at home.
I still have yet to play/purchase HL 2 for this very reason. Even when I get net, I won't be paying for that game. I will not be forced or coherced into "installing software" the way some company wants me to.....

Charge me for a box, and give me a code/key/whatever to install it with... that's all the hell I'm asking for.


I've been buying games legitimately for years and don't plan on ever stopping, but I tell you what: I refuse to support companies that pull stunts like Steam from Valve or this whack nonsense that the makers of Bioshock have perpetrated on everyone.

Example of 'my annoyance' which has been leading me into a multitude of rants these last couple weeks:

I bought Shadowgrounds months ago at Frys... took it home, no net... installed, played, loved it! yada blada

The other week, I see the expansion for it for $20... I pick it up and add it to my daily pile w/out even blinking.

I get home, open the box, put it in the drive, double click the setup.exe and guess what...... it requires me to accept the Steam agreement JUST TO INTALL the bloody thing!! There is a sticker on the bottom noting this 'requirement'.. yet, I had ZERO idea that I 'needed' to look to "make sure I didn't need net to install" because like I said: the original required NO SUCH THING.

It's shit like this that's driving me up a bloody wall lately, so please understand where I'm coming from.


Simple solution is obviously - get net... which I will this year... but also... when I do... I won't be paying for HL 2 or BioShock or any other game I wanna play but couldn't for years because of said online restrictions. I hate piracy in all it's forms, but the only way I know to show my distaste/nonacceptance of said ways of implementing piracy protection is to be an a**hole and steal the s**t.

Yeah, some would say: "simply don't play the damn thing"... well hell.... what if it's a title I really wanna play. Imo, the developer gave 2 s**ts about me and the other 5% of the world w/out net on their gaming machines, so f them.... they told me to go to hell w/their choice of practice, thereby alleviating me from any ill feelings for resorting to p**acy.


Sorry guys, had to vent: and this place felt like a good place to do it, because I know y'all a quick bunch.

  Sorry if I bored anyone to tears with this rant,


Chr*s

I have zero issues with your points as they seem plenty logical and understandable to me.

As long as that's the case, you'll have me as a loyal customer for life.
  

I do understand partly where your coming from, but I have to say there is nothing wrong with steam if you do have access, it’s pretty good and doesn’t have too many glitches any more and most of all beats having some horrible root kit and a damaged DVD drive because of Copy Protection software like Starforce, that really makes me angry.

But anyway I agree it would be bad if you couldn’t buy on DVD/CD at all, because I know not everyone has good internet access to download this sort of thing.

I havent been able to get Steam to work since last May, I have asked for support but all that boiled down to in the end was that they think my IP is blocking Steam traffic (Virgin Media) but I don't know anyone else with my IP that uses Steam so I cant check that. But Stardock works fine and I have no problem with them pumping all their money into development and not playing the marketing game.