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Games Entertainment

Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon 253

Posted by Hemos from the good-game-bonanza dept.
dragonsister writes "Like Master of Orion 3, Galactic Civilizations is a turn-based strategy game involving colonizing and dominating the galaxy - militarily, diplomatically, or economically. Unlike MOO3, GalCiv will (release date March 26th) come without copy-protection; Stardock are addressing the piracy issue by providing a bonus pack and further downloads to users providing a CD key. This 'rewarding the honest' approach is precisely what Slashdotters have asked for ." I've been playing a lot of MOO3, which I love, but this is looking great as well. Ah, the bounty of games.

GalCiv may also be purchased via a subscription to Drengin.net, which also supplies a variety of 'smaller' games which would not sell so well in the normal market.

I have no connection to anyone producing Galactic Civilizations. I'm planning to buy the game because I've been impressed by:

  • The developer's interaction with fans, at least on the newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
  • The level of beta-testing employed
  • The comments from the public beta-testers
  • The developer's budget of a year of additional development, including AI improvements (Stardock has a reputation for good game AI anyway!)
Others may not be so pleased to hear that the game is developed for single-player only - no multi-player - but to each their own."
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Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon More

Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon

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  • At last! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SkoZombie ( 562582 ) <`gro.leurk' `ta' `eibmozoks'> on Friday March 07, 2003 @06:48AM (#5457407) Homepage
    A game company that understands the key is not to cause inconvience to users but to commit to ensuring theres a better reason for buying the game "because otherwise you're a bad boy". I'll be buying it!!

    • Re:At last! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Surak ( 18578 ) <surak@mailblocks.cTEAom minus caffeine> on Friday March 07, 2003 @09:00AM (#5457645) Homepage Journal
      Now wait a minute here. Here's a quote from the Google Groups link:

      In a nutshell, the game has no copy protection whatsoever. Instead, we've
      taken the route of providing long term feature support (i.e. updating the
      game with new stuff). But to get to these new features you go through
      "Stardock Central" which uses the serial # that comes with the game. The
      serial # is authenticated on the server so even if someone cranked out a
      serial # generator or passed out serial numbers on the net, the server would
      be able to detect serial #'s that aren't in the retail list or serial #'s
      getting a lot of differnet IP's downloading the entire game.

      This sounds an AWFUL lot like what Microsoft did with Windows XP. Yet, when Microsoft banned certain serial #s from getting SP1, Microsoft was (and still is) severely bashed on /., but when Stardock does the same thing for their "cool game" /.ers are overwhelming saying how cool it is and that this is what they asked for. How come?

      • Re:At last! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        How is it the same in any way? You don't have to activate this game before you can play it, and as far as I can see, you don't have to give someone the right to install or uninstall anything they like on your computer to get the updates.

      • Re:At last! (Score:5, Informative)

        by OneEyedApe ( 610059 ) <Simianthing@yahoo.com> on Friday March 07, 2003 @09:18AM (#5457768)
        First, this is just a game, not an Operating System. Far less critical. Second, this is a far better scheme than a lot of companies have been using lately. Be honest, and you get extra stuff. It sounds like these would primarily be expansion pack type enhancements, and not really critical patches.
      • The biggest difference is that with xp, you had to call a number.

      • Re:At last! (Score:4, Informative)

        by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @10:28AM (#5458221) Journal
        There is a significant if subtle difference.

        Use the serial number that's been previously detected or 'smells' pirated and:
        Case A) Windows XP - you get letters from the BSA and eventually (implied) a visit from the Feds who will take everything whether you're guilty or not, after which the burden of proof is on you to prove you are not another dastardly mass market pirate organization.
        Case B) GalCiv - you don't get all the free stuff, like extra ships, features, etc. that are only available to legit users.

        Sounds like a difference to me.
        • Case A) Windows XP - you get letters from the BSA and eventually (implied) a visit from the Feds who will take everything whether you're guilty or not, after which the burden of proof is on you to prove you are not another dastardly mass market pirate organization

          So perhaps you shouldn't break the law and install pirated software. And if you can't afford the license price for XP, install something [freebsd.org] else [linux.org] .

        • "Case A) Windows XP - you get letters from the BSA and eventually (implied) a visit from the Feds who will take everything whether you're guilty or not, after which the burden of proof is on you to prove you are not another dastardly mass market pirate organization."

          Has that actually happened, or is this overactive imagination talking here?

      • Re:At last! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Galvatron ( 115029 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @11:08AM (#5458665)
        Microsoft has never required us to have our CDs in the drive while running Windows. If that had been their former behavior, I'm sure /.ers would be applauding Microsoft for moving in the right direction. We're perfectly consistent: we want people to move towards less onerous restrictions.

      • 1) GalCiv does not cease to operate if no serial is provided.

