Is this game better than Civ 4,5, Starcraft?

[Sparthage]

Perhaps the best asset Firaxis has is this community and others like it.

I mean it, the content produced by modders far exceeds their DLCs and expansion packs, and all the discussion about the game helps people sticking to it, learning it more easily and enjoying it more, which undoubtedly helps their revenues more than any ad they might make.

It's a luxury other game companies like Stardock just don't have, and it's quite sad that Firaxis is ignoring the game's flaws and criticism and is instead trying to appeal to another audience with Civ going Facebook and all that.

I couldn't have said it better, myself. You hit the nail right on the head.

 

[MaxWar]

The version I played of GC2 was called Avatar. I don't think it had a separate tech tree for each race, but it did have asteroids. It had something called super powers, or something like that, which you could select for custom races, but I don't remember unique powers specific to each race. The races were fully customizable, and that is what I played.

If you played a custom race, did you get to select the tech tree and the unique power? The separate tech trees alone makes it worthwhile to check it out. I've thought for a long time that having different tech trees for each race and having those tech trees variable (not totally random, but with enough randomized that no game had the same exact tech trees as another) would be a major improvement for these kinds of 4x games.

You played Dark avatar, it is the first expansion, it does not have the unique tech trees. Both expansions are cumulative though.

@Uat2D As Sparthage said, you pretty much nailed it. But its a rather sad truth. Civilization has a phenomenal community and fan base, but ciV sux (imo) ... I dont think Firaxis is going in the right direction with the consolization and webgames. Then Stardock, who used to be one of my favorite company for releasing badass games like galciv2 and sins of solar empire, go and releases a broken game called Elemental, that feels like an alpha, then they sell Impulse to Gamestop and appear to be struggling financially. Who will be releasing kickass 4x games now? Oh i guess ill keep playing civ4.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I expect all the game makers are seeing reduced sales. Firaxis lost my interest after Civ3, I didn't like the direction Civ4 took and going with Steam for Civ5 killed that one also. The mods and the community are what make these games. The basic games are not very good. I'm not very familiar with Stardock games, I spent a little time on their forum last year. It's got some odd characters moderating it. The owner and some of the designers did interact with the rest of the people on the forum, which is an improvement over the way Firaxis treats it's vict...customers.

 

[scratchthepitch]

I was considering purchasing the GC2 Ultimate ed. and gave a look at Stardock's forums about the Twilight of Arnor expansion. There was a lot of complaints about it being buggy and that some of the game was actually broken by the new changes. Worst of all, Stardock did not fix the problems and left it to the modding community to try and fix it. That's the Firaxis approach. That also lost them a sale of this game, and probably Stardock products in general.

 

[MaxWar]

I was considering purchasing the GC2 Ultimate ed. and gave a look at Stardock's forums about the Twilight of Arnor expansion. There was a lot of complaints about it being buggy and that some of the game was actually broken by the new changes. Worst of all, Stardock did not fix the problems and left it to the modding community to try and fix it. That's the Firaxis approach. That also lost them a sale of this game, and probably Stardock products in general.

Ill have to disagree with that.

1. Buggy: I never had any stability issues, game is stable and the interface is very good Imo. It actually has a very low amount of annoyances, and im usually quite discriminating on this aspect. So I do not know what kind of "buggy" that meant but to me the game is stable and polished.

2. Game aspects broken by Twillight expansion: There will always be haters but in the facts this expansion has won much more awards and praises than complaints.
The only arguably "broken" aspects I can see is the fact that all the races have unique tech trees/buildings. But it's also the main selling point of the expansion. One could complain that it creates some imbalance issues and that some civs are OP and other weak etc.. Its actually true. But If someone complains that this ruins him/her gameplay ill just tell them to go Troll elsewhere, iirc you can actually disable this feature. Considering the game is a single player game, this imbalance is pretty much irrelevant if you ask me, in a multiplayer settings that would be different though...

Sure you can make your own tweaked custom civ that is optimized to totally Owns and go crush your opponent, if you hate that, then just dont do it!! Instead go make a weird crappy civ design with the objective of adding challenge instead. In the type of game that is Galciv2, this "imbalance" is in fact a blessing. It greatly increases the replay value and forces you to play differently with each civ in order to maximize the unique attributes. My goal when playing these types of games is to challenge myself and Galciv2 does it really well.

GC2 Ultimate ed is, considering how dirt cheap it is, actually one of the best bang for your buck i've ever seen in the history of gaming.
Furthermore, they added new soundtracks in the Twillight expansion and they are very good.

