Galactic Civilization II: A review

Let me start by saying this game is damn addicting. GCivII, as you might guess, is all about ruling the galaxy. You've got a LOT of control on how you do this. The game comes with 10 races to choose from, and if that's not enough you can create your own race. You can customize the victory conditions, the makeup of the galaxy, the speed of research, the difficulty of the AI, etc.

Your friends are dead, why not join the winning side?
So, how do you win? In the traditional game, there are several ways to attain victory. Obviously, there's conquest. I'm trying that one now as the Yor (a race of sentient robots that hate all organic entities - not evil, just uncaring). There's a diplomatic victory, where you convince all the other empires to join you under your rule. You can even combine conquest and diplomacy by allying with everyone you can, then stompin ass on anyone that won't join you. As the humans, I polished off an influence victory already. That's where your economy is so big and well marketed that, while you don't outright control the galaxy, everyone knows you make the goods, create the commercials, market the politicians, and pull the strings of the money that makes the galaxy spin. Finally, there's the technology victory. With this one, you research one final tech that lets you attain a sort of divinity.

My beefs with the victory conditions are minimal, but similar on both fronts. They deal with the influence and tech victory.

First, let me explain a little about research. Each technology upgrade sits on a branch on the various tech trees. There are TONS of techs, which rocks, but most are pretty linear after the first few initial branching techs. Beam weapons advance in size and power along one branch. Farming is on a different branch. There is no interweaving techs. Harpoon missiles require nothing more than having researched Stinger IV. So, to win with a tech victory, you just research all the way down the research branch. Granted, that bitch is expensive, but in the bigger galaxies you can just park your ass in the corner, be diplomatic with everyone and research away. Personally, I'd like the tech tree to be more of a tech web. You want Harpoon missiles? You need Stinger IV, sure, but also Advanced minitiarization, Ultraviolet Guidance Systems, etc. And to win by a tech victory, you have to figure out which tech is needed. So, each time you research a new technology your scientists give you a recommendation as to where to go next.

Something like, "Boss, since we're at war with the Drengin, I would recommend we study better guidance systems for our missiles or possibly stronger hulls. However, our metaphysical advisors are suggesting we seek transcendance by spending more time researching Green planet cohabitation processes, while the bean counters want more research in the realms of Ultrafast Brainwave Marketing Management." That's my ONLY beef with the tech areas.

Now, as for the Influence victory, it runs parallel with the tech victory. You raise your influence by keeping your people happy, building influence enhancing tourist traps on planets (things like an embassy and the Restaurant of Eternity), and building influence starbases close to other peoples planets so you can conquer them without invasion or military buildup. Influence's bottom line, though, is the Influence/Diplomacy branch of the tech tree. Personally, I think it'd be more fun if you could micromanage the marketing and promotions, trade agreements and all of that shit. Trade now is as simple as building a freighter and sending it to a planet you're not at war with to establish a trade route.

I don't care the cost! Build me the Galactic Pool of Nubile Anime Bunnies!
Managing your empire is a balancing act. Each planet has a numerical rating that indicates the number of buildable tiles on it. This can be expanded through terraforming as you research that branch. Your basic buildings are factories, farms, banks, labs, entertainment areas, and embassies. Each effect that planet's output and some "Galactic Achievements" affect your entire empire or army. Starports let you build ships. Banks and their advancements (like the ultimate stock market) are the only planet addition that generate hard currency. Farms let your population grow, of course, and your entertainment keeps those people happy, but your banks generate money. Your factories, starports and labs then use that money to build their shit. What's left goes into your wallet for quick building additions or ships or for bribing rivals. You can either build speciality planets where one focuses on research, another makes people for troop transports and economy, another focues on lots of factories, etc. Personally, I'd rather keep my planets general unless a tile bonus suggests a specialization (I have one planet now that can generate 50 million tons of food per week with only three farms, so I use that for money, putting in several stock markets and sports arenas). That way, if I lose one, I don't take a big hit in one key area.

My beefs with planet management are mostly astethic. Some hotkeys let you go direclty to a planet's mangement screen without selecting that planet, and on that screen, there's no way to no WHERE in the galaxy the planet is (ie, where's it at on the map). Annoying if you're in a war and want your front line planets cranking out Megalith Missile Mamas while your secondary planets just build construction ships and troop transports. Not a big deal, just means a little extra clicking, or knowing the name, location and function of every single planet you control.

Zi plane, zi plane!
What's a galactic conquest game with a space navy? Even pursuing the other victory paths, you'll need a strong military. That requires strong military research. That's broken down into several branches which start at ships, infantry, and starbases. Ships is further broken down into offense, defense, propulstion, life support, sensors, hull size, and minitiarization. Starbases is pretty much just offense, defense and add-ons (whether it's an influece base, military base, or economic base). Infantry is planet side defense and planetary bombardment.

So, while there are default ship configurations available, they're pretty vanilla and boring. My game would go much faster if I only used those, though. Instead, I go crazy making A zigabadillion different ships styles.

You start off choosing hull size. That determines the ships hitpoint, hardpoints, and look (although you usually have three different hull styles to choose from in each size). Hardpoints are enhanced through miniaturization. Each weapon, life support system, etc, takes up a certain number of hardpoints. Now, not only do you get to build the stats on your ships, you get to decorate them, too. Each hull has certain locations you can add stuff to. Hell, you could put your engines on the front of the ship pointing to the side if you wanted. On top of the equipment the ship needs to be a ship, you get "extras". That's little pieces of jewelry you can add to the ship without affecting the stats. Things like wings, antennae, and various other adornements. you can adjust the size, rotation and facing of EVERYTHING. It's madness I tell you.

Geez, come on. Order already. Take all day, man.
Like I said, the damn game is addicting. Complex as hell, but easy to learn. The AI tends to be smart, although at 'normal' level it's only 75% as smart as a normal person. It adapts to your tactics. Kick it's ass with missile boats and it develops advanced ECM over time. Put tons of armor on your ships becuase it's using mass drivers, and it reseraches lasers.

Take my current game for example. I intially encountered the Altareans and Iconians. Later found the humans. The humans went to war with the Altareans. Now, the only military as big as the Altareans was me, so the humans come and ask me to help them. I say no, so they get fucked up and surrender to the Altareans. In the meantime, across the galaxy, too far from me, the Drengin are at war with the Thalians. Thalians are losing bad, and surrender to the Altareans so the Drengin don't slaughter them. Now the Altareans are the biggest empire, but my army's bigger and I have more influence. I'm now at war with the Iconians, who've offered me surrender twice, but I'm not accepting it til I get two of their planets I've got my eye on. I'm using mostly but missiles and have developed solid armor because of the Iconians mass drivers. The Altareans are weary of me, though, and have tried to trade my advanced ECM tech I developed, cause that's good defense against my missiles. Failing that (cause I'm not dumb), they've tried stealing it from my starbases, but my starbases are armed to the teeth both offensively and defensively. Right now, only I have ships big enough and bad enough to damage my starbases. So, both the Altareans and Iconians are trying to research ECM tech. My plan is to grab the next planet from the Iconians, let em sue for peace, and send a long range scout to finally contact the Drengin. Bribe the Drengin to attack the Altareans, while I hit them from the other side, and start researching laser tech, because the long dead humans were the only race to reseach shields to defend against that. Just when the Altareans start putting ECM on their ships, I'll switch over to lasers and fuck em anew.

That's my plan anyway.