Galactic Civilizations IV News

Following on from last week where we gave some advice on game settings to new players coming into Galactic Civilizations IV for the first time, this time around we’re going to examine a crucial 4X game feature that often goes overlooked by new players: the “goodie hut”, or Anomalies, to give them their proper GalCiv name.

The 4X gameplay staple mechanic of collectable resources randomly scattered across the map goes way back to the original Sid Meier’s Civilization at least, and is so ingrained into strategy gaming in general that veterans of the genre tend only to notice it if it’s absent, seriously unbalanced in terms of pay-out or requires too much player attention. In the latter case, players tend to turn the feature off completely.

We’ve tried to make this feature a lot more interesting and fun, while ensuring it stays relevant for longer into the game without it taking too much attention away from the player.


Very generally speaking, Space Junk and Capsules will offer a some kind of situation to the player and ask for a decision to be made, the choice of which determines the outcome. Most of the outcomes are good, while negative ones are greatly limited in scope and mostly there for flavor, to provide just a little risk for excitement purposes rather than inflicting a lot of damage: nobody enjoys having their game ruined by a seriously powerful, random punishment.

The pickups on offer from Space Junk and Capsules vary greatly, and range from simple payouts of Credits and strategic resources, powerful ship components that can be added to your Commander’s ships to some very powerful and interesting story-based events.

Capsules tend to pay out more intact or useful items, while Space Junk is often less valuable but can often be attached to some of the more dangerous or exotic in-game Events, but this isn’t a strict rule and there’s a lot of variance between the two to prevent the game feeling predictable.

Artifacts work somewhat different, and will usually place a powerful player-useable item into The Vault. These items can then be played as a special ability at any time during your turn, with many varied effects.


This one provides an instant +500 Influence points to any planet you control. In the early game that’s a lot of Influence and can be used to great effect to either resist enemy Culture, or push your own cultural dominance on your neighbors.

To address the common complaint that players feel compelled to manually grab every single random goodie they can, in Galactic Civilization’s IV: Supernova we limit the ability to survey Anomalies to specialized ships with the Flag module. This means players aren’t motivated to build a ton of extraneous resource collectors for the purpose of cashing in on all that loot at the expense of enjoying other aspects of the early game exploration phase.

While we’re on this topic, it’s worth mentioning that GalCiv includes a related system of in-game Events that use a similar multiple choice system to create potentially branching stories, and these work in tandem with Anomalies to breath some extra life and player immersion into the cold, dark and empty void that space is usually imagined to be.


Immersion aside though, here are a few reasons why the inclusion of randomized pickups works so well at the start of a 4X game, and why new players really should expend the effort chasing them down.

Firstly, in any game with procedurally (or randomly) generated maps, scattering some useful pickups around for the player to find serves to encourage exploration out from their starting position in the hope of finding some extra gold, credits, metal, technologies or other useful items.

Why it is that some new players have a tendency towards turtling up in their starting location is a complex topic and I’ve got no easy explanation for it to suit a short developer journal like this. Suffice to say, in most strategy games as a beginner, sitting around in your small starting position hoping to outpace your rivals by making the most of your meagre resources is a losing strategy.


The computer players in GalCiv will quickly send out scouts to explore, and Flag Ships to claim the various Anomalies scattered throughout the sector. You need to do the same if you want to keep apace of the race for galactic dominance. Anomalies are one way to get players out exploring space and finding all that good stuff, including the best planets, strategic resources, Precursor Relics and the locations of your rivals.

Anomalies are also a lucrative resource to fight over with your neighbors: sure, you’ve got that Open Borders treaty to stop that bigger neighbor from invading you for your stuff, but now they’re snaffling up all those Artifacts you didn’t get around to claiming. Is that a reason to go to war? Or do you redirect your own Flag module-enabled vessels to their territory to respond in kind?

In many classic 4X games, the “goodie huts” are an early game feature that are mostly exhausted by the time the eXploit and eXterminate phases of the game come into play. Put more simply, after the first couple of dozen turns, you and the AI will have found them all and that’s it.


In Galactic Civilizations IV, researching various Techs in the tech-tree will unlock the ability to detect even more Anomalies, and this provides the player with an interesting decision: if you’ve somehow managed to build more Flag modules (and there are several ways to do this!) it can be great strategy to unlock more and more Anomalies and claim their secrets.

