Galactic Civilizations IV
Posted: Mon May 10, 2021 8:25 pm
The Gal Civ IV annoucement trailer was posted today. No game details but it's official confirmation that it's coming... sometime.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
https://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
https://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=98224
And....The fourth entry in this iconic strategy game series wants to turn everything up to 11, with new systems and design ideas that will help the new iteration keep up with other modern space strategy games, such as Stellaris or Endless Space 2. For example, the previous ‘maps’ of past Galactic Civilization games will now be connected to other similar maps via subspace streams, offering an entire galaxy for players to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. There are so many changes that Stardock is keen to start collecting player feedback early, with alpha testing kicking off this Summer ahead of a planned release next year.
Each individual map is called a ‘sector’, and sectors will now operate slightly differently to cut down on micro-management. Instead of directly administering every world you colonise, a handful of planets will be designated ‘core’ worlds, whereas everything else will be ‘colonies’, whose only function is to harvest and ship raw resources to their designated core world.
In a Crusader Kings-style twist, characters now take centre stage in how you manage your empire – a bigger galaxy means you’ll need to appoint local governors to oversee your growing empire, and these governors will run various operations on your behalf, with the player only exercising direct influence over the core worlds.
DLC is ‘meh’ or game itself?Freyland wrote:I've made a point of buying every dlc for GALCIV3 (except the races from that other game), but it is all a waste of money, since I keep feeling "meh" after a few hours (or less).
The Basics
Galactic Civilizations is a 4X space strategy game set in the future right after humans have launched their first colony ship into space. The popular franchise is well known for combining good AI, free-form ship movement, and a ship designer. The current edition, Galactic Civilizations III, was released in 2015 to much praise from both gamers and reviewers with particular emphasis on its high replay value, extensive technology tree and clever computer opponents. Now, 6 years later, Stardock returns with Galactic Civilizations IV.
• Title: Galactic Civilizations IV
• Developer: Stardock Entertainment
• Platform: Microsoft Windows 10
• Early Access: Summer 2021 (Alpha version)
• Release Date: TBD
• Homepage: www.galciv4.com
OK, I'm ready to sign up for Early AccessWhat’s new in Galactic Civilizations IV
GalCiv IV aims to take the best elements from GalCiv III and take it to the next level. Below are some highlights:
An Empire of Empires
Previous GalCiv games involved an AI for each computer opponent. In GalCiv IV, each civilization is made up of hundreds of characters each controlled by an AI. These characters have their own strengths, weaknesses, and backstories. They carry out the player’s orders, but they also have their own agendas and can be influenced by things like opposing civilizations, their own greed and ambitions, or the current state of the galaxy.
A Maps of Maps
GalCiv is well known for its free-form maps. The player selects a map size and ships can move in any direction hex by hex. GalCiv IV takes this concept and builds on it by having a given “map” be a sector, which is then connected to other sectors. Early on, players can only travel between sectors through specific pathways calls subspace streams. Later, players gain the ability to travel directly through subspace. This change means that the exploration and expansion periods of the game continue throughout the game rather than being only at the start of the game and allows for much bigger playing fields for the civilizations.
A Story of Stories
Earlier entries in the series included a single campaign story and then a separate sandbox mode. In Galactic Civilizations IV, the campaign is gone. In its place is a vastly larger epic that could never be contained in a hundred playthroughs, let alone a single one. These stories, now called missions, originate from the characters and events occurring through a given playthrough. The result being that each game is designed to feel like an epic story.
The Evolution of Space Strategy Games
These major changes are only the start of what amounts to a major reimagining of not just Galactic Civilizations, but the nature of 4X games entirely. As computers have gotten more powerful, games such as Galactic Civilizations have the opportunity to depart from the board-game like nature of their ancestors. Galactic Civilizations IV is essentially an AI-driven simulator with a turn-based strategy surface. Traditionally, strategy games have been designed in terms of equal or near equal allies and opponents. But nations are made up of states. States are made up of counties. Counties are made up of cities and so forth. Galactic Civilizations IV aims to give users the sense that they really are the leader of an interstellar government with people who may have their own agendas and merely require the opportunity to act on it. With Galactic Civilizations IV, Stardock looks to greatly increase the immersion of the game by having each game be its own epic story. The player’s galactic sandbox is so different from game to game now that each game is best described as its own campaign.
The Getting Started section of the official wiki is good. Also the Victory section.
Here is the article on eXplorminate:Moat_Man wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 10:20 pm There is some more info on the game's website:
https://www.galciv4.com/
Brad Wardell wrote an article for eXplorminate that will be posted tomorrow. I'll link it for those interested.
