Galactic Civilizations 2 Review

Galactic Civilizations 2 is a spectacular turn-based space strategy game which will have you take the reins of power for one of eleven races, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The gameplay is the traditional “4X” game style where you'll be exploring the universe, expanding your empire, exploiting rivals or allies, and exterminating your enemies for complete domination.

Choose Races With Different Strengths or Create Your Own

What makes this title really interesting are the options you have in creating a gaming experience tailored to what you want. The varied races have their own personalities, such as trade-oriented, militaristic, or technological, and you even have the option of creating your own race with the characteristics you prefer. You then can create a galaxy that fits the game you want to play. For a quick session you can make a small galaxy packed with stars, habitable planets, and rival races, and even increase the speed of technological advances.

Huge Replay Value

With six different map sizes, 12 different difficulty levels, varying victory conditions, and many more options the flexibility in gameplay is quite intriguing and increasing the game's replay value immensely. There is also an easy to use ship designer which allows you to create your own ships with your current technology and allows an even greater depth to your gaming experience.

Smart Artificial Intelligence

Another interesting feature is the AI and how it reacts, especially at higher levels. The AI doesn't cheat to make things more difficult but employs advanced strategies that adapt to your play. For instance, a computer controlled race you are trading with may ignore your military build up of starbases and fleets at a lower setting but higher level AI's will recognize signs of betrayal and take action, even preemptively.

Conclusion - Superb!

Overall Galactic Civilizations 2 is a great strategy title that can stand next to such great turn-based strategy games as Civilization IV. It has a wide array of great features and that special something that brings everything together and creates a gaming experience that is hard to put down.

When looking for any negatives the only thing that came up is that the tech tree could maybe use some more useful information on later techs, but this hardly interferes with the gameplay. The variable difficulty settings with the AI make this a great title for players new to the 4X strategy genre and provides enough of a challenge for even the most hard-core strategy fan.