        2) StarDock will not sick the law on you if no serial is provided.

        3) StarDock will not deny patches if no serial is provided.

        4) StarDock will provide additional goodies if a serial is provided.

        Looks like the method and intent of StarDock in no way resembles what MS is doing, barring the fact that they both use serial numbers with otherwise unprotected software.

        "Microsoft was (and still is) severely bashed on /."

        Fucking wah. They deserve it in spades.

        • 1) GalCiv does not cease to operate if no serial is provided.

          Okay, but ...

          2) StarDock will not sick the law on you if no serial is provided.

          How do you know?

          3) StarDock will not deny patches if no serial is provided.
          4) StarDock will provide additional goodies if a serial is provided

          And? Microsoft will deny patches if no serial is provided, and StarDock will NOT provide additional goodies if a serial is NOT provided. However, Microsoft WILL provide additional goodies with or without a serial number. (Last I checked, anyone with a Web browser could download the XP PowerToys, for instance). Six of one, half-dozen of the other.

          Looks like the method and intent of StarDock in no way resembles what MS is doing, barring the fact that they both use serial numbers with otherwise unprotected software.

          I'd say your conclusion is predicated on faulty logic.

          Fucking wah. They deserve it in spades.

          I never said they didn't. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft myself. I run Linux. I just think that the whole StarDock thing is a double standard, that's all. I'm calling a spade a spade.

          • Re:Not the same thing at all (Score:5, Insightful)

            by thelexx ( 237096 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @03:58PM (#5461680)
            "How do you know?"

            From a linked [galciv.com] article:

            "Stardock has found that the best way to keep customers and decrease piracy is to reward people for supporting you rather than punish people by having to go through copy protection.

            Each GalCiv user has their own unique serial number that is verified on our server as being a valid serial number. When a user enters this serial number into our server, they get a Stardock.net account which lets them instantly gain access to all sorts of extra goodies including the BonusPak."

            The language they use, throughout the sites actually, displays a distinct lack of intent to use serials in such a way as to prosecute people who don't have one. "If you have one, great, thanks and here's some extra stuff" is the clear and ringing message I get from the sites. Maybe they will become evil in the future. They have the benefit of the doubt however, due to a lack of past bad behavior. MS does not have this advantage, and further, clearly has the intent of using their serial scheme to shut down and/or go after people without (a real) one.

            "And? Microsoft will deny patches if no serial is provided, and StarDock will NOT provide additional goodies if a serial is NOT provided."

            There is a huge difference between a patch to fix the base product and additional graphics, sounds, etc. MS putting free stuff up for XP isn't the same, since if you haven't a serial for XP, you're still screwed at a more fundamental level. Not so with GalCiv.

    • The return... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by j_w_d ( 114171 )
      of the ONLY great game ever turned out for OS/2. StarDock was originally supplied apps for OS/2. One - not a game - provided multiple desktops and otherwise took great advantage of the object oriented nature of the os. GC was multithreaded and had a vicious AI. GC also earned a Game of the Year Award at one point. Great news.

  • Basically a 'free' expansion pack then? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dan B. ( 20610 ) <[slashdot] [at] [bryar.com.au]> on Friday March 07, 2003 @06:58AM (#5457427)
    So would I be correct in saying that if you buy the game, you get every bit of 'expansion pack' style material that comes out in the following year of development?

    That's sure to be a success, although I can only think of one expansion pack I didn't buy for a Blizzard game (they're good at releasing expansions that cost half the same as the original game).

    Still, I'm contemplating either MOO3 or GalCiv as I don't have loads of time to spend playing games these days.

    Quick poll, which one do you think is better? I'm leaning towards GalCiv as I usually like playing strategy games single player. Multiplayer is much better in fast pace eg. FPS.
    • Moo3 reviews have been rather mixed, some like, some say it needs another 2+ months of development for AI, tweaking so stuff etc.
      So far everyone agrees that you can expect to play 5-10 hours before you will understand the game.
      If between the two I would go with MOO3 as it currently is for multiplayer play, and wait to see what happens to GalCiv for single player play.
      • i can sure understand why the reviews are mixed.

        some things are done well in moo3 but it is different from moo1/moo2. some things have just gone to hell(fleet assembling, ship design, yes i know theres autobuild but it isn't fun like ship design was in moo1/moo2)

        it takes several hours to get into the game(realising that you should just leave things for the ai to keep track of and just ignore that it likes to build fleets that seem silly to you), and several other hours to get annoyed that you can't keep track of your civilization without spending horrible amounts of time fiddling, and the ui isn't that great.

        and really, moo3 is technically and gameplay wise something that could have come out like 5 years ago, and has some things 'missing', like with the moons, you can't colonize them so why are they there?

        in my opinion the whole game is more like vga-planets than master of orion 1/2(better suited for multiplay, more micromanagement shown).
        • Moons do factor into planet population size and mining capability.
          For game play they are just considered one and the same as the planet they orbit.
        • I played two complete games of MOO3 before taking it back. My experience with it pretty much mirrored that of the reviewer over at Gamespot.com

          To wit:
          The AI is spotty on building up your military. I would frequently end up with 10x the number of troop transports I needed and not enough support to break them through.

