Been thinking about picking up either Galactic Civ 2 or Sins of Solar Empire. What would you guys recommend? I am fairly new to the 4x genre so Galactic Civ looks a bit intimidating. Are both fairly easy to pick up and learn? I've got the basics of Elemental down already from a few hours of play so fairly competent at learning these games =P I'm not so much worried about all the minor details of how things work as long as I have the general idea down and having fun! I saw best buy has soase complete for $29.99 which is a nice price point. Just wanted to get some ideas from some of you 4x vets before I spend the money
Without any doubt GalCiv2, will bring you in another world and the game is veeery deep and well balanced. Without any doubt u will not regreat it, it's not so easy to learn but if u manage to play elemental it's more or less the same gamestyle.
I have both and could recommend both... but, I have to go with GCII... GCII= cake, GCII DA=cake with ice cream, GCII TOA= cake with ice cream and fruit...
Both are great games but the two things i would mention to you that might help you decide it this
Sins is real time and a little more modern
Galciv2 is turn based but (as hawawaa indicated) you should get the ultimate version that has all the expansions as well - http://www.impulsedriven.com/galciv2ul
GC2 was my first ever 4X TBS, and I didn't have any problem learning it. I would highly recommend it.
asking which game is better is like asking which flavor of ice cream is better, vanilla or chocolate
personally I found both relatively easy to play and enjoy both depending on what mood Im in
Well, one of them is turn based and the other one isn't. That should probably be your decision maker. But I'd go with SOASE.
There is a demo for SoaSE that you could try (though it doesn't include any of the stuff from the expansions). Not sure about GCII. That said, I'm not sure if any 4X game can be labeled easy to learn, though if you are getting at Elemental that experience will probably translate better in GC just because its turn based. But I would still try the demo of Sins.
Also, the "complete edition" of Sins is called "Trinity". There is a game of the year edition out there that throws people off sometimes, but that is only the base game, no expansions.
GalCiv is the deeper one, but Sins being realtime adds some challenges of its own that GalCiv lacks so its up to you, your Elemental experience will allow you to pick up either with relatively little difficulty. Regardless of which one you pick however, make sure you get the other one ASAP later on
I would go with GC2, No 2 games of it will ever be the same. The AI is very well done. I find it quite amazing how you can "play" one AI against another diplomaticly. I`ve had the AI crush me in a war, At the last minute was able to diplo another AI to attack my enemy. I survived with 2 planets and recovered to win the game. It was quite exhilarating for a 4x game.
I own the sins trilogy, I can`t get into it for some reason. It just seems simple to me. Build econ structures in planet grav well`s, Move fleet thru space lane to next planet. It seems to revolve around choke point planet`s. The space battles can look really nice, I find the game to be very shallow and uninteresting. The music quality in the game is terrible. That may seem like a strange complaint against a strat game, It`s important to me. It`s not the music itself, It sounds like it was created with a casio keyboard. I wouldn`t recommend sins.
What about Dominion 3?
Neither, Sword of the Stars (and it's expansions) is clearly superior to both. Especially GC2, which becomes trivially easy to beat due to piss poor AI implementation on the strategic level.
Then again I don't know what the going prices are for any of those games, so maybe you can afford to just get all of them
Sounds like everyone has their fav = p I guess its a tough question to ask cuz everyone will feel differently. Like if u were to ask me best MMO I'd say EQ1 everytime! I just downloaded the GalCiv2 demo so going to try that out (prolly shoulda checked on demos before asking huh?). Both games do look interesting though. Thanks for all your input.
Interesting, I've always thought the AI was pretty good in Galactic Civilizations. Certainly it has a reputation for having a strong AI. But I've also found that on these discussion forums there isn't a single game that hasn't been attacked by someone at some point for having awful AI.
You are making me want to pick up Sword of the Stars again though. I played the original version and thought it was pretty good, but never got as into it as I could have. Makes me wonder what it was like after 2 expansions, and probably a few patches.
Depends on what you're looking for. Sins of a Solar Empire takes the pacing and structure of a 4X turn-based game and implements it with the mechanics of a real-time strategy game. GalCiv is of course a TBS in its purest form. Definitely try the demos and see which you prefer. Can't go wrong with either.
Human strategies continue to evolve and grow after the game releases, while the AI strategies do not. Combined with the fact that AI's cannot adapt or learn and will repeatedly fall for the same tricks over and over, this eventually leads to a situation where players develop "meatgrinder" strategies that let them defeat much larger and stronger AI's with minimal casualties.
It happens in every game, it's just a matter of time.
I never got into SOSE. Bought it and never really played it. So my vote is for GC.
do you like sp or mp? If mp, SoSE.
I enjoyed galciv2 for SP (it has no mp). I loved SoSE to play with my buds. We've had many fun nights just playing away against ai's together. I've played some in SP, but I really prefer the MP co-op. So, i guess its simply situational. If you the solitude of playing against intelligent ai, I'd say go with galciv2, but SoSE is a close 2nd. If you like co-op at all and have a few buds that would play with you - there should be no question - pick up SoSE.
