So which is better? Buying the game directly from the developers or getting it at the store?

The simple answer is: Whatever way is best for you is best for us.

Now for the more complicated answer (which still amounts to the same):

If you buy a game for $39.95 from us directly, we see all $39.95 minus a couple dollars in electronic processing.  If you buy the game from a retailer, then we'll see approximately half of what you paid for it.

But we need people to buy it at retail for the game to succeed. The reason for that is that most people don't want to download games.  They want the box. Or they want the manual. Or they don't want to download a gigabyte of stuff.  Or they just aren't comfortable buying on-line.  There's a lot of reasons for that. 

Moreover, there's an astonishing number of people who simply buy games while casually browsing the store. They literally buy a game based on its box or vaguely from word of mouth.  All the ads, all the websites, all the PR, ultimately don't really come into play as simple word of mouth, having a nice box, and being on a store shelf.  We don't have a precise percentage of how many games are bought in this way but I would be willing to bet it's well over 50% of sales are from this. 

To be at retail you have to be able to sell typically 4 units PER store, PER week.  At the end of the month, the store looks at the same, sees its sales, and decides whether to continue stocking it.  Some retailers based future stocking based on those sales.  So even though buying direct means that we get twice as much money per unit, it takes away a retail purchase that might make the difference between staying on the shelf another month or being taken off the shelf. 

What about mail order places? They're fine.  They often have good prices and good service.  You won't see us promoting them here, however  . Whatever is the best way for you to get your game is good for us.

The best thing that people can do with a game they like is word of mouth. It makes a huge impact on smaller publishers/developers (we're both).  If you like the game, recommend it to someone.  That will ultimately do the most good.  The rest will take care of itself.

Using our vast psychic powers, we are going to attempt to preempt the most common questions we think people will have and put answers here so that the main forum can stick to flaming us for not having some feature or because the installer formatted their hard drive (a problem that we've found only happens on 1 out of 3 systems and only if you have an nVidia or ATI card -just kidding-).

#1 What's the difference between the Bonus Pack and the Collector's Edition?

The Bonus Pack everyone gets. It's a series of minor updates, tweaks, and new content that we came up with while we waited for the stores to get their copies.  If you download 1.0D then you have the Bonus Pack.  There will be a seperate thread that explains what's in the Bonus Pack.

The Collector's Edition is a special version of the game that has additional content and is only available to users who either pre-ordered the game, bought the Collector's Edition specifically (Walmart or Stardock directly) or got the game as part of the first manufacturing run.

The Collector's Edition retail box is silver and contains a poster with the entire tech tree on it.

The electronic content that will be a seperate download in the Downloads section contains the Galactic Civilizations II Desktop and additional Ship components.

#2 I'm in Europe and..

Our publisher partner, Paradox, makers of great games like Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron is handling things over there.  It should be available at retail soon.  They are also working on native language versions throughout Europe but that's going to take some time.

If you're in Australia or New Zealand, Auran is taking care of things there and they will have it out shortly too.

#3 I'm a member of TotalGaming.net, can I get the CD version?

Yes.  If bought TotalGaming.net and used tokens to get the game, it's $5 plus shipping.  IF you got a free upgrade to the new TotalGaming.net (And if you don't know what that means then it probably doesn't apply to you) then getting the boxed version is $20 plus shipping.

#4 I want to download the game now! Do I still get a box?

If you select to get the retail unit when you purchased then yes. You get a temporary serial # and the box will be sent to you.

If you selected the download only option, you can later have a box sent to you for the cost of shipping.

Please copy and paste these items to [email protected] if you want to do any of these things so that they know precisely what you want to do.

#5 I want to go to the store and buy the game but does it have copy protection?

None whatsoever.  No CD check. No "Star Force". Nothing.  You don't even have to enter in the serial # when you install (because, let's face it, 5 years from now people are going to lose that thing anyway). 

That said, we recommend putting in the serial # because it'll make it easier to get updates. Updates require the serial #.  Once you have updated using the serial #, our system will have your info for you so that 5 years when you've lost that serial # you can get it back automatically.

 

(1) The official release of the digital version is 1.0D (for Digital).

(2) 1.0D allows users to RIGHT-CLICK on ship built notifications and it will automatically launch the ship.

(3) Because some video cards had video stuttering with the tutorials, the digital release adds a "Full screen" option. Ironically, the videos run fine on even obscenely low end hardware if run full-screen.

(4) We will have a full list of what's new in the digital release.