          The enemy AI almost never directly attacked a planet effectively. They attacked one or two of my critical systems, but they never brought along ground forces, they would just performs orbital bombardments every turn, waiting for me to build up a big enough fleet to come kick their butt.

          The ship design stuff just isn't fun.

          You will quickly get annoyed by your inability to stop enemy spies from destroying key installations without oppressing your population so much that they revolt and form new enemies for you to fight.

          The manual is horrible, and the in game encyclopedia is worse. Neither tell you the stats you need to know about some of the units and technologies.

          As for your moon question, the game says that planets with habitable or minable moons have their stats bumped to reflect them.

          I really wanted to like MOO3, maybe I'll give GC a try.
    • I used to play a fair amount of VGAP v3 with some buds on a BBS...you know, kickin' it old skool. Any comments on how SEIV stacks up against MOO3 or GalCiv?
    • I'll spare you my take on the game, since it has been echoed by many people on MOO3 discussion boards. Try the boards at Apolyton [apolyton.net] and The Orion Sector [orionsector.com]. You'll get more opinions about the game than you ever wanted.

      I will advise you to stay away from the official Infogrames boards, however. Most of the trolls and flamers seem to reside there, so signal to noise ratio is much lower.
    • GalCiv. I've been waiting years for MOO3 and pre-ordered it almost a year ago. I'm disappointed in MOO3 and will be buying GalCiv. My problems with MOO3:
      • Lousy interface. The screens I need to check regularly are the various queues. To cycle through the queues and look at what's going on (not change anything) takes 11 clicks per planet.
      • Stupid AI (in some ways). I've had colonies starving and the AI keeps building mining improvements instead of farming improvements.
      • Lack of control. There are some things in the game that are impossible to control. You can over-ride the AI on building ships, planetary improvements, and DEA (farms, mines, etc) but you can't control what improvements get built on DEAs (which have a huge game impact).
      • Bugs. The game kept getting delayed because they were going to release it "bug free". Yeah, right. Sometimes, you lose keyboard or mouse until you exit the game (rarely you lose both). If anything else grabs focus, you will probably get a Direct X Surface Error that crashes the game (or if you alt-Tab out of the game). SecuROM copy protection causes problems for lots of people (on my system, I have to reboot and run MOO3 as the first program I run or the game won't start and my DVD-ROM disappears). Bulk Freight Modules are supposed to increase income from Spaceports but they decrease it heavily (from 140 to 17 in one case for me) and you can't stop them from being built (they are DEA improvements). Etc.

  • Not everyone is honest (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07, 2003 @07:13AM (#5457452)
    I hate to say it, but some form of copyright is good. Do you think the average joe bloggs in the street gives a hoot about copyright if they can get around it. I personally hate to hear that the game I just forked $90AUD for is being played by a mate who just ripped it off someone else. Where then is the economical reason to purchase the game yourself?

    Copyright should only be there to make it hard for most people to burn, not everyone. People should still always be able to back up their data to CD. It is only when copy right goes that step beyond reasonable protection that I complain. Like the CD I purchased the other day that wont play in my computer.

    We all hate copyright because we all know that at some point in our lives we have breached it. I know I am craptacular at agruments but all I want is the prices to come down to reasonable levels.

    Oh hang on, I hear you talking about the no-copyright utopia. Well sorry it aint going to happen. Ever. Look at the frickin trends that all the large companies are moving towards. Soon we will have to call up an activation center to play our favourite CDs.

    (BTW, I just paid for MOO3 and it is an okay game. I realise it is strategy, but c'mon, why cant i up the res a little).

    • Re:Not everyone is honest (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 07, 2003 @07:30AM (#5457486)
      I think you're confusing 'Copyright' and 'Copy-protection'. Completely different things.
      Copy protection on CDs is a completely botched affair - it presents a slight inconvienience to those who wish to copy the CD, while producing problems to those who have bought it legitamately.
    • s/copyright/copy protection/g

      dave

    • Re:Not everyone is honest (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You wanted the game, and you bought it. There is your economical reaon.

      A game only needs to be developed once. You are paying for both yourself and the guy who just got a copy, but the alternative would be that neither of you would pay (he just spent all is money on beer after all), and neither of you would get the game.

