Middle entry of my triple-sneak-peak-preview session for Space 4X over a few days. Competitors: “Stellaris”, “Galactic Civilization 3”, “Endless Space 2”. All vanilla.
First Impression:
Coming from “Stellaris” (played the day before) I understand: “Stellaris” is more about macro (galaxies), this one about a more focused view. Smaller, emphasis on my troops and planets – at least in the campaign-tutorial, where I am to push back against the evil aliens (guess it’s referring to GC2?). Personally, I like this better – everything feels more relevant, more direct, and also the controls are better, when I comes to zooming and navigation. Still – there’s so many menus, interfaces, mechanics… maybe just me getting old/impatient. But the tutorial is better so far! Read about that the campaign as a whole is like the tutorial over three missions (played through the first one so far), so I’ll see where I am at the end in terms of understanding game rules and mechanics.
Technically it’s weaker, but I don’t really care. For me, it’s holding up, as for Space Games I personally count in atmosphere over bare graphic-muscles – and the former is well done here; quite on par with “Stellaris” to this point. I like the more personal approach though, setting me up as sort of avenging, war-faring Humankind-back-from-holidays. Which brings me to my 3rd First Impression, which will follow. I sneak-peaked a little, so to say: “Endless Space 2”.
First Impression:
Coming from “Stellaris” (played the day before) I understand: “Stellaris” is more about macro (galaxies), this one about a more focused view. Smaller, emphasis on my troops and planets – at least in the campaign-tutorial, where I am to push back against the evil aliens (guess it’s referring to GC2?). Personally, I like this better – everything feels more relevant, more direct, and also the controls are better, when I comes to zooming and navigation. Still – there’s so many menus, interfaces, mechanics… maybe just me getting old/impatient. But the tutorial is better so far! Read about that the campaign as a whole is like the tutorial over three missions (played through the first one so far), so I’ll see where I am at the end in terms of understanding game rules and mechanics.
Technically it’s weaker, but I don’t really care. For me, it’s holding up, as for Space Games I personally count in atmosphere over bare graphic-muscles – and the former is well done here; quite on par with “Stellaris” to this point. I like the more personal approach though, setting me up as sort of avenging, war-faring Humankind-back-from-holidays. Which brings me to my 3rd First Impression, which will follow. I sneak-peaked a little, so to say: “Endless Space 2”.
Galactic Civilizations III (GalCiv) is the first game in the series that I've played. It is a very Civ inspired space 4x game that seems somewhere in the Venn Diagram of Stellaris, Civ and Endless Space. It's not bad, it does some things well, it does some things worse, it is in many ways forgettable.
I redeemed it free on Epic this week, which is very coincidental because I had been thinking about purchasing it recently. So when I got the notification that it was free, I hustled on to redeeming and installing it. Then set out to see what Stardock's space epic had in store. When starting the game up, you're met with a set of very Amplitude-esque menus, setups and options.
You have a variety of pre-set races with backgrounds and traits. All of the scifi tropes you'd expect and plenty of DLC. It's super similar to Endless Space in this regard. Once you start the game up you begin at your home planet with a shipyard and a starbase. You construct buildings on your home planet, that must correspond to actual open tiles on the home planet screen. Buildings on your homeplanet can receive adjacency bonuses. They are very similar, identical, to Stellaris 1.0 and in some ways reminiscent of the Civ VI on-map districts mechanic.
You choose construction at each planet from a list of options like you would with Civ. The space is limited though like Stellaris. The planets are more 'as-they-are' than in Stellaris or Civ cities. You have to get fairly late game before you can radically transform the capacity or building options of planets. And the space constraints mean some planets probably sit idle for some turns later in the game, unlike cities in Civ. You also build ships out of shipyards just like Stellaris.
Research follows a tech tree. They're sort of segmented like in Stellaris or Endless Space, meaning some techs lead to some other techs only. Not so much like Civ where you pick a little of each and eventually need a wide variety of techs to research newer ones. However, the techs don't pop via RNG like they do in Stellaris, nor are they triggered in availability by random game events.
By far the most interesting element of GalCiv is it's non-uniform territory control. It's much closer to Civ than it is to the other space 4xs. In Stellaris and Endless Space, you build a starbase/space station around a star. That then claims that entire solar system for you. And in those games you get two maps. A wider galaxy map and then a zoomed in specific sort of map for just any given solar system. In GalCiv there's no distinction. Stars and their planets and asteroids and whatever else exist on the same single level map.
