The Ulimate Showdown: Galactic Civilization 2 vs Civilization 4

BOTH. Both are great games. It's going to be real interesting to see top game of 2006. It was easy for '05 since GC2 wasn't out.

Civ IV is a great game, but the engine was poorly optimized. I'm hoping GalCiv2 runs a bit better on my machine.

Galactic Civ 2 has been 95% stable for me for months. The BETA crashed to desktop on me about once every 5-10 hours of play. Even in its semi finished state it is entertaining. Not to sound like a Fanboy, but so far GalCiv2 rocks!!!!



CIV4 well thats another matter entirely:

"Freeze/Crash/Reboot (Multi-page thread 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)" 140 + post thread from Civ4 Tech supoprt forum, one of the very longest threadds on the whole board and has stayed on page 1 for several months.

The games been out for how long now...October? The lead programer acknoleged this specific crash bug ~ 6 weeks ago. Aside from the complete disaster 'as released' *(incompatable with huge percentages of current ATI cards), we are now 4 months in and still the game is unplayable for a large number of people(with nvidia Cards), mind you this is a game specific issue, each of us has a system that runs numerous other games fine, but hard locks on Civ4

So ummm I think GalCiv2 takes it easily.

don't want to put salt in the wound, but what is it that doesn't work for you ? I have an nvidia card.. I had problems, movies, black screens, terrain going black the whole shmeer. I can't tell you how many settings I turned up, down (all around ). Downloaded the latest drivers (again) plus some bootleg where people thought they wrote their own better... 2 patches later it works like a champ. I mean none of that stuff has happend since v 1.52 patch. I'm a pretty forgiving sort, I don't hold it against them now that I'm playing the game and several mods.

I like Stardock a lot and would give them some room if Murphy's Ultimate Law comes into play. Ultimate, meaning the worst possible thing that could go wrong does. If by some chance it does go virtually flawless with GC2 - then yeah Stardock should get extra accolades for this.

I betcha that if GalCiv2 gets a player base as big as Civ4 does that there will be a freeze/crash/reboot thread as big as that one.... It's not a matter of some programmer being stupid or conceited, it's a question of too much diversity in hardware and no way to cover all possible options.....
Also; I've been running Civ4 on a miriad of different hardware and the only problem I really have is that the game will slow down to a crawl on larger maps on anything but the latest hardware.... No freezes, no lockups, no reboots on any of the 10 (completely different) systems I've played it on.

As for the original subject: I'm with Shogun. I don't think one is better then the other as the emphasis of gameplay is completely different. There are similarities. Lots of them even. And then yet: GalCiv2 is centered around points of interest whilst Civ4 is much more general. GalCiv2 has more micromanagement then Civ4 but the micromanagement has been done a lot better. GalCiv2 has less variation in unit types but more freedom in designing them.

But it's not just the game itself that's different. There's huge differences in expected playerbase, marketing, distribution... There's just no comparing them really.....

I just don't get why i can play: Nexus, Lord of the rings: battle for Middleearth, Star Wars: Empire at War, Imperial Glory (all RTS with high requirements) but CIV IV which is supposed to be there for every average people do not run on my computer!!! This is a serious marketing failure imho.

Will buy the Gold Version of CIV IV once it comes out while GalCiv II will be bougth ASAP! That explains all

I've only experienced slowness in the UI, and I attribute this to the way the UI is written in Python. So IMHO, the performance hit really comes from keeping a flexible architecture that is easy to mod.

I really think they should have released fully compiled versions. How many people play mods? It's tiny, just like the portion of people who actually MP.

in my opinion the greatest difference between galciv2 and civ4 is the deepness of gameplay.
civ4 is a very good ggame and truly deserve the award of game of the year, but in terms of gameplay it is a lot dumbed down just to make the game more commercial:
-intelligence is a joke
-diplomacy is a bit rigid
-combat system is totally irrealistic but very well balanced
-civilizations aren't so much distinguished
in terms of deepness the game lacks of atmosphere, wonder videos aren't so good and there aren't casual events.
while there are these problems the game rocks in all other aspects.
i haven't galciv2 but played galciv 1 and i'm sure that the game will be a lot complex and deep than civ4, but probably will lack some strong points of firaxis game.
summarizing if you are a mature player or you are looking for a depth gaming experience go for galciv2 if you are looking for a very good TBS game but more simple and commercial go for civ4. i will have both and i will surely take civ4 on the shelf as soon as galciv2 arrive at my home because i'm looking for a more depth gaming experience.
anyway don't expect that galciv2 will have a better review than civ4, in my opinion reviewers weren't so honest because u can't do 9.4 to a game that is incomplete and was unstable on a lot of computers (no review said it). after 1.52 patch civ4 deserved a 9.0 or 9.1 but only after that patch. probably galciv2 will receive a 8.8 or 8.9 because reviewers will say that there isn't multiplayer or other minor problems. so don't trust totally in reviews

Dumbed down compared to what? Certainly not Civilization III, which had even worse AI, stiffer diplomacy, and even less distinguished civilizations. The combat system is a bit less obvious, but I happen to think Civ3's was worse because it was both unrealistic and unbalanced.

Of course, I'm pretty sure GC2 will blow any Civ game away. But I prefer to see them as complimentary -- play Civ IV, launch a spaceship, then begin a new game and head out into the galaxy.