      Would you really want him to pay anyway? Think supply and demand... When demand goes up, so does the prices. Two customers instead of one is double the demand. Expect the price to rise a lot.

      Don't believe propaganda about prices being so high because of piracy. The prices are so high as they can be without loosing the rest of the customers. If there were more customers, they could rise the prices even more, and only loose some of their customers. As long as the price increase causes a bigger rise in profit than the drop caused by loosing customers, they win.

      An in bonus, they can sue the rest for copyright violation, and get extra money from them.

  • Imperium Galactica (Score:4, Informative)

    by Khalidz0r ( 607171 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @07:18AM (#5457462) Journal
    For those who like space strategy games, and colonization etc, I would suggest Imperium Galactica. It is my favorite space strategy game :) And it's real time, not turn based.

    http://imperiumgalactica.com/

    About this game outlined in the topic, I think it's a mere advertisement but we'll see if this game is good anyway :)

    Khalid
    • Meh, Imperium Galactica 2 was kind of cool, but the graphics were really overdone. Everything was flashing randomly for no reason, just to make it look cool. I would have preferred a simpler layout, myself.

  • Great move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ice Tiger ( 10883 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @07:21AM (#5457471)
    This is a good move, allows you to burn backups of your CD's. For an example, Battlefield 1942 came out in the uk (maybe elsewhere) with CD's that were poorly manufactured and so have been cracking whilst in the drive etc. EA charge 7.50 UKP to replace each disc and as there are two that's an additional 15 UKP for the game on top of retail price. Not a good situation at all. Oh before you ask the copy protection on the CD's is a nightmare to get around.

    The game comes with a CD key and this can be used to prevent online play which is what bf1942 is all about, ok so that doesn't prevent the warez kiddies from playing the game in single player which is like a training ground for multi player, so the CD key could have been the main form of protection for this game. Grrr

    • Re:Great move (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, the CD key doesn't even prevent anyone from playing online - people are playing the game with warez versions on cracked servers.

      Myself, I bought it the day it came out, but I couldn't play it at all because of the copy protection. The solution? I downloaded the warez version. It took me less than 5 minutes to find the warez version online, and just an additional 15 minutes to download it. Worked like a charm.

      The moral of the story is this: copy protections don't work in this world of ubiquitous broadband, since the warez versions are cracked and released before the game is available in stores anyway (if a warez group releases a game at midnight, it's available on most DC hubs by 3 o' clock). The only thing it does now is to piss off the people who actually buy the game.

    • Re:Great move (Score:3, Informative)

      by MrFredBloggs ( 529276 )
      "CD's that were poorly manufactured and so have been cracking whilst in the drive etc. EA charge 7.50 UKP to replace each disc and as there are two that's an additional 15 UKP for the game on top of retail price."

      Are people paying? Wow! This totally contravenes the 1976 Sale Of Goods Act - section 15 "Must be of merchantable quality". This is a design fault.You get a free replacement or your money back. There's nothing the developers, producers, distributors, manufacturers or retailers can do to stop you. That's a statury right.

      Someone needs to sue them in the small claims court for this, if what you say is true.

  • Critical mass (Score:5, Interesting)

    by little1973 ( 467075 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @07:39AM (#5457497)
    I am curious to see if they really solved the critical mass problem found in strategic games as well as they claim here. [galciv.com]
    • It sounds like an extension of Alpha Centauri's "Pact of Submission". That worked rather well, though you really had to virtually exterminate a player before they'd offer one.
      If the algorithm to determine when to offer such a pact is more sophisticated, it might just work as advertised.
    • Hmmmm... you gotta be careful with the mopping up stuff...

      I've had many opponents in Starcraft tell me to surrender "cuz u no ur gonna loose anyway". Only to have me later in the game turn around and destroy them completely. Of course that's starcraft where the kiddies learn how to rush and nothing else... as long as you can last more than 5 minutes they don't know what to do.

      ok ok... now i'm completely off topic.

    • Re:Critical mass (Score:3, Informative)

      by KirkH ( 148427 )
      Take a look at this gameplay summary [stardock.com] (with screenshots) that the creator of the game wrote up to demonstrate gameplay. He is handily winning and is confident he'll dominate soon, but he ends up losing due to an extremely long-term computer AI strategy. Good read.

      There is also a second gameplay report [stardock.com] where he does win. :)

  • I know I must be missing something here but (Score:3, Insightful)

    by back@slash ( 176564 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @07:53AM (#5457514)
    What is there to stop people from distributing the bonus downloads from Stardock via the same methods pirates will use for copies of the game?
    • The premise is that people will feel "special" due to the trust placed on them, and the "honour" of dealing directly with the dev team, that they will be less likely to give stuff away.

