MOO3 is a game designed for macromanagement. I feel this divorces the player too much from the game, creating a battle of stats and sliders that is far from compelling. GalCiv is being hailed as the spiritual successor because it involves only as much micromanagement as you wish, but keeps you constantly involved in the game. Ships have autopilot functions (but, notably, no waypoints from build) and you can create a standard building queue for all your systems or tailor the queue by system.

You cannot, unfortunately, tailor your ships exactly, but the qualities your ships have is determined by your chosen path through the extensive tech tree, so you retain some control. There is no fleet combat, either, but this is a good thing, in one way. If you played MOO2, you will certainly recall late-game fleet action as taking upwards of 30 or 40 minutes to resolve. While I love MOO2's customization options and number of races, GalCiv pulls off a functional combat model that keeps the game moving and a smaller number of more compelling races.

Stardock offers pretty good support for GalCiv. They are a small company, which means while resources are limited and costs are high, response is personable and prompt. I'm a big fan of them, and I hope they put out more games like Galactic Civilizations, where players can make many different choices and see and feel the results almost immediately. I can't stop playing it. 5 of 5.

Galactic Civilizations is dated, crash prone, has an AI that is designed to exploit its own game system (in effect it "cheats" legally), and has nearly unacceptable defects in its user interface. Its production values are weak, it has little story or atmosphere and its game system leaves the player few options for different stategies. It is a complex game in which nothing is explained anywhere, which provides little or no in game aids for managing play and which, despite these low production values, isn't even especially cheap.

Never the less, the basic strength of the 4X game system is so great that this game will provide a decent short term fix for TBS junkies. The design is competant, clean and avoids information overload (information underload would probably be a more accurate term for GC).

And the designers have provided a few novelties in the design, such as the moral choice screens which add a little bit of interest to this otherwise rather weak effort.. This is a brilliant concept and raises this game's play value considerably. But ultimately this is a good game, not a great one. It is clearly inferior to Civ2 or Smac. I would rate it roughly equal to Civ3, which it resembles in a number of ways, including the way its AI plays and the lack of alternate strategies for the player.

My hat is off to Brad Wardell and his team.

What is said about the Ai and the rest is mostly true, and the tech tree is awesome - my favorite of all time so far. My favorite feature that many despise: espionage! I like it even if too simplistic, it's still much more balanced than Civ2-3, MoO2, SE4, AC. The cutscenes are top-notch job within the gameplay engine, music awesome but sound effects lame.

If you care to, you can also see what my very first impressions were here.

The Good (so many!):

--The summary report that starts each reload of a saved game really helps to reorient you to how you left things off. This screen also drops you back to your current research item so you don't forget.

-- Version 1.01 is already making nice UI changes. For example, if your planets already have a next item in its Social queue, you don't drop to that planet's production screen (you used to drop down to it for no real reason). I do think, though, that a little note should appear on the 'production complete' screen telling you what the next item in the queue is!

-- "Bright" AI level is much more savvy than "Normal" in how it values tech! However, once the AI falls behind you, it still seems too easy to make a killing on tech trades. Still, the AI levels actually have a marked difference on gameplay without AI cheats!

-- They incorporated a fan's idea to add 'Star Density' options to the startup screen! This is very nice as you can now decide if stars come in tight clusters or scattered. This makes a *huge* difference in the way you play the game. Other options are being suggested as well, such as a corner starting location, a central starting location, etc. I'd be surprised if some of this isn't incorporated soon!

-- They've already improved the startup screen in other ways as well. While the first version was usable enough, this one is more polished and user-friendly. Watch for similar updates over the coming months!

-- The Governor system rocks!!! I think Stardock is dead-on when they say that a smart governor is a UI problem not an AI problem. Right on! By having templates setup for my planets, I get the result I want very single time. Sure, depending on circumstances, I might tweak individual planet's priorities, but that's it. Clean. Simple. And you can set up to 4 different governor templates for your planets, so some can be set to focus on one thing over another.

