Final Verdict

Dark Avatar's subtle improvements to the GalCiv franchise breathe some freshness into the game. Once again it's all too easy to sit down for “just a few turns” and find yourself rubbing your eyes five hours before you have to wake up for work. The campaign offers new puzzle-piece challenges for the player, but the meat of the game still resides in the new maps, at least for this reviewer.

Above all, compared to almost any 4X game out there, it's the AI that stands out in Galactic Civilizations. It doesn't cheat, except at the highest difficulty levels, and it behaves in believable ways. It exploits weaknesses, it doesn't gang up on the player, and it uses sound strategies. Sometimes you can't help but wonder at its propensity to charge deep into your space with an unarmed transport going for an unguarded planet, but then again, such tactics do work every now and then.