letter to the editor.
| Shipyards v2 for Galactic Civilizations 2 | - by Kris Kwilas |
What's that you say? Galactic Civilizations 2 is not challenging enough for you? Rather be playing tennis or surfing the 'Net, would you?
Well, that just will not do at all. I am going to write a number on this piece of paper. As soon as we are done here (mind you, pay the nurse on the way out!) give the good folks at Stardock Systems a call. Tell them that you want a copy of Shipyards v2, and you needed it yesterday!
In the bestselling tradition of such classics as Shipyards v1, Stardock Systems released a new version of Shipyards that is designed to work with their latest hit, Galactic Civilizations 2.
If you do not own a copy of Galactic Civilizations 2, turn off your computer and go purchase a copy. Shipyards v2 makes the best space-based strategy game on the market even better. [Note: Shortly before this article was published, a demo version of GalCiv 2 was made available. This demo is on the Stardock web site, as well as their CompuServe forum (GO STARDOCK).]
Though you are limited to designing and building four new classes of ships at a time, this limitation is not as restricting as it might sound. Since the ships you design are limited to being only warships (unlike some of the more specialized ship functions in games like Master of Orion), by the time you have developed a class powerful enough to matter, you will probably be much more advanced technologically. Redesigning one of your existing classes of ship will cause all the old vessels of the previous type to be automatically decommissioned.
Precise decisions about the loadout of weapons, armor, shields, and engines are left to the player. Design a small, agile fighter or an immense battleship bristling with weapons (expensive enough to require fifty years to build), the choice is up to you. However, you must also learn to balance the intricacies of ship cost, size, and power as you jockey for dominance or survival in this new galaxy.
If you are not an ace ship designer (or could really care less), Stardock has thoughtfully provided an option to "Disable Shipyards Computer AI". Using this option will allow you to play without having to worry about the Dominion of Yor cooking up a fleet of agile fighters to chase you into oblivion. An additional checkbox is also present to allow you to only use ships that you design, rather than the pre-built ones that are defined by the game.
Rather than simply defining broad goals for your Governors such as Increase Morale or Research!, the Enhanced Governors feature of Shipyards v2 allows you to define a set progression for researching social projects on a global basis.
A new "Instruct Governors" (gif 6k) option has been added to the Foreign Policy window. By adding social projects that you can build (displayed in the left pane) to the right pane, you can set up the order in which your star systems will build these projects with whatever Social resources they have allocated.
For instance, if you always build Soil Enhancement, Schools, and Entertainment Network (in that order) on any new worlds that you colonize, simply set that progression in the right pane. Then, when you colonize a new world, simply select the first item on your predefined list (Soil Enhancement in this case) and the Governor will take over from there. No more micro-management problems, unless you choose to build in a different order on a planet-by-planet basis.
While the addition of Enhanced Governors to Shipyards is a welcome addition, a minor point that stands out is the relative difficulty of reordering items in the Governor Command Center Window. The addition of Up and Down buttons would greatly facilitate sorting. One final nit involves the viewing of Social Projects in a planetary window. If you do not click on the first project in the Governors "tree," that planet will start to produce something else. The addition of a "Governor" Social Project (right under the None selection) would provide a quick way to make sure that the planet is following the intended sequence. According to Stardock, these little quirks should be addressed in a future release.
Not so fast! Stardock has made a number of behind the scenes enhancements to the Artificial Intelligence engine in Shipyards. Though the changes are hard to describe (mostly because Brad Wardell is not telling all his sadistic new tricks), I can state from personal experience that the new AI is much more challenging on the higher levels. If you found GalCiv easy before, think again.
As always, if anyone can develop a consistently reliable strategy to beat the AI on the highest level, Stardock will enhance the AI to counter your strategy. While the new AI may not seem like it rates as one of the top new features of this product, it really does help to make a great game even better.
Shipyards v2 for Galactic Civilizations 2Our Sponsors: [EmTec] [Mt. Baker] [ScheduPerformance] [Shenandoah] [SPG]
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