Text Size Question

Not that I'm aware of, sorry.

No prob. Looking back, I can see that most of the text is ok, it's mostly just the text on the in-game bottom menu screens and the options menu.

Is there a way to contact Stardock directly? I'm just wondering if there's a hidden option or tweak somewhere. Perhaps the game will adjust to increased DPI in windows?

You just did

Pretty much the only way to change the font size in-game would be to manually edit the .dxpacks (UI files), and change every instance you want bigger one at a time, hoping that it also doesn't break the layout. Not really practical at all, though, so it's not really an option.

Hey, now that's service.

Thanks for your reply. Hopefully i'll get comfortable with the text size over time.

By the way, just for my own information, is this a case of the HUD not scaling along with the resolution?

I've noticed this occur on Independence War 2 as well - instead of scaling to fit the 1920x1200 resolution I use, everything simply becomes very tiny.

The UI in GC2 expands to actually increase the pixel size of things, rather than stretching. You'll notice that listboxes are longer, text boxes show more text, etc, when running in a higher resolution. It works very much the same as normal windows desktop UI elements, except for the inability to change the DPI.

At first I thought it might be a case of a 2d overlay stretching to fit the widescreen resolution. I based this on a comment I found online:

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The HUD generally remains as it is, except for the middle bottom part, which becomes larger fit the screen size. This can cause tables to become rather spacious, making it difficult to combine the explanation with the numbers, due to the large space between them (e.g. Population: *large space* 14000 .

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Looking at it now, I can see how this might be the case, though everything else (as you mentioned) seems to scale well. In either case, I'd like to respectfully put in a suggestion for a text-enlargement option in any future patches, revisions or sequels, ala Neverwinter Nights. It would be much appreciated.

Also, on a slightly unrelated note, are there any "very" basic beginner tutorials out there (aside from the beginner's strategy guide and manual) for people like me who played about 20 minutes of Civ II back in the 90's.

My first brush with Sword of the Stars was a mess, but today I actually followed the beginners tutorial section, and found it to be quite helpful. Within about 30 minutes I was already starting to enjoy the game. Anything like that for GC II?

There's a beginner's guide here--if you have any specific questions, just ask away on the forum and someone will pipe up with suggestions.

Thanks Kryo. The guide linked was my first stop - I think I actually found it through google before I came here - but I think I need something even more basic, something along the lines of "ok, if you want to do "X" click this button", or "on your right we have the solar sytem, on your left we have the earth panel, etc"

I'll be sure to ask if any questions come up. Which sub-forum would be the best place to do that?

Just out in the main GalCiv II forum is fine, really.

Cool.

By the way, I have two demos right now, one for Dread Lords and one for Dark Avatar. I find myself leaning more towards the DL demo, simply b/c I enjoy the ambient music more. Both are great, but the music in the DL demo seems to convey more of a sense of wonder, while the Dark Avatar music has a slightly darker, Drengen-esque feel to it.

In the full version, can you adjust your soundtrack options to suit your tastes?

No, but the DA music is in addition to the DL music, not in replacement. The demo might be limited in that respect to cut down the size, though.

The game also has the music tracks in the game directory (./music/) as MP3 files. I've imported them into my iTunes (which doesn't seem to slow down the game at all while running) and have the tracks I enjoy, along with some other ambiance tracks from other sources, playing, and turn the in game music off. You could use this also if you chose to play a game with the DA features, but have your play list in your music player of choice play just DL tracks.

Just my two cents, they've both great games (got both, and will be preordering the second expansion when I get another paycheck)