"The Spiritual Heir to Master of Orion II?"

Gamespot looks at the gamma

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/galacticcivilizations2/news.html?sid=6143839
from GalCiv2 Forums

(Sorry if the site is slow, one of our ISPs is switching their network and so some parts of the site are very slow - hopefully will be solved in a couple of hours).

Gamespot has a very cool look at the gamma of GalCiv II.

So what makes Galactic Civilizations II such a promising game? It takes all the great ideas found in Master of Orion II and expands on them to deliver a deeper and richer experience. In this turn-based strategy game, you'll play as one of the galaxy's primary races, or you can create your own custom race, and you'll attempt to expand from a single star system to conquer the galaxy peacefully or militarily. It won't be easy, though, because there's a whole lot that can happen between the start and the finish of a game.

Over in this journal entry I talked about how when it came time to design GalCiv II that we had to decide whether we were going to try to just expand on GalCiv itself or try to bring elements in from other games.

You see that a lot in games where some features in a given genre become widely accepted but franchise developers are wary of adding them because they almost seem like they don't want to acknowledge the existence of those other games.

When we made GalCiv II, we thought carefully about what kinds of features we wanted and then gave some thought to how other games tried to implement those features.  Sometimes the game had a great implementation, other times there were side effects that could never have been foreseen that we wanted to avoid. 

At the end of the day, we wanted to create a game that would appeal to more of the 4X fan base.  More story.  More control.  More strategic options.  A cleaner interface.  Better grapihcs.  Resolution indepedence. Longevity and replayability.

Whether we succeeded in this remains to be seen.  That's not our call.  Only you can make that determination.  We hope you like the end result. 

That said, we don't look at GalCiv II to be the heir to anything other than Galactic Civilizations I.  Master of Orion along with the other classics are special on their own merits.  

10,188 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
"spirtiual heir to Moo2"? That's overreaching. GC 2 is a good game - but the Moo series 1,2,3 is all about tactical combat which this game isn't. Try space empires V.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
All about tactical combat? Tactical combat was part of it and (at least for me) an annoying part too as you could easily outmanoeuvre the AI and win battles you shouldn't win, thus destroying the longterm singleplayer fun factor. It was a good game in its day nonetheless.
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Iam also glad they ditched the tactical combat.

Iam 10x happier just to see how my desings match out with AI. And as alrdy mentioned the tacAI (no matter the game) does always a poor job with fighting
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I think its a great review. I especially liked the part of the debt eating up your budget. Don´t know how many hours I spend with MOO2.

After reading this review I have thoughhhhh much anticipation for GalCiv2, oh cruel world make the time flow faster....
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
but a fact is that GC2 comes much more near to MoO2 as MoO3 ok without tactical battle but this was in MoO3 horrorble
and Stardock make with GC2 more thure of the promisses as MoO3...Stardock make no promisses they don't hold remember the MoO3-Forum what the cut all lol endlessly the game was a big misstake and coast the crown of best roundbased strategie game now GC2 will get ist wait and red the press when its out
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
"spirtiual heir to Moo2"? That's overreaching. GC 2 is a good game - but the Moo series 1,2,3 is all about tactical combat which this game isn't. Try space empires V.



MOO1's idea of tactical combat was a chessboard. Where generally there was a miniscule amount of room to maneuver. The best you could hope for was fast enough movement or long enough weapons. Not really tactical and most people after a few turns or in a few key battles, hit the 'speed through this key'. I believe the first patch WAS the speed through this key.

MOO2 was slightly better as they expanded the area from where you fought. So you could go around the side somewhat. But there was also a skip battle key, that was well used.

MOO3's stupid freggin combat system didn't even work.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

There's always Star Ranger to count on to over emphasize a minor feature into being the main feature. MOO was all about tactical combat? I don't think so. I bet if you took a poll that the majority of MOO players hit "Auto" the majority of time when ships came into combat.

I do agree with you on one thing, I don't think GalCiv 2 is a MOO successor. It's a lot better than MOO was. MOO had barely any diplomacy. No strategic mechanics like starbases, influence, or galactic resources. 

MOO and MOO 2 are among my favorite games of all time. But I never romantacize them. I never forget that every game seemed to end with me running around jumping into a star system and wiping out the population versus a cheating AI that was pretty flawed.

The MOO series is a very different experience. I think people looking for GalCiv 2 to be what MOO 3 should have been will be disappointed because it has no tactical combat like Star Pilot says and its strategic map doesn't use jump points and the battle tactics in GalCiv 2 re much more abstracted.

Penny Arcade said it best, GalCiv II is set up to let you build an iron throne of galactic domination. You're emperor of the galaxy in GalCiv, not the commander of a task force.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top


It wasn't a review it was a preview!
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Moo2 Multi-player was all about tactical combat. Because ti was roughyl unbalanced it was twinked severely by people with too much time on their hands.

Single player core enthesis was on empire growth. Because one coudl avoid war for a long time, empire growth and tech research would in the long run make the tactical combat meaningless ebcause of total size and tech advantage of one side.

With all these drawbacks it was still an awsome game. And I would buy any remake of it instantly! Even for $99.99! So would any Moo fan out there.

As to the question of Spiritual heir, yes this can be considered true. Altough the game sare different by a long shot, GC2 does triger a bit of nostalgia in Moo fans everywhere. It is a very promesing game. And if very sucessful it will prove the imortality of the genre.

I doubt there will ever be a Moo4. And I pray there isn't, because moo3 was just such a slap up and down and all the way across my face (and all faces of all the fans who waited years with anticipation). But the Moo will live on in spirit. And other games will come along and tip their hats off to the game I call "the great one."

Oh sweet Moo where art thou. The bitter sweet memory of my first battle with my cousin fills my heart with longing for thee
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I just noticed, GalCiv2 cracked the top 10 most looked at games on gamespot, so its featured on their front page. www.gamespot.com.