Check out the article for more info.So how do you make your galactic civilization feel like it’s a living, breathing thing? Put (simulated) living, breathing things in it: characters.
We have moved everything that makes sense from being an abstract number to being a character. Population? Instead of it being 3.2 billion, it's just 3 characters. Every character has stats and background.
Every character has a set of skills with numerical values to them. They also have a backstory and can be interacted with in various ways. These characters do everything, from acting as your representatives on planets (governors – not AI governors – they don’t make decisions for you, they carry out your will), to managing your technology policies (and again, they don’t make decisions for you, they carry out your will).
When a character is put in charge of a planet, their stats provide perks to the planet. But like real people, they have needs and ambitions, and if those needs and ambitions aren’t satisfied bad things can happen, including them going independent and taking their planets with them. We’ll be talking about core worlds vs. colonies in the next journal. Suffice to say, these characters are pretty powerful.
On planets, population now grows in whole numbers since each population is now represented by a citizen character with their own intelligence, social stats, etc.
Will the 1.0 release be an Epic exclusive or will it release on Steam as well?Island Dog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:57 pm Alpha access is here! You can learn more about it on our forums.
I don't have much info yet about what's happening with the Metaverse unfortunately as it's still early, but I didn't want to leave your question unanswered.Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 3:47 pm Somehow I missed this thread.
Question for Island Dog, still doing the Metaverse with this, and if so, will it be an improvement over GC3? In GC2, for a long time I was in the top 50, playing the game as intended (not leveraging any loopholes or the like for artificially improved scores). In GC3, however, some people were getting massive scores...I was winning my games, but the points I got were a pittance and in spite of dedicated play for awhile, my ranking was somewhat below pond scum. I played the hell out of GC2 because I liked keeping up my ranking (and IIRC, we had a high performing OO guild).
I can't speak of any specifics, but we want GC4 to be on whatever platform you want to play it from.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:26 pmWill the 1.0 release be an Epic exclusive or will it release on Steam as well?Island Dog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:57 pm Alpha access is here! You can learn more about it on our forums.
Nice politician answer. R&P is a few forums down the page.Island Dog wrote: ↑Wed Jun 16, 2021 9:06 amI can't speak of any specifics, but we want GC4 to be on whatever platform you want to play it from.jztemple2 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:26 pmWill the 1.0 release be an Epic exclusive or will it release on Steam as well?Island Dog wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:57 pm Alpha access is here! You can learn more about it on our forums.
The rest of the article is a very detailed look with lots of screen shots. For those who are fans of GalCiv, there is much to like thereIntroduction
If you’re coming from Galactic Civilizations III, you’re in for a treat. And if you have never played a Galactic Civilizations game before, then know this: this game is specifically designed to answer to the question, “I want to play a space 4X game, what game should I start with?”
Read on to learn what this game is all about, who made it, and why we made it.
A little about the team
The highest rated space strategy game of all time is called Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor. With a 92 Metacritic score, it is tied with Alpha Centauri, Unreal Tournament, and other greats. After Galactic Civilizations II, the team went on to other projects and our lead developer went on maternity leave for a few years. Now, armed with a decade's worth of ideas, the team has been reunited for Galactic Civilizations IV.
The big changes
When we started designing GalCiv IV, we had a long list of grievances with the 4X genre. We are, after all, the first customers for these games. Moreover, since GalCiv III was released, the space strategy genre kind of exploded with some really great games that had their own ideas and innovations.
Here's a high level summary of the new features and what they are meant to do:
1. Sectors. These are maps that connect to other maps and dramatically improves pacing, letting us have much bigger maps (because let’s face it, 200 tiles of dead space is not fun to traverse).
2. Characters. This will be the most obvious first turn change for players. Less spreadsheety, more nuance.
3. Policies. Our stats show that the vast majority of players play as the Terran Alliance. Not even a custom civ. Sigh. So we need a way to allow players to customize their civ during the game. Once you use this feature you’ll never want to go back because it’s obvious.
4. Prestige Victory. 4X games are notorious for knowing you’re going to win long before you actually win. The Prestige counter combined with the new Galactic Achievements feature allows players to move the game to the endgame quickly.
5. Executive Orders. GalCiv IV introduces a new resource called “Control” that allows players to perform direct actions on the game. These actions have consequences too, but allow players more direct ways to intervene.
6. Core worlds. A big issue in 4X games is the micro-management late game. In every GalCiv playthrough, later in the game the player might have dozens of planets to manage (just like in other 4X games where you might have dozens of cities or stars or whatever). GalCiv IV has core worlds which are the high quality worlds that matter which are then fed by colonies which require no management. So late game, the player might have 50 worlds in their civilization but only 9 that are core worlds.
