A l-o-n-g time ago I bought a GalCiv II disk off a discount rack...ten bucks I think. Great game.
So I was among the first to buy Gal Civ complete. Digital download. Full price brand new which I very rarely do...but Stardock and their game had impressed me.
Because I had an older version on a disk I was able to move the new version onto my gaming computer and play the new version of GCII. After three months of trying I was finally told 'yeah we included activation by e-mail, and we never said you had to activate on line in any packaging or promotion, but guess what, if you want to play you have to activate on line', so I never played the other two games. (it should be noted here that one of the game design team made an extensive effort to make it work, all the while pointing out that the problem was in Stardock's 'Impulse' system, not the game itself)
Now I intermittently hook my game computer to the internet to activate games, and I dusted off the old e-mail notification and installed these games I paid for 5 years ago.
And I find that it is possible to play the campaigns from all three games in the TotA game, which seems the by far most advanced game as far as gameplay options, interface, pretty much everything.
So is there any reason to play the older systems, or should I just go directly to TotA?