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Kinjiru
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Nashville, TN
Jan 1970
time: 23:27
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Downloaded mine yesterday. The game download took about 25 minutes on my DSL. The multimedia download however took about 5 hours.
First impressions... very cool. I love the music, cut scenes are well done, pacing seems a bit disjointed (fast then slow then fast) - but that prolly has more to do with my lack of understanding than anything else.
Combat? Don't know, played two games and have had no wars... some of the AI civs have fought but I haven't.
The morality play... I LOVE this concept. You can really see dynamic changes in game based on what your choices. The only way I avoided war in my first game (and I had to as I only had about 3 defense ships total) was to change my initial Good stance to a very Evil one so that the Drengin would ally with me and help me avoid getting crushed by my neighbor with the big military machine.
The modable starbases is an interesting concept. I have managed to use them to effect cultural assimilation, but I can't quite figure out how to use them to boost trade.
Speaking of trade. Very interesting way of handling it. You are limited to a very small number of trade lanes (which cn be increased through research) so you have to be very strategic in deciding who your trade partners will be.
Trade impacts the metagame in a major way. You may only be able to establish 3 trade lanes, but there are other civs that could also establish them with you. So if trade is a priority, you need to figure out a way to get teh other civs to want to trade with you!
All in all, after about 6 hours of play I would give Gal Civ a solid 7 out of 10. And I should mention that I fully expect my rating to move up one or two points after I better understand some of what is going on.
Comparisons:
My initial rating of MoO3 was a 5 which moved to a high of 6 and now has settled at a 2.
My initial rating of Civ III was a 7. Pacing is the major problem there. PTW rating: 1. I would rate C3 stand-alone at a 5 now.
SMAC: inital rating (from the demo) 9, from retail 9. The faction interaction is superb in that game. The only flaw is the ugly terrain. I still play and love SMAC.
SimCity: I know I know, completly different genre. But my initial impressions of SimCity were much the same as my GalCiv impressions. There was alot I didn't quite understand the first few games, but I could see the potential for very deep gameplay. Once I really understood how things worked, I was blown away.
Well, that's it, I am really looking forward to the next few days. Gee, I kinda feel a fever coming on, and a cough, oh gee, I guess I better call in sick and get some rest...
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Eric S
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Las Vegas, NV
Jan 2002
time: 21:27
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My first game I got clobbered within 30 minutes on the level below beginner. Had a bad starting position, off away from all the decent stars, so only got two colonies. Then made the mistake of accepting the monster park. Here's a tip: if that comes up to a vote, vote for someone you hate that is far away if you're early in the tech tree. They've escaped and caused quite a ruckas every time.
Second game, on beginner, I'm off to a very sound lead, and I'd have to do something really stupid to loose, but I'm still trying to get the hang of the game mechanics, so I'm not slaughtering anyone yet.
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Nirvana_CN
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Leeds, England
Nov 2001
time: 05:27
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Well i downloaded the 80Mb game, and while waiting for the 360Mb of Multimedia i have played 2 games.
My first, i chose a high tech Human, anf concentrated on colonising as much as i could, whilst researching manufacturing upgrades so i could pump out ships. Ummm mistake  after seeing my power rating beeing pitifully low, i noticed i was in trouble, after meeting the Yor and Dregnin, they instantly declared war on me, i forced purchase of about 10 defenders, and set up a few star bases, and the Yor realised i was too much effort this early one..phew..however..the damned dregnin came down with a fleet of 15 star fighters, wiped out 2 planets, invaded and colonised them, and then the Yor decided to declare war, i had about 15 planets in 20 systems, half an hour later i was left with only the Sol system and a massive combined fleet or Yor and Dregnin ships, 2 turns later, Sol fell..doh!
Second game i went for the same colony boom, but researched star fighters fast after an hour playing, i decided to attack the Yor who seemed weak..to my suprise their starbases had somekind of Defense tech installed, so i beat a hasty retreat, only to find the Yor's Human allies pissed off that i invaded :\ hmm in my haste to become a military power, i failed to notice the other Civs all out boomed me massivly, and their tech level was far far greater than mine..30 mins later the Sol system fell again :\
Wow after Moo3 im loving the challenge
Up until now i would give it an overall rating of 85%, and the fact stardock support is incredible (I had a problem downloading, i posted on their forum, 10 minutes later and Stardock had emailed me saying i could also get a CD version for the price of shipping it over!) would add 5% to that score.
Graphics i would score at 75%, good, but not groundbreaking, they do the job well though.
The AI is one of the best i ahve seen, and the fact that it will update itself from the uploaded game and scores on the Galciv site is incredibble!! If a tactic becomes common place, then the ai can learn from the 1000's of human players, and adopt its style, an unreserved 95% for this groundbreaking feature.
Sound and music, well music is so-so, Sound is average, BUT it comes with a built in MP3 player excellent, i would rate it 85% here.