(1) IF you plan to switch between the game and something else a lot, run it in a window. You can do this via an option in the game's video settings. 

(2) The game will run in any high resolution your system will support.

(3) User created data files and preferences are in the %mydocuments\my games\galciv2 folder

(4) IF you run into some problem please let us know the following things:

• What OS you running?
• Is it English or a particular language (Swedish, German, Japanese, etc.)
• What video card do you have?
• What kind of CPU do you have?
• How much memory you have

(5) If you run into a serious problem (i.e. game won't start, crashes, etc.) there is a debug.err file in your GalCiv II directory. Post the contents of it here.

(6) UPDATE YOUR VIDEO DRIVERS.  We're serious about this. If someone responds to this post with a "Game occasionally CTDs, here's my debug.err" and there's a video driver from 2004 in it, we'll find you

(7) The game should run on pretty much any system that supports DirectX 9C.  YOU MUST HAVE DIRECTX 9C or later installed.

(8) There are some first generation Intel Extreme adapters that don't work with the game.  We're talking very old ones (i.e. <2003).  They don't work because they don't support True Type fonts in games. Nothing we can do. There's no work around other than to get another card.  Based on the beta, this shouldn't be an issue as nobody ran into it.

(9) DO NOT use this thread to ask whether the game will work on your system. If you have doubts, wait for the demo. If you can play any other recently released game, then you can run this.  (last time we put a thread like this up we had people with monster machines asking if they could run the game on it).

(10) IF THE GAME CRASHES ON YOU we want to know why. In Stardock Central in the "free stuff" area there's a program called Smart Exception.  Install that, run it, and if the game crashes, it will create a log that will tell us literally what line of code it crashed on.  Email [email protected] or [email protected] the file and we will take a look.  Don't forget to tell us what you were doing when it crashed to help us figure it out.

Good luck!  We'll be checking this thread regularly.

PLEASE only post if you're having a problem of some kind.  Thanks!

ALSO:

Galactic Civilizations II Knowledgebase: Click Here
General Stardock Knowledgebase: Click Here
Submit A Trouble Ticket: Click Here

Starting this week, tens of thousands of people will be jumping on to download gigabytes of game at around the same time.  This means, naturally, that some percentage of people are going to have problems.  This post is here to answer some questions and provide a place where Stardock support people can also help.

Don't worry! We will take care of you.

Stardock Central:

The most common problems we've seen people have revolve around two things:

(1) Someone who bought the game with one email address but has used a different email address to be on the forums.  That's fine, in fact, probably a good thing to do.  But it may confuse Stardock Central.  If you run into that, just email [email protected] with the subject:GalCiv Stardock Central problem.  They will fix you up.

(2) Some of our long time users have multiple accounts on our sites.  Same issue as above.

(3) The base game will download slower than the other modules.  In Stardock Central there is a menu called tools. Go to Settings, pick Internet and you can try a different server to see if that helps your download speed.  The base game should download at speeds from 30k/sec to 300k/sec depending on where you live, time of day, etc.  The bulk of the game, however, should download at whatever the maximum your connection is as we have set up mirrors world wide.  The base game is being set up so that we can update it very often. The  other stuff won't need updating (i.e. movies and such) so we can mirror that more.

(4) Activation. If you are downloading the entire game, there is an activation system built in.  Don't worry, you will be able to keep installing the game, even years from now, on your new systems without having to talk to us.   However, because the activation server is likely to get hammered, there may be some issues that will crop up.  Don't worry, just email support with the above. IF you don't get an answer within 1 hour, feel free to post in this thread.

(5) IF you had the beta, you can install on top of it and it should work fine.  But if you do run into problems, reinstalling is a possible solution (yea, that's a lame answer).

(6) IF you switch servers, there may be some modules that look like they need updating. Trust your own judgment. If you just downloaded the latest/greatest version and you switch servers and there's an update that you didn't hear about, it's probably due to minute differences in the time stamps.  This probably won't happen but given the sheer # of mirrors involved, it's possible.

(7) IF you purchased the retail version, you can skip Stardock Central entirely if you want and just download the "patch" from Downloads area. 

(8) IF you are downloading on one of the first days, bear in mind how many other people are also downloading. Download resume should be working fine so if for some reason there's a server time out, don't panic, you can resume where you left off. 

(9) MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE LATEST STARDOCK CENTRAL. 2.29A.374 (or later).

Thanks to the preloading we did last week, we don't expect any huge issues.  But due to me saying that, just now, that naturally means something will go wrong. For you.

