Galciv2: Dark Avatar gets a 9.0 in IGN

[Combat Wombat]

No matter how good anyone ever makes AI it is still not as fun as playing against other people. Plain and simple.

[Renegade 13]

"There are lies, damn lies, and statisics." I've always loved that quote, not sure where it comes from though.

I bought and played GalCiv2 a while back, when it was released. Definitely not going to bother with their expansion, simply because...well, GalCiv2 was boring. What didn't I like about it?

Simply put, the AI cheated. They may have said it didn't, but I noticed several behaviours that drew me to the conclusion that it did. I probably couldn't prove it, but I know it. Second, as has been mentioned, multiplayer. Enough said there. Third, combat sucked ***. While the ship builder what a little bit interesting, it really had no effect on the game whatsoever. I know there's people out there who like spending time creating pretty ships...but that sort of thing just doesn't turn my crank. Fourth, diplomacy was weak. Sure, you can say the same thing about SEIV/SEV (though SEV has a lot of promise), but combine it with 1-3 above, and it makes the game a lot worse. I also didn't like the economic model, even SEIV/SEV's planetary percentage works better in my opinion.

On the plus side, it was really pretty!

Thus ends my mini-rant about GalCiv2.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I haven't played the game; however, I wouldn't be surprised if the AI did cheat. I have read a number of times in the past that programmers will give an AI cheat or cheat like abilities. In each of the commentaries were this was admitted the designers would point out the same thing. Which is (basically) short of massive development, effort, space, and computing power there is no way to make a great non-cheating AI.

[aegisx]

I don't buy into the AI cheating on purpose. Brad (I think that is his name) has always been pretty open and forthcoming about the galciv games.

[President_Elect_Shang]

It may not cheat in this one, and I am not even saying that is that way for every game with AI. What I am saying is that I have read over the years instances where game designers admitted to making an AI with cheat abilities to give the players a better challenge. So if the designer admitted giving this AI something extra to push it along I wouldn't be surprised at all.

[Raapys]

There's tons of games where the AI cheats, but it's rarely kept secret from what I've experienced.

As for GalCiv

5) It is NOT cheating (unless you put the difficulty above Tough at which point yea, it's cheating, we're giving it money).

http://www.galciv2.com/media/mediaguide.html

Pretty neat way they've made the whole AI thing, in my opinion. And especially the "It's multithreaded. That means while you are taking your turn, the game is multitasking within itself to generate a strategy." part.

[Combat Wombat]

Cheating AI is done by many games like the Civilization games. I wouldn't doubt that GalCivII uses it. If it does it is wrong fo them to tout theier AI because anyone can make a AI that cheats good at the game.

[raynor]

I bought Gal Civ I and played it several times. The AI was very, very challenging. But I didn't like the combat. I also didn't like that you set spending rates for ALL your planets at the same time. I also didn't like how the game radically changed with each new version to provide a better challenge for the folks playing on the highest difficulties. I began to feel like Gal Civ was primarly about the really tough AI to the expense of all else.

I thought about buying Gal Civ II several times and even more so when the expansion came out. But then I remembered the dry gameplay compared to SEV. So, I decided to pass. Then, I played a little SEV. But I had forgotten how horrible the UI is. So, I think I'm going to browse some websites for MOO 3 patches and give that game another shot. (Just kidding!) Seriously, I'm looking for a Shrapnel Game to spend money on. I'm gonna give Dominions 3 a try and wait another three months for more SEV bug fixes.