Re-playability..well this is a no brainer, 89%
The UI is ok, maneuovering around it is a piece of cake having come from M003, you can access all screens with one hotkey, or 2 mouse clicks at most. Right mouse button is also utiliised. A few flaws, but enough to earn a steady 80%.
Learning curve is a few hours Max, everything makes sense, from taxes, to the excellent reseach system, although after 10 hours of playing, i still spot new things, easier ways to do things etc. Compared to Moo3 (Which i enjoy) where after 30 hours of play i still hardly understand whats going on.
My current game is going okay, i have allied the other 2 "Good" civs, and we are fighting a War against the Dregnin and Yor, admitteldly we are loasing it right now, but im planting Star bases in my allies areas, and hastily reseaching the techs to make them defensive giants..hopefully we can take em out 
Last edited by Nirvana_CN on 27-03-2003 at 16:21
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Jack_www
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well after reading reviews I think I will get GalCiv, after getting the stupid peice of trash that is called MOO3, I want to get a replacement for it. By the way were do you think I could get the most money if I decided to sell my copy of MOO3?
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:27
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OK, I played for about 4 hours last night. It would have been longer, but I suffered a mindnumbingly bad-timed CTD... 
But aside from that, here are my first impressions:
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Wow, this is a fun game. Right away, I became immersed in the game, had plenty to do and was not bored for a second. Fun out of the box. However, I felt the exploration/colonization is a bit too rushed. One of the things I like about some 4x games is the idea that you can get to the late game and still have some systems unexplored/unsettled. I wish they had maybe put a colony limit based on technology levels.
The fog of war doesn't seem to be working all that well. I can clearly see on the map ships across the galaxy in enemy territory where I have no ships or beacons.
Nonetheless, it's fun. I've yet to have any combat, though, which is kinda interesting. Using my standard civ tactics, I'm clearly gravitating to the peaceful science/culture route.
Interface: 8.5/10
The interface is very good, but some things are not intuitive. I will cite the colony ship instance. In my first game, I had no clue how to launch a colony ship from my planet that I had just built, and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out that I had to double click on the tiny icon in the planet's orbit window, load people on it and then launch it. I think that requires a bit more explanation or should be cleaned up some. Perhaps whenever a colony ship is built, a dialogue for loading and launching it should appear automatically?
The other thing is map scrolling/ship movement. The moue buttons seem to trip me up. I will have a ship selected, and then want to check out a planet, click on the planet and oops! my ship starts going towards the planet. Minorly frustrating at times.
Documentation: 5
The manual is far to basic, and getting ingame help is not really all that possible...why can't I right-click on a button to see what it does?
Technology is the worst part here...The long descriptions are nice background, but there's no practical description of what the techs will do and how they will help me. I can build a doohickey if I research this? Well, what does that doohickey do? No way to find out prior to researching it.
The tutorial mode is terrible--I like windows popping open, giving me step-by-step instructions on how to do thing. That's what tutoring means. The obscure little window at the bottom of the screen with somewhat vague comments meant to be helpful is, frankly, not all that helpful.
This is the most disappointing aspect of the game. Still, the manual does provide enough info to jump into a game and know what to do right away.
Graphics: 7/10
The graphics aren't supposed to be astounding, and they aren't, but they do what they're supposed to do well. I think they could be improved considerably, but they aren't as awful as some reviews led me to believe. The worst, IMO, is the galactic minimap. Far too pixilated for my taste. But what's most important is that they adequately immerse me in the universe and are clean, not confusing me at all. So they are fine.
Sound/Music: 7/10.
The music is good, setting the right atmosphere without being intrusive. It doesn't wow me like Diablo did, but it does what it is supposed to do. Far superior to Civ3 music, IMO, at setting the right atmosphere without being obnoxiously repetitive.
Sound isn't much of an issue--it's there, it's not very noticeable. That's a good thing, since it doesn't get in the way.
These are just initial impressions, but so far the game is impressing me very much. The CTD is worrysome, but future patches are going to address such issues, and it was the only technical problem I encountered running the game. Right now I'd say overall is 8.5/10, which could easily change upwards with a few fixes to the interface and in-game documentation.
Now I have to wait 6 hours to play again...garrrrrr!
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Eric S
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Las Vegas, NV
Jan 2002
time: 21:27
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O.K., the one bit of music in the game that grabs me every time is the music in the Diplomacy screen when you're talking to the Drengin. Really sets the "you're dealing with pure evil" mood quite well!
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Trifna
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of anchovies
Jul 2001
time: 13:27
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Awesome! It's the best TBS I know to date!! It really is the game that includes best every aspect of an empire, the inner workings of a civilization. Maybe the society could be a little more detailed though (for now: only imperialism, republic, democracy and federation). Yet, I played about 20 hours.
(I already played (not all 100 hours): Civ 1-2-3, SMAC, Capitalism, Corporate Machine, Colonization, MOO3, Europa Universalis)
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25-03-2003 00:49
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