I was just the opposite; I have all of the GC2 expansions, but can't make myself play them - I think it's because I found the original GC2 painfully dull to play. For years I've been meaning to try it again... I know the expansions vastly improved almost every aspect of the game, but I just can't make myself try it again. Maybe I'm afraid that the tech tree is still just a bunch of 'improve lasers by x%' improvements. Always bugged me. On the other hand, I never would have expected to like SoaSE, but I heard so many accolades I broke down and tried it - and it was awesome. So a vote for SoaSE from me
SotS has 3 expansions actually, or 2.5 if you don't count Argos as a full one since it didn't introduce a new race.
But yes, the game play is dramatically improved over the initial game.
My comments on the GC AI have more to do with the decision to go with an open space design, which the AI simply could not handle. Brad even told me why back in the old forums, the AI didn't look at everything in it's scanner range. Meh, if you developed faster fleets, you could run rings around the AI, getting it to chase dummy fleets (which you let it catch) and then smacking it's planets with your real fleet which it never saw. As far as I know this flaw was never rectified, but it drove me nuts.
Also you could ignore any military ship production until after your enemy got troop transports, meaning you could almost always develop a much better economy/tech base, and then when someone did decide to take a shot at you, mobilization was pretty easy, and your ships were almost always superior to whatever the enemy could throw at you.
I dunno, I enjoyed G2 for a while, but as someone mentioned, once you got the hang of it, the flaws in design really crippled the AI as far as I was concerned, and the game became a lot less interesting, because you'd already pretty much seen everything, to beating on Masochistic (or whatever the highest diff was) became an exercise in tedium. I suppose *all* games eventually get there? Well not for me, but GC2 definitely got there faster than I wanted it to.
Actually the transport ship thing is probably the thing I like least about Galciv 2. I mean I understand the point of them, they slow down conquest a bit keeping you from getting overrun too early and it kind of makes sense that you'd need troop transports as well as battleships to take over worlds. But they also make it a little too annoying to play an aggressive low economy high offence race, and they are just really annoying and slow the game down as your always waiting for transports to arrive before taking overa new world. It makes me really miss the days of MoO 1 where you could just send population directly from one world to attack another without bothering with ships (the ships were just assumed).
Of the games listed, Galactic Civilizations 2 is my favorite, but they're all far from perfect. In the end, it really comes down to what you like/want most in a 4x game. Here's my quick overview:
GalCiv2
Pros: Great AI. Good empire-builder. Diplomacy actually works and makes sense. Excellent ship design. Insane amount of game customization options allow for endless re-playability. Epic-sized maps.
Cons: No tactical battles. Economy wonky and sometimes hard to figure out. No multiplayer (for those who care).
SotS
Pros: Total War-style blend of turn-based empire management and real-time space combat. Unique races with genuinely different methods of interstellar travel. Battles work well and look pretty. Streamlined colony management.
Cons: Empire-building aspects light and shallow; the game is overly-focused on combat.
SoaSE
Pros: Massive scale (large maps, large fleets, etc.). The races are fairly well-balanced. Decent AI. Battleships as "hero characters" with upgrades. Nice visuals. Pirates can make matches interesting.
Cons: Not a true 4x title; feels more like a standard RTS with "4x light" elements included. Only three races. Battles can feel a bit static sometimes. Pirates can be a pain in the ass.
Really, all three games are quite enjoyable in their own way. They all do a lot of things well, and they're all made by companies that have a reputation for standing behind and supporting their product. Again, it really boils down to what exactly you're looking for in a space strategy title.
Meh...
for my money the AI in SotS is by far superior to the AI in GC2, though the tactical battle AI can be a tad predictable, but in any case it's nominally about who has the better ships in the matchup (not always the technologically superior, but if you went heavy beam weapons and they are fielding ships with refractive coatings...).
or if you brought your destroyer swarm against their cutting beam cruisers, only to find out that they swapped in some fusion projectors... oops...
Is the GalCiv2 demo a fairly good representation of the game?
Just asking, cause I loved MOO and MOO2 (I stayed away from MOO3...which was a good choice says a friend of mine), but I just couldn't get in to the GalCiv2 demo. It seemed that nothing ever happened, and the "universe" seemed really really empty.
If I didn't like the demo, is there any chance I'll like the actual game?
I don't even remember what the demo was like, but MoO3 is actually quite enjoyable these days. However, you need the user patch (Bhurics) and one of the developed mods to get anything out of the game. Staying away from MoO3 during it's first couple years was a good choice though
In my opinion none of the games mentioned here are remotely like MoO or MoO2, other than the setting, they all have significant differences from the core mechanics of the MoOs to make each interesting in their own way.
If you like having a greater importance on ship design and tactical combat (though real time, but pauseable) then go for SotS. If you like more diplomacy options (though sometimes they are too exploitable in my opinion) go for GC2 (but realize there is no tactical combat, and ship design is limited).
I'm sure someone else can comment on SoSE, I cannot because I never played it.
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