Galactic Civilizations Review

In the great spectrum of PC gaming one can find the need for strategy and tactics at every level. From the pimply-faced teen domain of the FPS or “Run and Gun”, through to the RTS middle ground and all the way to the far right of PC gaming, the turn based Strategy Game. The question each one of us must ask ourselves is where our personal tastes lie and how broadly we wish to explore the grand diversity of the grand “Game-o-sphere”.

Now many prefer the visceral explosions and split second pressure of the real time genres but these games tend to be limited in scope. The sights of your plasma BFG and the next crate are often the “full view,” so-to-speak.

The advantage of a turn based strategy game is one of very broad horizons.

Galactic Civilizations, created by Stardock and produced by Strategy First, falls squarely into the turn based realm. In the game you control the fate of the human race in an expansive universe for a very long time. One turn button at a time, you will colonize and exert influence across many worlds. You will interact with 5 main different races and compete with them for survival. Of course there is only one question you have to ask yourself before shattering the piggy bank: “Is this my idea of fun?”

Galactic Civilizations is an extensive turn based strategy game in the traditional sense of the word. It follows much in the same vein as the familiar formulas seen in such great games as Master of Orion or the Civilization series.

Galactic Civilization is somewhat narrower in scope than its predecessors, allowing you to play only the human side while competing with 5 other main races for dominance of the “known universe” (tertiary races do show up but they do not attempt to control anything and are there for the exploiting). This may sound somewhat limiting at first but rather than allowing the player to try different civilizations, the developers have opted for a totally flexible external world. You may tailor the 5 competing races, in both stance and intelligence. You can tailor the size of the universe and you can also add internal flexibility through the choice of Human Governments, which give bonuses for certain areas you wish to maximize (for example, the War Party makes better ships, weapons and soldiers). The game encourages the player to try different styles of play by allowing military, technological as well as diplomatic and “influence” victories. This is not unlike the “rule the world/build the ship to Alpha Centauri” of Civilization II fame.

All in all the groundwork for Galactic Civilization is solid and built on successful ideas which have come before.

The production quality for Galactic Civilization is very high. The game ran very stably for me and produced no bugs that I could see, so all in all, well done in this critical department. Graphics and sound for Galactic Civilizations are also solid, if not divinely inspired. Planets and ships are all rendered decently but remember this is not the main focus of the game.

Galactic Civilization has all of the standard tricks. You have planets to colonize and industry to build, all of which you can direct. Industries require maintenance money but give bonuses and payback. You will have things to research and will have to decide how much effort you wish to put into this research and where. In turn, the fruits of your research will yield new industry or capabilities which will support your march to galactic domination. Galactic Wonders are also here along with a myriad of improvements which will help you with influence and trade.

On the military side of the house, you can build a factory and a warship at the same time..now that is revolutionary! You will have to build a fleet tailored to your needs. Warships, scouts, survey ships (which allow you to explore anomalies for goodies), transports for invasions and colonization, freighters for trade routes (important to generate income) and star bases are all listed. All of this is fairly comprehensive and also done before, if by another name.

You will have to manage internal politics and the morale if your population. The “Tax Rate and Girlie Bar” balance as I like to call it. Keeping your people happy while gouging as much money as you can to fund research industry and the like is a fine art. This is well done and includes several forms of government you can switch to which come with bonuses and dangers; all wrapped up in the need to stay in power or wind up with a minority government can make for an interesting challenge as you are penalized and have to work under more restraining conditions.

Combat and diplomacy are both included in the game. Combat is a very bland, dice rolling affair of hit point-vs-defence-point slugfests where the biggest and best equipped win. This can lead to serious technological disadvantages if you haven’t kept up with the war hawk aliens when they come a-knockin’.

Diplomacy, though advertised as “complex” is actually fairly standard. Often a species will demand a technology or money (sometimes a planet if you are really weak) or they will march in and pound you into the ground. You, of course, can do the same. The list of concessions and demands can become complicated but it never goes much beyond “pay off a friend/refuse an enemy” type negotiations. Influence is a twist which is new to the scene. This element calculates how influential your race is within a sector, based on what you have built, how powerful your military is, and what you are trading with other species and star bases. It is possible for a planet to convert to your side and vice versa if you become influential enough. This is all an interesting alternative to all out war. Unfortunately, I rarely saw any evidence of it as fighting usually broke out, quickly forcing one to build starships instead of Galactic Wonders.

Lastly is the element of morality. You will be faced with some decisions which will require you to make a moral decision. For example you will go to colonize a world and a pre-industrial civilization will already be there. Do you a) work around them and suffer a production penalty, b) stick them on reservations and break even or c) enslave them all and get a production bonus? This will influence your good-evil profile with the rest of the galaxy which in turn can influence the success of your diplomacy..well in theory at least.

So the mechanics of Galactic Domination are all here and work fairly well together, if slanted towards combat in my view. As your civilization grows it will get too huge for one person to control and it is here that you can assign governors. This is one very painful flaw in the game, from a mechanics point of view. You give the governors task lists on one screen and then have to go to another to assign them to a planet...without access to what they are assigned as tasks. This can be frustrating when you get distracted by events and have to often go back and double-check just what it is your governors are doing.

Galactic Civilization touts a robust AI, which the game absolutely needs, because the game lacks multiplayer support…you will be very alone out there in the cold embrace of the Mother Dark. The only problem I have is that “robust” seems to translate into “ass kickin”. Personally I saw very little by way of diplomatic or influence attempts to win the game. What I did see is a fast growing Civ (invariably not mine) swallowing up one species after the other until they ultimately land on Terra Firma, probe us all and send us to work in some sort of damn Spice Mine.

Well, I am paraphrasing the experience here but the AI is VERY aggressive in this game. This really makes choosing the diplomatic/influence/morale aspects of the game moot in my mind as you pretty much have to prepare yourself for the inevitable onslaught and at the end of the day an Aphrodisiac isn’t going to do much to stop an incoming Battlehammer. Now to be fair you can dial the Aliens to be warmer and fuzzier as well as increase the size of the Galaxy which will allow for more time to explore other options. But from my 20+ hours of playing I am afraid “build and blast” became the order of the day quite quickly and the more subtle paths to victory got lost in blazing laser fire and panicked screams of my own troops.