Considering the great reviews, I finally got Galactic Civilizations II - Dread Lords. The game is a really cool strategy game, and gets you hooks. The "just one more turn" addiction is certainly there, and keeps you playing. The game is structured well, and has some interesting features. The great feature is the ship builder, which lets you build and customize ships depending on what technology you have available. This makes the game a little more customizeable. The only true thing lacking are the battles. The battles are based on stats, and automatically resolved ... so there is no action. It would be a nice feature. The developers commented on this in some interview, stating that the AI for battles would have been too easy and then the game's balance would have been thrown off. Oh well ... maybe next time.

Anyway, after awhile I started to get bored. There is only so much to do, and the micromanagement gets tedious after awhile (however, it does handle micromanagement better than MOST games). But, the boredom sets in, and you end up putting the game away for awhile.

At the moment, I have gone back to ROME: TOTAL WAR. I love that game. Strategy AND some interesting action. Cool.

But, dont get me wrong, I see myself going back to Galactic Civ sooner or later. Or lending it to a friend.

Jabbamonkey