And this leads to some fascinating and unique gameplay in the space-based 4x games. In Civ, it's not unusual for empires to have cities very close to one another. Even occupying the same island and certainly crowding the same continents. But in Stellaris and Endless Space the level of engagement is shifted a bit by abstracting upwards. Each empire in these games gets an entire solar system when the claim territory and then all the planets and resources therein. Even mediocre systems are typically still worth conquering. Meanwhile, in Civ the valuable land is sparser. Land is rarely worth having for the sake of it. Much of it is unworkable or not worth the cost of city placement. GalCiv is the only one of the 4x space games to take the Civ approach.
In GalCiv, you get areas of possible territory control based on the placement of a starbase. But starbases can be placed anywhere. including in empty space. They cost resources and upkeep, so you can't spam them endlessly. You can also get areas of territory that extend from a planetary settlement. But because you don't get it right away (it expands with time and influence like Civ cities) you can have multiple empires occupying habitable planets around the same star. If there are four habitable planets, four different empires could inhabit each one. That is a rare example, however you do routinely have two planets around the same star owned by different empires.
It leads to a much more interesting set of conflicts and trade. You can create trade routes between these nearby planets trivially easily. You can also wage land invasions much more easily too, something that is significantly gimped in Stellaris and Endless Space. You may also need to plant starbases in almost empty space to connect your borders, or to claim resources that are adrift from any corresponding habitable planet. It's much more like settling the areas of a continent and fighting for luxury resources that you'd get in Civ. It also entices armed conflicts for resources where in Endless Space or Stellaris conflict is driven by capturing planets and inflicting damage to gain galactic advantage via destroying an opponent's capabilities.
GalCiv just plays differently than it's most similar competitors. Which is refreshing. But there's still plenty that it doesn't do as well, and that's most likely why it doesn't enjoy the same sort of popularity. Endless Space is much prettier and has a better pacing to it. Stellaris has far more replayability and engaging mechanics. GalCiv is different but doesn't feel as fleshed out.
Specifically, while GalCiv has the best mechanics for war and combat, the research trees are more interesting in Endless Space. There are too many turns in GalCiv even early on where you're doing nothing compared to Stellaris where it takes until well into midgame to feel like you're waiting on things to do. GalCiv is the worst of the set in terms of the discovery in early game. Stellaris is the king of this with the archaeological expeditions, anomalies, leviathans, discovering other empires. Endless Space does well with the minor races and the anomalies. There's some stuff in GalCiv like anomalies and space junk, but they aren't anywhere near as engaging. GalCiv is also significantly behind on the modding scene so there's not as many options to patch up its shortcomings.
Diplomacy feels unsatisfying, and the trades are as terribly balanced as Civ. Like vanilla Civ, the cities themselves feel too dead. Even with the influence mechanics, you just don't have much reason to care about the populations that live within them. GalCiv gives you some flavor events but they're not common enough and their effects aren't big enough. It feels like there are no meaningful ways to interact with the galaxy around you outside of war. Other 4x games have these issues, but GalCiv doesn't excel well enough at anything else to cover them up. It doesn't have the variety or sense of discovery like Stellaris' early game. It doesn't have as good flavor in the premade empires as Endless Space.
GalCiv is fun. It is a tremendous game for the price of free. It's also a fine entrance into the genre if you've played nothing else or you're a really big fan of Civilization. Otherwise, there are better games out there that do mostly the same thing.
I redeemed it free on Epic this week, which is very coincidental because I had been thinking about purchasing it recently. So when I got the notification that it was free, I hustled on to redeeming and installing it. Then set out to see what Stardock's space epic had in store. When starting the game up, you're met with a set of very Amplitude-esque menus, setups and options.
You have a variety of pre-set races with backgrounds and traits. All of the scifi tropes you'd expect and plenty of DLC. It's super similar to Endless Space in this regard. Once you start the game up you begin at your home planet with a shipyard and a starbase. You construct buildings on your home planet, that must correspond to actual open tiles on the home planet screen. Buildings on your homeplanet can receive adjacency bonuses. They are very similar, identical, to Stellaris 1.0 and in some ways reminiscent of the Civ VI on-map districts mechanic.
