![]() Players can, of course, pursue a military course, creating a war machine to grind alien races under their boot heel. The game's greatest strength, however, is undoubtedly the sheer number of strategies available. It's also a lot of fun to just fool around with the system, designing your own ships. In Galactic Civilizations II everything's right out there on the screen. ![]() ![]() The previous game represented the player's ships as abstract icons, which forced the player to dig through number filled screens just to figure out whether or not it was a good idea to go into battle. Every ship in the game is put together using a series of parts that can be attached to one another at "attachment points." Not only are the player's ships more attractive, it's easy to tell ships designed for different purposes apart at a glance. This is a simplified CAD system that players can use to create customized ships. Take, for example, the new shipyard system. ![]() The upside to the graphics, however, is that they're more than eye candy the upgrade to 3D allows everything on the screen to offer strategic information that was sorely missing in the previous game. However, anyone used to the graphic splendor that's par for the course in most other types of games will likely be disappointed in Galactic Civilizations II's offerings. There are some lovely effects, such as the way many of the planets have moons orbiting them, and some of the larger battles involving the player's forces are illustrated with a 3D replay of the fight. In terms of aesthetics, the game's graphics are good, but not brilliant. The game is also punctuated by brief cut-scenes whenever a truly significant galactic event happens. The game's playfield is filled with planets and moons rotating around their stars on the galactic map and polygonal modeled spaceships flying around. Unlike the previous game (which used sprite-based graphics and still images), GalCivII is in full 3D and sports rendered cut-scenes. The most obvious upgrade from the original Galactic Civilizations is visual. It's the type of game that typifies the "one more turn" feeling that has you riveted to your monitor until 4AM. ![]() With it, Master of Orion finally has its true spiritual sequel, a brilliantly crafted turn-based strategy game that has held me in thrall since it landed on my desk. Three years after the release of the original Galactic Civilizations, Brad Wardell and his Stardock development team have released Galactic Civilizations II: The Dread Lords. Still, in all that time, no one's managed to come close to the original Master of Orion. 2003's Galactic Civilizations was one such contender, and while it wasn't a classic, it was nonetheless a fun game. In the years since, many pretenders have come forward to claim Master of Orion's throne, including the original's two sequels. Starting with one planet, one survey vessel, and one colony ship, the player would then expand outward, colonizing and managing planets, running their industrial and research infrastructure, and conquering enemy races through military or diplomatic means. It was called Master of Orion and placed the player at the head of a budding galactic empire. A long time ago, in a decade far, far away, there was a game released by a company called MicroProse. ![]()
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