Galactic Civilizations IV News

Greetings, fellow gamers and strategists! Today, we delve into the intricate universe of Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova, exploring how this 4X game redefines difficulty through its innovative blend of Organic and Traditional Difficulty Modes. Join us as we unravel the secrets behind crafting your own gaming experience and find the challenge that suits you best.


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[h2]Organic Difficulty vs. Traditional Difficulty Modes[/h2]
In the vast realm of strategy gaming, preferences vary from seeking intense challenges to enjoying a more laid-back experience. Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova acknowledges this diversity, combining an organic difficulty toolset with traditional difficulty modes to cater to every gamer's playstyle.


[h2]Organic Difficulty in Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova[/h2]
Supernova takes a bold step with its Organic Difficulty, offering a dynamic experience without hardcoded difficulty settings. Instead, players navigate varied game mechanics to develop their unique playstyles. Traditional difficulty settings, a familiar concept to many, still play a role, allowing players to adjust the overall challenge to their liking.

Galaxy and AI Players: To embark on your cosmic journey, crucial decisions await. From choosing your civilization, tweaking traits, and navigating game settings, to determining the galaxy's size, sectors, and AI opponents, each choice influences your playstyle and the game's difficulty. The proximity of AI civilizations and the overall map size become pivotal factors, shaping your strategic approach.


[h2]Example: Exploration & Empire Development with Less Pressure[/h2]
Exploration & Empire Development with Less Pressure: For those who relish the exploration phase, Supernova allows you to tailor the game accordingly. By reducing the number of AI civilizations and expanding sectors on a medium map, you create a universe ripe for growth. Witness the Baratak Grove flourishing in a vast sector, enjoying the luxuries of a well-developed empire. But beware, as unchecked expansion might lead to a power imbalance, providing a relaxed yet challenging experience.


[h2]Example: Early Pressure, Diplomacy and Warfare[/h2]
Early Pressure, Diplomacy, and Warfare: On the flip side, if you crave early pressure, adjust settings for a more intense gaming experience. Increase the number of AI civilizations and set them close to you, fostering a competitive atmosphere. The Terran Alliance, caught between rivals, faces a tough diplomatic situation and the threat of war from the aggressive Drengin Empire. This setting promises political drama and rapid decision-making, providing a thrilling and pressure-packed gameplay style.


Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova stands out for its ability to blend Organic Difficulty with traditional settings, offering a diverse range of playstyles. As you embark on multiple campaigns, you'll discover the nuances of the game, refining your preferences for challenge and strategy. Whether you seek a serene exploration or a politically charged battlefield, Supernova provides the tools to shape your galactic destiny. Thanks for reading, and may your interstellar adventures be ever thrilling! Happy gaming!

Another big change coming this Holiday season for GalCiv players in v2.2 (Ethnology) is a massive expansion of the number of biomes that make up worlds. Today we’ll take a look at some of the new ones.

First, a recap: The humans of Earth have a specific planet layout that loosely matches the continental layout of Earth (minus Australia – you guys didn’t send the bribe money!!).



Earth. Obviously.

We did, however, add a lot of new special tiles that have a chance to show up. I see several in the screenshot above. But still, Earth is the one that is most like previous versions.

Let’s go to a new planet.

[h2]Toria (Oceanic)[/h2]
For fun, perhaps someone in the screenshots could post a link to a screenshot of what Toria looks like in v2.1 so you can see why we needed to improve this. Because we didn’t just add new biomes, we revisited what biomes can show up on which planets.





On this planet there are several new biomes including:

• Marshlands
  
• Barrier Reefs
  
• Lagoons
  
• Tropical Grasslands
  
• Shallows
  
• Gold Field (special)
  
• Coastal
  

That’s 7 new biomes just for this one planet type.



[h2]Iconia (Barren)[/h2]





This is another one that it would be cool if someone could link a screenshot to the 2.1 version of the Yor homeworld to see how lame it was.

This world has these new biomes:

• Volcanic (which also shows up on Lava worlds of course)
  
• Barren
  

But as you can see, Barren is pretty barren now but not necessarily boring. The big change though is just in terms of controlling what kinds of tiles will show up where.



[h2]Drengi (Volcanic)[/h2]
Now, volcanic worlds have some similarities to a barren world. But also some notable differences.





Here you can see:

• Volcanic
  
• Lava Flow
  
• Volcano
  
• Volcanic Plains
  

[h2]Dratha (Jungle)[/h2]
Jungle worlds are another one that should look quite different.





So on this planet we see:

• Oasis
  
• Stony Plains
  
• Flood Plains (updated)
  
• Giant Mushrooms (special)
  

Along with some things that were on other planets.



[h2]Refuge (Terrestrial)[/h2]
Not surprisingly, terrestrial worlds saw the fewest changes.



But fertile plains were added.



We felt that since grasslands are a population buff tile, we needed a more common one that was just for food.



Let us know in the comments if you like this direction. Are there other types of biomes you’d like to see?

