Imperium Galactica II: Alliances

Imperium Galactica II: Alliances is a real-time game featuring aspects of RTT, RTS and empire-building computer games from the Hungarian-based studio Digital Reality. It is the sequel to Digital Reality's previous game, Imperium Galactica.

Description
Imperium Galactica II: Alliances is a PC game developed by Digital Reality, the sequel to Digital Reality's previous game, Imperium Galactica. Released in 2000, Imperium Galactica II features complete control over your empire at the onset of the game and therefore is more similar to other empire-building 4X games (eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, eXterminate) such as Master of Orion.

Gameplay – There are eight unique races involved in this game which almost all can be traded with or spied upon, a great number of buildings, ships and tanks which all can be customized with their own weaponry. The gameplay involves managing your colonies, expanding your empire, conquering enemy planets, researching, diplomacy with other races, spying, space battles, ground battles and more.

Real-time – Everything in the game happens realtime, though you can pause the game and give out orders if you feel the need for it.

Multiplayer – The game supports multiplayer either by host or by IRC network. Every player can host their own game. The game uses port 5200 for incoming data and port 6667 for outgoing data (TCP protocol). Which means players need to enable port 5200 on their firewall to be able to host a game.

Skirmish mode – The game originally lacks a skirmish mode, but it was added with the 1.06 patch, and with the release of the 1.05 patch a mod was created to add this functionality.

Plot
The story of Imperium Galactica II is not entirely linear. Instead, what is featured is several scenarios pitting one Empire against another, and the main campaign, where the player can choose one of three factions: The Kra'hen Empire, The Shinari Republic, or The Solarian Federation. Each race has different objectives in their respective campaigns, and the player can only win the campaign by meeting these dynamic goals or conquering the galaxy by eliminating all other factions.


 * Kra'hen Empire – As part of a brutal and bloodthirsty race, your race has a fetish for collecting the heads of your enemies (as soon will be revealed in the gameplay videos) and is entering the galaxy occupied by the other seven races in the game. As Imperator, your objective is to do whatever is necessary to appease your God-Emperor. His orders - to eliminate all other races from the galaxy, and bring their heads to him!


 * Solarian Federation – Legend tells of four "Tears" (Data Crystals) strewn across the galaxy by your ancestors that have the power to make the Human race invincible, including resurrecting their dead leader. Representing the humans of the far-future, your Solarian Empire must recover these Tears through diplomacy, trade, and war. It is eventually discovered that many of the other races in the game such as the Iberon, Godan, and Toluen, were genetically-altered humans adapted to conform to specific climates.


 * Shinari Republic – As the weakest race militarily, the Shinari Republic resorts to espionage and trade to turn things to their advantage. Upon encountering the Kra'hen, you must aid the Solarians in uniting all the other races in the galaxy to face this common threat. But when the Kra'hen are defeated, you turn down the Solarian Federation's offer for a galaxy-wide alliance because "war is good for profit" - instead, you must somehow reanimate the mad Solarian Emperor Kaileron, whose clout and radical views would certainly plunge the galaxy back into conflict.

+Skirmish

Factions
There are eight unique races, which all have their own unique advantages and disadvantages in technology, diplomacy, and breeding.

In the game the following factions exist: Solarian Federation, Kra'hen Empire, Shinari Republic, Antarian Empire, Iberon Empire, Cheblon Clans, Godan Kingdom and the Toluen Empire. Each faction also has its own home planet and capital ship type.

During the Campaign a few other races and factions races are observed.


 * Zaul - Little green men with elephant-like trunks whose world is in most campaigns about to turn into a supernova, and the player is given the choice of saving them.*
 * United Pirates - Can consist of many races, these goons are often up to no good. Doing things like robbing ships or killing innocents.
 * Kul Hunters - In some campaigns saving the Zaul can trigger the Kul Hunters, who will send their fleet to destroy you for aiding the Zaul.
 * Cha'karg - In the human campaign a terraform ship may suddenly try to terraform your colony, once destroyed the cha'karg will reveal themselves with a few planets you can take.
 * Traders - Traders operate trading routes around the galaxy,they are often attacked by pirates, sometime they offer you inventions.
 * Pyridians - The Pyridians usually appear in one of the campaign modes as a race of shape shifters. In the Kra'Hen campaign their planets are the sources of a mysterious "Bermude Triangle" in space which causes the destruction of your ships unless you research the x-ray radar.
 * Aminit - Unknown
 * Shape Changers - Android like species often used as spies.
 * Fist Tribe - Unknown

Compatibility issues
This game needs v1.08 or higher to run on Windows XP. The game may lag if not updated with the unofficial v1.14 patch. An alternative to patching is to change the amount of virtual memory to 515.