Frogboy

At around 5pm EST on August 30 beta 3 will be made available. PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE MAKING BUG REPORTS.. Release Notes: Ship textures are OFF for this beta. So the ships will not look as cool as they do in the screenshots. We want to maximize compatibility and move up from there. Plus, it gives beta testers something to look forward to. Beta 4 will have them. Diplomacy is not in yet. It's a pure space war game presently. Diplomacy will not

Yep, there will be upgrades to all types of planetary improvements pretty much.

Here are some screenshots of beta 3 of Galactic Civilizations II over at GameCloud.

We're on right now if you're interested.

I think people will be pretty happy with the ship design aspects, that's for sure. I think they'll know what we mean with this beta.

With regards to picking different formations, options, I don't think it would really add to the game. After all, why pick one option over another? There'd have to be some sort of reason in order for it to make sense and most reasons I can think of would add a significant level of micro-management. Bear in mind, even as-is, GalCiv II combat is a whole new level above GalCiv I's. Now you have 3 types of weapons to choose from with 3 counter-measures. That adds a lot of

We are looking at the ability for players to build improvements on their planet that act as defense systems. They'd be powerful but they'd take up a precious tile too.

On Tuesday we're scheduled to release beta 3 of GalCiv II. But this Monday afternoon (EST) Stardock developers will be on IRC in #stardock on the IRC server irc.stardock.com during the day to interact with users on what's happening with GalCiv and share exlusive behind the scenes screenshots, code-snippets, and other goodies. Hope to see you there.

You can't download the beta yet. Beta 3 is expected to be released on Tuesday. Later in the week, it will be made available to those who have pre-ordered. Regarding the cool textures, we'll probaby have them turned off for this beta to narrow down potential compatibility issues. Once we're sure that the game's pretty compatible with just the specular lighting (which beta 1 didn't have) then we can turn on the textures. The ships look pretty cool even without te

Here's a little teaser of one of the ships. I designed this so your tastes may vary from mine.

Well needless to say, much has changed since the June beta. For beta 3 will have all new crashes!

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords beta 3 is nearly ready to go out to beta testers. We are tentatively planning on releasing it a week from this Tuesday (Aug 30). Shortly after that time, users who have pre-ordered GalCiv II but have not previously had access to betas will be enabled to download the beta. But after September 1, new pre-orders will return to having to wait until

This game will be incredibly expandable.

The Tech tree is radically different in beta 3.

Correct.

People who pre-order will get Beta 4 when it's available.

Successful game development is like playing a strategy game. If I have 6 months budgeted towards AI development and a certain coding method takes say merely 10% more time to debug, then I've effectively lost a couple crucial weeks. And so far, STL and the like look more like 30% time eaters when it comes to debuggin and at that point, you're talking 2 months lost.

Oh dear, I've just given Stardock an excuse to do the minimum work possible, okay everyone, we aim to make the game as bland and uninteresting as possible, but highly moddable so it won't matter. Seriously though, I can't see how from the point of veiw of a game company it's that difficult given all the rest of what the must have to do to make computer games.</TD

Incidentally, Stardock makes Galactic Civilizations. Strategy First was the "publisher" of Galactic Civilizations I and is not involved in the sequel.

TNT2 Ultra is below the minimum game requiarements. I think Geforce 2 or better is the minimum video requirement which is at least 2 years newer. TNT 2 Ultra is a circa 1999 video card.

Be sure to check out this week's journal entries. Lots of goodies this week.

Thanks in large part to the efforts by our partners at Paradox, Galactic Civilizations II is getting some great coverage over in Europe: Finland: http://www.pelit.fi/uutiset/uutinen.asp?id=15715 Germany: http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc-spiele/strategie/26422/ &nb

In a few days, we'll be closing the beta to new users. Gamers will be able to pre-order at the discounted price but the beta will not be available again to try until late Fall. So if you want to be part of the beta program, pre-order now. ;)!FROGCARE!

The start-up is MUCH faster.

The development leads have put together some cool journal entries that talk about many of the things we're dealing with during the development of Galactic Civilizations II. Check them out for yourself. !FROGCARE!