Before this I thought Stardock was nothing more than a company that made cosmetic changes to Windows XP. Nevertheless, this games company, which many consider to be of an Indie nature in game dev, has produced something special this time round and I am sure this will jumpstart them into the limelight.

Galactic Civilizations II is a 4X game: a game where you eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. This is the same general genre as the Civilization games and the Master of Orion series, although GalCivII is closer to the latter.

The basic premise is that you are a civilisation that has just discovered warp drive technology, allowing you to spread across the galaxy. Whether or not you play as the humans, in this universe the humans have given themselves and all other civilisations warp drive technology in a gesture of goodwill. As such it has now become a race between all the major species to conquer as much of the galaxy as possible and to emerge as the dominant civilisation. So you begin with your home world, a colony ship, and a vast unexplored galaxy ripe for colonising and conquering.

Gameplay mainly consists of management from the greater galaxy view screen, where you can zoom in until a planet occupies the entire window. or out until planets, ships, fleets and everything except stars gets replaced with simple symbols and icons. From here you can do the stock standard things in a 4X game: control research and government policy, communicate with foreign powers and basically plan your strategy. Here is also where you can control ship production and control, forging fleets and starting battles. Most stuff done here isn't really new, and a clear parallel can be found in any Civ game or game from Malfador productions.

One thing of worth to mention here is the ship builder: answering cries that ship research and construction was boringly simplistic in the first GalCiv; in GalCivII a player can build a ship visually right up from its hull type and shape to the intricate errata on its wings.

There are at least 50 different things you can attach to various positions of your designs that don't have any gameplay effect (and cost your empire nothing), so you are completely free to make any homage you choose. We, for example, managed to manipulate the schematics to make my end game super cruiser look like a star destroyer from the star wars universe (a bit geeky, but nevertheless it strikes a chord deep in the dark recesses of my soul). The best thing about this is that your design is rendered faithfully on the main map and in battle sequences, so if you make some crazy cool ship you will have the pleasure of seeing it crush your enemies.

Part of this is due to the graphics engine used. GalCivII uses a shiny 3D engine (although most of the user interface is still in 2D), which affords the user a great deal of freedom in perspective. While stars, planets and ships are all on the same plane the player is free to zoom in close enough to see the details and markings on individual ships, and can zoom out far enough to see the entire galaxy. When the user enters space combat these ship designs are again rendered in full 3D, and depending on the camera angle chosen, can be seem interacting on a full 3D theatre of combat.

Which brings us nicely into combat. Similar to the Civilization games, in GalCivII combat is automated. There are two forms: space battles between ships and land battles between armies, and in both cases a separate window comes up and renders the battle in glorious 3D. In space the ships navigate around each other, firing their weapons in salvos until victory or defeat, while on the ground your troops march towards each other firing, with their respective war machines in tow.

In both cases you can skip the battle or watch it in all its glory, but by either choice the outcome is predetermined. However, do not be mistaken and think that strategy doesn't enter into it. In this game the delicate balance between quantity and quality of weapons, defenses and fleet sizes makes all the difference in ship battles, and on the ground both sides have to factor in relative soldier skills and army sizes, as well as whatever tactics the invading force has chosen to use in their conquering of the planet (of which orbital bombardment, gas warfare, mini soldiers and core detonation are just some of the array of abilities available).

This makes for a very varied and complex tactical mix, which can make every battle and maneuver fraught with uncertainty unless one side has a massive technological advantage (and it has to be massive). Couple this with normal difficulty being more than enough for most players (and with 'challenging' and above being nearly impossible) and the game has a long road for skill advancement that dedicated players can follow.