My review of the latest Galactic Civilizations II expansion pack is up at Crispy Gamer.
I’ve always “liked” GalCiv2, but I think I’m closer to “love” now. I’ve slammed expansion packs in the past for adding nothing, and you could make a case that Arnor adds very little that is new. But it adds so much depth and variety that the few new things it does add take on even greater importance and significance.
It’s not a matter of just piling on nations and units like the Civ expansions or throwing in completely new mechanics like Asian Dynasties did for Age of Empires 3. The devotion to greater customization and alien variety has a multiplier effect on every small alteration and tested strategy.
A minor quibble… I’m 99% sure there were several flavors of AI in the first edition galciv2. The first expansion maybe made them more disparate?
That’s fair. The AIs in the first expansion were much more varied and clearly linked to a specific race than they were in the core game.