Galactic Civilizations

by Strategy First

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000899ZX
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: March 25, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,711 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Manufacturer's Description

Galactic Civilizations is a space-based strategy game that puts the player in the role of leader of United Earth near the dawn of the 23rd century. As leader of United Earth, you must explore and colonize as many suitable planets as you can, research new technology, negotiate treaties with other civilizations, invest in social programs, build star bases, and, of course, maintain a military fleet to defend mankind.

Unprecedented replayability and a multi-threaded artificial intelligence engine ensure that each game is its own epic experience. Players can take multiple paths to victory including conquering the galaxy militarily (taking over all enemy planets), conquering the galaxy culturally (spreading human ideas and culture so thoroughly through the galaxy that the citizens of other civilizations defect to join up with you), technological victory (researching to the point where humans move beyond mortality), and political victory (uniting the surviving civilizations together under your rule). Much of the development effort has been put into making sure each path is enjoyable for players. Players also face ethical dilemmas along the way. The choices they take help determine whether their civilization take the path towards "goodness" or towards "evil". As one moves down these paths, the game interface visually changes, how the game reacts to you changes and how other civilizations deal with you changes.

Another innovation is that the game engine attempts to generate a completely new experience each game. The content that would normally be created for a linear campaign is instead dynamically retrieved in pieces for each game and assembled into an epic experience for each game. The user interface of the game has been designed to vastly reduce micro management. Often strategy games become difficult to play in their later stages due to excessive micro management. Galactic Civilizations solves this problem through user interface enhancements, rather than relying on player-assigned AI managers.

When these features are combined, the result is a unique strategy game with a high level of replayability. The game's developer has budgeted an additional year of development time after release to add free new features based on player feedback.

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent space strategy game, April 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Galactic Civilizations (CD-ROM)

General/Summary: Galactic Civilizations is an updated version of a game released back in the mid-90s for the OS/2 operating system. Loved by many who used it it's now been released for a mainstream OS, Windows. It's a 4x Space Strategy game but is closer to Civilization, than some other 4x games. I'd describe it as a cross between Master of Orion 2 and Civilization.
Gameplay: Great, it has an intelligent AI, multiple paths to victory, and great strategic depth. On the outside the mechanics of the game itself are very simple but the strategies of the game itself are very deep. You have to decide which path you want to take and deal with the computer controlled empires.

Of note is the strength of the AI. It will bargain with you, and each other, surrender when it's almost destroyed (to prevent the end game tedium in other games), get angry if you build up military outside it's sectors etc. etc.

The AI also does not cheat as blatantly as other games. It does get knowledge of where all the good stars are (it's explained by the background story by "they've been in space longer"... lame but it's not a HUGE advantage) and the equivalent of the tech "Stellar Cartography" but it does not get the massive free resources/planets/ships as in other games.

Graphics: Servicable but definately but the greatest. The cutscenes are nice and add to the game. The graphics are decently drawn 2d graphics, no massive 3d explosions or such but in a 4x game what else do you expect?

Sound: Decent music, only average sound effects. Again not a big factor in this type of sound and definately not as annoying as some other games effects.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars First, Four Stars, Falling Further With Time, January 24, 2004

By 

Old Gamer "kendevon" (Brooks, ME United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Galactic Civilizations (CD-ROM)

I do like Gal Civ for a number of reasons.
1 Minor mistakes are not fatal
2 You can micromanage planetary production as much as you want,
3 You don't have to micromanage if you don't feel like it
4 I like the exploration and discovery aspects
5 The frequent updates and addons are pleasant
6 There is an overall strategy to gaining influence, military might, and economic strength that is satisfying
7 I really enjoy exerting enough influence in a sector to cause the alien systems to surrender to me.

The problem is that most of the things I like were only true until I was thoroughly familiar with the game. Oh, I'd buy it again even knowing what I know now, but it promised a fuller experience than it delivered in my opinion.
1 The AI has a huge advantage in reaching habitable planets
(I may be petty, but the scrambling for habitable planets is frustrating because I can send a ship that starts closer to a good planet than the AI's only to discover the AI's ship moves in record time and claims the prize)
2 The survey ship, which is not meant to be a fighting ship is the only one that can get offensive and defensive bonuses from the various specials floating around in space at the start of the game. (Your survey ship can get enough bonuses to be more powerful than battleships - somewhat less than realistic) By the time you can build heftier ships with survey abilities, most of the specials have been explored and used up. So, the more advanced survey ships are seldom useful.
3 Though space battle tactics are considered unimportant by the developers, I consider tactical combat challenging and exciting. I believe the game lacks some punch for that reason.
4 Once familiar with the game the anomalies become hohum, even the free ships.

With all the potential of this game I was looking for that little extra "something" and didn't find it. The game is very enjoyable and I recommend it to those those with long range gaming goals. It has the framework to be much more, however, and I hope the developers produce it in another edition.

84 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great game!, April 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Galactic Civilizations (CD-ROM)

Hmm where to start, i was very dubious after my Moo3 disapointment. I thought people were latching on to any TBG in hopes of fulfilling the gap Moo3 left. Well it fills that gap.
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!!