Imperium Galactica II: Alliances is the second
computer game in the Imperium Galactica series, developed by Digital Reality and published by
Infogrames. It was released in April of 2000 on
PC CD-ROM. The first game was simply called
Imperium Galactica, and there is a third game,
Imperium Galactica III: Genesis, currently in development.
The game is essentially a
4X Game (eXploration, eXpansion, eXtraction, eXtermination) like
Master of Orion 2 or
Stars!, with the exception that it is not
turn-based. Instead, the player is given the option of continually adjusting the speed that the game moves at, including the option to stop time altogether, to plan out actions. The other notable difference between IG2 and most other 4X games is that IG2 is very
plot-driven. Specific events occur at pre-determined times, making the game a little bit less replayable (there are three different races, though, and countless scenarios), but a lot less monotonous.
The game is pretty graphics-intensive (for a space strategy game), but should run on any computer with hardware-accelerated graphics, and many without (like my
VAIO laptop, which can run almost no other games). For some reason it's listed as 'discontinued' on Amazon.com, but it is still easily obtainable by heading over to
http://www.imperiumgalactica2.com.