I've now just run into a bug that freezes the game when you press "TURN".

GC2 does not crash per-se, as I can still scroll around the map and click on things.

But the "TURN" button remains blanked out, and the next turn never comes. GAME OVER.
Rolling back to earlier saves makes no difference, it still hangs when reaching the same turn.
There are no messages or clues of any kind to be seen, unlike last time when it was obvious a survey ship was eternally trying to attack a freighter thus causing the loop.

This is the second time this has happened to me - first time I shrugged it off as "one of those things". Twice, well it's not "one of those things" and it will do it a third, and a fourth time. I can no longer play a game of this safe in knowledge I'll even be able to finish it! So there's little point me carrying on.

So unless this is an already known of issue to which Guanathor can give me a solution to, it's GC2 over and done with permanently for me. I've tried attaching the save game file on the turn that crashes when you press "TURN" - but guess what? This forum doesn't seem to able to handle it, so no dice.

I'm also going to put a ticket to support as well.

I've found a solution myself. Save the game under a completely different name whilst it is frozen (which is the *last* thing most people would think of under these conditions), reload that save and it's on the next turn as normal. As this is just a game "freeze" rather than a full on system crash you can at least still do things such as save, load etc.

Whether this will be a 100% effective solution or not I do not know.

Guanathor, surely, if you have got 5000+ hours in the game, you *must* have seen this happen to yourself!
I've played it what? 100 hours so far? It's happened twice. A third time when it was obvious a suvery ship trying to attack a frieghter into eternity was doing it!

You have 30x more game time! Pro-rata this should have happened to you 150 times!
Honestly, this may seem bizarre, but it seems I am the the *only* person in existence quickly and persistently encountering / spotting these bugs that no-one else seems to have ever done. It's not just GC2 neither, it's most games I've ever played!

Something is going on within the game code that's never been addressed!

True I'm frustrated Guanathor - not because I'm not enjoying the game, but because I really am enjoying it, but it keeps on giving me these troubles. Especially as individual games often have had more than a little effort already put in - not good when they suddenly hit a bugstop!

Being such a large and complex game is also what has raised a lot of questions and things I've been confused about.

It's not just GC2 neither, I've always found bugs - almost immediately - that no-one else seems to have found (or if they have they've just not bothered reporting) even in game decades old. My then of course no more work is ever going to be done fixing such bugs. And even with games still being backed by it's developers, they often just completely ignore anyone pointing bugs out. Rockstar Games are a major example of that - they just don't give a shit about us gamers, we are just cash cows to them.

Stardock also seem a bit that way these days - with their ever increasingly draconian DRM policies (when buying from stores that let them get away it - ie Steam) and large quantities of highly priced DLCs as seen with Gal Civ 3!

It seems us PC gamers are being shat on repeatedly from great heights, whilst console gamers get all the favour, these days!

Well, that's my feelings at the moment anyway.

That's perfectly understandable. While, I never ran into so many gamestopping bugs in such a short amount time as you did, I did have similar experiences with other games. ToEE is just one example. All the savegames I lost due to corruption. :-( Too true. Or Bethesda, releasing one edition of Skyrim after the other, without ever bothering to fix the known bugs. I'm not sure what you mean with "draconian DRM policies." Stardock only used a one-time online-activation for their games. If I remember it correctly, they started that with GalCiv 2, and stopped it when they released GalCiv 3. I don't recall them using any other form of DRM for their games. Unless something changed in the last years. I haven't played their newer games in a while. The last one was Sorcerer King, and even that was a couple years ago.

As for the DLC, Frogboy announced in a Dev Journal last year, that they only make expansions for GalCiv 3 from now on, because of the backlash they get from releasing DLC. I don't know, whether that changed. I wouldn't go that far. From what I heard, console-gamers got their own troubles, too. Like forced online-only play for certain games, even if they're singe-player only.