This can be particularly useful if you’ve not got a whole lot of physical space around you to claim, with few habitable planets available for traditional resource generation.

Furthermore, many of these goodies can be sold for Credits and even with lots of space to explore and expand into, those extra Credits can come in handy to rush-build that Colony Ship you need to beat your neighbor to that high class planet between the two of you!

Finally, having some random goodies dotted around is just plain fun! It’s really cool to find a powerful weapon in a floating capsule, or an Artifact that can damage an entire enemy fleet, helping you win an otherwise unwinnable conflict!

Hopefully this has given you some insight into why Anomalies exist, and why you should go grab them!

Till next time!

Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova has had a large influx of new players in recent months and the game can be a little overwhelming to first time players. We’re going to take a look at a good game setup for a first time player. Before we do though, let’s look at some of the key ingredients that go into shaping a playthrough.

There are 23 prebuilt playable factions in the game, that we call the Core Civilizations, and while the AlienGPT custom civilization builder ensures these aren’t your only options, each of these Core factions play quite differently.


Not only do they have their own specific strengths and weaknesses when compared to one another, but they’ve been carefully designed to generate interesting gameplay situations when they’re added to a game with other complementary civilization choices.

So, how is it that the various civilizations differ from one another and what causes these interesting situations to occur?

Part of this is down to the game AI that each civilization uses when the computer plays them, which is partly determined by their Personality settings: Opportunistic civs will strike when they see a weakness, while Cultural civs tend to favor playstyles that increase their Influence across the galaxy.


But this combination of game AI traits also reacts to the current game state at any given time, and so they’ll be making decisions based on the actions taken by human and AI players around them too.

That Opportunistic civ will see a weakened neighbor as a chance to strike and it may invade, conquering more territory and making itself stronger in the process. In the same situation, a Peaceful civ is less likely to take an aggressive stance and this can allow the weaker nation to recover their strength.

Added to this, each Civilization has a set of gameplay characteristics called Civilization Traits, and Civilization Abilities.

These characteristics help inform the player (and the game AI) on how they might best be played: the Corporate Sector are very powerful when they’re played as intended: building a very powerful economy, with strong trade networks. This means they’re better off keeping out of early wars unless they’re absolutely necessary, and using their abilities and traits to powerhouse their economic output. This will eventually lead them into a commanding game position, as all else being equal, they can afford to buy their way out of pretty much any situation they’ll face.

The strengths and weaknesses of each civilization in any given situation and their positions relative to one another, added to the way both the player and the AI is playing the game, creates an ever evolving set of game conditions, and this is the real meat of GalCiv’s dynamic gameplay.


Picking many of the more peaceful, pacifistic civilizations who prefer to build their empires up and trade with others will create a game that is dramatically different to a game with mostly Aggressive, Cruel and Xenophobic behavioral traits.

For new players we generally recommend a mix of civilization types, as it brings the most dynamic games: the various AI players will react and counter-react to one another in innumerable interesting ways as the campaign develops.

But you don’t have to: it’s possible you want to play a very relaxed and peaceful game where you chase victory through non-military means. Or, you’re all in on the warfare and so you want to get into battle as quickly as possible.

But that leads us to the next question: who do you play as in your first few games?

I’m going to suggest a good setup for a first playthrough of Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova.

This is what I’d consider to be a fairly well balanced game, where you’ll face a mix of threats and situations, and get to use most of the tools at your disposal in facing those threats.


For this kind of game, let’s pick the Terran Alliance: they’re a great all round civ and it’s no surprise that they’re the most played Core Civilization.

The Voyagers Civilization Ability means they’ll capture territory very quickly in the early game, and having a head start on exploration and colony acquisition can be very helpful when you’re starting out with GalCiv4, as the AI is very good at expanding its empire early on and you need to keep up.


Inspired roughly means you’ll have a lot more Leaders in your game, and because of the Faction system, the more Leaders you have, the better tuned your Empire will become in the long run.


Here we’ll keep the settings fairly standard, the key point here is you want enough space for about 10 civs in play and not to have any really extreme settings. You should adjust the difficulty to suit your experience with 4X games. If you’ve not played one before, I’d drop it down to one of the easier settings as you learn. The GalCiv AI is very strong when compared to most other space 4X games.


