Rating: 
Summary: Boring.
Review: On the plus side I'll say the game loaded and worked perfectly out of the box, which is somewhat unusual I'm afraid. On the minus side let's face it: The AI cheats. You can call it what you will but when you're inching out at 2 spaces per turn in the dark with your scout ship while the "alien races" are streaming colony ships to all the good star systems around you, the AI cheats.Like most turn-based resource games there's really nothing to DO. Move ships/Move ships/Move ships/etc. To break up the monotony you periodically select a new research topic, launch a new ship type, or pick which planet you're going to colonize or whatever. Space combat consists of a couple of icons flashing lights and making odd noises until one or the other wins. And no multiplayer mode in this day and age is downright criminal.
Rating: 
Summary: Now updated to Version 1.13
Review: This great game has been recently updated by the developer to version 1.13. You can get the update by going to www.galciv.com.
Rating: 
Summary: Updates Updates Updates
Review: They keep adding more and more to this game. I can't believe it a game producer that actually gives you more than you expect. Awesome game. Only thing I could hope for would be multiplayer. Buy it now!
Rating: 
Summary: Utter Crap!
Review: What the heck were these people thinking? This game looks awful (rendered with no 3d engine to allow resolution versatility), is prone to constant crashing (even with the latest updates) on multiple machines (I've run it also on different OS inc NT, XP and 98, the later leaving the game virtualy unplayable), it's sounds both ambient (I wouldn't call it music) and effects are just childish and the 'Metaverse' is a completely over complicated balls-up offering individuals very little incentive to participate (only rewarding people that have learnt to exploit flaws in the game at a supposedly high level of mastery called 'Maso') They claim in thier blurb that the computer interacts with you as an AI resembeling the reasoning of a human-being, LMOA on two counts. Firstly the aliens aren't human (obviously) and secondly my gold-fish show more intelegence that this hopeless tapestry of protocals. How dare they even evoke the claim that thier game has good AI! Intellect suggests a monicum of thought and the ability to learn, the ridiculous programming in this game doesn't even approach good coding let alone good AI simulation! The code is shockingly bad on closer inspection with literaly hundereds of wasteful in-efficient sequences, did professionals write this stuff? In principle it's a great idea but it's such an amature production, I can't believe these guys have any right to sell this for money. Many (dozens to be sure) that have downloaded this game months ago still can't even register properly to submit scores for the on-line community. Check out the daggy laggy forums yourselves, you'll find plenty of comments supporting my findings. Ontop of all this attached to the product is a whole lot of 'Amway' like rubbish that has noting to do with the game itself. They call it additional features! I call it pushy marketing! - Tiedstick - What's a Tiedstick? - You know that stuff thats tied to a stick
Rating:
Summary: Looking for a game that you can play for months?
Review: I have been a gamer since the Apple II days and have had a lot of titles that I've really enjoyed, my favorites have always been TBS games like Civ, Master of Orion II, and Alpha Centauri. Galactic Civilizations is worthy of being mentioned in this category. At first the simplicity is deceptive, but the game is so well designed and balanced, that each time you play it you can try a different game plan without knowing how the AI will react. That's because the AI is actually handicapped for the first 7 difficult levels, plays without a handicap at difficulty level 8, and gets bonuses difficulty level 9 and 10. I have been playing this game for months and I cannot regularly beat the two highest difficult levels, though I can beat Civ III at deity in my sleep. The unhandicapped UI can even beat me occassionally. The diplomacy / trading element is also great. It is much more intelligent (at all but the easiest difficulties) than I've seem in other games. Stardock (the maker) is constantly updating the game (there was been at least 3 major releases since May) and the each time something new gets thrown at you. The game is well supported and though this is a single-player game, there is a lively multiple player feel through the competition of empires and message boards. The message boards are filled with happy player (which is unusual for any game), but not surprising given the quality of the title. Given the whole of my experience, this is definitely in my top five games of all time. And to address some points in the negative reviews:
1. You can only play the humans, but you can define all the attributes of your race (skills, bonuses, temperment). The AI chooses from the same pool (and occassionally varies it's selections) so it's not as if you always are stuck with the same experience.
2. There are five AIs that are balanced along alignment lines (2 good, 2 evil, one nuetral) -- you can alter their alignments as you wish - but the default package is clearly playtested to provide a challenge.
3. A new manual is available on the website. (The initial manual is out of date). The forums contain a lot of stragety information, the players and designers are helpful, and there are many high-quality player written strategy guides available. This game is a gem. You won't be sorry you purchased it, but you may be surprised at how many hours of your life it will consume.
Rating:
Summary: Total waste of time and money
Review: After my experience with HoI and the majority of the reviews here I bought it. Big Mistake. MoO2 is by far better in terms of complexity and fun. The "decisions" you have to make, whether you want to be good or evil repeat themselves all the time and are not exciting after the first time. The research tree is bad, not documented and neglects the slightest approach of userfriendlyness. The whole setting of the game is boring and repetetive. You can only play the humans and lead them to another stunning victory over the other inferior species, so imho it is a truly fascist setting. The handling of your empire and your fleets is bad. The "battles" are abysmal. The politics are worse than in MoO2. I would not buy it again and I would not accept it as a present.