      That said, I would never start large scale piracy of software I've purchased (such as by placing it on a p2p network or similar), but iI have considerably laxer standards about sharing it with my friends for a single shot multiplayer game.

  • I really would like to see this system work for them but am afraid that it could possibly blow up in their face. This would not only be bad as it would punish them for placing trust in consumers but would only serve to give valuable ammunition to those that wish to eliminate fair use. Other companies would surely not ever dare such a thing any more than they would attempt to have a product based business model and then open source. (A service model CAN work with this assuming, like any business that there aren't incompetents running the show). I know this has been done with various levels of success in the past but it just seems that this here is a major focus. Furthermore I know that it is relatively easy to obtain cracks and images to download from various sites yet the issue here is one of business confidence.

    On another related issue, I am hoping that the "Internet distribution business model" starts showing a more vibrant show of support soon. The ability to save money by taking out the middleman is just about always wanted. Add to that the possibility of increasing quality and diversity of games by reducing the groupthink draconian measures from the publisher. Every little bit helps I suppose.

    • Other companies would surely not ever dare such a thing any more than they would attempt to have a product based business model and then open source.

      Actually, didn't BioWare strip the on-disc copy protection from NeverWinter Nights?

      That's been a pretty good seller for them, I understand.

  • Better than MoO3, hopefully... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ephemeriis ( 315124 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @08:18AM (#5457551)
    I bought MoO3, and played it for 30+ hours, desperately seeking some kind of enjoyment. I never found any. I wound up returning my copy for Freelancer. I've been watching GalCiv for a little while now, and it actually looks halfway decent. I think I may need to pick up a copy. This time around, however, I'll wait and see what some of the players are saying before I pick it up.

    yrs,
    Ephemeriis
    • I was bored to tears with Moo3. It's almost nothing like Moo2. I was hoping for a larger queue for each planetary construction list, more technology to play with, and maybe even a technology tree that was almost like what they gave us, but this whole dealing with the Galactic Senate thing is boring (gee... a game for politicians! ugh!) and with only so much able to fit in the queue at a time (3 for planet, 3 for military), you almost have to put everything on Auto. The game plays itself & you end up fighting with the AI for what you want to do. In Moo2, I could go through a few hundred turns w/ out looking at it, just click a button, and it would tell me 30 turns later when my colony ship finally was built. Moo3 requires you to take each and every turn & you reeeeeally feel those 30 turns go by. (I even forget I tried to build one!) and if you want it to go to another system... another 12-30 turns & man... that takes forever, too! I'll stick to Moo2. I don't know WHAT they were thinking when they made Moo3. It's a huge disappointment

  • Comment on Stardock (Score:5, Interesting)

    by greenreaper ( 205818 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @08:26AM (#5457565) Homepage Journal
    I've been a Stardock follower for quite a while now. See, I tried out some of their software quite a while back, and I found a rather nasty bug in their window skinning product, WindowBlinds [windowblinds.net]. So I decided to go report it.

    Most companies would simply have acknowledged the bug, maybe offering a simple thank-you. Their response was to give me a registered copy of the software and encourage me to submit more bugs.

    (disclaimer: this approach may not work for everyone :-)

    Stardock are good. They don't mess their customers around - they might not always do what some of them want, but hey, that's true of any company, and at least they explain why ;-). They go the extra mile to help - almost every member of the company is available on IRC, from the CEO downwards. They have a dedicated community on the Stardock newsgroups [stardock.com] and over at WinCustomize [wincustomize.com], who helped them transition from OS/2 to Windows - people bought Object Desktop [stardock.com] subscriptions a year before it was officially out, because they trusted Stardock to deliver.

    Heck, they even had a positive cashflow throughout the dot-com era, because they didn't rely on stupid business plans and massive investment. Just on listening to their customers, making a good product and shipping it.

    GalCiv [galciv.com] is one of those products. It's got a solid AI, and more gameplay than you can shake a stick at. And the price is right. So go get it now [galciv.com].

    And no, I don't get paid for this. ;-)
    • Also, as a programmer, I like the idea of a company that produces both productivity applications and games. The only other one that I can think of is Microsoft. It's nice to see a company making the products that it wants to make, even if they don't all fit a "product line".

      I say "as a programmer" because I still hold out the hope that my manager will come to me and say "Bill, for the next project we thought we'd move away from accounts receivable applications and make a game."
    • I played a great game they made called The Corporate Machine... unfortunately, you had to login to play it, so I couldn't play it on my laptop...

      And their page [stardock.com] seems to be blanked out...

      Anyone else heard of/played this game? I'd love to try it again..

  • Ah, the memories of OS/2...Galactic Civ. was one of the highlights. With recient news that Loki's port of Rune for Linux [linuxgames.com] sold a mere 1,000 copies, I'd be curious how many copies of GC were sold.