Dumbed down compared to what? Certainly not Civilization III, which had even worse AI, stiffer diplomacy, and even less distinguished civilizations. The combat system is a bit less obvious, but I happen to think Civ3's was worse because it was both unrealistic and unbalanced. Of course, I'm pretty sure GC2 will blow any Civ game away. But I prefer to see them as complimentary -- play Civ IV, launch a spaceship, then begin a new game and head out into the galaxy.

yes compared to civ3 it's a great step beyond but if u compare it to the old Alpha Centauri in my opinion AC is better under all point of view.what i want to underline about civ4 is that this game is not the must buy for people which are looking for an indepth game experience. All aspects of the game are very well implemented but they are introduced in a simplicistic way and you never have the feeling that you are really a ruler.let's see united nations u can only submit the vote to questions but you have no chance to leave united nations or really influence resolutions, and there is no screen on the UN at work like in AC or GC2. i repeat the game is really worth all the 60$ that i paid but i have ever the feeling that it is created for teenager(no offence meant) not for mature people.I think i will like gc2 most because it is more fit to people like me which don't like to see for example intelligence reduced to a spy which destroy improvements and destroy production.

I think the bombardment and promotion ideas were a great idea, but the diplomacy in civ 4 still blows. AIs getting ticked at me for not handing over techs to them every 5 turns is not my idea of great diplomacy ... especially when they won't even give me pointed-stick technology when I am their best bud.

Also - the tech tree is just way too small.

Dano

There is no way that you can compare both games in a reallistic way. Civ4 is a game about one planet many races, Galciv 2 is a galactic game where there are many planets, many races, ship design and so on and so forth, so it is kind of hard to compare two games that are very much different.

There is no way that you can compare both games in a reallistic way. Civ4 is a game about one planet many races, Galciv 2 is a galactic game where there are many planets, many races, ship design and so on and so forth, so it is kind of hard to compare two games that are very much different.

these are both TBS games i'm not comparing halflife2 and hearts of iron 2. well u can compare how intelligence,diplomacy, UP works, personalization of races, lack or presence of random events. u can't compare combat system, economic system and some other core aspects of this 2 games. summarizing u can understand if a game is more depth than another.i'm a fan of civ4 and i have played it since december but these 2 games have 2 different philosophies: galciv2 depth gameplay, civ4 simplicistic gameplay. u can enjoy more one of the two styles of gameplay but in my opinion the games are comparable

I'll throw my 2 cents ...

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Civilization 4 works great here. Never had a problem. It never crashes for me. If you get enough people you will have horror reports for any games. I read somewhere here that GalCiv 2 doesn't work out of the box on Windows 2000 in non English. Probably only 10 people here have that problem. But if you sell a zillion copies like Civ does,that's probably a lot of people.

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If GalCiv 2 gets popular enough you WILL have people that claim it's a bugfest. I was in the gamma and at the end was starting to think Stardock was having empty nest syndrome becaue the game was clearly ready to ship and yet they kept tweaking it for weeks after it was probably ready. But dollars to donuts, some guy is going to say it's a buggy game.

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Civilization 4 is a different game than GalCiv 2. Civ 4 is a lot simpler. It has to be a lot simpler because of the multplay. They made that decision and their sales seem to suggest they made a good decision.

Stardock decided to stick with maximizing the single player world. A decision I support. The strategic depth in GalCiv 2 vs. Civ 4 is pretty significant. But that doesn't make it a better game. Space Empires 4 has lots of so-called depth and I think it's a terrible game. But others love it. So saying one is better than another is not really practical.

I think I've said it before, but I've had more fun with Beta 5 already than with entire Civ4. That doesn't mean Civ4 is a bad game, not at all, but I liked it less than expected and the game usually became a crawl in the later stages (and my hardware isn't that old). I also think they put just a little too much on the map graphic-wise.

I'll throw my 2 cents ... * * * Civilization 4 works great here. Never had a problem. It never crashes for me. If you get enough people you will have horror reports for any games. I read somewhere here that GalCiv 2 doesn't work out of the box on Windows 2000 in non English. Probably only 10 people here have that problem. But if you sell a zillion copies like Civ does,that's probably a lot of people. * * * If GalCiv 2 gets popular enough you WILL have people that claim it's a bugfest. I was in the gamma and at the end was starting to think Stardock was having empty nest syndrome becaue the game was clearly ready to ship and yet they kept tweaking it for weeks after it was probably ready. But dollars to donuts, some guy is going to say it's a buggy game. * * * Civilization 4 is a different game than GalCiv 2. Civ 4 is a lot simpler. It has to be a lot simpler because of the multplay. They made that decision and their sales seem to suggest they made a good decision. Stardock decided to stick with maximizing the single player world. A decision I support. The strategic depth in GalCiv 2 vs. Civ 4 is pretty significant. But that doesn't make it a better game. Space Empires 4 has lots of so-called depth and I think it's a terrible game. But others love it. So saying one is better than another is not really practical.

i didn't say tha civ 4 was worst than gc2 but i think that without any doubt if u are looking for a complex game gc2 it is surely a lot better. about civ4 u forget that the game was launched buggy and incomplete and if you see on forums of civfanatics there were thousands of posts about leak of memory and so on

Galactic Civ 2 has a new type of gameplay. A dymamic A.I. Most of the Civ games had cheating A.I.. Civ III was notrious for this.

I agree with marioflag. Civ4 is okay and probably good as a multiplayer game (I don't indulge) but it is nowhere near as captivating as Civ2 or 3 and is not as good for single player as Alpha Centauri.

A game can be humorous without being silly.