A top notch strategy game that keeps you wanting just one more turn, just one more turn.
You pick to control one of a variety of intersteller races, or create one of your own. You then pick how many you'll face against, and generate a random galaxy for you to attempt to conquer in one of four ways; By total military conquest, complete cultural domination, Acheiving peacful diplomatic agreements with and between all surviving races, or by researching all of the technology in the games tech tree. Of course, you can also choose which winning methods are allowed, to fit your style of play.
Through the game, you control a federation of planets and ships, in much the same way you'd lead your civilization to victory in one of the Civ games, only rather then fighting for supremacy on one planet, you've got a whole galaxy to fight over.
You can only live on some of the planets, of course, because not all of them have suitible living conditions. Starting colonies on planets with harsh ecosystems leads to less productive and less happy planets, but ultimately contributes to your races miliatry and social influence. To aide in your colonization of planets, you can also build starbases, that can serve one of four purposes; a military outpost, a social establishment to spread your cultural influence, an economical aide center to increase revenues on trade and help with build efficiency, or a mining station, which can only be built on one of the variety of resources that scatter the maps.
Of course, through the game, you'll be researching new technologies, having diplomatic conversations with the other races, and building up new vessels to explore, settle, defend, and conquer as much of the galaxy as you can. One of the coolest features of GalCiv2 is the fact that you get to design your space vessels, down to some of the most miniscule details if you so wish.
Now, its time for me to point out my favorite features.
1 - As i just mentioned two lines ago, you have complete control over the design of your ships. Well, nearly - you're given about a dozen base models that you can then add as many parts onto as you wish to alter the apperance and styling of the ship, as well as a restricted number of functional add ons, such as weapons, shields, engines, and troop transports. This doesnt mean you are forced to make your own ships, no, when you research new technologies you'll generally unlock more predesigned ships that will do what you need, but in some cases, you might want to build a custom ship to fight off a specific threat.
For instance, say your at war with one race. Generally speaking, each race emphasized their military research onto one of the three types of weapons. If your general ships cant hold up to attacks from their ships, you might want to consider building a ship specifically designed with extra defenses against their preferred weapon type, say, more shields to fight off races that like to use laser based weapons, or more armor plating for races using photon torpedoes.
2 - This time around, you can play as any race, not just the Earthlings / Terrans, and can even create your own. Although there arent many avatars to choose from, that becomes ultimately unimportant because you'll never see your own avatar anyway. You do get to pick from a wide variety of logos that will be bannered onto all of your planets, and you can pick literally any color to be painted on your ships and signifiy your borders, a very cool touch. Customization of your race goes pretty deep this time around, letting you pick from dozens of innate abilities that will give your race the edge in the areas you've applied your bonus points to, as well as being able to customize your pre-researched technologies.
3 - Whoa, the graphics man! Sure, they really arent much compaired to a good number of current games out there, but they are a definate improvement over the first GalCiv. Planets are actually seen in orbit around the star they belong to, fully detailed with cloud movements and such that can be seen even when fairly far zoomed out. The background is well done, with stars of varying distance, as well as nebulae, to give a little something extra for you to look at. (But that can also be disabled if you feel they are unecessary.)
Now its time for my nitpicks.
1 - You can no longer pick the ethical bias of the opposing races before the game starts, as you could in GalCiv1. Previously, you could choose Pure Evil, Evil, Neutral, Good, and Pure Good for any of the races - now they are all predefined, although im not entirely sure by what, because the game doesnt show you anymore at the pre-launch screen like it previously did. It might be that its different every time, based on their in game actions, but i dont think the game is quite so deep as for that to be why.
2 - You can no longer turn minor races off before starting the game. (Minor races are races that start off with one planet and no means of getting off of them, and tend to not colonize any planet other then their home one, but who often put a good amount of their resources into maintaing a strong military, and that will occasionally start trouble with some of the larger races, but are mostly just there to be crushed and conquered.)
3 - The game can start off painfully slow. Typically though, turn based games have similar problems, so GalCiv2 doesnt loose any major points for this. The same goes for the end game of larger maps requiring extremely long turns - because its a common problem in all turn based strategy games, im just mentioning it to remind everyone that the little quibble is still present, but im not going to be too mad about it, to tell the truth, it doesnt bother me all that much.
All in all, GalCiv2 is a great turn based strategy game. Its nice and complex, without becoming too complicated to manage. If your new to the genre, you can still have plenty of fun by simply letting the computer manage some of the more intricate details, or simply leaving them alone - you can win pretty easy on the first two modes without doing much custom management.
This is one of those games that just about anyone can get into, and strategy buffs will certainly love it. Its certainly worth the price for just about anyone looking for a fun, relaxing game that can be played time and time again, and will always fit your playing style because of how deep and open ended most of the game is.