Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition
Skip · Strategy · 2011
Steam Deck UnsupportedThe verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $9.99.
- Reviews
- 77% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 512 MB of memory, 64 MB DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card, 2 GB of storage. Windows only.
Get the complete GalCiv II saga including Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, the expansion pack Dark Avatar, and the newest expansion pack Twilight of the Arnor!
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
- How long it takes to beat isn't in our data. We scored it as a typical Strategy game (about 8 hours) and docked the score for the missing length.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $3.99, set in December 2015. It has been discounted 63 times in the 14 years tracked here, typically at 50 percent off, with about 6 weeks between sales.
On value it sits in the top 33 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 70 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 68 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Galactic Civilizations III ($29.99, scores 46) beats it on value, while it beats Galactic Civilizations IV ($39.99, scores 25).
The press liked it more than its buyers did, 92 against 77 percent.
Of the 214 Steam-purchase reviews this site sampled, none come from buyers who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2020 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 51 percent of the 144 reviews written there were positive, against 77 percent overall, and those are 15 percent of everything written about it.
Players
22 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
No data upstream: achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
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Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition scores 38/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). Length is estimated at 8 hours, not measured, so the score is docked. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/202200/galactic-civilizations-ii-ultimate-editionThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Aug 1, price as of Sep 22.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.