Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is a 4X turn-based strategy by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to the 2003 game, Galactic Civilizations, and was released at retail and on Stardock's online subscription service, TotalGaming.net, on February 21, 2006. An expansion, Dark Avatar, was released in February 2007. A second expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, was released in April 2008.

Dread Lords is set in the 23rd century, when multiple alien civilizations, including Terrans, scramble to conquer the galaxy, planet by planet, by force, diplomacy, influence (culture), or technology. Dread Lords focuses on the single player experience that consists of a Campaign mode and a "Sandbox" mode, and omits multiplayer. The game is notable for its artificial intelligence, which is challenging without being given resources and abilities not available to the player, as is common in the majority of strategy games. The game was a modest commercial success, and it was received favorably by critics, winning multiple Editor's Choice awards. Stardock also opted for a rather unusual distribution strategy that lacks copy prevention, and allowed for extensive modding by the community.

A sequel, titled Galactic Civilizations III, was announced by Stardock on October 15, 2013. A pre-release version was made available through Steam in March 2014, which allowed customers to play the game while it is still in development. The sequel was the first game in the series to feature multiplayer and used hex-based game tiles. The full version of the game was released in May 2015.

The story of Galactic Civilizations II and the back plot of the ingame universe it inhabits is based on a series of short stories written by Stardock CEO Brad Wardell.

A powerful, highly advanced civilization, remembered in legend as the "Precursors", colonized much of the galaxy thousands of years ago. As younger specimens throughout the galaxy began to develop the beginnings of their own primitive civilizations, it led to a philosophical rift within Precursor society, splitting it into two factions. The Arnor faction wanted to guide the younger civilizations toward enlightenment. The Dread Lord faction wanted to exterminate them.

This dispute erupted into a catastrophic civil war. The Dread Lords came close to destroying the Arnor in the war's final battle. However, before the final blow was struck, the Dread Lords and the Arnor both mysteriously vanished.

The younger civilizations eventually began to explore the galaxy on their own but their progress was slow. The first wave of exploration was made possible after the invention of stargates. A stargate was expensive to build and would only transport a ship to another stargate, which first had to be constructed at the destination.

The youngest civilization, Humanity, obtained plans for the construction of a stargate after the Arcean civilization initiated first contact with them. Human scientists realized that, with the inclusion of a fusion power source, the technology behind the stargates could be modified to create a hyperdrive engine. Hyperdrive allowed starships to travel great distances on their own.