    If anyone knows...Brad from Stardock? Is he still at the helm? Speak!

  • poor pater! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 )
    Like a good slashdotter I sent a helpful note to pater@slashdot.org as the server error page instructed.

    I heard recently /. has a million users. How many do you suppose emailed pater? How much space do you suppose is on the filesystem where pater's mailbox lives?

  • I played this game when it came out for OS/2 - for those who don't know, Stardock started out as a strictly OS/2 shop- and I was surprised at how bad it was, given the accolades it was receiving, and how it seems to always top certain game lists. It was, to be as charitable as possible, a weak ripoff of Civilization, set in space.

    The only theory I could come up with was that as one of the only native OS/2 games on the market, all the OS/2 fanatics/chauvinists had to buy it and had to convince themselves it was a good game to maintain internal consistency. It wasn't a good game.

    Am I going to buy this game because it isn't copy-protected ? Nope. I might buy the game if people whose opinions I trust say it is a good game. If I happen to feel strongly about copy-protection, maybe I would restrict myself to good games that happen to fit with my philosophy.

  • "This 'rewarding the honest' approach is precisely what Slashdotters have asked for."

    This works. It's the reason I bought the Sims even though I had already "obtained" a copy to try it.

    Although I still had to crack the legitimate copy after the over zealous protection refused to recognise the cd-rom drive on my laptop.

  • Linux version? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by intnsred ( 199771 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @08:57AM (#5457632)
    I remember playing GalCiv way back in the OS/2 days. It was a pretty cool game.

    But this is 2003 -- are they going to come out with a Linux version?

    If not, then why do I care? Should I have to go out and buy Windows XP to play a game? (Sorry, I can't run Windows for legal/ethical reasons.) Should I have to dumb down my Linux box by buying a commercial WINE variant that seems little more than a big kludge?

    It's got to be native Linux binaries or nothing...

    • Never say never, but.... (Score:3, Informative)

      by MEK ( 71818 )
      ...I would be surprised if Stardock ever develops for anything but MS OSes. Brad Wardell pretty much despised Linux back in Stardock's OS/2 era (especially after having been burned on an early effort to port GalCiv). Even if BW did not have a fundamental philosophical objection to the concept of free/open source software, he would still need to avoid Linux like the plague. Stardock has a pretty nice business providing add-ons to MS -- and, so far, at least, MS has not tried to muscle in on anything that Stardock is doing. Imagine what would happen to his business, which exists solely due to the sufferance and good will of MS, if he allowed porting (or worse, developed) products for "enemy" operating systems.

      Brad has always been a good guy -- I wish him well, even though it is not likely that I will ever use any Stardock software again. (I bought almost everything it released for OS/2 -- but OS/2 is long gone from our family computers).

      MEK

  • GalCiv has multithreaded AI (Score:5, Informative)

    by glMatrixMode ( 631669 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @08:59AM (#5457642)
    GalCiv has such a bright AI that at most difficulty levels, not only doesn't it cheat, but it is defavorised against the human player - for example, if I understand well, it gets less money.

    This has been made possible by the use of a multithreaded AI. To wit, whereas most turn-based games did 'think' only during a short lapse of time between the human's turns, GalCiv thinks continuously while the human is playing. So that allows for a much longer computation time.

    GalCiv has already been used on Tom's Hardware to test the hyperthreading capacity of the new Pentium4 3GHz.

    Moreover, there's a stuff called the 'Metaverse'. In short : after you end a game, you can automatically upload some crucial game data (your score, elements of your strategy...) to a central server which then deduces improvements to the game's AI. Then I guess you end up with a game which plays better.

    The guys from the GalCiv team say it has already been working with the betatesters's games and has very significantly improved the game's AI.

  • Reward the honest? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acoustix ( 123925 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @09:00AM (#5457643)
    What does this say about our society? It is sad that we feel we should be rewarded for doing the right thing. We should want to do the right thing without expecting rewards.
    • No-one does that. Not even someone who seems to be a total unselfish philantropist: he just does it 'cos it makes him feel good.

      What you want is something counter to everything found in nature: every living being does something for a reward, whatever form that reward may take.

      Hell, even religions do that: 'be good or you wont get into heaven'.
    • We should also not have to get punished for the activities of wrongdoers.

      Unless you can come up with a magical way to keep people from warezing games, it's going to come down to making life tough for legitimate customers or rewarding people for doing what they should do anyway.

  • I've recently been playing Darkspace, RT Massive Multiplayer Elite like game, that includes a Multiverse, exploration, trading, mining, building up planets & research. The Combat system allows ship to ship and fleet to fleet combat player can play adhoc games or undertake missions which arise im RT based on the situation.

    The full game is subsription and is excellent and challenging but you can download the client and play a month long free trial.