-- Different United Planet issues come up for votes, and some of these are serious issues, like the number of trade routes (trade is your #1 money maker). And the number of morale choices you have to make seems varied as well. In other words, there is almost always something fresh in each game!

-- The options screen shows your current completion of any of the various victory conditions you set. Of course, you don't see how the OTHER guy is doing, so this is not quite the insight you might think...but it's very nice nonetheless.

-- Again, the AI *really does* notice your weaknesses and works on them, particularly your military weakness. If you don't have at least a good defensive force, be prepared to be attacked by evil and perhaps by good if you don't spent time keeping your relationships close.

-- Yes, relationships actually matter! For example, a friendly AI civ gifted me, on his own, some ships when I went to war in my 'valiant attempt against the Drengin!' 'We believe our destiny goes and [sic] and hand with humans. Therefore we are joining the war on your side against the Drengin Empire." And you know what? It actually went to war on my side by sending in an attack force!!! Think about that a moment ...

-- When war starts, a warning video starts remind you of the importance of protecting your trade routes. Nice, because losing your trade routes is a sure way to put yourself in big, big trouble.

-- The AI really does know where there has been a power shift. The Drengin declared war on me because my military was weak. After I got a big force ready (I had been sitting on lots of money so I could do this), and after I got other good guys to go against him with me, they came back and begged for peace. The message here was really funny, something like: "We completely misjudged you and now beg for mercy." !

-- There are PEACEFUL! ways to resolve many issues. For example, as I had begun to clear out some of the Drengin space, I took out one of his starbases on a key resource. However, a friend closer to the war location sent in his constructor ships to claim this resource the starbase was on for himself. Now, normally you'd have to attack HIM to get it back, but instead I called him up and bought it off him (at a high price, of course). But this allowed me to avoid another war with a friend and had the benefit of making that friend a bit more helpful in the war!!!

-- Anti-matter missiles, which can effectively take out any of one thing -- like a monster ship -- are a wonderful way to kill that civ that is 'turtling' before it dies. For example, as I got the Drengin cornered, he put some Dreadnaughts on defense on his planets. These suckers have lots of hitpoints, etc. Now, this would normally have taken a lot of losses for me from my own ships to clear out. But with anti-matter missiles --blam!-- removed. This rewards, that is, the guy who has air superiority. Since he was no longer strong enough to field ships in space against my own to take out my anti-matter missiles, he deserves to get whooped. Loved it!

-- Civs can break off to form a "Free [civ name]" empire! In other words, the game can and does shift in interesting ways all throughout.

-- Civs can also miraculously find huge, unique techs when there are nearly dead. But you are given warning before they 'bounce back'--this means even a dead civ can't be left alone for too long without some resolution cause you never know if it will rebound!

-- These splinter civs can form the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and pool their resources against you! Wow. That one is awesome...

CONCERNS/SUGGESTIONS:

--AI needs to use its survey ships throughout the game. They seem to operate a while and stop.

-- Would be nice for the mini-map to show which areas of space have been explored, are currently in view, etc.

-- AI sometimes lets resources sit forever in space.

-- B.C. (money) slider won't go in increments of 1 at higher levels of money! Let us type in an amount or please fix the slider!

-- You can setup proxy attacks with no repercussions? For example, I can have a friend attack a friend, yet we all stay friends? Needs a fix.

-- AI's declaration of war isn't clear!!! It will make threats but never (hardly ever?) actually say "We are at war." So you have to click to another screen after each threat to see if he actually declared war. Needs a fix.

-- On the military governor screen, please let me multiple select items so I can switch A, B, C to X all in one try! Currently you can only switch A to X then have to repeat for each item one by one...

--Need a way to have offers turn green *as you adjust the slider* so you don't have to adjust, submit, check, adjust, submit, check, etc. In fact, I see no strategy to the bargaining process at all. The AI should simply say: "We will accept an offer of xxxxb.c.'s. Is this agreeable?" As your diplomacy rating goes up, show should the offers they make.

-- Starbase text that explains the improvements get truncated.