Greetings! So we have been working on GalCiv IV 2.2 which we are tentatively calling Ethnologies. What’s an ethnology? It’s a branch of anthropology that focuses on the uniqueness of different peoples or even species. And thanks to the overwhelming support we’ve received on the Expansion Pass for GalCiv IV we were able to bring on more people to work on 2.2 and the results, we think, will make players pretty happy.

One criticism of GalCiv has always been that the different races in the game aren’t distinct enough. Nothing shows just how ridiculous that is than the fact that whether you’re playing the humans or a race of sentient trees, you start out building a factory or a mainframe.

Let’s recap. Previously, when you started a game you would almost certainly get the same starting improvements as the Terran Alliance.

Specifically, the Terran Alliance got these two starting improvements.





For the Ethnologies (v2.2) we went back and gave most of the main canon civilizations their own starting improvements that go along with their civilization much better. More importantly, we tied these to their starting abilities and not the specific race. Therefore, your custom faction will be able to mix, match and probably create some interesting combinations.

For this article, we’re going to go through some of the civilizations and the starting improvements they get that replace the Capital Mainframe and Industrial Center.


[h2]Terran Resistance[/h2]
These guys are the most similar to the Terran Alliance so we tried to give them something similar but also more in line with the characteristics of a civilization that had to set up a home world with some haste.



One recurring theme in these improvements will be that many of them will focus on boosting the stats of the citizens. This is partially because we want some races to prosper if they don’t colony rush. I’m pretty against the idea that colony rushing in a 4X game should be universally punished. Instead, we’d like to give players more tools to play how they want.



Similarly, the communications array makes the intelligence of the population higher and, as a result, makes the planet really do well if they are choosing to slow the colony rush.


[h2]Navigators[/h2]
The Navigators are a mysterious race that has been forbidden from interacting with other civilizations to any significant degree. But they are pretty amazing at interstellar travel.







Another recurring theme you will see is that many of the new improvements work by spawning destructible (usually) mini improvements on tiles. Many times they’ll also spawn more tiles as well. These mini improvements aren’t particular powerful but by getting them instantly the player gets a big early boost and can still transition to something more later.


[h2]Mimots[/h2]
The cute fluffy Mimots win by out reproducing everyone. Now they will get some interesting improvements that lend themselves to that strategy and tries to make up for the fact that they’re…well pretty dumb.







[h2]Xeloxi[/h2]
The beautiful space criminals have one of the most powerful but more challenging improvements to use.



The Enforcer Den, when built, gives a new attribute to the population called Enforcer. It only does it to the population on the planet at the time it is completed. Enforcers citizens get huge bonuses and can be kept on world or sent to other worlds to beef up those planets.

The Enforcer Den itself is still pretty decent and gives control based on the amount of time on the planet.



This improvement is tricky too. That’s because it starts out wimpy and gets better over time. The amount of research it brings in grows as there is more tech out there to steal.


[h2]Arceans[/h2]
The Arceans are fairly conventional but like the Resistance, they get some improvements that buff their citizens.



Unlike improvements that give a % boost to the citizen stats, the Neural Link provides a raw amount of intelligence and social skills to the citizens.




[h2]Altarians[/h2]
The Altarians, being an ancient race, get access to Precursor tech.






[h2]Yor[/h2]
We had a lot of fun with the robotic Yor. We felt that the synthetic species should be pretty distinct from the fleshlings out there.



The Durantium scanner helps the Yor in particular. That’s because Synthetic civs need Durantium to build more of themselves. Upon building this two interesting things happen:

First, the sensor range of the planet grows a lot. Look at that per level boost.



Second, these destructible Durantium deposits get spawned. They provide some production and of course Durantium.



Next, they get a Precursor Relic scanner. This has the effect of discovering up to 3 Precursor relics on the planet:





These relics can do different things. In this case, one does influence and another research and the other manufacturing. They can be destroyed to make room later.


[h2]Torians[/h2]
For the Torians, they have a really pretty water world. To that end we decided to take a different approach.






[h2]Drath[/h2]
The Drath are pretty similar to the Altarians actually but they also get an Arms Expo which helps get them well liked early on (and rich).




[h2]Corporate Sector[/h2]
The galactic capitalists and entrepreneurs of the Centauron quadrant of the milky way galaxy take the view that no one should invade their planets because they’ll be utterly ruined by the time they’re done with them anyway.





Upon building the Central Mine, a bunch of Mining operations are spawned along with some new tiles. Unlike other mini improvements, these are indestructible, and they pollute. Luckily, the Iridians don’t care about pollution.



But if you’re playing a custom race that happens to care about pollution, we give you this rather expensive Air Purifier.



And no entrepreneur would be complete with a patent office.


[h2]Baratak Grove[/h2]
No civ made us feel more ashamed of ourselves than the Baratak. Here’s a race of tree people. Now go build a factory.

The Baratak will continue to get more love but in the meantime, they don’t even get a capital city. Instead, they get the Father Tree.





These roots help boost the planet’s research by a great deal.


[h2]Luxar[/h2]
A close second in the “Shame on Stardock!” camp are the Crystaline Luxar. Ooh, a beautiful crystal species. Go build a factory.

Now, they start with no capital either (no building). Instead, they deal with crystals.









It should be noted that a lot of their buildings get distributed across the tech tree.


