Galactic Civilizations IV News

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]

[h2]The Species Pack and free v2.7 "Taxonomy" update are coming in just a couple of days, June 20th. Let's have a look into some of what they are bringing.[/h2]

AlienGPT is a remarkable system in terms the technology that runs it, and its ability to rapidly generate a believable custom civilization with minimal input from the player. Given a simple prompt, and tweaking a few extra settings, AlienGPT generates a unique faction to play, with its own name, background lore, selectable leader picture and Civilization Abilities and Traits to match.


Not so long ago, AlienGPT was updated to include the generation of a unique Citizen name and background, and then a general type selected as a best fit from a fairly large stock of premade Citizen types. Each Core Civilization has its own unique Citizen type that can be repurposed for Custom Civilizations.

Furthermore, we’ve included a fairly wide range of generic sci-fi and fantasy-themed creatures to add to this pool, covering the most popular themes that you guys tend to pick when using AlienGPT.

Vampires, Catgirls, Elves, Dwarfs and various animals are all very popular, but AlienGPT still had to pick one of these pre-made Citizen types regardless of the prompt, and this sometimes resulted in somewhat unsatisfying results as it tried to make a best guess as to what you wanted, but missed the mark due to lack of options.

Our new free update v2.7 titled “Taxonomy” and the Species Pack DLC aim to fix this problem and add some great new gameplay features surrounding a civilization’s Citizens. As always, there’s free content to improve the base-game for everybody, and then the DLC will add even more cool features on top of that, and I’ll make it clear what’s available with each.

The big news for v2.7 is that Citizens and a Civilization’s Biology have been reworked, with the introduction of the concepts of Species and Phenotypes. Citizens are now members of a Species, and each Species has a Phenotype, which in turn is a member of a Biology (as the Citizens were before).


Species now have their own UI element within the AlienGPT system, with each Species’ various characteristics available for view. Because your ideas can be bigger and more abstract that the GPT tech can keep up with, it’s great to be able to adjust the suggestions made by AlienGPT and giving this system a better interface makes this a lot more fun.


Here I’ve deliberately done something a little confusing: my prompts asked for humanoids that have an ethereal element that give them extra lives after death. Does AlienGPT pick Humans, or Humanoids? Or Vampires? Zombies? Space Demons?

All of the above are reasonable choices, but here it plumped for Humans and I want to change that to make my critters a bit more interesting.


Here’s the new Species UI, where you can scroll through the various premade Species on the left and check their in-game statistic modifiers. These range from Stats (Intelligence, Diligence etc.) to Approval and Expectations, effects of Pollution, Growth rate and Food Consumption. You’ll also see the Citizen and Leader art available when they’re picked.


You can check their Phenotype and Biology here too. Some of the phenotypes are similar to the generic Human type, but others have some unique gameplay effects.


For example, the Lizard Species here are part of the Reptilian Phenotype which prefer living on Desert Worlds, and those are Carbon Based (as usual, they’ll need to eat Food and probably won’t like Pollution much).

The Species Pack adds more Species to choose from, and the ability to create your own from scratch, which should greatly expand your ability to customize your Civilization to your tastes!

Following are a few of the new Species on offer if you own the Species Pack:


The Star Nautiloids Species belong to the Molluscoid Phenotype and are Carbon Based: they’re more Dilligent than your average species, grow very quickly and consume less food. These guys will be great for power-housing Citizen-based manufacturing strategies as you’ll quickly gain a lot of workers, and they’ll work very hard too. They’re more sensitive to Pollution than usual but not excessively so, and so some limited Manufacturing Districts and Improvements will greatly enhance their output.


If you’re a fan of more abstract life, we’ve got Conscious Clouds to show you! As entities with little substance to them they have no need for Food, instead thriving in Pollution. They’re not so strong in combat and struggle to use tools, but they’re as smart as they come and form strong social networks.


They’ve also got a very interesting Phenotype.

Perhaps the most exciting feature of this new DLC, for those of you that enjoy making your own content to play with and share, is the custom Species maker.


“And here’s one I made earlier”, to quote a famous old British kids TV show. These are the Naxari, a name that AlienGPT came up with to match a Custom Civilization, while I added the Species Description. You can add your own Species Traits here too.

You’ll need to add your own Citizen pictures in 128x128 pixel PNG format: I created my own portraits, and cropped them down in Photoshop afterwards. The whole job took me less than 30 minutes to do: small effort, I think, to get your own unique custom Species into the game.


For those of you who don’t want to go to that effort, you can download and use other custom species shared by other creators on Stardock’s own site for Epic and Steam players, and on the Steam Workshop for Steam users. This feature will dramatically increase the amount of alien species available for you all to play with.


With the addition of more unique Species and the ability to add your own custom creations too, the Species Pack really allows you to go wild with your imagination and conjure up some truly weird and wonderful Species to add to your GalCiv campaigns.

We’re really excited to see what you guys come up with when the DLC and update become available!