The war with the Dread Lords is over and the crisis has been averted. The Terran alliance has managed to put an end to the Dread Lord's attempts to retake the galaxy and a new era dawns. But this new era is fraught with danger, for the Alliance is not the real victor, the evil Drengin empire is. Now only the Humans stand unbeaten against the Empire, a minor thorn in the empire's side. But all is not well in the Dregin Empire as one of the tribes has broken off and appears to be committing pointless genocide and only the Empire can stop them. This is the setting for Galactic Civilization II: Dark Avatar.

Galactic Civilization 2 (GC2 for short form 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 capture enemy worlds and defend their own planets. They will also develop their own planets to produce the tools of empire, food, money, technology and starships. This new add-on brings a streamlined tech tree as well as new planet types to colonize and special techs from them as well as a new campaign with an added race and plenty of new ship parts for you to design your own buffs.

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 home world and the star it orbits, and a few planets. You have one colony ship and your fleet flagship at 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 anomalies to uncover that also give advantages.

A new type of ship and tech have been added for DA, asteroid mining. Mining sends extra resources to any planet you chose for production boosts. Mines have a very independent nature however and will quickly join other empires if they have closer planets exerting influence on them. Mining can be researched and all mines can be upgraded by mining ships once the correct tech is studied.

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 19 (this can go higher with technology) with the number being the available squares for development. You must decide what you want to build first, because 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 are 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. In DA the tech tree has been altered to make it a little smoother although it is essentially the same.

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 onboard. 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.

One of the best new features is the planet types. In the original game any planet could be colonized by any race that sent a colony ship. In Dark Avatar there are now special worlds that include water worlds, high radiation and gravity planets, even worlds that seem barren of life and resources. With the correct special technology you can settle these worlds and with terraforming you can improve a lot of worlds. Even planets that are rated as 1 or 2 can often be Terra formed into much bigger colonies now.

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.

The intelligence game has been completely reworked and is almost a minigame. Now if you allocate funds for spies you can place them on other race's planets to degrade their improvements and spy on that race. This will also happen to you and you can use your spies to nullify their spies. You can also recall spies if you plan on invading a particular world, or if you simply want to reserve them or use them elsewhere. Spies require no upkeep so once you make some you will have them until they are nullified or used for counter intelligence.

Combat is handled through a mathematical formula, you simple engage and the game decides who wins. But you can watch the ship battles in several modes such as overhead, 3D, chase and several others so it's like a little cutscene 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 then small ones.

Each race was its own set of ship 'skins' and colors so each star fleet looks 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.

Dark Avatar includes improved graphics for planets and ships and looks a lot better then Dread Lords. Now if you zoom into planets you can actually see ships, including ones you designed in orbit around the planet. There is a planet info screen that tells you all advantages and includes information on when a colony was settled, taken or traded for and what people think of it. The planets themselves have been given a little variety and the ships themselves have a new intelligence feature. With this you can get a close up of ships and space stations, including cool info on how many sentients it has aboard, the companies that made the parts and other little touches.

An entire new campaign game is included letting players re-fight the Drengin's attempt to stop the coming of the Dark Avatar. In it players learn of a horrific plan for galactic genocide which the Drengin oppose as that would mean no slaves for Drengin factories. At first you must contest the pesky Humans but you will soon realize your allies are the real danger. These scenarios are quite difficult and fun to play but tough to win.

The game has a complete tutorial and learning campaign but 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.

I would like to thank Brad Wardell, GC's overlord and his fine staff, including Cari Begli, who answered this harried reviewer's questions and helped with some technical issues I had with the game. This kind of attention by a game company is both unusual and to be highly appreciated. Stardock is a fine outfit and I hope they produce great games for years to come.

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