Rating:
Summary: Best 4x Game Ever!
Review: I love this game. The best thing about it is the diplomatic AI. In most games of this type, diplomacy is like being locked in a room full of rabid badgers - hostile and stupid. In Galactic Civilizations (GalCiv), the computer players act rationally. If you're weaker than they are, they threaten you and demand tribute. If you're stronger than they are, they try to maintain good relations with so that you don't invade them. If you defeat them badly, they will come begging for peace. It's possible to make game-long, mutually beneficial friendships with the computer civilizations. It's possible to wheel and deal and make a fortune through clever diplomacy. It's even possible to play the computer players off against each other to your benefit, using them to fight your wars for you. Furthermore, you're able to define your civilization as 'good' or 'evil', and the other civilizations treat you differently depending the ethical choices your civilization makes. All of this gives the game a narrative feel that other games of the same type lack. The AI is otherwise very well coded. Even at the low intelligence levels, it's a challenging opponent, and it doesn't cheat. Well, it doesn't cheat much. It knows where all the habitable planets are, and at the very high levels, it gets more money from taxes than you do. But otherwise, it's playing the same game you are. Other than that, it's a very solid 4x game. The feel is a great deal like CivII or CivIII in outer space. Nothing revolutionary, but the excellent AI makes up for it, and makes GalCiv a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Very playable
Review: Since contrasting with MOO3 seems to be obligatory, I think GC and MOO3 have opposed strengths and weaknesses. (Neither has a noteworthy combat system, but that's not why one buys strategy games.) MOO3 had several innovative game engine ideas but the interface implementation was abysmal. GC has a rather pedestrian ec/tech system (trading and the emphasis on influence being mild exceptions) with a very playable interface (finding a ship in the fleet display being an exception). So one can focus on the game rather than fighting the interface. While the game is very playable and there is sufficient randomness so that even playing from the same starting map can produce quite different results, the main weakness of the game is the dependency on starting position. To have even a remote chance of beating the higher difficulty levels one must have an excellent starting position. GC is more dependent on starting position than any other 4x I have seen, so be prepared to do a lot of <ctrl>Ns to get a new map at the higher difficulty levels. A lot or reviews have extolled the AI, but I don't think that is fully justified. The AI has a huge advantage at all levels in that it knows where everything is initially, including player positions, and it can more accurately project ship movements. Taking full advantage of this at the high difficulty levels is so overwhelming that it is almost impossible to win. To avoid routine player wipeouts at lower difficulty levels the AI is simply dumbed down so that it doesn't take full advantage of its knowledge (e.g., at Normal and below it does not always colonize the best system in a sector first). On the upside, the game reflects good simulation technique. There isn't anything especially innovative in the game system or UI, yet it is insidiously playable. That's because the abstraction of key game elements is remakably consistent, the game elements all have direct and intuitive effects, and they play together in a complimentary fashion. One indication of this is that at all but the highest difficulty levels one does not have to resort to bizarre configurations (e.g., several turns of all ship building followed by several turns of all research) to win; it is quite possible to leave a reasonable guns-and-butter strategy unchanged for the entire game. Another indication is that it is difficult to point to anything specific that makes the game so playable; the playability stems from the overall synergy of the simulation.
Rating:
Summary: A 2-D throwback that's worth a look...
Review: I've been a fan of "4X" space games since I first played "Starflight" on sega genesis. Galactic Civilizations is a streamlined prettier version of that early spacer. Expand your civilization, explore strange new worlds (to a limited degree) and seek out new life and possibly blow it to smithereens. The graphics are nothing special, a strictly 2-D interface with a minimum of frills. The advantage being you don't need a burner to make this game run. The real fun is the AI, which can be set at several different levels (from cakewalk to masochistic). The AI is really smart! As far as I can tell it doesn't cheat until you get to the really difficult levels and therefore you don't feel like the computer gets cheap shots or breaks at the lower levels of the game. There are five major alien civs to play against. You can form alliances, trade goods, and discover new technologies to make your civilization the pride of the galaxy.
One of my favorite facets of the game is deciding whether to be good or evil. During the course of any given game you will presented with moral choices, as the game progresses the choices affect your standing in the galaxy. If you become evil, races will fear you, some will try to destroy you. If you are good, you can draw races to you and eventually take over their societies culturally. Lots of other stuff, too many little gems hidden in the gameplay to list. I'll just say buy it, you'll like it.
Rating:
Summary: Better than MOO3, but MOO2 is still more fun
Review: Everyone else seems to be saying fairly accurate things here, so I won't try to reinvent the wheel... MOO2 still has more fun factor than this game, but GalCiv is way better than MOO3, and is an addictive 4x game if you take the time to read the manual AND the "how to play" tutorials on the website. The manual by itself is almost worthless, but some kind folks put together a useful free document that you can download from the same place you get the game patch. And the patch is a must!
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