You choose construction at each planet from a list of options like you would with Civ. The space is limited though like Stellaris. The planets are more 'as-they-are' than in Stellaris or Civ cities. You have to get fairly late game before you can radically transform the capacity or building options of planets. And the space constraints mean some planets probably sit idle for some turns later in the game, unlike cities in Civ. You also build ships out of shipyards just like Stellaris.
Research follows a tech tree. They're sort of segmented like in Stellaris or Endless Space, meaning some techs lead to some other techs only. Not so much like Civ where you pick a little of each and eventually need a wide variety of techs to research newer ones. However, the techs don't pop via RNG like they do in Stellaris, nor are they triggered in availability by random game events.
By far the most interesting element of GalCiv is it's non-uniform territory control. It's much closer to Civ than it is to the other space 4xs. In Stellaris and Endless Space, you build a starbase/space station around a star. That then claims that entire solar system for you. And in those games you get two maps. A wider galaxy map and then a zoomed in specific sort of map for just any given solar system. In GalCiv there's no distinction. Stars and their planets and asteroids and whatever else exist on the same single level map.
And this leads to some fascinating and unique gameplay in the space-based 4x games. In Civ, it's not unusual for empires to have cities very close to one another. Even occupying the same island and certainly crowding the same continents. But in Stellaris and Endless Space the level of engagement is shifted a bit by abstracting upwards. Each empire in these games gets an entire solar system when the claim territory and then all the planets and resources therein. Even mediocre systems are typically still worth conquering. Meanwhile, in Civ the valuable land is sparser. Land is rarely worth having for the sake of it. Much of it is unworkable or not worth the cost of city placement. GalCiv is the only one of the 4x space games to take the Civ approach.
In GalCiv, you get areas of possible territory control based on the placement of a starbase. But starbases can be placed anywhere. including in empty space. They cost resources and upkeep, so you can't spam them endlessly. You can also get areas of territory that extend from a planetary settlement. But because you don't get it right away (it expands with time and influence like Civ cities) you can have multiple empires occupying habitable planets around the same star. If there are four habitable planets, four different empires could inhabit each one. That is a rare example, however you do routinely have two planets around the same star owned by different empires.
It leads to a much more interesting set of conflicts and trade. You can create trade routes between these nearby planets trivially easily. You can also wage land invasions much more easily too, something that is significantly gimped in Stellaris and Endless Space. You may also need to plant starbases in almost empty space to connect your borders, or to claim resources that are adrift from any corresponding habitable planet. It's much more like settling the areas of a continent and fighting for luxury resources that you'd get in Civ. It also entices armed conflicts for resources where in Endless Space or Stellaris conflict is driven by capturing planets and inflicting damage to gain galactic advantage via destroying an opponent's capabilities.
GalCiv just plays differently than it's most similar competitors. Which is refreshing. But there's still plenty that it doesn't do as well, and that's most likely why it doesn't enjoy the same sort of popularity. Endless Space is much prettier and has a better pacing to it. Stellaris has far more replayability and engaging mechanics. GalCiv is different but doesn't feel as fleshed out.
Specifically, while GalCiv has the best mechanics for war and combat, the research trees are more interesting in Endless Space. There are too many turns in GalCiv even early on where you're doing nothing compared to Stellaris where it takes until well into midgame to feel like you're waiting on things to do. GalCiv is the worst of the set in terms of the discovery in early game. Stellaris is the king of this with the archaeological expeditions, anomalies, leviathans, discovering other empires. Endless Space does well with the minor races and the anomalies. There's some stuff in GalCiv like anomalies and space junk, but they aren't anywhere near as engaging. GalCiv is also significantly behind on the modding scene so there's not as many options to patch up its shortcomings.
Diplomacy feels unsatisfying, and the trades are as terribly balanced as Civ. Like vanilla Civ, the cities themselves feel too dead. Even with the influence mechanics, you just don't have much reason to care about the populations that live within them. GalCiv gives you some flavor events but they're not common enough and their effects aren't big enough. It feels like there are no meaningful ways to interact with the galaxy around you outside of war. Other 4x games have these issues, but GalCiv doesn't excel well enough at anything else to cover them up. It doesn't have the variety or sense of discovery like Stellaris' early game. It doesn't have as good flavor in the premade empires as Endless Space.
GalCiv is fun. It is a tremendous game for the price of free. It's also a fine entrance into the genre if you've played nothing else or you're a really big fan of Civilization. Otherwise, there are better games out there that do mostly the same thing.