If you are having problems installing from the CD-ROMs, try copying the files from the CDs to your hard drive and then run the installation from your hard drive. If you are having problems activating GalCiv2, please read this sticky post:
http://forums.galciv2.com/122873
If you have any other problems installing or activating GalCiv2 and you can't find an answer in a sticky post, please e-mail support@stardock.com
With all the hardware and configurations out there, it's inevitable that some people are going to run into a problem. The most important thing to bear in mind that if something is happening for you, it may not be happening for anyone else. Our job is to do our best to make sure the game works perfectly for you.
When you have a problem, the best tools you have is the debug.err that is in the GalCiv2 directory. It will tell us virtually everything we need. In addition, you can install Smart Exception from Stardock Central (see downloads section here) from the "free stuff" in Stardock Central. If you have that running and GalCiv II crashes or something, it will create a file that will tell us exactly where.
So that we're on the same page - the game should never crash on you. As far as we know, there are zero crash bugs in Galactic Civilizations II.
The first thing to always do is to make sure you have the latest version of the game.
#1 Game crashes immediately.
Happens to approximately 0.5% of users.
Most common cause: Running your desktop at below 1024x768 or running your desktop in 16-bit color. This resolves 99% of users. Check your debug.err and make sure you're not running at some really low resolution.
#2 Game crashes randomly while playing!
Happens to approximately 0.5% of users.
Most common cause: People with older video drivers. We weren't kidding, you MUST HAVE A RECENT (past year) set of video drivers. If you don't, the game will crash randomly. The readme says this. The stickies say this. We're not kidding around here. You must update your video drivers. Ignoring all that and running into the forum and saying "How could they ship this piece of #$@#!" is not going to update your video driver. You must update the video driver.
Ex: If you're running the nvidia 81.95 drivers, update them to 81.98 or better.
You also absolutely must be running at 1024x768 or higher. That means both X and Y must be equal to or greater than those two numbers.
Next most common cause: People who have eliminated their page file or have a very small page file. That's your virtual memory. Check the debug.err and near the top it will say how much virtual memory you have allocated. If it's less than a gig (heck, nowadays you should have at least 2 gigs for virtual memory) then there's your problem.
Next most common cause: Overheating. The game's 3D engine has no polygon count limit, no texture limit. It's designed so that even 2 years from now, you can with mods plug in advanced textures. Some modders have already put in ships from popular sci-fi movies that have over a million polygons and it works. But it comes at a cost: Your video cards are fully utilized. And that can translate to heat. This mostly affects people who have built their own machines and thrown in a powerful video card. Version 1.0X (and later) support GPU throttling which should solve this.
Next most common cause: People with AMD64 Dual Core who haven't updated their chipset drivers. GO here, get your drivers, play game, have fun.
#3 You lose your mouse pointer
People with nVidia Geforce 6X series cards (for the most part) have reported this. We have yet to get it in our internal lab and it doesn't seem to be that wide spread but it's a real show stopper. The solution is to use the hardware mouse cursor which is in the video options area of the game.
OTHER TIPS:
Read the stickies! Post your debug.err. Or at the very least tell us what kind of computer you have (though debug.err will tell us all about your computer).
For more troubleshooting tips, please read this sticky:
http://forums.galciv2.com/127231