Galactic Civilizations II Dark Avatar Review

"...the single best turn-based grand strategy game available today, and one of the best strategy games around, period."

Galactic Civilization II: Dark Avatar is great. Great, great, great. I'm going to go into a lot more detail in this review as to why it's great, but I thought I should get that point out of the way right off the bat. If you at all like strategy games, you should at least check it out. If you like turn-based strategy games, it's the current cream of the crop, so you have to play it. And if you're already a Galactic Civilizations II fan, and you don't play Dark Avatar, I will come to your house and fight you. That's no lie. Stardock has given what was already one of the best strategy games around a makeover, taking what was good and making it better while adding new features and gameplay mechanics that, in some ways, dramatically alter the way the game works. It's a pretty bold move to mess with a successful formula this much, but it pays off in that Dark Avatar makes GalCiv II a deeper, more customizable, better game.

The increase in customization options is probably the first thing you'll notice when you boot up Dark Avatar. You could already adjust a decent number of variables before launching a game of GalCiv II, but Stardock has gone through the roof this time around. Just about every element of the game can be adjusted, now, from the rate at which technological progress takes place to the AI behavior of each individual opponent you'll face. In fact, everything about opposing races can be tweaked, including their level of aggressiveness, what avenues they'll pursue in contesting you for conquest of the galaxy, and even how much processing power the game will use to run their AI. And if the included 10 races aren't enough for you, you can even create your own custom opponents, complete with ship styles that you, yourself have designed. So, yes, you can take on the Empire if you have the time and inclination to build them.

Once you launch into the game, the changes brought about by Dark Avatar become immediately apparent. The two that'll strike you right first are the new asteroid fields and the added restrictions on planetary colonization. Asteroid fields are now peppered throughout the map and can be mined, which process will add resources to a nearby planet. So a relatively low-grade planet that, in GalCiv II, would be ignored, could still be a worthwhile investment for colonization if a potentially lucrative asteroid belt lies nearby. Meanwhile,
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