We have a dekko at Galactic Civilizations 2

EXPAND, Explore, Exterminate and Exploit. That's the battle cry for Stardock's recent release, Galactic Civilizations II for the PC.

This is, in my opinion, probably the best turn-based strategy game in the science fiction genre since Sid Myers' Alpha Centauri (SMAC). It is not, however, a better game. In many ways it is a successor to SMAC, but overall it's a few strokes over par with Myers' innovative game concepts.

I'm not going to gush too much about it, because my purpose isn't to help Stardock sell copies of their game. The game is definitely worth owning, and it's provided me with hours of challenging strategic gameplay. I highly recommend it. My purpose here, though, is to weigh it against SMAC. SMAC is still the best of breed and on the whole is a better game, but Galactic Civ 2 could definitely teach it some tricks.

Before I continue, I'd like to state that I generally don't play video games unless they're turn-based strategy games, such as this. Sometimes, on rare occasions, I'll venture into real-time strategy games, but I had a special fondness for SMAC because of its daring forays into philosophy and ethics theory.

I'll list the spots I perceive to be weak first, and follow up with the strengths.

My condolences

1. The Minimap
I'm used to advanced vector-based drawing programs like Flash and vector-art based games, so I really chafe when I use the incredibly crude minimap console Stardock has provided with this game. Starcraft had a much better minimap than this, and that was years ago. I highly recommend that Stardock hire a hardcore mathematics/graphics geek with a masochistic love for projective geometry for their next project. They might think about using a Battlestar Galactica-style 3-space "DRADUS" console with polar coordinates. That might be really fun. They might also experiment with the tired old cartesian checkerboard map, and see if there's some other way to work coordinates, but that's not really relevant to their abysmal minimap.

2. Culture and Influence
The culture and influence system in the game is crude, with a single-dimensional aggregate "how much INFLUENCE does your culture have?" type of mechanic. This seems like a step backwards from the innovative and provocative cultural clashes that took place in Alpha Centauri. In SMAC, your cultural decisions were innately embedded in what technological pathway you chose on your way through the game, and the AI civs were predisposed to respond to those decisions. Galactic Civ 2 is much more of a Civilization IV-style cultural boundaries concept. Your boundaries essentially wash over your enemies and their populations defect to join your civ. That's fun, but I think that the technologies were culturally barren and didn't even attempt to raise any sort of deeper philosophical thought in the player. So, SMAC trumps this game in taking risks to get the players to explore the philosophical implications of their actions. That sets it a step ahead, in my estimation.

3. Terraforming
SMAC ultimately let you terraform every single aspect of the planet. Oceanic cities, naval fleets, all the workings. To be fair, you couldn't go spacebound in SMAC, and travel through the deep to meet your alien conquerors in defense of your species. But I'd love to mix the two game styles together. I see the future of turn-based sci-fi games being much more fine-grained in this regard.

4. Useless technologies
There are many many technologies in the game that are really not worth their cost, and often they reflect the limits of the pure-aggregation concept of technical advancement. The game has enough technologies to be fun, but I really loved how techs in SMAC could have more than one prerequisite, and unlock entire new paths of action.

5. Good and Evil
The game really just spraypaints the concept of good and evil onto its underlying tech and diplomacy system. I thought that SMAC handled these important moral questions in a way which was more daring and more provocative for the player. Good science fiction often asks us to consider the long-term moral implications of new technologies. I don't think Galactic Civilization II held true to that tradition, but instead boiled down good and evil to mere numeric bonuses and detractions from things like planetary production and diplomacy. Productions like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica should be regarded as the benchmark for the contemporary space drama, and game designers should assume that their audience is ready for slightly more mature themes. Science fiction culture is beyond the moral depth of Star Wars or Star Trek at this point, and games that purport to deal explicitly with concepts of good and evil should know it. Campy games like Evil Genius can treat death lightly, because they do it with humor and style. I want more out of a game like Galactic Civ II, though.

6. Building upgrades
As you develop new technologies, you find yourself able to upgrade the buildings on your planets. However, these cost more, and you can't keep building the old building styles. The result is that late in the game it can become extremely difficult to settle new planets. You can't afford the giant, nu-tek buildings on a brand new colony, and you can't build the old-fashioned way. It grates on me. One feature that I'd love to see is the ability to lay out a "building plan" or prefashioned queue of buildings you can assign to all new planets, such as "Three basic factories, a starport, two multimedia centers and a basic farm." New planets could go on autopilot until the absolute base infrastructure is built. That would save on some micromanaging.

My compliments

1. The AI
The AI is fantastic. It knows the game, it knows its opponent and it knows better than you do how to manipulate the rules to its advantage. You have to respect that within this very limited mathematical and logical construct, it is a cunning natural denizen. Have fun trying to beat it on higher levels and play it against itself. Unfortunately, this leads you to merely "play the game against the AI", not tackle the concepts and ramifications of your path to dominance. But overall, the AI is so good it forces you to stop thinking about the game, and start thinking about your opponent's strategy. Implications, repercussions, how many moves ahead can you think? You can find yourself in a trap that you didn't see coming, and realize that you actually lost the game 4 hours earlier.

2. Ship design
I cannot give enough praise to the ship design system that Stardock has built for this game. This FAR outbalances the lackluster minimap, pays for itself with interest. I was blown away by it, and find myself spending a LOT of time designing new ships. It's like model airplanes, only all-growns-up. I'd love to see more models and possibly the ability to build your own subset of parts that you like. Also, the weapons and components get sort of silly as they advance in power. I like a toned-down style with clean lines, and I thought it was underrepresented in the ship styles, but even that can't scratch my praise for the work they did on the shipyard. Best of breed.

3. Victory Conditions
In this age of warfare, I think that war-as-entertainment doesn't ring as innocently as it might once have done. I'm very glad that the game allows you to conquer through the strength of your influence and the pervasiveness of your culture, your diplomatic and unifying efforts, and also through technological transcendence. Although this transcendence doesn't convey the same weight or wonder that it did in SMAC, the two games cross paths here. The many victory conditions also add significantly to the replay value of the game.

4. Replay value
Just about every single aspect of the game setting can be customized, right down to the strengths and weaknesses of your species, and the density of star clusters. And yet, within these parameters everything is still pretty random. That's amazing, and it makes each campaign seem like a completely new game. I can see myself longing to play this game again four years from now. The best games share this aspect.

5. Fleets, starbases and planetary invasion
I think that starbases are extremely innovative and cool. The fleet design, logistical overhead, and tactical decisions that come into play during conflict are impressive. Stardock gets high marks for all of these, but I won't spoil it for you.

6. Strategic View
The game lets you back out and look at the galaxy in stragic view, which uses 2D icons as though you were on a command-and-control deck in the fleet. This helps you keep your mind on the big picture, and I use it more than the 3D mode. Stardock did a great job with this aspect, and I think it helps gameplay considerably.

7. Licensing
You've probably read about Stardock's licensing policies. I approve of them, and commend them for treating their customers with so much respect. Blizzard needs a ground-up rethink of this aspect, and could learn a lot from Stardock.

8. No CD needed to play
I have a laptop, and I don't like playing games that need a "Play Disc". I was THRILLED that Stardock built their game so that it didn't require a disc to play. Bravo.

That's the long and short of it. The game's great, but it gets scared when it strays into the ethical and philosophical areas that SMAC still has a lock on. It's got a lot to offer, but also has some growing up to do. Overall, great game, big congratulations and thanks to the developers. µ