Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Expans...

Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Expansion Pack

Stardock Entertainment has initiated docking procedures for the first Galactic Civilizations II expansion pack, codenamed Dark Avatar. Communications intercepted on their website seem to indicate that the add-on will be available this Fall, through digital distribution only at first (via TotalGaming.net and the store on GalCiv2.com), though players will also be able to have a CD sent to them, if they so desire.

Dark Avatar goes far beyond the typical expansion, says Stardock. Not only does it add new units, new races, new maps, and a new campaign as is expected in an expansion pack, it greatly expands the feature set of the base game in very significant ways. And, as was the case with the original award-winning strategy game, Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar will be free of any kind of copy protection - once again implying that such practices not only piss gamers off, but they hardly ever stop piracy anyway.

"Featuring a gripping new single-player campaign that sees the elimination of two of the game's alien races and the introduction of several others, Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar also allows players to create their own custom opponents, tweaking their behaviour, what they look like, what their ships look like and play style to develop truly unique enemies.

The expansion also introduces resource-rich asteroid belts, unique planets requiring advanced technology to colonize, spies to assist or prevent destabilization and sabotage, an Epic Generator that creates a unique story from each game played, advanced diplomatic treaties, new ship components, improved AI options and much more."

Further details about the new features in Dark Avatar are available on GalCiv2.com. Also, the recent Galactic Civilizations II patch v1.2 is available for download locally.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)