    Darkspace [darkspace.net]

  • Nice idea, but (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DJProtoss ( 589443 )
    Whilst this is a great idea, I have one point to make: It won't do a thing about piracy. Why? because all the 133t w4r3z d00dz will just pirate the bonus material. Sure one person will have to buy it, but it only needs one person who has bought it to then realease it...

  • Why haven't they gone the whole hog? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oolon ( 43347 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @09:17AM (#5457759)
    If you can download the full version why not go the whole hog and offer the option of download and burn yourself! That way you can save the carrier costs they can pass on the savings of not having to produce the box/cd etc, and can cut out the middle man completely which can take up to 50% of the costs, that way they could offer it for 20-30 bucks, and still make a good profit. 45 buck plus P&P is the same as a highstreet price. So where is my saving? Yes I can play now, but thats only a few days break before before the box arrives, and I still have to download the sucker. Yes I like this approach but they haven't followed it through completely.

    James

  • Does Galactic Civilizations run under Linux? Does it run if you use WineX? If it doesn't, I'm not buying it under any circumstances. I hate rebooting and losing all the context in my session just so I can play some game.

  • I thought it was something big.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mbone ( 558574 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @09:36AM (#5457884)
    Sheesh - I see a headline like
    "Galactic Civilizations Coming Soon"
    and I thought ./ had a scoop from the SETI Institute.

    Alas, it was just a game...

  • Galactic Civilizations? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sgs-Cruz ( 526085 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @10:38AM (#5458324) Homepage Journal
    Sweet......are these galactic civilizations the anarchic oppressive Star Wars-type, or the unrealistic techno-communistic Star Trek type? And do we, as a species, stand to survive in these civilizations? I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords :)

  • OS/2's killer app, now for Windows! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Fun Guy ( 21791 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @10:40AM (#5458350) Homepage Journal
    Seriously, this game was pretty much the only reason I kept OS/2 Warp on my machine as a dual boot with Win 3.1 back in 1996-97. I loved OS/2... the multiple virtual desktops, the multithreading of all the programs, the clean looks, the stability... but what I really loved was GalCiv and the responsive way that Stardock and Brad Wardell would update the AIs on a regular basis, based on feedback from the players. I can't wait for GalCiv to make its return to my machine. (No, I am not in their employ... I just really, really loved that game, and really, really hated being forced to give it up when I finally gave up on OS/2.)
  • The copy protection issue is multifold.

    I basicly do not care if a game is copy protected, I only once had problems with a game wich did not like my CD-Rom driver.

    o I buy ALL games I play.
    o I use ALLWAYS a cracked version to test the game first, to see wether I like it or not.

    In germany cracking and distributing cracked versions is illegal. However owning a cracked version is not.

    I know companies making software where the number of floating cracked versions is ten times higher than the sold versions. And for some of those companies that is a realy bad damage to to their business.

    If you can get a CASE System, wich costs you 10,000 bucks if you buy it for free somewhere, people are tempting to jsut take it.

    If the software is that good that you do not need much support, then you have no costs in using the stolen software.

    If you need support then the cost of stolen software is soon higher than buying it, hence a user would rather buy it and call the help desk than try to figure why he has problmes.

    For games this is totally different. A game causing to much support calls is neither a pleasure for the player nor a money maker for the producer.

    If we would live in a perfect world, gamers would pay for playing ... and game companies would not need to copy protect.

    But the world is not perfect, because the people are not :-/

    angel'o'sphere
    • Then again, if people are cracking your software, it means they actually like it enough to bother. That's an understated compliment :-)

      It doesn't pay your bills, but should enhance your company's reputation for producing software people actually want. Reputation is certainly worth something.

  • A warning about MOO3 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Nice2Cats ( 557310 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @11:24AM (#5458823)
    With all due respect for the editor's gushing, wait for at least of the first round of patches before you go buy MOO3. It could turn out to be a great game, but at the moment too many things simply don't work right (colony ships, parts of diplomacy), are unbalanced (AIs overbuilding troop transports), or simply cryptic (the docs are a joke). And don't get any ideas just because you like MOO2: Space combat and research have become mere abstractions of their former selves, though diplomancy and spying are a lot better. To quote one poster on Infogrames' website:

    When everything is said and done
    MOO2 was just more fun

    Quicksilver might still snatch great out of the jaws of good, and are some fantastic ideas here (once you get used to the interface) but currently, MOO3 is what we in open source would call a "Release Candidate". I am amazed that Infogrames actually let this one out of the door at this stage.

    • MOO3 is what we in open source would call a "Release Candidate". I am amazed that Infogrames actually let this one out of the door at this stage.