-- BIG ONE: The option to offer an Alliance does not show up unless you are in 'Close' relationship. This might make sense at first, but it looks like a bug otherwise! If I have the tech to offer an alliance, let me offer it!!! Just have the AI refuse. This one really hurt me in my current game.

Well, my current game on 'Challenging' was winnable because one of the bad guys had a really bad starting position and this allowed me to be on the good side and call in friends to attack the one viable bad guy. But I can say that the larger map (I had been on small before and went with medium or something on this one) really affects the game in dramatic ways! When you can't start tech trading early, you also can't go into debt so easily otherwise you'll bottom out and have nothing being produced! I found myself in this position and loved it!

Also, since I was going for an alliance victory, I had to be really smart about how to manage when and where I'd fight. I spent a good amount of time keeping the right folks happy with me. I also kept good defenses up so I wouldn't be an opportune target. It all makes 'human' sense and plays naturally...as such, winning is very, very rewarding.

My only big complaint is the Alliance option not showing up. In this game I've got civs as 'Friendly' to me, yet I saw no way to offer an alliance. I seriously thought this was a bug, but the folks on GalCiv tell me that the option to offer alliance is only open when they are 'Close' to you. Huh? What's the point of negotiations if I can only offer something that will be accepted? Makes no sense!

On a plus side, this alliance victory option is awesome (if I get it to work, that is!). I'm exactly at that moment in the game where I don't want to fight anymore and everybody but the dead guy is happy with me any way. So an allied victory will take away the hours and hours of unwanted war!!! I really hope the 'Close' issue will solve my problem.

While I still want to play the next AI level up (Tough), I think I'm awfully close to giving GalCiv the highest review of a strategy game EVER!!!

Ai, The AI is the most sophisticated i have ever seen, i have played 9 games, and managed to scrape 2 wins together, it makes beating CIV3 on deity a piece of cake :) It can spot your tactics, if you start massing ships in a sector near someone you have a bad rep with, they will also begin moving defensive ships to their sector, and make defensive Star bases. If you try for the culture victory, they can regonise this and counter equally well. The AI simply put is the best i have ever seen, add into that the fact once there are more games on the "MetaVerse" the Game will connect tot he site, and automatically update itself! how cool is that!

Sound, Well..adequate, i have heard worse and better. It does come with a built in MP3 player though, which is a nifty idea.

Graphics, Well they do the job, the cutscenes are good quality, all the screens are high res and great looking. Your UI changes depending on whether you are committing evil acts, or being an angel. It was such a nice suprise as i Enslaved a Pre industrial race, and my UI changed to an evil looking red one. And all the other civs recognised me as an evil leader :) Ships look okay, although i would have liked to see them change as you upgraded them, maybe show shields etc?

Gameplay, Well this is where GalCiv shines, its incredibly addictive, it reminds me of the first time i played Civ2, this is going to be staying on my system for years to come. It is simple, yet incredibly deep underneath, its intuative, everything is 2 clicks away at most, its by far the most challenging TBG i have played, it hooks you in to the game..and before you know it, 5 hours have passed. (I should know! i went to work on friday after 2 hours sleep due to this game!) Diplomacy is great, its easy to use, you can trade ANYTHING including your poor peasant folks :D, they declare war intelligently. If for example, you have 5 trade routes with one civ, you can see how much of their Economy is funded by your trade, if its high, IE 20%, they will defend you to the limit, send you ships, as they know they need your economy to keep going :D. On the same note, if they start trading with other Civs, and stopping it with you, you have a good idea they will be attacking you soon :D

Overall, im very impressed, you can have quick 2 hour games on the tiny map, and i dont doubt on the gigantic maps they will last weeks. Stardock have Promised that they have a team of people purely working on gal-civ for the next year! they have already patched it, and released a free bonuspack, and in the next year they tell us they will regulary patch, and update the game. Hell they even put in user suggestions in the last bonus pack, and state that they will consider all our suggestions for the next bonus pack!! You only have to look at their forum to realise what a decicated company this is, and they really do want to keep making the game better and better.

I can give gal civ nothing else bu 5 stars out of 5. Excellent! Great job StarDock!!