[h2]The Korath[/h2]
The Korath aren’t PG villains. The Drengin are your pretty standard PG villains. The Korath are monsters.

The first DLC, Tales of Centauron, adds a Korath campaign mission and you get a good idea what a species that truly sees the rest of us as vermin would do.







The ruined Torians can be sent out. But because they’ve been castrated, they won’t really reproduce. So keep that mind. On the bright side, they are always “happy”.



[h2]Ethnologies[/h2]
We hope that these changes will make games feel a lot more unique. Of course, 2.2 also adds a bunch of unique events as well (and the DLC contains a lot more).

Let us know in the comments what you think!

One of Galactic Civilization’s biggest selling points is the ability to play and win in a way that isn’t entirely focused around war and conquest. Sure, you always need to keep a few fleets around as a “Get off my lawn!” signal to potentially unfriendly neighbours, but the 4X genre has always had a bit of a problem with an over-reliance on conquest mechanics and, right from the very first game, the GalCiv series has always put peaceful victory options front and center.



Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova has a whole lot of ways to win aside from just taking every last planet from your opponents, with the Cultural victory being one of them.

Culture generates Influence, which gradually spreads from your Core Worlds, assisted by Cultural Starbases, Civilization Policies, Ideological Traits etc. Influence is a way to spread your borders, but because it also represents the reach of your civilizations most sophisticated cultural advances, it can “culture flip” enemy Colonies and Core Worlds over to your side too.

With all the changes that Supernova has brought to GalCiv4, the Culture/Influence system has struggled to keep up: Culture was way too easy to generate and flipping enemy worlds with Influence became an optimal strategy, no matter how the player was intending to play.

We’ve made some efforts to reign in the juggernaut of culture by reducing the power of influence producers and boosters. Workers are now too busy working to contribute to a Core World’s cultural output, while Entertainers have also had their cultural contribution cut to a fifth of what it was before, and Celebrities have had theirs cut by a half.

We’ve also increased the cost of technologies that boost Influence, which should slow a culturally focused player (and AI) down a fair bit.



Finally the dreaded Beacon of Babylon has been given another liberal beating with the nerf-bat over the last few months in an attempt to slow down the sheer horror of its incredible influence boost ability.



It might have been little over-tuned in comparison to its cost, so to help out a bit we’ve reduced its cost from 5 Harmony Crystals to just 3, while further reducing its faction-wide influence buff from 10% to just 5%. It’s still worth building if you’re playing for a Cultural Victory, but it is no-longer the “I win” button that it was before.



Balancing this is a big priority and we’d love to hear your feedback on how Culture and Influence are working now.

Cheers!

Alrighty folks, today we’re going to take a look at some of the changes brought in with our Genesis update (version 2.1) for Galactic Civilizations: Supernova. This is a meaty update full of bugfixes, enhanced features and tweaks to existing mechanics to facilitate a smoother gameplay experience for the player.

To kick off, we’ve added 22 minutes of brand new music to GalCiv4’s existing soundtrack, and the midgame music will kick in at 60 turns now instead of 100, so you’ll get to hear it a little earlier into your campaign. We’ve added some more voiceovers to the game Events, and tightened up the Events scripting a bit too.

Last week we discussed the new mod management tool: we’ve now integrated Steam Workshop support too, a much requested feature, and will shortly be adding a button to automatically transfer your mods over from the launcher-based mod manager over to the Steam Workshop.

Now it’ll be even easier to transfer all your Tie Fighters, USS Enterprises and obligatory nekomimi civilizations.



After receiving feedback from players that the numerical feedback from the battle viewer was confusing, we’ve made a few changes that should make it easier to follow. We’ve disabled all text values of 0, which some reduce unnecessary clutter from non-consequential data, added a new accuracy column next to the weapon range and split the defense column into three, to show each type of defense available in the game.



On the topic of combat, we’ve increased the speed of ranged attack animations on the strategic map so the player isn’t sat around waiting, which could be a problem if there were a lot of fleets on-map and in bombardment range of enemy fleets. We’ve improved the speed at which ships are removed from the map after being destroyed, and we’re hoping you’ll find this will improve the overall speed and flow of the turn resolution as a whole.

On top of the changes we discussed back in dev-journal #32, the game AI has undergone a whole new set of updates to assist it in keeping apace of the player. There are too many to list here, but notably your rivals will now declare war only if they’re actually ready to fight one, and are better at judging when they can win a fleet battle too.



Since the AI is now smarter, we’ve adjusted the modifiers it receives at higher difficulties to be a little less fierce, but the overall difficulty should be about the same. We know most of you prefer to see smarter AI play over increased production and movement modifiers, and we’re keen to hear feedback on how you think the AI is playing after these changes.

Maybe the most significant change for newer players is an improved tutorial. We’ve had a lot of comments that the previous tutorial was lacking, and we agree. The tutorial has been made more fun to play, with increased research times for technologies (it was way too easy to race through the tech-tree), made numerous UI changes and fixes to keep things properly focused and fixed a number of small bugs that were preventing people from easily completing it.



This is just a few of the many changes we’ve brought in with the Genesis update. You can find the rest of them here.

Cheers!