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GalCiv

Nowadays it seems like gamers may be ready to give up on 4X games completely. There hasn’t been a killer app in this genre since Master of Orion II, and the disaster that has been Master of Orion III may well have sunk the fortunes of 4X games for years to come. Other efforts, such as the Imperium Galactica games, have made valiant but ultimately flawed attempts at capturing our fickle hearts.

Let's load an old civ

Go hoomans, go hoomans!

Ranger Tech rocks

Yet all hope is not lost. On the other side of the gaming universe, far, far beyond big publishers and PC Gamer cover pages, a small company has been developing Galactic Civilizations. The original GalCiv appeared on OS/2 and garnered much acclaim and a strong following despite being hampered with a small market. Now years later, the Windows version is almost ready for launch, and Swamp Master Brad Wardell of Stardock has come to speak with us about the game. (’Swamp Master’? No, we’re not kidding. That’s the title he gave us, and we’ve got the email to prove it -ed.)

But… but…

We also got to play the press preview version and test things out for ourselves. Brad is quite exhaustive in his interview and sums things up nicely without any embellishments, but we’ve also included a few thoughts of our own below.

ATTACK

I just said, ATTACK!

The Imperial Senate always votes yes

While it’s true that this is a space-themed game where the ultimate goal is conquest of the galaxy, the play style is clearly more reminiscent of Sid Meier’s Civilization 2 than Steve Barcia’s MoO. Tactical combat doesn’t exist, and units simply collide each other on the strategic map, with the results resolved automatically as in Civ2. Units have hitpoints, an attack and defense value. Combat between fleets doesn’t have to result in destruction; both units can come out merely damaged. Whereas in Civilization if an attacking unit destroyed the defender in a stack, the whole stack would fall, GalCiv’s fleet system has individual units in a fleet defending themselves. If a defender is defeated, the rest of the stack/fleet remains intact.

There are distinct Warlords-style undertones to GalCiv as well. The abundant space anomalies, asteroids and junked ships in GalCiv offer boons to units that visit them, in much the same fashion that ruins rewarded Warlords. The presence of special resources in space is reminiscent of temples in the Warlords games, though control of each resource gives the civilization a certain benefit, rather than just upgrading visiting units.

Of course, the mechanics behind the gameplay are quite different. With its unique and inventive starbase implementation, GalCiv puts the focus on not just controlling certain tiles, but entire sectors. That idea is explained better at the end of the review.

GalCiv supports numerous play styles, from Genocidal Maniac to Gatesian Corporate Overlord. Some methods are better suited to small galaxies, while others play better in large ones. A cultural takeover is more time-consuming than conquest would be in a ‘tiny’ game world, but is nicely suited to medium-sized and larger galaxies. Unlike Civilization 3, conquering through culture isn’t a passive, boring process. Building, upgrading and protecting starbases which spread the culture is an involved task. Do you build a protective fleet to convoy the vulnerable Constructor ships, or are you confident of peaceful times and are willing to send the Constructors alone for maximum speed. Then decisions need to be made about the upgrades to make to the starbase, is there a hurry to upgrade trade routes, galactic resource harvesting, cultural influence, or defenses?

That kind of depth permeates Galactic Civilizations to the core, belying its simplistic appearances. Now, on to the interview!