Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 80%Very Positive · 80%2011

$9.99

US Steam price, checked 5 h ago

The verdict

A deep, highly replayable classic space 4X with custom races and a ship designer, held back by dated UI, a steep learning curve and Stardock account/DRM hassles. Skip if you want modern polish or hand-holding.

Great for

Patient 4X fans who like Civ or Master of Orion in space, deep customization and ship design

Main risk

Dated, unexplained UI and a steep learning curve, plus Stardock account/DRM and crash problems on modern PCs

What players love

Runs on old and low-end PCs, nostalgic classic

Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews

“especially for people that have older machines or don't want to invest in a beefier PC to run games”
Steam review · 2.9 h played ↗

“I definitely consider this game one of the best in its genre, if not the best.”
Steam review · translated · 114.1 h played ↗

Fun ship designer and custom races

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews

“the ship customization alone makes it far superior to most others.”
Steam review · 5.3 h played ↗

“You can even build your own little spaceships by sticking the parts together like legos.”
Steam review · 0.7 h played ↗

“I also liked the ship editor — create whatever you want with no limits, almost like Spore.”
Steam review · translated · 14.2 h played ↗

Highly replayable with deep customization

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews

“Replay value is very high as there are tons of things you can tweak and alter to change up the difficulty or length of the game.”
Steam review · 68.6 h played ↗

“extreme in depth managment with very customizable playstyle. no 2 playthroughs will be thew same”
Steam review · 45.1 h played ↗

“The game has an off-the-charts amount of customization of everything, from ship design to race design.”
Steam review · translated · 0.1 h played ↗

Strong AI and multiple paths to victory

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“This game has one of the smartest ai ive ever seen in any game.”
Steam review · 54.9 h played ↗

“The AI is tough even on normal, but unlike other games it's not because of unfair advantages, it just knows how to play the game.”
Steam review · 0.5 h played ↗

“Lots of ways to win, but the only way to win at the hardest levels is through a multi tiered approach of economics, research, alliances, sabotage, and constant tweaking of battleship fleets.”
Steam review · 278.3 h played ↗

Addictive "one more turn" 4X gameplay

Mentioned in ~1 in 12 positive reviews

“This game is the best one-more-turn game I have played since MOO.”
Steam review · 1.8 h played ↗

“sit in stunned silence when you look up and realize that you've been playing for 13 straight hours. It's that good.”
Steam review · 33.4 h played ↗

Cheap, complete edition with expansions

Mentioned in ~1 in 17 positive reviews

“All the GalCiv gameplay and full expansions for only $20. As opposed to the insane cost of GalCiv III and its DLCs. Get this one instead.”
Steam review · 25.4 h played ↗

“the best £2 I have ever spent”
Steam review · 35.8 h played ↗

What players complain about

Boring, slow and shallow gameplay

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“the middle just felt like a long slog where I would just hit the next turn button over and over again.”
Steam review · 8.1 h played ↗

“I just felt like I did nothing but max out my territory exploitation and then just.... park my ships and click next turn for hours.”
Steam review · 3.3 h played ↗

“The ship design system incorporates a lot of meaningless cosmetic elements to try and disguise its fundamental shallowness.”
Steam review · 100.1 h played ↗

Steep learning curve and weak tutorials

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“No Tutorial, nothing really telling how to play the game or what tech does what, some things can be deciphered and the controls are not very friendly.”
Steam review · 3.7 h played ↗

“it did a bad job at getting me up-to-speed on how to play, forcing me to watch boring, slow video tutorials.”
Steam review · 0.4 h played ↗

“INSTEAD OF AN IN-GAME TUTORIAL”
Steam review · 0.2 h played ↗

Crashes, freezes and modern-PC compatibility

Mentioned in ~1 in 5 negative reviews

“Game does not work with windows 11. Continuously crashes shortly after starting.”
Steam review · 7.6 h played ↗

“10 crashes after about 3 hours. Done with it for good.”
Steam review · 4.2 h played ↗

“After a 100+ turns (sometimes fewer) the game will crash because it runs out of VM.”
Steam review · 360.3 h played ↗

Dated, clunky UI with no scaling

Mentioned in ~1 in 6 negative reviews

“The fonts are too small. No UI scale option.”
Steam review · 0.3 h played ↗

“Unplayable on a modern PC. I tried, but I couldn't get the resolution to work.”
Steam review · 1 h played ↗

“The interface is awful and inconvenient.”
Steam review · translated · 0.5 h played ↗

Stardock account/DRM blocks launching

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“A great game, of which I am angry I cannot play anymore because of the stupid "Stardock Account" that is now required to run this game .”
Steam review · 65.6 h played ↗

“Just "downloaded" the game, and have spent the past 5 hour trying (and failing) to get past the game's DRM.”
Steam review · 15.6 h played ↗

“Not recommended! I bought it intending to play later. When I wanted to play, I couldn't. Activation troubles.”
Steam review · translated · 0.3 h played ↗

AI cheats and campaigns are brutally hard

Mentioned in ~1 in 15 negative reviews

“As soon as the Dread Lords appear, they wipe you out almost instantly and your ships do zero damage against them.”
Steam review · 145.4 h played ↗

“It's just not winnable at the harder difficulty levels.”
Steam review · 1373.6 h played ↗

“these AIs already have blatant ridiculous amount of cheats”
Steam review · 4.1 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Unsupported

Minimum

OSWindows® XP SP3 / Vista™ SP2 / Windows® 7 / 8.1 / 10

ProcessorIntel® Pentium® III 1 GHz (or AMD equivalent)

Memory512 MB (1 GB for Windows 7 / Vista)

Graphics64 MB DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card

Storage2 GB

OSWindows® XP SP3 / Vista™ SP2 / Windows® 7 / 8.1 / 10

ProcessorIntel® Pentium® III 1 GHz (or AMD equivalent)

Memory512 MB (1 GB for Windows 7 / Vista)

Graphics64 MB DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card

Storage2 GB

More games to check

Other games we’ve read the reviews for

See all →

Master of Orion

Mostly Positive · 77%

+ Faithful MOO2 successor

− Weak real-time combat and ship design

analyzed 3 d ago

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

Overwhelmingly Positive

+ Best Civ in the series

− Won't run or crashes on modern Windows

analyzed 4 d ago

Warlock - Master of the Arcane

Very Positive · 86%

+ Civ-like with a fantasy magic twist

− Bugs, crashes and abandoned support

analyzed 5 d ago

The Battle of Polytopia

Very Positive · 95%

+ Fast, streamlined Civ-like 4X

− Free on mobile, no sync or cross-platform

analyzed 6 d ago

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