You mean spore bomb them. Nukes don't exist for some weird reason in this age of hyper drives, shields, and beam weapons.

I guess the terrens ran out of uranium and are unable to produce any more plutonium.

Phasors and photonic torps are FAR more powerful (and environmentally friendly) than nukes.

yet for some reason the only options when invading a planet are to send your forces in old fashioned style or use a spore bomb. You can't use photonic torpedo bombs for some reason.

I think there was a rule against that in the evil overlord list...

"If the gamer doesn't hate the A.I. then the A.I. isn't doing it's job."

I nearly fell of my chair hearing that.
I'm a big fan of Battlestar Galactica, and the Tigh Fighter

Wow...amazing!

I have never seen a 5/5, but then again I don't watch it that much. You guys deserve a 6/5 for these games your coming out with. Keep it up guys!

Iam bit tired of these "look how well our game is doing" front page PR hypes, but what do I know about marketing

I could not give rats ass what some review sites think about the game, the real truth comes out in form of user postings @ forums. Also seeing how these review sites give so easily "perfect" scores nowdays it hardy means anything anymore. There are such flaws in GC2 which in my book prevent it making a perfect game, now 4 or 4.5 would be closer to truth. And if you want to nitpick, no mans creation is perfect, how can you give a perfect score to a game then

Sorry for the negativity but this brings back ugly memories. How can a buggy mess of a game like Medieval Total War 2 get same kinda review praising on multiple site while the game was/is bugged to the root and some gameplay aspects are just missing. Or maybe Iam too demanding

Now slap in a real UP, better diplomacy, ground combat and tactical ship battles and I have no problem giving GC2/DA 5/5 score thats all Iam saying. But maybe thats will be with GC3

Well, there is a lot of hype with this game/team, and not all of it really deserved IMO. But it's a good thing that they're doing well.
Reviews, well, I never read them - except after I get the game, so I can have a few laughs.

Haven't checked the credits -- but was Cari Begle involved with this expansion / sequel? If so, then seems a bit amusing to me that XPlay review (as read by Morgan Webb no less) used the word "fellers" at Stardock. So Cari, does that mean you're like some pretty bottle of scotch that should strip naked and slap me in the face?

Signed,
A total pig -- that sees a difference between words like "fellers" and "folks".

I disagree: some users can be extremely picky or overly judgemental over a game that aactually deserves high praise and rate it poorly soley because of a few flaws or 'bugs'. A few may even deliberately downplay the review of a game on purpose as well due to some deep-rooted hatred of something about the game or it's designers (ex. EA Bashers) or even encourage the buying of what they consider to be a "superior" product (believe me, these types of fanboys exsist).

That's why I prefer reviews from sites like GameSpot or PCG: they're pretty balanced and will look at the overall package for judgement, and not blast the game for lacking a few minor features or score it poorly due to one area of the game falling somewhat weakly.

When those few flaws or bugs break gameplay, then high praise might not be totally deserved, don't you think? When a few bugs have been there forever and don't get fixed, even though they're well known, that doesn't look good either. When there's stuff in the game that might as well not be there (almost), it can't be all that thought out. Now, does the game have good gameplay? Sure. Is it a great game? That's where people might disagree. It has something to do with all the hype around it too, and the proverbial bandwagon. If you think that GalCiv, the whole thing, is ~15 years old, and that it still has such basic flaws at various levels, don't you think the criticism is justified?
The fact is, this game isn't a niche game, nor is it a full-fledged "commercial" game. It's something in between. Which means it doesn't excel at what niche games do, and neither at what commercial games offer. Sure it does appeal to both crowds, and that means it's good for business, but in the end it will inevitably leave you with that feeling of "I was expecting more".



But shouldn't the customer be warned of any shortcomings in the game? Shouldn't *he* be the one deciding if that particular feature or weak area is important for him? After all, it's *he* who's gonna buy the product. The "release now, patch later" doctrine cannot be a crutch for developers. Who assures you that they will actually fix that nasty bug or improve that lame feature or add that missing part of a mechanic? You can't base a review on what it will be, eventually, or on what you can mod yourself to make it balanced, or whatever. Reviews pointing out flaws is a way to keep devs in check, and somewhat force them to deliver a quality, finished product.

Great job Stardock!

All reviews must be taken in context...professional reviewers sometimes have other motives...as do posters on the forums.

You can get a sense of that by reading other reviews by the same reviwer...or other posts by the same poster to get where their agenda, if any, may be.

In the end, the big test is not how many flaws a game may have...but is it FUN. Does it have that "One More Turn" magic...and Stardock has hit both targets in the bullseye IMHO. I have played games that were almost bug free.... and bored me to tears.

In the case of Brad and Stardock, kudos for all the updates to keep improving the product...which was entertaining and imaginative right off the shelf.