We'll be camping out here, not just me but the support team, the development team, my mom, and of course the tech support guy who has "It's working fine here." set as a hot key.

Stay tuned and good luck!

Having some fun with the Bonus Pack which goes out tomorrow (it'll be part of the download/1.01 update).

We made logos for a bunch of countries so people can play for the EU or Australia or Germany or whatever.   You can make your own too of course.

 

Want to get the game at a store? Starting tomorrow, the game will start appearing at various retailers.  It won't necessarily be in all stores at the same time since today was a US holiday.  But below is a list of retailers who should have it sometime this week:

• Electronics Boutique
• Best Buy
• Gamestop
• CompUSA
• Circuit City
• Walmart
• Fry's
• Jack of All Games (Canada)
• J&R

It will also be available in most smaller store chains as well though we don't have a list of them.

Regardless of where you purchase the game, you will be able to get the Bonus Pack goodies and the electronic-based Collector's Edition content (we know which serial #s went with the first batch).   So don't worry about whether you have the Collector's Edition or not, we'll take care of you.

It should start showing up at retail over in Europe starting next week.

No matter where you purchase it, your serial # will enable you to download the entire game via Stardock Central for years after.  We expect to have the Bonus Pack available by tomorrow afternoon. 

People who preordered from us will be able to get the game digitally via Stardock Central by late after noon EST (that's night time in Europe).

So what is a game of Galactic Civilizations II like?  We've been putting up game-play examples.

One of the things that makes Galactic Civilizations unique as a strategy game is the effort put into replayability -- there are tons of different things that happen from game to game that can make each game play very differently.

In the Terran Ascension example, the Torian Confederation, the most powerful race in the galaxy (in this game), has its leadership taken over by Jihadists who then go on a galactic rampage.  Can the Terran Alliance survive?

 

Read the whole thing below...

Due to the popularity of JoeUser.com, we're going to have to schedule a couple days of outage when GalCiv II launches so that all the database bandwidth is available for it.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

This is the second game-play example. It's the same settings as the last one except I'll be playing as the humans.  The idea is to show you how radically differently two games, even with the same settings, can be.  Random galaxies combined with lots of special events can really make things interesting.

Today I shall install Alex (my son's name) as leader of the Terran Alliance. I will be playing on a large galaxy. 

I also decided to customize the look of my ships and colors a bit more.

So I'm using the Drengin style ships but with human colors (white with blue trim). 

My goal here would be to see how the various computer AIs function against each other in a large setting and of course to see if I could win.  I would be playing no hold's barred this time to make sure I was victorious.  The Terran Alliance would bring basic human rights to these aliens.

I set the galaxy up so that it was big but did not have very many good planets. I wanted to see how well my artificial opponents would be able to do with very little without getting bonuses.

As 2225 came to a close, the galaxy was pretty well claimed.  With very few habitable planets, it was a matter of focusing on developing nearby galactic resources.

I also focused on trading a great deal with other civilizations.  As the humans, I have a naturally higher diplomatic ability. I also used some of my points to enhance that diplomacy so I start out with the ability to get some good trade deals.

My strategy in this game is to build up alliances and take out those who won't follow the path.  So not a military conquest this time but a political victory.  The Altarians would be key to this.

So how do I go about doing this:

1) Build up my diplomatic ability.

2) Build a network of trade between my potential friends that is strong enough to create a lobbying group internally to ensure good relations.

3) Have a reasonably good military force that they would want to have the support from.

4) Pursue a generally neutral to good ethical alignment

Item #4 would be tough.

With so few planets, each world really matters. How can I give up a 6% bonus to my research?  I ultimately choose the middle route.

Though I am concerned about Earth's place in the galaxy. It is my best world and yet..it's an also ran in many ways.

 

The other issue is what to do about the minor races? These are civilizations that don't have any ambitions beyond their home world (generally).  They also occupy some of the best planets in the galaxy. They are militarily insignificant.  Right now, I am aggressively trading with them.

But the Torians have already wiped out one of them. That upsets the galactic balance. The Torians now have a major base world that the rest of us don't.

In the summer of 2227, my economy was looking like this:

88 from trade.  To build things up, I would construct a network of Economic starbases that would magnify this income.  I also had two colony ships sitting around that I never used. It was time to upgrade them.

My strategy with the Torians thus far had been to try to win them over.  But the Torians started to change.  Eventually, a whole new ethical philosophy took over and now! 

