Galactic Civilizations II Interview by Gareth Von Kallenbach
Original Aritcle located at SKNR.net

Recently I had the chance to speak wit Brad Wardell, Lead Designer of Galactic Civilizations 2. I want to thank Brad from taking time away from his busy schedule to do this interview for us as it is very appreciated.

1. What is the background and setting of the game and how close does it tie in with events of the previous game?

It’s a sci-fi space strategy game that plays out in the 23^rd century.  Mankind has begun colonizing the stars and is up against up to a dozen or so alien civilizations who are trying to do the same.

Players do not need to have played the first one. The backstory is related in the sense that this one takes place 50 years after the events of the first one, but those who haven’t played the original won’t be missing any story elements in the sequel.

In the first one, players are just meeting the alien civilizations.  This one is the main event: warfare on a galactic scale.

2. How are commerce, exploration, research and combat setup in the game?

BW:  Players design their own ships and explore the galaxy to find planets they can colonize.  On those colonies, they build structures that increase their research and commerce. They can also build star ports which create star ships to send into combat, trade with other civs, build star bases and more.

3.  What can you tell the readers about the graphical engine, A.I. and interface for the game and how will it differ from others in the genre?

The game is the first game (that I know of anyway) that has a full smart-scaling technology.  The entire game will seamlessly scale to whatever resolution your computer will support, and it doesn’t do it by stretching. The UI components scale intelligently so that you get more use as you go up in resolution.

The net result of the graphics engine is that even 3 years from now when players are running 2400 x 1600 the game will look really good.

The artificial intelligence engine is multithreaded. That is, the computer players “think” up their strategies while you are moving your units. The result is that computer players don’t need to cheat in order to provide a challenge to most players.

4. What are some of the races players can select and what sort of advantages and weaknesses do they have?

You can play as the humans or up to 9 other civilizations. Or you can literally design your own species from scratch.

Some races are more diplomatic than others. Some are better traders. Some are better warriors, etc.

5. How many styles of ships are available and what are some of the weapons and features that will be included? Also, will items be able to be salvaged from enemy ships via combat?

Players design their own ships so there’s really no limit to the uniqueness of what their ships look like.  Ship design in GalCiv II isn’t just about putting weapons on; players can (optionally) create their own unique styles for their ships.

6. In games of this type, micro managing resources if not only necessary, but often very tricky. How will this be handled?

We have added a Civilization Manager which lets players who don’t like micromanagement step back and control their vast empire from a set of governor user interfaces, which can drastically cut down micromanagement.

7. What sort of graphic engine is the game using and what features does it allow you to include?

The engine is actually pretty state-of-the-art.  It’s got specular lighting, bump mapping, multi-pass texturing and lighting, very high-resolution textures and no upper bounds on polygons. 

Some modders have already put in ships that had .x models on the net that have hundreds of thousands of polygons.  In other words, the engine scales linearly with your video card. 

8.  Please tell the readers about tech and growth limits to planets and how this will effect the game. It sounds as if players will really have to do their homework on a planet before they decide to setup shop there.

It’s actually pretty straightforward.  Planets are given numerical classes ranging from 0 to 20.  Earth is a class 10.  The class determines how many useable tiles there are on the planet to build things on.

9. What forms of multiplay will be available?

We include the Metaverse which allows players to band together into empires or play on their own.  It doesn’t feature direct head-to-head play at present, since we wanted to focus on the single-player experience. If multi-player gaming is something fans really ask for, we’ll look at adding it in an expansion or update.

10. How will player and ship navigation and combat be implemented, Real Time or Turn based?

The game is entirely turn-based. When combat situations occur, the battle can be watched in the Combat Viewer.

Thank you,

Gareth

Skewed and Reviewed