twilight-of-the-arnor posts

Just a few days after the release of their last patch for the game, Stardock has gone ahead and released yet another patch for Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor, the second and final expansion to their acclaimed space strategy game.

The patch is only available to download via Stardock's Impulse and Stardock Central client service but you can check out the release notes on the game's official web site. The 1.96 patch is once again mostly for bug fixes and improvements but an upcoming 2.0 patch for the game should be a more significant release.

Stardock has had a busy week. It released its election sim game The Political Machine 2008 to stores and now its released the first patch for Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor, the second and final expansion to their acclaimed space strategy game.

The patch is only available to download via Stardock's Impulse and Stardock Central client service but you can check out the release notes on the game's official web site. The 1.95 patch is mostly for bug fixes and improvements but an upcoming 2.0 patch for the game should be a more significant release.

Twilight of the Arnor picks up some time after Dark Avatar, and the galaxy is in rough shape. The evil Drengin Empire still maintains major control while the Dread Lords quietly manipulate things from behind the scenes until it comes time to step out with a show of force. Fortunately, all hope isn't lost. The humans located the last of the Arnor, the ancient precursor race that holds the secret to defeating the Dread Lords. While the story might seem like pretty standard for space operas, the expansion delivers plenty of fantastic gameplay improvements and tweaks to make it compelling and keeps Galactic Civilizations II placed among the best strategy games around. Conquer the galaxy after the jump

Stardock has been working for a while on their second expansion pack to Galactic Civilizations II. The expansion, titled Twilight of the Arnor got pushed back a bit; originally scheduled for last fall it was then pushed back to February. Now, Stardock has finally announced that the expansion will be released via digital download in a little more than a week on April 30.

So what will Twilight of the Arnor have? According to Stardock head man Brad Wardell, maybe the question should be, "What won't it have?". Wardell has the rather lofty claim that, "This is arguably the most comprehensive expansion pack in strategy game history." Wow. Among the additions will be new tech trees for all 12 civilizations in the game, improved graphics and a new victory condition called "Ascension". Players will be able to take control of the Ascension crystals in the campaign portion of the game and use them to achieve victory. You will need to have the original game and the first expansion pack, Dark Avatar, to play Twilight of the Arnor. It will cost $29.95 for the expansion itself. If you don't own the original game or the expansion (and you should) you can get a bundle deal with all three products for $59.95.