Here I’ve picked what I think is a fairly balanced mix of AI opponents, who will all have the capacity to play in various ways and none of them are completely one-dimensional in the way they approach the game, that’s not GalCiv’s style.

That said, we’ve thrown in some potentially dangerous and antagonistic rivals here: the Drengin Empire, the Festron Hunt and the Cosmic Contaminant will all likely give you trouble at some point. Their actions will likely create some very interesting opportunities for dialogue and diplomacy with the other, less aggressive civilizations once wars start kicking off across the various map sectors.

The Altarian Republic and Mimot Brotherhood are unlikely to be directly aggressive, unless you seriously provoke them, but they’re dangerous in their own way, pushing out Influence or just swallowing up all the habitable planets respectively. They’re going to be potential long term trade partners if you’re lucky enough to to border them too closely.

The Baratak Grove, Torian Regime, Altarian Republic and the Corporate Sector all play quite differently to one another but here I’d broadly categorize them as being “neutral” to your interests, meaning that their behavior could go any way. If you’ve got something they want, they could well declare war to take it as they can be opportunistic and expansionist in their nature, but they’re also more likely to help out in a bind that the Drengin or Cosmic Contaminant.

With this mix of Civs to play as, you’ll get a feel for most of the game mechanics that GalCiv has to offer, and you’re really free to take the game in whatever direction you want to. The Terran Alliance don’t have to be played peacefully, hell, the lore shows that they’re certainly one of the most dangerous factions in the known galaxy when they put their minds to it!

These settings will give you a drastically different game each time, depending on the relative placement of the AI factions.


Here, we got unlucky (or lucky, if you love early tension and threat!) as our immediate neighbours in this smaller sector are the dreaded Drengin Empire and the Cosmic Contaminant, by far one of the most aggressive and unpleasant factions in the game.


This isn’t too bad though, we’ve got the Torians and Corporate Sector in an adjacent sector of the map to trade with, and the Mimot and Altarians a bit further on too. If we can hold the Drengin and CC off for a while, this could be a very exciting position to play!


With the same settings, I try a new map, and this time, things are very different.

We’ve got the Arceans very close by, and things could go either way with those guys as they’re very strong in wartime. However, they can be friendly if you keep on their good side, and we’ve also got the Altarians in the perfect position to have Altarian neighbors: quite far away! This means you’ve got two potential trade partners.


This won’t be an easy first game though: despite my initial assessment, the Altarians are growing quite large already, and though they tend towards peaceful play, their Influence output is very dangerous and they’ll have to be dealt with, one way or another. The Arceans have also taken a lot of those valuable strategic resources you’ll need later too…

These settings should provide hours of fun and can be played many times over due to the differences in map generation and AI placement.

Enjoy!

Last week we released the Species Pack DLC and today we've made updates to that pack that include; more species, multi-selecting portraits, and adding the ability to 'copy species'.

For clarity on what's included in Galactic Civilizations IV versus what's exclusive to the Species Pack, please refer to the chart here.

Newly added species include:

• Elesaran: Avian Phenotype with low Diligence and Resolve but high Social. 
  
• Ganthari: Thanks to their powerful memories, the Ganthari are known as one of the galaxy's wisest species. However, they are not overly popular, as the Ganthari will never forget a grudge.
  
• Glendorian The Glendorians are a mysterious and aloof species. They are known to seek solitude and prefer isolation. With the galaxy at arm's length, they've kept many secrets.
  
• Phaelerian: The Phaelerian's appearance hides a vicious and opportunistic nature. Their quick wits and surprising speed make them shockingly competent warriors and allow their scientists to maintain an edge in the arms race. 
  
• Seculoid: Seculoids, having adapted to drastically shifting climates over millennia, can make most environments habitable. Their extreme intelligence makes them some of the most competent scientists, and their versatile tentacles can adapt to almost every task.
  
• Truskar: A species of trophy hunters, the Truskar takes pride in defeating powerful foes. Single-minded and tenacious, the Truskar will forsake most things if it means achieving victory.
  
• Unirix: The Unirix are a paranoid and untrusting species of insects. Their survival instincts are unmatched, in part due to their experience with discrimination among other species.
  
