Note: These instructions are somewhat more complicated than those above. It is suggested that you try that way first--if that method is unsuccessful, the below may help.
My setup: Macbook Pro (early 2009), OS X 10.6.2, Crossover Games 8.1.4
Here's what I did to get GalCiv 2 and its expansions working:
1. Install Impulse in a Boot Camp partition, then download and install the game and its expansion (if you own them).
2. Reboot into OS X.
3. Create a new XP bottle in CXG.
4. Copy the Stardock Games folder into the Program Files folder of your new bottle.
5. Delete the "sig.bin" file from the main Galactic Civilizations 2 directory.
6. Using the "Run Command" option in the CXG Programs menu, navigate to the main executable for whichever version of GalCiv2 you are running. Don't bother with the launchers; they don't work at all in Crossover. Run the executable.
7. You will be asked to input your Stardock-registered email address and your serial number. The text fields, however, will be greyed out and you will not be able to see what you are typing. Don't worry. Just carefully type in the correct email address, then copy the appropriate serial number from either the registration email Stardock sent you when you purchased the game, or type your serial into a text file and copy it from that. Click on "paste serial from clipboard" which is located just below the serial number text box. If all you see is a smaller grey box below the serial box, just click on that. You can, of course, type in your serial, but the copy-paste method will ensure accuracy. The game should now start up just fine.
8. You will get many error boxes claiming that your screen resolution is wrong, that you have no 3D hardware, or, if you are running a GalCiv 2 expansion, that you do not have the main game installed. Just hit return and ignore them. Upon your initial start, you may find that the game screen will not fit
on your monitor. Quitting and restarting the game fixed that for me.
If not, you should be able to get to the video options to change it
manually.
9. From the main menu, go to the options screen, click the Video tab, and set your screen resolution to whatever is 22 pixels short of your screen's vertical resolution. On my Macbook Pro, the standard resolution is 1440x900, but the game crashes when that resolution is selected. Setting it to 1440x878 allows the OS X menu bar to remain at the top of the screen and, more importantly, stops the game from crashing. Don't ask me why.
10. If you still have problems with the game crashing, you can add the following overrides to the bottle: 3dx9_27.dll, d3dx9_28.dll, usp10.dll, msvcrt.dll. This may help you, but I cannot say if it has done anything for me.
After following these steps, you should have a working game. The only problem I can report so far is that some of the fonts are still a bit funny looking, although nowhere near as bad as before. I've played through one really long game with no crashes to report.
