One of the better games to come out this year.

User Rating: 9.8 | Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords PC
By lncualop | Review Date:
For those of you who have been pining for a modern version of Master of Orion that doesn't suck, look no further. Galactic Civilizations II is a shining example of what space-based 4X strategy games should be like. You have the numerous alien races, the extensive tech tree, the nice 3D engine where everything is rendered in beautiful detail, and an AI that does NOT cheat as you increase the difficulty level. The game is novice-friendly by providing some helpful video tutorials. The gameplay is just plain addicting where you would keep playing for "one more turn". You can start a game and not realize that literally 5 hours or more have gone by. The game just sucks you in.

A couple of minor things that seem to be missing from the game that would have made it perfect: tactical combat, a more detailed tech tree (not just Laser I, Laser II, etc.), the ability to terraform inhospitable worlds, and a library of pre-built ship designs (minus add-ons). The game is still great without them, though.

The one great thing about Galactic Civilizations II is that the game ships with absolutely no copy protection on the CDs. You do not have to put the CD in your drive in order to play the game, but you do need the serial number in order to install updates, which I consider a fair trade. Stardock is one of the few game publishers that doesn't treat its customers as software pirates.

Don't walk, run out and buy this game.

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