As the 23rd century dawns, mankind is on the verge of a long sought dream, moving out among the stars. The old ways of using interstellar jump gates to end the problems of distance have been replaced by an invention of man, hyperdrive. Equipped with these new engines mankind spreads his wings to the stars, only to discover the galaxy has other races also looking to expand. This is the premise of Galactic Civilization 2 Dread Lords.

Galactic Civilization 2 (GC2 for short from now on) is a turn based strategy game about colonizing planets and diplomatic interaction with other space faring races. Players must explore the always different galaxy, study important technologies, design and build starships, colonize new worlds, as well as capturing enemy worlds and defending their own planets. They will also develop their own planets to produce the tools of empire, food, money, technology and starships.

Play begins with a few basic selections, such as picking a race. Each race has different attributes and bonus factors and there are a few bonus points you can assign to gain more advantages. These are displayed easily with drop down windows that clearly explain the cost and what the advantage gives you. These advantages stay with you the entire game so choose wisely and you can tailor your game playing style to gain the maximum effect from these choices.

You will also be asked if you would like to change the name of your civilization, your leader's name, as well as your race portrait. You can also change the look and style of your starships, as well as their colors and also change the default color of your civilization. The first time playing they recommend the Terran Alliance since we know something about being humans. You can also adjust the size of your galaxy, how many habitable planets it may have, as well as possible trade resources. The size of the galaxy determines the number of alien races, and you can pick these as well, or let the AI do that.

The game opens with a short intro movie and you can begin to make decisions. The map is grayed over and you can see your homeworld and the star it orbits, and a few planets. You have one colony ship and your fleet flagship at the start so you can begin exploring and colonization right away. You will have to set out blindly to find new worlds at first and there are bonus asteroids to uncover that also give advantages.

The game map has several viewing modes as well as nice zoom features. If you change the view options it will show where other races are as well as resources and star systems, but this is something like a cheat to me as it removes the random factor. Each race has a sphere of influence that shows on the map as colored borders, but you can move through space without hindrance from them. As your starships travel over the map the gray is removed and exact details are revealed such as habitable planets, star system names and what race if any lives on a particular planet.

You have some decisions to make at home too as not all planets are created equally. They are rated from 0 to 16 (this can go higher with technology) with the number being the available squares for development. You must decide what you want to build first, as you have a capital and a starport but little else. Should you build a factory for better production? A market for more money? A research center? Since the number of squares are limited you must decide what you want.

Technological discovery will open up additional buildings and special wonders for you to construct. When you first colonize a new world there is nothing there, so you must build everything including a starport. Starports can in turn construct starships, which is something you will have to pay attention too. Each ship in your fleet costs a certain amount of money in upkeep costs, so make sure to pay attention to your budget. The final decision is what technology to research first. There are many techs and the game manual makes it clear you won't get to finish them all. As in many such games progression of techs is linear in style, as you follow a track along a number of paths and this leads to better weapons, defenses, starships, planetary improvements and so on. You can even win a tech victory but this is very time consuming and there are easier ways to finish a game.

The nicest feature in this game is the starship design interface. As you learn new techs, default ship types appear for construction. You can also augment this with custom designs. Every time you learn a new tech you can translate this into a new ship design. You pick the hull size, shape, and then simply choose from a list of engines, weapons and defenses you have discovered to make the ship. Each ship can only hold so much, so you won't be able to fit everything you want on board. But you can study miniaturization and with it fit more on small hulls. You can even add cosmetic shapes to make your ships truly unique.

The diplomacy interface in the game is quite nice. As you meet other races, you can talk to them, trade techs, present gifts to them and make peace and war. You can also see their opinion of you, the number of planets they control as well as the starships they have in service. The race you are looking at displays an animated leader that says appropriate comments for the situation, although many are light hearted and frivolous. One of the easiest victory conditions is alliance with all the major races so diplomacy is important.

Combat is handled through a mathematical formula - you simply engage and the game decides who wins. But you can watch the ship battles in several modes such as overhead, 3 D, chase and several others so its like a little cut scene movie. Invasions are handled with two animated armies meeting and shooting at each other with the troop numbers dropping for one side or the other. Techs affect combat defense and offense, and large planets are harder to take than small ones.

Each race has its own set of ship 'skins' and colors to each Starfleet look differently. The planets are well represented with high quality designs that actually look like real planets in space. The entire look of the game is quite slick and modern and gives excellent atmosphere for the game players. The music is appropriate to the setting and there are several different victory conditions making no two games of GC2 exactly alike.

The game has a complete tutorial and learning campaign, but it is not difficult to learn once you understand the basic concepts. With numerous races to play and many different ships to design and play with, this really is a sci-fi fan's dream of a space empire builder. There is sure to be many mods based on popular shows and movies for it, as it would lend itself well to this. The game is fun and relatively fast moving, so it's worth going out and getting.

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