The second and final expansion for Galactic Civilizations II is nearly upon us! Stardock has announced it will release the game tomorrow (April 30th), but we at GameSHOUT had the chance to play around with a preview Beta to whet our appetites before the full game comes out.

For those unfamiliar with Galactic Civilizations II, the "Civilization" part in the name does give something away. Comparisons with Sid Meier's classic are unavoidable, but Gal Civ II does have plenty of unique features to all its own. Still, the basic concept is to spread your civilization across the galaxy by colonizing planets. You achieve this lofty goal through expansion, scientific research, and conquest of your foes.

Twilight of the Arnor adds a number of exciting new features to the Galactic Civilizations II portfolio, not the least of which is improved help and tutorials for new players. So if you haven't tasted the classic 4X strategy of GalCivII, this expansion is a good reason for you to go get the full set.



For veterans, there are tons of tasty features too. Immense galaxy size is now available, if you're looking for a game that'll last longer than just a few weeks. There's also a new "Ascension" victory condition which allows you to win by controlling five points on the map for a number of turns. There's a new soundtrack and, of course, a brand new campaign to continue the game's epic story.

After what was no doubt an excessively lengthy process, each of the 12 civilizations in the game has its own unique technology tree. Rather than just one or two special features, the whole race is special now. Hand in hand with the unique tech tree is a plethora of unique planetary upgrades and ships. Given the sheer number of civilizations to chose from, this one change alone should add nearly endless replay value to the game. Although I didn't have the chance to research every tech on every race, I did work my way down the trees on three of them and I was quite impressed at how diverse they really were.

The unique planet upgrades made the learning curve a little bit steeper when switching between races every game, but you can always look in the handy effects box to see just what every building does. This means that your perfect building strategy won't port directly over to each race though, and each race will need its own unique strategy to maximize its planetary improvement.



Ships are a big part of Galactic Civilizations II, so those got an overhaul too. An 'auto-design' feature will now create basic ship types for you, if you'd like, so you don't have to design every last one if you just want to dive in and play with the basic stuff. The ship designer is still available in full force too, allowing you to add even more parts than before and even add some animated parts to your ships.

In addition to the new parts, all ships got a major graphical overhaul with the Twilight of the Arnor expansion. I must say: wow. It's amazing what a good bit of re-texturing can do to freshen up a game's look. All the interface screens have been polished as well, giving each race a unique window into the game world as well.

Between the unique looks given to each race, the unique tech trees and ship components, and the improved and easier to use ship designer, you could probably spend just as much time having fun making your fleet as conquering the galaxy with it.



A whole suite of editors has also been included with Twilight of the Arnor, ensuring the legacy of Galactic Civilizations II will continue for as long as players are playing it. Map editors, Scenario editors, even tech tree and planetary improvement editors, all available to create anything from little tweaks to full fledges total conversion mods. Best of all, all the editors have been designed to be easy to use, so you won't have to spend weeks reading manuals before adding your own personalized touch to the game.

New Online Tournament mode means you can also compare your skills to others by playing special ranked maps and submitting your scores to an online ranking server. Although Galactic Civilizations II remains single-player even with the last expansion, at least there's a measured way to compete with others now.

Last, but far from least, Twilight of the Arnor also introduces Terror Stars, massive star bases that can annihilate entire star systems. It's always nice to see a new super-weapon come in with the last expansion to a series so we can blow everything up once and for all



Expect to see our full review of Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor here on GameSHOUT next week; but if you can't wait that long, head over to Stardock's website and find out where you can get your own copy of the game!