      The reverse cover of the first Civ III manual reads: "Master of Orion III - You've conquered the Earth, now master the galaxy. First contact begins Q1 2002 for the PC and Macintosh platforms."

      Yhe release found its own way out after the hinges on the door had rusted away.

    • Problems with MOO3 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ColoradoZippy ( 647389 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @01:04PM (#5459838)
      I agree with the parent poster; MOO3 is not ready for prime time. As said elsewhere in this thread, the AI is buggy (will almost never attack, loves to build troop ships) and there are DirectX issues.

      MOO3 is all about macromanagement, says developer Quicksilver...and that's all well and good, except they took away all ability to get down "in the weeds" and do the sorts of things people loved to do in MOO2, like build custom ships and command them in battle.

      Sure, you can specify what types of weapons, engines and defensive systems a particular class of ship has, but when it comes to combat your control is limited to a particular battle group with the options "patrol", "attack", "move", "stop" and "retreat".

      Finally, the graphics are less than stellar. Yes, I agree that gameplay is more important than graphics but MOO3 appears to be a step backward in many ways from MOO2. Combat, for instance, consists of a green grid on a black background; most ships are depicted as tiny grey or brown dots. There isn't a starfield to be seen.

      The GUI is also lackluster, cumbersome, and reminicent of the Windows 95 interface. While planet and diplomacy animations are nice, a suite of generic icons are used for technologies -- a far cry from MOO2's research animation which showed a member of your race standing by a rotating custom depiction of the newest gadget.

      Did I mention that there was no way to rename planets or star systems, nor choose player colors as in MOO2?

      The MOO3 player community is making great strides to improve the game, but there is plenty of left to do on Quicksilver's part. I might add that the only official comment received from the developer so far has been from the art director, who says that they're working on updating the manual. After so many years of development and testing -- and over a month between Gold status and release -- one really has to wonder what the hell is going on at Quicksilver, and if they truly intend on making a mediocre game great. I fear that they will release a single AI-strengthening patch, then wash their hands of the whole affair.

      Some people love MOO3, and I say: good for them. Those of you who loved the previous version, be warned: this game is not like MOO2 and is as problematic as the first (pre-patch) release of that game.

      Galactic Civilizations, at this point, would appear to be the wiser choice.
  • Give Spaceward Ho! 5 [deltatao.com] a try if you haven't already. It's an amazingly fun and addictive game and features network play as well!

    Windows users can get version 4 here. [joedelta.com]
  • I have to admit that, being a contrary bastard, the rougher the copy protection I find on something the more I want to hack it up and post it to altopia.

    On the other hand, when a company says, "Please, we're not going to copy protect this, but our kids need to eat, so do the right thing, huh?" I feel like a complete scumbag, and refuse to copy it.

    I know most people don't really care, but this kind of stuff is far more effective against me, and I'd like to think I'm not alone.

    As for comparing it to windows XP, I fail to see the comparison. Windows XP self destructs if you don't authinitcate it after 30 days, not to mention the whole "hardware specific" aspect of it. I had a harddrive crap out, and I had to reregister the #!$^@&%!#^$@@#$^ thing because my damn hardware signiture was different after I restored to a new drive. bastards.

  • Shoot, I take over the world...and I got rejected (Score:3, Interesting)

    by skogs ( 628589 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @12:26PM (#5459407) Journal
    There has been a lot of posting about Linux on the XBox [sourceforge.net], but I am much less adventerous and way too cheap to buy a brand spanky new xbox. But Simcountry [simcountry.com] has an incredibly in depth and hopelessly nerd centric game that I can play with the glories of Opera/IE/Netscape. They simulate an entire world right down to each country's roadmap and social security payments...and they do it on linux. It takes almost 12 full hours of processing to make each world go thru one month of activity. I wonder where they fell on this list of favorite linux games [linuxjournal.com]. All servers are dual processor units running everybody's favorite free operating system:linux. You can see how it all works [simcountry.com]. And see me [simcountry.com].

  • Demo Version? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @01:32PM (#5460173)
    No copy protection's nice and all, but I want to evaluate the game. I floated around their site a bit and didn't find a demo or evaluation copy. Anybody know if one's in development?

    The only real reason I'd have for wanting a copy of the game (Besides backup) is to give it a run before I buy it. I like their approach here. "Well if he's not going to buy it, at least let him try it, then we can still reward him when he buys it."

    I appreciate that they're not treating me like a theif, but I don't want them to forget that demo versions are a must.
  • For anyone who wants to get a feel for how a game of Galactic Civilization might go, you can check out two gameplay transcripts that the game's creator made to demonstrate it. They include screenshots and are fairly interesting, especially since in the first game the creator of the game unexpectedly is outwitted by the AI that he wrote! Check them out:

    First game [stardock.com]

    Second game [stardock.com]

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