How this would affect things would remain to be seen. With Torian students burning the Terran Alliance flag and shouting various Torian phrases they loosely translate to "Jihad!" people are nervous. Combined with their change was a significant military build up.

It was decided that we would still go through the formalities of choosing an official ethical position:

We would take the path of neutrality.  This was motivated by several things including these bonuses:

• Higher approval ratings from having a balanced point of view (Which means I can tax higher).
• Contractors would give me a better price when I quick buy ships.
• No need to pay to upgrade tiles on my planets.
• When I invade a non-neutral civilization, I get a bonus.
• Additional trade routes

The Torian movement had startled others.  Even the Arcean Empire was getting nervous.

The Torians aggressively eliminate another minor race.

Amazingly, there are no wars between the major powers.  The Torians are just gobbling up minors.  They have their eye on another minor race: The human race!

To the Torian threat the best and brightest of humanity have come together and put together the ship to defend Earth and put force behind our strategy of peace through strength and trade.

	Length: 205 meters. Span: 375 meters Crew: 25 Mass: 1.52 million metric tons.   The Challenger class was our best hope. Armed with 4 Mark IV laser cannons from Stellar Dynamics Corp and protected by twin Westinghouse advanced deflector grids, it was a formidable piece of weaponry.
Challenger Class

Attack: 4 (beam) Defense: 2 (shields) Hull: 16hp.

While I prepare for war, the Arceans build ties with everyone.

I begin moving my first Challengers to the border.

So what do we really know about the Torian Confederation? It was time to do some intelligence work. One wrong move and Earth could be in ashes.

The Torians look like a pretty big monster. But their military forces are scattered. A couple of key strikes and perhaps they'd turn out to be a paper tiger.  The Torians mostly focus on light fighters. The Challenger was a Frigate sized ship. Quite large.

It would be a battle of few, large, quality ships against lots of cheap ships.  With one key shortcoming on my part, the Torian ships were fast.  They use their speed to destroy my military starbase which was protecting earth.

Even without the starbase, my ships outclass theirs in size, quality. And these are the Torian's latest design, not some obsolete design. Mark II Torian Fighter pods lead by a flag fighter (heavy fighter). The one gotcha is that the Torians use missiles and I am using shield defense.  But they are no match.  All 6 of their ships are destroyed with only slight damage to one of my ships.

But the Torians keep coming on me.  They bypass my fleets and take out my starbases which are the center of my economy. I thought I'd protected them but admittedly, against a half dozen ships I really hadn't put considered that. Now I'm pretty ticked off. And all my starbases are gone.

But in the war of attrition, I was coming out slightly ahead but it would not last forever. It was time to strike and I used my cash reserves to buy up some ships for an offensive.

The strategy would be straight forward. I had mortaged Earth to do it.

The Quarterly Report Magazine made note of this:

Realizing that my main fleet was too strong, the Torians took the strategy to adapt to it and nibble away at my economy by going after my merchantmen.

While the Torians nip away at my trade income, I take the former minor race home world.

Now is the time to ask for peace. Now that I've given them a bloody nose.

It costs a bit but I get peace in our time.  Now to prepare for the next step.  The Torians clearly can't be trusted under their Jihadist leadership.  I also need to improve my military standing. 

My first goal now is to rebuild. I need to get my starbase network back up and running. This time I will fortify it more.

I also get some amazing luck!

Mars has become a decent planet.  Not a great planet still but a decent one.  The Arnor had a device locked away that when activated, terraformed Mars.

The Torians start to go on a rampage again, another Jihad and they want our money.

I don't think so.

The Jihad has not settled well with all Torians though.  A group of them flee Torian space and start up a new minor civilization right off my border.

Having learned the hard way about dealing with minor races, I take the world for myself.  And it's a real jewel, the best planet in the galaxy. Class 21 (after I finish terraforming it). Incredible.

Things were going well and now it was time to deal with the Torians.

For that was going to be a new ship for a new war.

	Length: 192 meters. Span: 420 meters Crew: 30 Mass: 1.82 million metric tons.   The Intrepid would replace the legendary Challenger class starship.  It was not as well protected as the Challenger but had nearly twice the punch.
Intrepid Class

Attack: 10 (beam) Defense: 1 (shields) Hull: 16hp.

As the Fall of 2230 came around, the Terran Alliance had largely rebuilt its economy from the previous war.  It now had the largest population in the galaxy thanks to the acquisition of two new colonies (both from conquest).

