Game manual update and playing Dread Lords and Dark Avatar campaigns through Twilight expansion

I downloaded the game through SDC, and with that method of install the start menu shortcut points to GC2TwilightOfTheArnor.exe. If you change it to TAlaunch.exe you'll get a launcher window like in DA, that allows you to switch chapters. Not sure if the CD install works the same.

Brad is planning to update the manual for TA soon.

Big supporter here but with so many changes to the racial tech trees I will continue to highlight the lack of an updated manual as a big stick in my side.

Every single race plays unique and different now. Am I supposed to jump into games playing each one and right click on every unique tech to figure out what they are and how a race should be played in general based off of that?

I enjoy manuals. I really want an updated manual with more information on each of the games races and their new tech trees and their strengths and weaknesses. I heard some race has no techs for farms? I want to know about it, not be surprised by it.

Again, love Sins and all the Galciv2 games, I've bought them all, but this is a little bit of a let down. TA101 post is a decent start but not nearly good enough.

A manual really wouldn't cover that sort of thing in any significant depth either way; it's not a strategy guide.

I love Stardock tons. I've been with you since GalCiv1 and will always continue to buy your stuff.

But one thing Stardock is not good at is manuals. If you look at truly great manuals, such as the Civ ones and Master of Orion (1 and 2), they're chock full of information. We're not asking for strategy guides, what we're asking for is detailed information on the buildings, units, and how the mechanics and statistics work (the Sins manual is also sorely lacking in this department).

Heck, the manual even got WORSE when you went from the original Dread Lords to the Gold Edition. Certain things were stripped out and never put back in.

We do not want you guys to dictate strategy in the manual. But this is a strategy game, not a first person shooter, and strategy gamers really need to know how each bit works so they can plan their OWN strategy accordingly.

-HM

Kryo,

Hollow Man understands me. I am not asking for a strategy guide either.

However,
a key feature of ToA is unique races with unique techs and tech trees. It's on the Info Page about how because of this each race needs or should be played to their relative strengths.

So when I ask for an updated manual, for this feature, I would expect something like:
Here's all the races in the game one by one.
Each race has a little history/summary.
Each race then in some little summary says how their technology is shaped around their origin. Because of that, what are they good at (if anything) and what are they bad at (if anything) in particular.
Then it would be super-duper great if there could be a list of each races unique technologies. Oh, also a run down of their racial bonuses and default super ability.

Now in my mind that isn't anything to do with strategy, but it does fully document this HUGE new feature and informs the user with enough knowledge to at least know how to generally play a race when he/she picks it. It's a little daunting when you are completely clueless. At least when the original GC2 came out it had the (single) tech tree on paper and in PDF form.

On the subject of strategy guides, if any game ever needed one it is GalCiv II and its expansion packs.

That, and a much improved tutorial for newbies like me. Gal Civ II was the first turn based stragegy game I ever played, bought because I fancied something different and because of all the good reviews it had received.

Having not played any turn based strategy games before, I hadnt a clue what to do with it initally (even after going through the tutorial and reading the manual) until I bought Civilization 4 with its excellent tutorial and information packed manual plus seperately available strategy guides.

GalViv II, along with the Dark Avatar and Twilight expansions is one of the best and most enjoyable games I have ever come across, but also one of the most frustrating due to the lack of info available to help you play and get the most out of the game.

Please Stardock, in the probably distant future when GalCiv III comes out can you beef up the tutorial, the game manual and bring out a big thick strategy guide.

Thanks

I am newly back to the series, only played around with GC2 when it came out. I have all three now installed and updated. How do I play the first two campaigns?

From DA? or some how through Twilight?

Is it recommended to go back and play the campaigns? Should I even bother starting a game through GC or always use DA or Twilight?

Thanks for the help!

Currently you cannot play the older campaigns via Twilight, so you have to go back through the older games if that's what you'd like to do.

-HM

I love SD too.



I wish i could be allowed to buy stuff from you guys, but i can't because my parents were and still are very mad about TA because they preordered it for me in october , now they bitch at me and say that SD scammed us. With TA shipping next week, they say that if TA does not ship out by then they'll send a complant. So now they won't let me buy stuff from you guys anymore and i really wanted to buy Sins. :SNIFF!: 

A strategfy guuide on how to beat the campaign for Galciv III is what we need!

If I am going to play a non-campaign game which should I use? I'm just trying to figure out how to start playing again... thanks.

Sethpenguin,

There is no scam. They probably don't have all the information at their fingertips.

a. The purchase price gave you access to play the game in beta.

b. The game is now officially released, and you can download it and play it.

c. The disc will arrive within a few weeks.

Perhaps they should contact Stardock for the explanation if you cannot provide it yourself. There is no scam here whatsoever (especially since I'm sure Stardock would've refunded their money if they did not clearly understand what they were purchasing).

-HM

Astrocat, it's clearly up to you. If you want to take advantage of the new items Arnor brings to the table, play that. If you want less options so you can relearn the game, play the original GalCiv2.

-HM

Good to hear but, ummm, two weeks post release and there's still no manual? Worse, the manual that is there has TotA on the front page but nothing new inside. Couldn't you have at least put a big "NOT READY YET" in there so I didn't find myself wondering what I had downloaded?

Talk about a bad "out of box" experience. I'm very aware that games just released will often have known-but-not-yet-squashed bugs. Releasing a game with the old manual, though? Sorry, but you released this game before it was done.

Sounds to me like they released the game before the manual for it was done. Hardly the same thing.

Personally, I'd rather have the game first and wait for the manual rather than have them delay the game just for the manual.

mmm sound like a dell employee whom take computer out of the box to see how the out of box experience would be!!!

