Galactic Civilizations Review (no fat)

Game Description

In the year 2178 mankind’s finest minds invent a device that would change the face of the galaxy forever: the hyper-drive. This device enables traveling through long distances; thereby the huge star gates once used to maintain communication with the other advanced races in the galaxy become obsolete.

Convinced that all space faring civilizations should be non-militaristic, the humans share this technology with the other races. Following this, all communications cease and a huge race of colonization starts between the civilizations, a race for the power to control the galaxy.

In Galactic Civilizations, you are the leader of the humans and you have the task to gain control over the whole galaxy by all means necessary. Although at first glance it may seem bad that you cannot choose your race, but this is counterbalanced by the fact that you can customize the humans however you like.

There are numerous parties to choose from, ranging from the straightforward War Party to the more intricate Pacifist Party, each giving you unique bonuses. You can select the size of the galaxy you want to play in. This varies between Tiny and Gigantic. A Gigantic galaxy can offer weeks of gameplay.

You can choose to compete against 1 to 5 empires: Arceans, Altarians , Torians, Yor and The Drengin Empire. Before you start the game you set an alignment and intelligence level for each opponent. Both options have a great influence on the game. Good aligned civilizations are more likely to team up with you if you’re good as well, while Evil aligned civilizations are usually more aggressive. You start out with a neutral alignment and you can change your alignment by choosing evil/good courses of action in the random events that take place during the game.

Galactic Civilizations has a state of the art AI engine (in fact each race has its own separate AI engine), which means that even at “normal” setting your opponents are very smart and winning the game is very challenging. Therefore it’s recommended to set it on low levels for beginners. Its also worth mentioning the fact that the AI doesn’t cheat at all, which is a rare quality in games.

Galactic Civilizations Gameplay

Your civilization starts out with a planet, a colony ship and a survey ship. In the beginning the main goal is to colonize as many good quality planets as possible (above 15 quality points). This ensures a strong economic background and a sizeable foothold in the galaxy.

The survey ship can be used to explore the anomalies found in space. Each anomaly gives some small bonus to your ships, economy, research etc. Besides colonizing planets, the most important assets to get hold off are the galactic resources. In order to harvest such a resource, you have to build a star base on them and for best efficiency, upgrade it with modules that enhance the bonus given by the resource. The resources can give many types of bonuses: military, economic, influence, morale or research.

The interesting thing is that you can obtain victory through 4 different paths. There is the standard military conquest but you can also win through allied victory, cultural conquest or technological victory. And all these paths are actually viable which gives the game a high replay value.

Military Conquest and Allied Victory are pretty easy to understand but the other two possibilities are complex, along with being interesting. If your empire focuses on research and ultimately manages to research the Final Frontier then the human race leaps into another stage of evolution winning the game by technological victory. This is the hardest victory to achieve though because it requires massive investments in research and careful diplomatic balancing. Humans can also conquer the other races by cultural influence generated by planets and star bases.

At first you can only get money from taxes. Obviously a high tax rate lowers morale so you will have to adjust it carefully. Keeping morale high is not easy, especially as the empire advances to more advanced forms of government, a Republic for example.

Without careful balancing of morale, your chosen party can lose control of the senate which incurs severe penalties. You can also adjust the spend rate of the empire according to needs. The spending can also be weighted between military production, social production and research. This means that you can, for example, completely halt social and research and focus on military to pump out many colony ships in the beginning.

Most of the time, a more balanced solution is better but in Galactic Civilizations you get the freedom to do as you like. As the game progresses, trade routes can be established for additional income. Trade routes also improve your relations with the empires you trade with. Money can also be acquired by selling technology to the right buyer.

On each planet you can build spaceships and social improvements. Social improvements are usually buildings that give certain bonuses to the planets productivity, morale, research, influence etc. Most spaceships are built for combat purposes but there are also colony ships, freighters, constructors (these build star bases) and survey ships. One of the big minuses of Galactic Civilizations is the lack of tactical combat. The engagement between two ships is very simple: they shoot each other until one of them loses all hit points.

Galactic Civilizations Diplomacy

Diplomacy is an extremely important part of Galactic Civilizations. The human-like AI of the opponents makes room for some interesting possibilities. When you contact another civilization, almost everything is up for trade. You can buy and sell technology, ships, and trade goods or influence their solar systems. Influence is used to vote in the United Planets council. This council consists of a representative of each race and assembles every 4th year to vote a random galactic law. If you have very high influence you can manipulate the decisions to your favor.

Galactic Civilizations Audio

Galactic Civilizations has a simple 2D graphics which can be described average at most. It is designed with good taste though and it fits well for this kind of game. The soundtrack is a good space themed music which after a while gets boring, but the freely downloadable bonus pack includes a built-in MP3 player. Unfortunately the sound effects are very poor, made up of only a few clicks here and there and a few simple explosion sounds.

Galactic Civilizations Summary

All in all this is an enjoyable game with very good strategic possibilities, but it’s not for everybody. Gamers who like sci-fi and TBS games will certainly be captivated by it.

Galactic Civilizations Cost

Galactic Civilizations currently retails for $19.95US at the time of writing.