Gal Civ II: Dark Avatar info and screenies

Our favourite 4X game has an addon due out next week.

Press release and screenies:

21 Feb, 2006. One of the most acclaimed strategy games of 2006, Galactic Civilisations II: Dread Lords continues the story of space conquest, in the form of new expansion pack, Dark Avatar.

While maintaining the feel and personality of Dread Lords, Dark Avatar offers a large range of new features and improvements; enough that many reviewers are dubbing it a pseudo-sequel. These include new civ options, more complex star systems, new espionage elements and improved diplomacy, an entirely new campaign, better graphics, super abilities and an even sharper AI.

Dark Avatar also features custom environments, designed to combat the tendency in Dread Lords for players to blitz colonise planets early on. In Dark Avatar, roughly half the planets in the galaxy require special technology to colonize. Invest in it too soon and you could fall behind, too late and you might end up with too few planets to support your burgeoning empire.

A new opponent designer also allows players to create their own opponents right down to what their units look like and what artificial intelligence engine they will use.

Galactic Civilisations II: Dread Lords and the expansion pack, Dark Avatar will ship jointly as a Gold Edition and will be available at leading Australian retailers from next week. The game is developed by Stardock and will be published in Australia by N3VRF41L Publishing.