Our trade income was now at 227 billion credits per week which allowed us to spend at our maximum industrial capacity.  The Arceans come to me for help. They are losing to the Drengin Empire. I do what I can do to help.

I give them 6 of my Challenger class ships.  I also decide to design a heavy fighter using my recently invented shield technology.

	Length: 10 meters. Span: 10 meters Crew: 2 Mass: 40 metric tons.   Armed with dual Westinghouse Arc Plasma cannons and using the new Standard Dynamics P5A Shield generators, the X-15 was designed to take a beating. And it only cost half as much to build.
X-15 Ranger

Attack: 4 (beam) Defense: 6 (shields) Hull: 10hp.

 

I've renamed the Dark Yor home world to "Paridias".

It has become a true garden spot.

 

The Jihad is almost over for the Torian Confederation. Their minor wars and spreading of forces has opened them up. Now it is time to taken them out.

It is at this time that the Arceans surrender to me.  I now control a significant chunk of the galaxy.

The key to the Torian economy is Starbase 232 which is positioned to affect both of the Torian main worlds.

I was nearly ready to attack.

The ship of the enemy:

6 attack with second generation plasma weapons (Same as mine) with basic beam defense. Their strategy was to go with a cheaper ship. Their ships were incredibly cheap, only 170 billion credits apiece.

ATTACK!

It was going to prove tougher than I first anticipated.  The Torians weren't quite as weak as I thought. And they had placed orbital fleet managers in orbit.

In fact, my attack is a spectacular failure.  Their ships are too adapted against my current generation weapons.  But I do enough damage that they simply don't want to deal with me right now.

So naturally I build up and prepare for attack.

Well yea, actually I was hoping you wouldn't notice..

And so started the third Terran/Torian war as it came to be known.

	Length: 650 meters. Span: 350 meters Crew: 95 Mass: 4.2 million metric tons.   Arguably a "cheap" battle cruiser at only 282 billion credits (barely more than the Intrepid), the Avenger is designed to outlast the enemy. It's mostly defensive in nature.
Avenger Class Battle Cruiser

Attack: 8 (beam) Defense: 8 (shields) Hull: 28hp.

By this point, we had a new type of ship called the Avenger class Battle cruiser. 

And the Avenger sees its first battle in the skies above Toria:

It takes 3 waves of ships, this is definitely the toughest battle for a planet I've ever had in all the time I've been playing. Eventually Toria is mine. But it's a bloody affair.

Other battles are easier..

The Torians lose their core worlds.

As I am about to launch my final attack the 3@$@# Torians screw me one last time..

They surrender their worlds to the Yor!

No matter.  I will now pursue my original strategy, to build a large interstellar alliance.

Using my diplomatic clout that I've built up throughout the years, I bribe, cajole, and generally befriend everyone I can.  This brings me to the point of building a pretty solid network of alliances.

But such a tangled web is not without its problems. The Korx and Drengin won't play ball and keep attacking the Altarians who are "good" (the Korx and Drengin are vile). 

The Drengin are a problem.  They have a pretty good piece of military hardware in the Mark VII Kil'Thir Battleship

Designed as the answer to the Avenger. It has 3 missile and 4 rail guns (mass drivers). NO beam weapons.  It has 6 defense against beam weapons and 1 defense against missiles just to be safe.

The Avenger has been the galaxy's top of the line capital ship for going on 3 years.  But the Kil Thir will kill it nearly every time.  While it has rating of 8 thanks to its plasma beam weapons, they get knocked down to an average of 1 to 2 when up against the Kil 'Thir.  And its shield defense of 8 seems good but is actually only rated at a 2 against the Kil 'Thir since it doesn't use beam weapons.

 

As the custodian of the Arcean home     worlds, I am feeling pretty low as the Drengin military secures the sector for invasion.

3 Drengin task forces and  a fighter squadron secure sector 4,4 for the Drengin. Invasion is inevitable.

I assign two of my task forces to defend the sector. Alpha and Beta.  My ships have more punch in theory but the Drengin are so well defended that my weapons largely bounce off.

It is a very..very long battle.

But in the end, Task Force Beta wins.

The difference being that I had 3 Avengers and they only had 2 Kil 'Thirs. Their fighters were pretty useless. And I had the initiative since I attacked them.

The firefight in sector 4,4 last weeks but in the end the Drengin are cleared out.  Task force beta is lost and task force alpha limps to defend the two planets.

