Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar (PC)

When it comes to strategy games it seems that they come in many flavors, often crossing over with other game genres in an effort to create something that is a bit more accessible to the casual gaming masses. However, when considering traditional turned based strategy games there is perhaps no name that comes to mind more quickly that Civilizations by Sid Meyer and Microprose. Building on the tradition of the Micropose games Stardock released a strategy game called Galactic Civilizations in 1994 and now follows this up with Galactic Civilizations II - Dark Avatar, which has recently become available for download, expanding the Galactic Civilizations world and adding its own unique twists to turn based play.

Galactic Civilizations II - Dark Avatar takes place in the distant future when hyperdrive has become a standard and many races vie for control of the galaxy. In general your job, whether you are playing a standard game or the campaign mode, is to settle colonies, research, expand and go to war in order to control the galaxy while keeping your populace happy and your colonies bustling. It's a matter of a lot of attention to detail and a lot of micromanagement. If you're a fast paced action type of gamer this game won't appeal to you in the slightest, but if you enjoy the challenge of a multi layered strategy game in which you're put firmly in control from designing the challenges and difficulties in your game to building custom space ships you'll love it.

The first suggestion I'd give for playing Galactic Civilization II is to download and read through the manual. It can be a little confusing at first since the PDF file is set up to be printed and bound as a book, but with a little trial and error you can follow how the page numbering goes. This manual is excellent and even helps with getting a leg up on the tutorial. It's about 100 pages, so not a short read, but worth the effort. Once you're into the game you can play through tutorial mode to get the hang of the technology tree and micromanaging many events at once, or you can move onto the campaign and standard game modes. One of the unique factors with Galactic Civilization II is just how far you can custom design the scenarios you'll be playing in. Very few factors in the game are not adjustable. You can change the race you'll be playing, the opposing races, and all of the standard factors involved in the playing field galaxy: size, densities, number of other races, even the standards for what counts as a win for the particular game. This flexibility is definitely a highlight and gives a nearly limitless replayability and complexity to the game.

Graphically, the game is fun to look at with unique artwork for each of the races which matches the background histories that are provided through the game. Some of the ship designs are very similar from race to race but there's enough difference that it's not hard to tell which bits are yours and which are the others, and you can always design your own if you're bothered by the similarities. With the mouse scroll wheel you can zoom in and out on your solar system and other conquests though you can't really change the angle of the camera beyond a certain extent. The smaller maps and charts are easy to read and well presented for being able to figure out your statistics and how your accomplishments are being tracked. Getting around the board is simple and possible by either scrolling around with the mouse or clicking on a minimap to instantly cover the distances. The background music for Galactic Civilizations II is professional quality, though I found it didn't change up enough for me not to get bored with it at points and I did end up turning the volume down significantly so I wasn't distracted.

Overall I very much enjoyed playing Galactic Civilizations II - Dark Avatar. I've not made it through all of the races yet, and not even close to all of the possible scenarios, though I've played several different sizes and challenge ratings. I find games tend to take a fairly significant chunk of time, especially when the difficulty is dialed up, but they can always be saved and returned to if you need a break in that time. Definitely a keeper in the strategy game library. Now, if you'll excuse me my populace is complaining and needs another Entertainment Network. I'd not be surprised if they play video games in there.

Top Game Moment: The first time I made it through to the Victory screen was very satisfying. As I thought about it and began again I quickly found things that I wanted to do differently, some of which worked and some of which have gone back to the drawing board for another pass.