Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords (commonly GalCiv II or GalCiv2) is a 4X turn-based strategy computer game by Stardock. It is the sequel to the original Galactic Civilizations. Two expansions Dark Avatar (2007) and Twilight of the Arnor (2008) were collected with the original title into the "Ultimate Edition".

GalCiv II is set in the 23rd Century, when multiple alien races, including Humans, scramble to conquer the galaxy, planet by planet, by force, diplomacy, influence (culture), or technology. GalCiv II 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.

Support summary

	Support	Method	HUD
Widescreen:	Hor+	Native	Proper
Ultra/Super-Wide:	Hor+	Native	Optimized
Multi-Monitor:	Hor+	Native	Hindrance
4k UltraHD:

Rendered Cut-Scene:	Hor+
FMV Cut-Scene:	Static Aspect

Game information

Game status:

Released

Release Date:

Tuesday, 21 February, 2006

Tested Version:

Play styles:

Single player

Setting:

Sci-Fi

Genre:

Turn-Based Strategy, 4X

Developer:

Stardock

Links:

Website ⋅ Wikipedia ⋅ PCGamingWiki

Store Links:

Steam,

Comparison Screenshots

4:3 Screenshot
16:10 Screenshot
16:9 Screenshot
Ultra-Wide (21:9) Screenshot
Super-Wide (32:9) Screenshot
Eyefinity / Surround Screenshot

Solutions & Issues

Baseline (Widescreen) Solution & Issues

The game now offers native support for all Windows resolutions, and has an option for Custom Resolutions. You can still manually set a resolution via:

My Documents\My Games\GC2TwilightArnor\prefs.ini

In this file lookup the lines :
[Video]
DisplayWidth=xxxx
DisplayHeight=yyyy

=====

The (pre-rendered) tutorials in the game have a fixed resolution, taking up a small portion of the screen. There is an option to put it in full screen. However, when using a widescreen resolution, the screen is filled, but the tutorial's aspect is not. This means you lose the bottom part of the screen, which can be rather disturbing.

The HUD generally remains as it is, except for the middle bottom part, which becomes larger fit the screen size. This can cause tables to become rather spacious, making it difficult to combine the explanation with the numbers, due to the large space between them.

Ultra/Super-Wide (21:9/32:9) Specific Solution & Issues

Eyefinity / Surround Specific Solution & Issues

4k UHD Specific Solution & Issues