Post originally by DrSchadenfreude at 2003-08-27 16:44:42
Converted from Phorums BB System

I'd say the biggest up-front differnce is ships. MoOII let you customize your own ships with whatever tech you had handy. GC is more abstract. Each hull type has base attack, defense, movement and hp values. However your effectiveness can be incresed by researching specific techs (there are other ways, but techs are the most common). Learning a tech might give you +10 to your weapons rating which will translate to a higher attack value for all your ships, the instant the tech is aquired. Bad news is that you can't specifically customize ships, good news is that there's no refitting-- upgrades are automatic.

Also like the civ games, ship battles are a series of ship-on-ship duels that occur on the strategic map. There's no tactical combat, which for me is a major sticking point.

There's a galatic assembly that passes laws, but that doesn't seem to work out well. You can't confer with the AI's to swing a specific agenda (like you could in Alpha Centauri) and everyone pretty much votes for themselves on everything.

The random events were mentioned, and I think they're the best aspect of the game. There are techs only available to "good" or "evil" races and the "good" ones are worth the inconveniences of being a decent fellow.

Empire management is similar, only each planet can produce a "military" (ship) and "social" (building) at the same time.

Another similarity is that you can customize your race with various advantages (better economy, better attack rating) much like you can do in MoOII.

I should also mention in closing that this game came out about the same time as MoOIII, and after lurking on the forums of both games, I'd say that MoOII fans preferred GC over MoOIII by a sizable majority.