 

[scratchthepitch]

1. Buggy: I never had any stability issues, game is stable and the interface is very good Imo. It actually has a very low amount of annoyances, and im usually quite discriminating on this aspect. So I do not know what kind of "buggy" that meant but to me the game is stable and polished.

2. Game aspects broken by Twillight expansion: There will always be haters but in the facts this expansion has won much more awards and praises than complaints.
The only arguably "broken" aspects I can see is the fact that all the races have unique tech trees/buildings. But it's also the main selling point of the expansion. One could complain that it creates some imbalance issues and that some civs are OP and other weak etc.. Its actually true. But If someone complains that this ruins him/her gameplay ill just tell them to go Troll elsewhere, iirc you can actually disable this feature. Considering the game is a single player game, this imbalance is pretty much irrelevant if you ask me, in a multiplayer settings that would be different though...

Sure you can make your own tweaked custom civ that is optimized to totally Owns and go crush your opponent, if you hate that, then just dont do it!! Instead go make a weird crappy civ design with the objective of adding challenge instead. In the type of game that is Galciv2, this "imbalance" is in fact a blessing. It greatly increases the replay value and forces you to play differently with each civ in order to maximize the unique attributes. My goal when playing these types of games is to challenge myself and Galciv2 does it really well.

GC2 Ultimate ed is, considering how dirt cheap it is, actually one of the best bang for your buck i've ever seen in the history of gaming.
Furthermore, they added new soundtracks in the Twillight expansion and they are very good.

http://forums.galciv2.com/410979

I'd hardly label those people trolls, MaxWar. By doing so, you do a disservice to Stardock. You also lost my respect.

Bye.

 

[MaxWar]

http://forums.galciv2.com/410979

I'd hardly label those people trolls, MaxWar. By doing so, you do a disservice to Stardock. You also lost my respect.

Bye.

Those people are having a constructive discussion and can hardly be labeled as such. It is not what I had in mind and probably should not have used that word.
Sorry you took it that way.

Bye.

 

[mwyeoh]

From all these comments, I have no idea what was wrong with my game then.

I found the AI in the game to be WAY to easy!
I had it on the higher difficulties and never once lost a game. I played and won on all victory conditions.

Stopped playing after I found it so easy... The AI didnt seem to put up much of a challenge to me.

 

[Shire Folk]

Are you sure that you had the AI high on the difficulty scale? I remember one game I was playing where only a few of the AI civs were Bright or above on their intelligence and the rest were beneath that, and I had something of a difficult time dealing with the Drengin Empire when they decided to declare war on me. Lost a bunch of my ships and barely managed to kill one of them, and that was with the Arceans giving me part of their fleet and the Altairans declaring war on the Drengin to assist me.

Then again, I also still had the weakest military in the game but had one of the best economies, so I was able to buy the Drengin off...

 

[Shire Folk]

...wow. Finally figured out why I wasn't getting the stuff everyone was talking about in the Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor expansions even though I'd gotten the Ultimate Edition...I hadn't gone into the right folders and installed them! I was still playing vanilla GalCiv II!

 

[MarigoldRan]

I LOVE PLAYING THE TORIANS.

I adjusted them to get the "happiness bonus +30" and the "extra commerce bonus."

Combined with the super-breeder traits and it's mass colonization and expansion. I had so much money I didn't know what to spend it on.

 

[UnforcedError]

Well, even though it's an old poll 'better than Civ 5' is definitely a safe bet. I think civ 4 is a better overall game, but the smarter AI and the ability to design ships really make GalCiv2 incredibly enjoyable. Never got into Starcraft much so can't relate to that game, really.

Btw, has anyone ever tried 'Distant Worlds'?

 

[Sonereal]

Distant Worlds makes GalCiv2 look like CivRev.

 

[UnforcedError]

Distant Worlds makes GalCiv2 look like CivRev.

That sounds promising I will buy the game then

 

[agonistes]

I really like GalCivII.

I think most space games have a handicap though in that they take place in .... space.

I wish they treated the planets with more detail, and planetary invasion as well.

I think I'm going to DL Distant Worlds later this evening. This is the first I've heard of it. It sounds promising. Larger the better, imo. My biggest complaint about GCII is that the cap on galaxy size is too small.

And DWs has an editor! I rarely even look at a game these days if you can't edit it.

NWN, Civ III, and GalCivII are my favorite games, and I tend to rotate between them. Maybe I'll start including DWs in that list.