I would much rather have a great game and not so good manual then a great manual and not so good game !!!

the game is done,... the manual is what it is !!!


Nasty

About playing the campaigns...

I'm very slow when it comes to playing campaigns, but I love them. I'm still playing the original, in fact. But I really don't like having features stripped out of me while doing so. That's why I was so happy when DA included the option of playing the original DL campaign. Okay, there was the fact that I had to start over... but well, you can only wish so much!

This is also the reason I was quite frustated when I tried to restart the original campaign in TA... only the TA campaign was there! I then checked the files and noticed their extensions and places... It appeared reasonable that if I copied the files from "/GalCiv2/Data/English/Campaigns" and "/GalCiv2/DarkAvatar/Data/English/Campaigns" to "/GalCiv2/Twilight/Data/English/Campaigns" the respective campaigns would appear in TA.
My guesses were RIGHT! I've been able to start the dread lords campaign in TA and all seems well. I haven't played more than a few turns, so I can't say if anything in the campaigns are broken by being taken to TA, but so far all seems well!

Cheers,

Alryon

PS: Any more details someone could give in testing this would be very much welcome!

THIS!!! DaSloth is 100% correct. If the game was truly at a finished state it shouldn't take a graphic designer more than a day or two to document out the new features and put the racial tech trees into a PDF. This type of stuff should be sitting on a GC2 dev's desk anyways since they've been working on it for who-knows-how-long. If the game was developed properly documenting new features (unique racial tech trees and unique buildings anyone?!) it shouldn't take weeks for an updated manual. Sorry.

I would also prefer a "Not Ready Yet" rather than what it felt like Stardock trying to pull a fast one on me by taking the Gold manual and changing the cover page?! That's product misrepresentation. Don't insult my intelligence by saying it's the ToA manual on the cover but not changing a word inside. In my 20 years of gaming I've never been so deceived by a piece of software documentation.

It has also greatly affected my "out of box" experience that DaSloth refers to. The fact that there are big questions about the racial tech trees, lack of answers from the dev's, and a complete lack of documentation, shows that maybe the documentation just isn't there or the tech trees were constucted in a hurry to get the software out. At least, that's the impression I get and it's impressions that count.

ok maybe,.. but you would be just as upset if they rush the manual
out just to be out dated on the next update of the game because of changes !!! yes there needs to be a manual but this game is always changing

maybe i would be more upset about it if I was a newer player :NOTSURE:

Nasty

I couldn't disagree more..

Having just purchased this game I expected the new features and significant alterations to be fully documented at release. My first impression is that the game is unfinished due to the lack of updated documentation, if this was a FPS then it would be less of an issue however for a strategy game it is unforgivable :SNIFF!:.

Given that the game is continuously evolving is even more reason to keep the documentation up to date and cannot be used as an excuse for releasing it (and any updates) without appropriate documentation.

I am not happy and will look to cancelling my purchase.

well sorry to here you want to cancel your order but it is your lose as I see it.
But good luck with other games

Nasty

I dont feel asking for the tech trees of each race is unreasonable nor is it a strategy guide. I feel it is needed to be able to play the game so you can plan your your use of these techs that are unique to each race

Well, not all games do that. Sorry, but it isn't a required or a standard practice, even if it would be nice.

I really have to take issue wiht this statement. Indeed, it really annoys me. Readily providing the various tech trees (the most ballyhooed of the new TA features) either in a manual or ingame is not the function of a strategy guide; indeed, it is frivolous to so suggest IMO. The lack of this information has been a thorn in my side all through beta. Like others here, I really like Stardock for their basic games, dedication to updating games beyond (probably) economic good sense, excellent customer service, and generally forthcoming attitude to the community. I bought TA largely to support Stardock, even though I don't expect to play it a lot. However, one of their glaring faults is poor documentation. Not only are the manuals poor (generally covering only a fraction of gameplay, and that often in a conusing, if humorous, manner) but ingame information is very poor and the UI is below average. For example, the research screen, while somewhat improved in TA, is still ridiculously poor to vavigate.

To see how this can be done right, it is only necessary to go to Civ4. That manual, although inferior to older Civ manuals, is still decent and miles better than the GCII manual. The ingame information is even better. Admittedly, it took Firaxis a couple of patches and two expansions, but the Civ4 UI is close to 4X nirvana. Information is easily found everywhere (and in readable fonts). The Civolopedia--a feature that GalCiv needs badly--is wonderful. (BTW, the Civilopedia was a mess at Civ4's rushed launch, but was fixed in the first or second patch. On the negative side, I should add that Firaxis badly screwed up a patch to the most recent expansion, inadvertantly dropping some crucial UI information; this bug was fixed by a fan created patch but shamefully has never addressed by Firaxis after many months.). I realize that Stardock does not have the resources to polish its games that Firaxis does, but the gap should not be as large. A useful comparison is to Paradox, another small niche dev/publisher of strategy games. It's most recent games (EUIII and EU:Rome) come with thick printed manuals that are far superior to Stardock's manuals. And Rome also provides registered users with a very comprehensive downloadable srat guide. Even the older Paradox games with less good documentation (like Victoria) still are superior to Stardock. In fairness, though, Paradox UIs are not particularly well done. (I should note that while Sins' manual continues the poor Stardock tradition, the ingame UI is quite good.)

Regardless of the tone of the above, I really like Stardock and GalCivII. Nothing is perfect and I can put up with the poor documentation and UI, which are outweighed by so many pluses. However, I realy could not let a defense of this obvious flaw go unanswered.