Fighting a two front war is quite a challenge, especially in a large galaxy.  So I set up two rally points, one to for the Korx theatre and the other for the Drengin theatre.   The Korx are more of an annoyance, and I wipe their forces away with my Avengers.

 It's over for the Korx and they know it.

That's right, all for us.  Only the Drengin resist now.

Meanwhile, someone (i.e. the Drengin no doubt) are whining that we're exploiting the native population. The United Planets Security Council hear's the matter to see if I should be responsible for this or not.

My friends vote it down, the Drengin, needless to say, voted yes.

The war continues.

A Drengin Kil 'Thir and its fighter escort comes across an Avenger and its X-15 fighter escort. A good test of designs. The Drengin are heavily defended against my plasma beams but I have a lot of them and my shields, while not terribly useful against their rail guns, still do help some (44 shields = 6 against rail guns still not too bad).   In the end, I prevail though I lose 2 of my X-15s. Still great ships after all these years.

The Drengin home world is next.

My spies tell me the Drengin are working on expert logistics. If they succeed in this, they will pose a serious problem for my ships. It's a race for Drengi.

The Drengin definitely aren't finished yet though.

Those Mark VII battleships (Kil 'Thir) are so perfectly designed against Avengers that you'd almost think...a computer did it..  The Drengin wipe out the Avengers, taking no losses.

There they are. The Drengin home world. Drengi will be mine soon. I have used my own expert logistics, plus I built the Logistics Manager Galactic Achievement to have a logistics ability of 35. That means SEVEN capital ships in a single fleet. Nothing can stand against it.

Length: 1,865 meters. Span: 750 meters Crew: 550 Mass: 34.2 million metric tons.   This is the most powerful warship mankind has ever created and probably ever will create.  Armed with 6 Quad-Xinti Disurptor Canons from the Joint North American/European technology Consortium and defended by Strategic Electric's Barrier shields.  It is simply put, a killing machine. Basically invulnerable. One ship can likely take out any number of Drengin ships. I It's size is massive beyond what a picture can show.  Much larger than an Avenger. Much MUCH larger. It is also fast. A base speed of Warp 5 plus massive sensors. It has everything.

Dominator class Battleship

Attack: 42 (beam) Defense: 15 (shields) 1 (armor) Hull: 48hp.

The Dominator ship would get its first test. All alone against a fleet of Drengin ships including the new Mark VIII Drengin Battle ship, the Xin 'Vala.  The Xin 'Vala is a definite match for an Avenger but the Dominator has arrived. I couldn't wait to see what would happen.

The first battle was a 2 on 1 affair.  A Xin 'Vala (Mark 8) and a Kil 'Thir (Mark 7). 

Look how much bigger the Dominator is. Imagine what fighters would look like. Those other two ships are Drengin battleships.  Fighters would be like dots. The disruptors are lethal 23 damage in a single hit even though the Drengin shields are dedicated to thwarting our beam weapons.  Our attack bonuses give the Dominator a real world attack of 58 and 18 defense.

The battle is swift, the Dominator loses 4 hit points while doing 74 damage to the Drengin.

The second battle would be against THREE Mark VIII Battleships...

BAM!  It might be just me but there is something satisfying seeing the weapon shot coming out of the weapon module that I placed when I designed the ship.  The screenshots don't do it justice.

All 3 die.  Only 6 hit points of damage done. Then it's 4 Drengin ships. Then 5.  They send everything they have at the Dominator.  One ship vs. the entire Drengin fleet.

The Drengin fleet is destroyed. Though there are several planets still left, they are finished. It's just a matter of mopping up.

I've seen this before. But I will have the last laugh, the Yor are my ally.

And the Dominator is level 4. It has 97 hitpoints now when at full. Of course, it comes with a price. It costs nearly around 3bc each week to maintain it. But it's worth it.

The galaxy is now united under my lead.

Dignitaries come to Earth to celebrate.

And so like every time I play the game, I make notes on how it can be improved. An ongoing process as it will never be "perfect". 

I got a couple of lucky breaks too.  Two incredible planets, better than any in the galaxy, happened to pop up near my starting location with minor races that once dispatched (one by me and one by the Torians which I later captured) put me in the driver's seat. Paradias, for instance, was doing 84 research per turn when research spending was at 33% and full spending.  That's incredible. One planet.  And when I do full research, Paridias would do 254 research PER TURN. 136 research from the buildings and the rest from bonuses (high research ability, 25% starbase bonus, Technology capital).