Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (GalCiv II) beta 3 has been released to its public beta testing team.  GalCiv II is due to hit store shelves at the end of February of next year.  To make sure that the shipping game is rock solid and as fun as possible, Stardock has public, NO-NDA beta tests so that what actually ends up on store shelves has been thoroughly play-tested by the toughest testers of all -- actual gaming customers.  The last two Stardock games have won Editor's Choice Awards (The Political Machine and Galactic Civilizations I). 

With the success of Stardock's last two games, it has been able to put a lot more resources towards the development of Galactic Civilizations II. The new 3D engine, increased production values, and more sophisticated planet and ship design elements add more strategic depth while also making the game more fun and have less micro-management than the first one had.

The public beta 3 has ship textures disabled (so ships don't look nearly as good as they will in the final version) and numerous missing features (such as diplomacy and fleet combat).  But it does have a working computer AI (beta 2 did not), the start of the human ship designs, a new technology manager with built in tech tree, lots of play balancing in, the new ship battle system, cleaner UI, and many other changes.

The home page for Galactic Civilizations II is www.galciv2.com.