Finally picked up GalCiv2 GOLD retail after all this time. Found a copy in London Drugs for 39.99 and figured now or never. Game installed fine and everything is working well. It was a little confusing patching my software having never used Stardock before but after a bit of fumbling around it was easy enough.

Having used STEAM before I was not very anxious to install the Stardock Central application. However I am very pleased with Stardock Central and happy that it does not force anything on the user. It is also very light on system requirements yet powerfull with a great set of features including irc chat, product forums, and patching your games all at the same time. The interface is also familiar and quick with no spam or advertisments. Feels more like a BBS then anything and when I minimize the app it's almost transparent.

It's also nice to know Stardock Central is defrag friendly unlike STEAM. With STEAM everything I install has to be copied off and back onto the drive again in order to do a proper defrag because STEAM wants to restrict access to it's files. Huge mistake as that interferes with system integrity as it has problems with disk IO operations. Combine some of these issues with aggressive copy protection and DRM and it really sucks to be a PC gamer. Again thank you for developing a good application and supporting it with some solid games that sell themselves.

PS Still want Multi in GalCiv3 but Sins of a Solar Empire is great