7. Combat. Battles (and invasions) are no longer necessarily over in a single turn. An invasion might take several turns to occur. Transports are only required for core worlds, whereas colonies can be taken by any ship with weapons. Battles can also take place across multiple tiles, allowing for ships with extreme range weapons to soften up targets from multiple tiles away.
8. Missions. We eliminated “the campaign” and instead took the content and made it so that every game can feel like a campaign with “missions,” which are story driven quests based on who you are playing as, who you are playing against, and what characters are in your civilization.
9. Ideology. Gone is the old “good” vs. “neutral” vs. “evil”. Now there are 7 categories of ideology each with two trees. The choices players face are no longer “I’m a good person vs. I’m a terrible being”. Instead the choices might be between cooperation vs. creativity or innovation vs. tradition or compassion vs. pragmatism.
10. New Economic System. In the new system, resources are brought in from the worlds themselves and then multiplied (as a %) by the population who are empowered (against by a %) by the improvements on the planet. The approval rating on a planet directly affects production (making approval matter a lot) with new elements such as crime (which affects planetary income) and pollution (which affects food production) as additional potential casualties of player decisions. And approval is now extremely nuanced and explained in great detail.
This is, by no means, a comprehensive list. The game has an entirely new UI that is much cleaner and more effective to use. The general game mechanics work together in really nice and intuitive ways. We have nested tooltips and lots of other goodies. This guide will walk you through the game as it stands Pre-Beta 1.
From what I remember from the journals, it is still going to be hands off. There was a discussion that maybe instead of having a battle viewer that the battle would actually be viewed on the main map. I'll fire up the Beta at some point and take a look. Considering the scope of the game, fighting out every battle would probably be a grind. You'll have a lot of control over the fleet by how you design the ships, which ships you assign to a fleet and also the roles you select for each ship.
It’s time to talk about Galactic Civilizations 4. Any 4X fan should know of the Galactic Civilizations (GalCiv) series. While the first of the series was hardly noticed, its sequel Galactic Civilizations 2 is still considered one of the greatest 4X experiences you can have and made our Top Ten 4X Games of All Time list. It was a tight, engaging experience with an above-board AI that made Brad Wardell, the CEO of Stardock, a name many in the 4X and strategy community now recognize, as he was the principal AI developer for GalCiv 2.
Now, almost 18 years after the first iteration, Galactic Civilizations 4 has reached its “beta” phase. And I’m here to discuss my impressions so far with about 60 hours of gameplay under my belt.
Let me preface this preview with a warning. I’m not going to go easy on GalCiv 4, but I’m also not assuming that my critiques will be addressed. I’m most critical of games at this stage that I feel have the most potential and I think Galactic Civilizations 4 could very well be the best Galactic Civilizations game, and perhaps even one of the best 4X games, ever. But it’s not there yet.
Some of my complaints, as a result, may seem a bit nit-picky, but I feel compelled to voice them in the hope that GalCiv 4 reaches its full potential.
That being said, let’s talk about this potential gem.
This bit make me really hopeful:jztemple2 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:55 am This is an excellent review of the current state of GalCiv4 from the eXplorminate website: Galactic Civilizations 4: The eXplorminate Preview
My evergreen biggest wish for 4X games is to let me focus more on the big picture without getting mired in tiny mundane details. I don't want to set a colony tax collector's marching pace and rations when my empire is enormous and far-reaching.It’s in this system [feeder/core worlds] that Galactic Civilizations 4 attempts to focus on a more macro-level gameplay experience. You’ll only have a minor-to-moderate amount of Core Worlds, but many, many more colonies that feed into them. This leads to fewer settled planets in need of management and building queues, which shifts the player’s focus to exploration, fleet building, and colony accrual.
Hmm, three months since the beta release. Well, I haven't really gone much into the game since I figured it would be in beta a lot longer. I'll be playing it once the 1.0 hits the street but as I said above, the gameplay is a bit of a culture shock to those of us who got into GalCiv3.infinitelurker wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:36 am STARDOCK UNVEILS GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS IV RELEASE DATE, APRIL 26TH
I look forward to your take on it. Usually I'm all in day 1, but money is an issue now. And I don't think I ever played the last add-on to GalCiv3 (but I have it).jztemple2 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:44 pmHmm, three months since the beta release. Well, I haven't really gone much into the game since I figured it would be in beta a lot longer. I'll be playing it once the 1.0 hits the street but as I said above, the gameplay is a bit of a culture shock to those of us who got into GalCiv3.infinitelurker wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:36 am STARDOCK UNVEILS GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS IV RELEASE DATE, APRIL 26TH