On Friday we released Beta 2 of the new expansion pack, Twilight of the Arnor.  From a game play point of view, Twilight of the Arnor is a massive enhancement to the Galactic Civilizations experience. For one thing, each civilization gets its own technology tree which means its own unique planetary improvements, ships, and abilities. 

For the beta of Twilight of the Arnor, we're working on having weekly updates so that we can re-introduce the various civilizations of the galaxy and help introduce the new features bit by bit.

Here's some of the highlights of Beta 2.

Tournaments

Players can finally compete for the best score on very specific tournaments. Upon victory in a scenario, their score is submitted to the Met averse where they can see how well they did compared to others. The first tournament has been released with Beta 2 - Rock & a Hard place which puts the player in the role of the Terran Alliance against the Drengin and Arceans.

Rock & a hard place starts players with nothing.

Starting in December, Stardock will be holding Tournament competitions with the winners winning T-shirts and other goodies.

Updated Technology Tree Display

The technology tree in Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor has been been updated to display to users modules, improvements, and abilities they receive from researching a given technology.

The Tech tree now displays items users get with a new technological advance.

Revised Planet Surfaces

The planet surfaces in Galactic Civilizations II have always been a bit ugly. That was because of the decision to have planets randomly generated each game.  In practice, randomly generated planets looked ugly, required immense start-up time generating them, and used a great deal of memory.  In Twilight of the Arnor, planet surfaces are created by artists including LogicSequence. The game then takes these surfaces and randomizes them to create a wide variety of planet surfaces.  The result is a significant decrease in memory as well as faster game-startups all the while looking much better.

Planet surfaces look much nicer.

 

The Korath

The malevolent Korath have been reintroduced and their technology tree is heinous along with their special planetary improvements.  The Korath are an off-shoot of the Drengin Empire.  The Drengin want to conquer and enslave the galaxy.  The Korath, by contrast, aren't that nice. They want to conquer and exterminate the galaxy.  They have figured out how to use the life force of creatures to fuel their empire.

The Korath Home World isn't nice.

 

The Korath have a planetary improvement that absorbs life force from the biosphere of the planet to generate manufacturing. It reduces planet quality in exchange for a 30% industrial gain.

 

The Torians

The Torians wouldn't even ben a space faring civilization if it weren't for the fact that the Drengin Empire had enslaved their world for 30,000 years.  For beta 2, their technology tree was only lightly changed from the default. In subsequent betas, the Torians will see their technology tree evolve.

The Torian technology tree focuses on having lots and lots of stuff. The Torians won't generally have access to high quality stuff but they will have lots of it. With a very high morale and high population, the Torians are often the richest civilization on the block but with the poorest technology.

The poor Torians have had a rough time, luckily, they reproduce like rabits

 

The poor Torians have had a rough time, luckily, they reproduce like rabbits

Evolution of the Arceans

Each beta, the existing civilizations that have already been added continue to evolve.  For instance, the Arceans received a new technology called Weather Control which enables them to upgrade their planet quality -- at a price.

The Arceans get the Weather Control Zenith

What's next...

This week we plan to release Beta 2A which will bring back the Yor as well as enhance the Torians further.  The Tournaments will get further enhancements as well and we hope to have our first Tournament match starting next week.