• Zpherian: Intelligent, charismatic, fickle, and cruel, the Zpherians are compassionate allies and vindictive foes. 
  

All GalCiv IV players will see minor tweaks to the base species, improved AlienGPT image generation, and some bug fixes. See the full changelog here.

We’ve examined the Citizens in Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova quite a bit recently, and I’m hoping that one important point was made loud and clear: when added to the myriad of other player selectable or customisable game features, Citizens provide you more options in building your own unique playstyle for that particular playthrough.

This week we’ll take a look at the reasoning behind the variation in Species Traits between Core Species, the generic types and some of the new ones we added with the Species Pack, as I did see some questions and comments regarding this since the DLC released.


Let’s take a look at the Altarians. Note they’re fairly vanilla except for a very large Relative Social boost of +6. Compare this to one of the generic Species like the Lizards.


The reason the Altarians have such a striking difference is to balance out their Core Civilization mechanics and fit to their unique lore. The Altarians are masters of culture generation, and are well suited to the “cultural victory” approach to the game, but this huge Social boost is serves that specific purpose, and is balanced by their downsides too.

The generic Species, however, really need to be less focused towards one playstyle and instead let the player’s imagination decide what kind of creature they are. My idea of Lizards might be ravenous velociraptors with powerful combat abilities, while yours might be more in line with chilled scientist iguanas. If we hardcode Lizards to have very powerful Resolve, as with the Korath for example, then we’d have to balance them out in some other way and while that doesn’t lock them into a specific playstyle, it does strongly inform it, which can be immersion breaking.

There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind how the Korath are supposed to play though, and while you can play them peacefully, they’re certainly oriented towards playing aggressively, and that fits their lore and theme.

So with the generic Species, such as Lizards, Humanoids, Cats, Dogs and so on, while we gave them some gentle bonuses and penalties to give them a bit of flavour, they’re not overbalanced in any one area so you can decide what kind of species they are when you play them.


Now, with the Species Pack, if you do really want to make ravenous velociraptors, or chilled iguana scientists, with Species Traits set to support those playstyles, you can!

You don’t need to add your own pictures, simple hit Add Portraits and you’ll see the default Lizard portraits in amongst the others that Stardock have created for the game. Just add those in, and fill out the rest of the details here, including your desired Species Traits.

While we’re on the topic, you might note that some of the newer generic species added in the Species Pack are a little more wild and unusual than the others.


The Conscious Clouds here are really geared towards heavy industry: while their Diligence is low, they thrive in Pollution and have a rapid Growth Rate. This means they’ll be happiest on very heavily polluted industrial worlds full of Industrial Districts and Improvements, and you’ll pack a lot of them in on those worlds too. That Diligence penalty will be partly offset by their Approval bonus and if you build these worlds right, you’re going to become an industrial powerhouse very quickly!

I’m hoping you’ll see, by way of this one example, how you can build your own Species in a way that supports your own playstyle too.

Cheers!

Stardock has released the anticipated Species Pack DLC for its popular space 4X game, Galactic Civilizations IV, along with the major free update, v2.7 "Taxonomy." This latest DLC and update bring a wealth of new content and features that promise to enrich the gameplay experience for all space strategy enthusiasts.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The free v2.7 "Taxonomy" update introduces significant enhancements to Galactic Civilizations IV, including the addition of distinct species types for all civilizations, a new search bar for easier navigation, and improved map generation for better player placement and more exciting gameplay.

"We're incredibly excited about the Species DLC," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. "This DLC not only adds a variety of fascinating new species to the game but also empowers players to create and share their own unique civilizations."

[h3]Species Pack Features: [/h3]

• New Species: Discover and interact with several new species, including Gaseous species, Mollusks, Mammalians, and more, each bringing their unique characteristics and abilities to the galaxy.
  
• Create and Customize: Design your species with specific strengths and weaknesses, choose their advisor pictures, and determine what their citizens look like.
  
• Share Your Creations: Use the built-in Species uploading tool to share your customized species with other players online.
  
• Phenotypes: Experience a more detailed classification system for species with new Phenotypes.
  

For more information on the Species DLC and the v2.7 "Taxonomy" update, view the full changelog here. 
 
[h3]Species Pack Screenshots: [/h3]