Hey guys being fairly new to 4x games and also am very much addicted to this genre now I would love to know how thus game is and how does it compare to sots1 galactic civ. please let me know. I heard from reading different forums that sots1 was better but was just curious , and was that statement due to the and not being playable when it first came out? Thanks guys. Oh and how is the combat and graphics? Although I don't really care to much about the latter as long as the game is good. Thanks.
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Not even a reply? Come on fellas help a brother out...
Have some patience. Besides there is like 5 threads on the first page on the same subject.
I have no patience lol. I want to get this game but jsut want to see if it is good
Anyway the 5 other post don't really pertain to my question. The other post on the first page pertain to whether or not the game is playable. I want to know if this game is good and what it is like 
SotS2 has stepped things up in various ways from SotS1: you start with 3 systems, minimum. You start with fusion tech. You start with your second level of drive tech. You start with cruisers -- in fact, you have to research battleriders before you can even step back down to destroyer combat in any sense. You start able to speak to other races once you meet them (although here my memory's blurring a bit, I think you had to research basic conversation in SotS1.) And you have to have command ships, and you have to move things around in fleets (or caravans), and you can't just willy-nilly direct random ships to random stars and then think about what they'll do later on, but you have to move your fleets by giving them missions, and your fleets need home systems and those home systems need the organizational wherewithall (CE) to support fleets that base there.
So what people usually mean is that they don't like fleet management in SotS2. SotS1 was more, uh, normal about how units were managed - more like every other 4X. You have bundles of ships around the galaxy, and you can direct them anywhere else in the galaxy (provided they can make the trip), and if you want to organize them into fleets, sure, there are advantages to that, and if you want to add a command ship, sure, there are advantages to that as well. Your internal decision-making cycle looked like this: 1. where's all my stuff? 2. what is this stuff doing? Why did I send it here in the first place? 3. Uh, anyway, what can I do with my stuff? 4. OK, let's have them do this and that. With SotS2 it's more 1. a fleet just asked me a question about what to do, so: 2. tell it what to do, and then: 3. forget about it until it bugs me again.
It's off-putting, but when you get used to it it's fine. Actually it's better in many ways. If you'd asked me a year ago if it were better I would've said no, but I had the excuse then of never playing the game because it crashed if you looked at it funny. In the game's present state, I don't think people have much of an excuse for thinking that the mission mechanic is just awful. That thought just means that they haven't tried to get used to it, yet.
I'd say the game in its present state is better than SotS1. I can't speak for GalCiv2 -- I couldn't get past the demo for that game. My own history on space-based 4X is: Master of Orion (1), Sword of the Stars (all expansions), Star Ruler / SotS2.
The controls (esp. camera controls) take some getting used to, but it's rather deep and engaging. You can destroy individual turrets; you can run up to planets and then raid them for slaves; you can in a few seconds tell your brawlers to close and attack, your command ship to hang back and snipe, and your colonizer ships to retreat. The ships are pretty, I guess. A/V wise, I'm irritated by some of voice acting and some of the loading screen pictures, but otherwise it's fine. People've claimed that parts of the game is confusing; it's a rare oddball (someone who expected another genre, I guess) that claims that it's ugly.
Thank you for you reply. I think I am going to bite the bullet and get it from Steam... Is it a real steep learning curve?
Yes, but well worth the time investment. On page 15 of the manual it suggests the following for first timers:
A Beginner’s Training Ground
(as recommended by seasoned vets)
Maps: Duel. Disc. Ring, Jax
Random Events 0%
Grand Menace 0
Research 150%
Planetsize MAX
Economy 150%
In player settings;
Leave other factions with the default
100K or less.
Turn your money up to 1M
Start with 10 technologies
Start with 5 Star systems
Change AI to Easy.
Steep learning curve aggravated by some performance issues and interface bugs that make it unnecessarily slow and difficult to play.
I think it's worth it, but it could be hard on your limited patience.
I think it's worth it, but it could be hard on your limited patience.
The last two patches fix the interface slowdowns. For me I could handle the ctds but around turn 150 or more the delays from screen to screen ruined the flow of the game and I would give up. Now the game doesn't have those annoying delays anymore. HUGE improvement. Out of curiosity I would like to know what was causing the delays and why it took so long to fix.