This is the first game I’ve ever pre-ordered, and I got it a few days ago. I very much enjoyed the first version, and hold secret hopes for the company (Stardock) to do a new sequel for my all-time favorite game, Master of Magic.

First, the good: this is an excellent 4X game. Visually, the game looks great; simple enough to quickly grasp icon meaning, but nice enough to feel modern. The sound is suitable; not fantastic, but then again this is a computer game, not a musical recital - the background music fits the mood while paying a strong homage to Star Trek; and the sound effects match actions appropriately.

The interface is much like the graphics; simple enough to not be overwhelming. A lot of thought must have went into this, because not only is it context-dependent (that is, the various sub-screens change depending on what you click on in the main screen), but it all feels very natural. There is a common enough template that the interface is derived from that I can’t imagine anyone having trouble picking it up during the first game.

The gameplay (so far, I’m only about 4 missions into the campaign) is surprisingly tough to me; perhaps I just haven’t grasped the basic strategies yet. It’s a more deep game than the first version, and consequently requires more thought to play. One big change, compared to most similar games I have played, is that you can’t upgrade your colonies indefinately. Instead, each planet has a certain number of workable tiles, and although this limit can be increased a bit through various technologies unlocked in the game - it really forces you to consider what facilities you build in any particular planet. This adds a new dimension to me, because I’ve never really been a “specialist builder”, I generally just build everything available in all my cities/planets/castles/whatever - not possible in GalCivII.

There is a new ship designer where you can build your own ships, and place the various weapons, armors, and special features. This is a fantastic feature. It’s also necessary because GalCivII introduces 3 types of weapons (and the corresponding 3 types of defense), so you can more effectively counter your opponents by careful ship design. Again, like the limitation on developing cities, this forces the player to commit his resources more carefully.

There is also a new ship battle viewer, where the battle is played out in a quasi-cinematic. Personally, I turned this off during the first mission - it doesn’t do anything for me, because it’s non interactive. There is some talk that this helps you determine how effective your ship design is. Let me just say: I hope not, because I don’t want to watch the battles just to glean some information that the numbers don’t reveal. I would watch them if there was some user control, of course, it’s just the fact I can’t do anything that makes this a non-starter for me.

There’s a ton of technologies and upgrades to discover. Since I pre-ordered I got a nifty chart, which I have found useful. The game has a pretty decent tech tree viewer built in, though - so the chart is not a requirement.

Finally, there is no copy protection. At all. This is fantastic - I hope all game companies eventually go to this. You do have to register the game for updates and additional content. There is also a feature, so that once registered you can download the game again if something happens to your CDs. Stardock is such a sensible and user-friendly company it almost seems like a dream in today’s age of “sue the consumer”. To tell the truth, I would not have pre-ordered the game, save this philosophy which closed the sale for me personally.

Now, the bad. This game is buggy. Big big big time buggy. Full of bugs. One patch has already been released, and another is on the way within a week according to the official website. I won’t list all the bugs I’ve ran across, but they range from spelling errors to “CTD” (crash to desktop). The most frustrating is sometimes the game crashes during auto-saving, and then you can’t re-load that save without it crashing again. You have to either revert to an earlier saved game, or re-start the mission. This happened to me at least three times.

The games is certainly not unplayable because of bugs, but it can be a bit trying.

That being said, I do expect Stardock to patch all the bugs. I just have high expectations and high respect for them based on past performance; they really do seem to listen to users. And, by listen to users, I mean make the changes and fix the problems the users report.

Anyway, this is getting long and I’ve got planets to conquer!