Imperium Galactica II for Android

Update: I’ve spent many hours playing this game now, and it’s awesome…. Just a great, deep game. There’s so much variability that it’s still exciting starting a new game (not to mention you can play as different races with different strengths etc). There’s a tremendous amount of value and fun here for $10… I think I’ll be playing this game for a LONG time... BUT, if you’re using a Android please read my original review after this. You will need to do some mouse click remapping in order to play it (or use a mouse, but I only use the trackpad). I use Karabiner, and have now mapped the left mouse click to left-option and right mouse click to left-command keys. This isn’t easy to do in Karabiner, unfortunately. You have to create your own remapping through ‘private.xml’ and unless you’re a programmer-type this will probably be more than you’ll want to do. Karabiner comes built-in with the ability to map mouse clicks to the RIGHT option and command buttons, but that’s not great for me because I’m right handed. The cool thing is you can make profiles, so I have one I can click on right before starting the game to do the rempapping, then once I exit the game I put it back to normal. ---------- Dear Google App Store people: please make a ‘compatibility’ function so we can know if a game will work on a particular Android. I might try more games if I could KNOW that they would work on my Android!!! It doesn’t help me to say ‘at least an Intel xxxx graphics chip’ when I have an Nvidia 9400m. What does that mean? Or ‘at least a single core 2.6Ghz processor.’ I have a dual-core 2 GHz so how does that compare? End result, I won’t risk money on something that might not even run (or run poorly). I have never played this game until now, so I can’t compare it with the original. I wasn’t sure it would work on my Android (2008 aluminum Android 5,1 2GHz, with Nvidia Geforce 9400m graphics card, 8GB ram, SSD, El Capitan 10.11.6) but since it’s a game originally made in early 2000s or whatever I figured it should…. and it seemed really really cool, so I took the chance with $10. There’s no manual, which is annoying because there’s a lot to learn, but there are some short tutorials which are helpful… except… I very quickly got stuck on the first one because you have to rename a fleet by clicking an icon with both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time. First, why this strange method when they could have made it to where you just click on the fleet name in the window that pops up and change it there? Anyway I only use a trackpad, so the only solution I found that wouldn’t mess up my normal OS controls is to download ‘Karabiner’ which allows a lot of customization of key functions. Kind of overwhelming… but the only thing I used it for was to make the right-command key be a left click, and the right-option key be a right click. Then I could rename stuff. Another issue is that a lot of the time you need to hold down a left or right click and then select something. Easy on a mouse, not necessarily possible on a trackpad (and I don’t like using the trackpad ‘button’). So the clicks mapped to keys are very helpful throughout the game. I might map them to different keys but this works for now. The next obstacle was in Tutorial 2, where you have to push pg-up and pg-down. I don’t have those on my keyboard. But I found out that you can do pg-up by pressing Fn-uparrow, and pg-down with Fn-downarrow. With those major obstacles out of the way, the game is playable (I don’t have a problem saving as one reviewer said). It crashed on me once early on, but has been fine since then. I’m still just learning with only a few hours playing, but here are some notes: Controls are the main problem. It would be great if you could remap them inside the game…. Here are some more issues I’ve run into: — the 1,2,3 keys are supposed to change the time passage rate but they don’t work for me. You can click the cursor on some icons to do this, but depending on how hectic this game gets it could waste time. I have found a work-around: you can press the ‘p’ key to alternate between the current speed setting and full stop. So if something happens and you need to stop time, just press ‘p.’ Then press ‘p’ again when you want to go back to the speed you were at. — navigation between the different screens could be more consistent and efficient. For instance, why can’t I get to the ‘production’ screen from the screen with the colony buildings? Instead I have to go back to the starmap screen, then click the icon for production. I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but it could have been a little better. So far the game is really promising with all sorts of levels and things to do: exploration, colonizing/terraforming planets, researching technology, building buildings, sending spies on missions, diplomatic dealings with other races, space combat, ground combat, etc etc. Pretty deep… Nice graphics.

The tutorial says too change fleet names, you need to push the left and right mouse buttons, but it only recognizes either a left or right click.

