So you have played both? Can you compare one to the other, and if it's an apples to oranges thing then don't worry about it. :D

This is great news. Stardock finally lives up to being DRM-free with these games!

I remember getting all excited about GCII and Stardock publicly coming out against DRM. Unfortunately, that all turned out to be crap from the start and then the Stardock client turned into Impulse, and then got sold to Gamestop or someone and I lost all the digital games I bought. I ended up getting a new physical copy of GCII Ultimate but I could never update it because Impulse and the key never seemed to work. I ended up getting it on Steam!

Anyway, considering I've bought GCII four times all up and I have three keys for it, is there any chance of it being added to the Reclaim Your Game section? It would go a long way to mending things and enticing me to finally buy GCIII.

This sounds very promising. So with this i'll buy this...

But there's still one question left. Why isn't the original game on sale too?? Guess we'll have to see if they decide to do that later for completion's sake...

Which pair are you asking about? IG1/IG2 or GalCiv1/GalCiv2?

Edit: Nevermind. It is late, hope you will excuse me.

GalCiv1 has only 1 playable race (Humans), GalCiv2 you can play any race. In both cases you can customize whatever race you play.

GalCiv1 is 2D and *I think* uses sprites so will work on older hardware. GalCiv2 the galaxy is 2D but all the models, planets, bases, etc. are all 3D.

While I myself am lousy at noticing this, it is my understanding that in GalCiv1 certain races races tended to use the same strategy over and over (like the Arceans always going for cultural victory, etc.). I am not sure how the default AI is in GalCiv2 but since you can customize yourself (and your opponents!) I suspect this part is customizable as well.

I believe it is the ?first? GalCiv2 Expansion that introduces race-specific tech trees. GalCiv1 did not have anything like that.

In GalCiv1 the planetary buildings were really represented via a drop-down list for each planet. You had no "planet surface" to view what was built on that planet. In GalCiv2 you do, but more so than that you have resources that can boost outcomes. The tradeoff is that you have limited space in GalCiv2 whereas I do not believe you were limited in GalCiv1 (assuming that you had enough money to pay for it).

Battles in GalCiv1 are 1-to-1, single ship to single ship affairs. A simple attack roll versus a defense roll, with modifiers taken into account. GalCiv2 battles have (as others have stated) a rock/paper/scissors feeling and while they can involve more than one ship at a time I am not sure of what that translates to under-the-hood. In GalCiv1 you can determine the order your ships do the attacking, while in GalCiv2 I never quite got what determined the order (only that it was not in the one I would have chosen).

Let me know if there is any area I did not cover that you wanted to know about.

Edited again for grammar and minor corrections.

Can you compare any of the IG games to any of the GalCiv games?

Ah.. Interesting comparison.

Most obvious one is IG games are real-time while GalCiv games are turn-based. See my edit above for descriptions of the GalCiv battles and how they play out. Definitely NOT like IG battles (which are mini-RTS battles).

On many other levels there are similarities. You have your research, colonization, planetary structures. Mechanics are a little different but they are there.

I believe it is IG2 that has spies, where you send them on individual missions against specific factions. In GalCiv1 I believe they are abstracted to a slider where you determine how much you want to fund them, and what actually happens I think is determined randomly (might get you a random tech, might inadvertedly trigger a war, etc.).

IG games do not have "resources" on the galactic map, while GalCiv does. Same thing with star bases, which is how those resources are harvested.

There is some ship customization options in the IG games, none in GalCiv1, and all kinds in GalCiv2 (cosmetic and in terms of actual tech components).

GalCiv has the "United Planets" where laws can be made that change certain rules of the game while neither IG game has that.

One area the IG games beat GalCiv is with the story playing out as you play the game. In GalCiv there is no narrative to speak of. GalCiv (both 1 and 2) have campaigns that have a narrative but the sandbox play is just that.

I could continue but going to stop there. Let me know if there is any specific area I have not touched on that you want to hear more about.

GalCiv2: About damn time.

GalCiv3: A pleasant surprise.

:)

Uhm, GoG, can you get a complete manual for GalCiv 2? Half of the manual is missing.

I played GC2 Ultimate a while ago (it's not a recent game) and I remember that the AI could easily be beaten, but you could adapt to it by increasing the difficulty settings (basically letting the AI cheat a bit to compensate its dumbness - results in still challenging games). The rest of the game however was quite well and fun and in multiplayer mode the AI should actually not be an issue.

So how does GC2 compare to GC3?

There you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf1jc_ymakM

Thanks for this .

With these releases GOG apparently now has "1337 DRM-free games" for sale. You sure do, guys!

Thanks for the link!

I watched the video, but I didn't notice anything about Skirmish modes. Does either game have that?