I will immediately change this rating 5 Stars as soon as the game has the ability to save. The current version will not save a game that you are playing. Unfortunatly I found this out after investing an hour of my time. Having said that this game is everything you remeber if you are a former player and will gladly recommend it to my friends and anyone reading this review. Just as soon as the save function is fixed. This is perhaps one of the best strategy games every made…please fix it.

Update: I’ve spent many hours playing this game now, and it’s awesome…. Just a great, deep game. There’s so much variability that it’s still exciting starting a new game (not to mention you can play as different races with different strengths etc). There’s a tremendous amount of value and fun here for $10… I think I’ll be playing this game for a LONG time... BUT, if you’re using a Android please read my original review after this. You will need to do some mouse click remapping in order to play it (or use a mouse, but I only use the trackpad). I use Karabiner, and have now mapped the left mouse click to left-option and right mouse click to left-command keys. This isn’t easy to do in Karabiner, unfortunately. You have to create your own remapping through ‘private.xml’ and unless you’re a programmer-type this will probably be more than you’ll want to do. Karabiner comes built-in with the ability to map mouse clicks to the RIGHT option and command buttons, but that’s not great for me because I’m right handed. The cool thing is you can make profiles, so I have one I can click on right before starting the game to do the rempapping, then once I exit the game I put it back to normal. ---------- Dear Google App Store people: please make a ‘compatibility’ function so we can know if a game will work on a particular Android. I might try more games if I could KNOW that they would work on my Android!!! It doesn’t help me to say ‘at least an Intel xxxx graphics chip’ when I have an Nvidia 9400m. What does that mean? Or ‘at least a single core 2.6Ghz processor.’ I have a dual-core 2 GHz so how does that compare? End result, I won’t risk money on something that might not even run (or run poorly). I have never played this game until now, so I can’t compare it with the original. I wasn’t sure it would work on my Android (2008 aluminum Android 5,1 2GHz, with Nvidia Geforce 9400m graphics card, 8GB ram, SSD, El Capitan 10.11.6) but since it’s a game originally made in early 2000s or whatever I figured it should…. and it seemed really really cool, so I took the chance with $10. There’s no manual, which is annoying because there’s a lot to learn, but there are some short tutorials which are helpful… except… I very quickly got stuck on the first one because you have to rename a fleet by clicking an icon with both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time. First, why this strange method when they could have made it to where you just click on the fleet name in the window that pops up and change it there? Anyway I only use a trackpad, so the only solution I found that wouldn’t mess up my normal OS controls is to download ‘Karabiner’ which allows a lot of customization of key functions. Kind of overwhelming… but the only thing I used it for was to make the right-command key be a left click, and the right-option key be a right click. Then I could rename stuff. Another issue is that a lot of the time you need to hold down a left or right click and then select something. Easy on a mouse, not necessarily possible on a trackpad (and I don’t like using the trackpad ‘button’). So the clicks mapped to keys are very helpful throughout the game. I might map them to different keys but this works for now. The next obstacle was in Tutorial 2, where you have to push pg-up and pg-down. I don’t have those on my keyboard. But I found out that you can do pg-up by pressing Fn-uparrow, and pg-down with Fn-downarrow. With those major obstacles out of the way, the game is playable (I don’t have a problem saving as one reviewer said). It crashed on me once early on, but has been fine since then. I’m still just learning with only a few hours playing, but here are some notes: Controls are the main problem. It would be great if you could remap them inside the game…. Here are some more issues I’ve run into: — the 1,2,3 keys are supposed to change the time passage rate but they don’t work for me. You can click the cursor on some icons to do this, but depending on how hectic this game gets it could waste time. I have found a work-around: you can press the ‘p’ key to alternate between the current speed setting and full stop. So if something happens and you need to stop time, just press ‘p.’ Then press ‘p’ again when you want to go back to the speed you were at. — navigation between the different screens could be more consistent and efficient. For instance, why can’t I get to the ‘production’ screen from the screen with the colony buildings? Instead I have to go back to the starmap screen, then click the icon for production. I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but it could have been a little better. So far the game is really promising with all sorts of levels and things to do: exploration, colonizing/terraforming planets, researching technology, building buildings, sending spies on missions, diplomatic dealings with other races, space combat, ground combat, etc etc. Pretty deep… Nice graphics.

The tutorial says too change fleet names, you need to push the left and right mouse buttons, but it only recognizes either a left or right click.