Galactic Civilizations Preview
The remake of the classic 1993 turn-based space empire aims to make each game a unique experience.
After years of neglect, suddenly we're seeing a resurgence of turn-based space strategy games. There are two retail games due out in the next couple of months: the third game in the popular Master of Orion series and the remake of the acclaimed 1994 game for the OS/2 operating system, Galactic Civilizations. Galactic Civilizations' release date was recently pushed back to avoid having it come out in the same month as the higher-profile Master of Orion III, but the beta version that we've played looks quite solid, so it's not likely to slip past its current March schedule. That's fortunate, because Galactic Civilizations has fast-paced turn-based mechanics combined with a classic sci-fi style, and it's interesting in part because its gameplay bears a surprising resemblance to Civilization.
Galactic Civilizations looks like a traditional, tile-based empire game. You play as the human leader, and you begin with a prosperous Earth as your starting home. Play is conducted on a 2D map, with icons for various stars, ships, and other astral phenomena. Each star represents a system with up to five planets, of which some, if you're lucky, will be hospitable. Once you've colonized a planet, you select its military and infrastructure construction projects, which will help bolster the defense and productivity of a young empire. There are four conventional paths to victory: military, diplomacy, technology, and economic. But though the formula is traditional, it's Galactic Civilizations' execution that makes the game stand out.
One novel gameplay element comes in the branching ethical choices you can make at certain points, which can have an impact on the course of a game. One example of a story-based encounter is that you might find strange wormlike creatures inhabiting a planet you're about to colonize. There's a moral dilemma: You can leave the creatures as they were and take a penalty on the colony's growth rate; you can uproot and move the creatures so as not to hamper your own habitat and avoid taking a penalty; or you can exterminate the creatures to gain a bonus. Similar multiple-choice sequences appear at random points throughout the game. The ramifications are permanent, and the choices establish your civilization's ethical perception, which has a marked impact on how neighboring civilizations will respond to you.
Naturally you'll run into these neighboring civilizations very quickly. Before each game begins you can set many factors about the other civilizations that populate the randomly generated galactic map. Galactic Civilizations takes a novel approach to the process, allowing you to set each race's moral alignment as good, neutral, or evil. With this method, no race will automatically be your clear-cut ally, but rather those whose morals match with your own as the game progresses will be more receptive toward you. For example, if you prove yourself to be a good and caring leader by keeping your people happy and treating your planets and neighbors well, you can expect the races set as good to be naturally more friendly with you. Instead of random diplomatic actions, it's your own behavior that determines what kind of friends you'll have and whether you will maintain those relations. Most of the customary features of diplomacy you would expect for interacting with your neighbors are present, like the ability to trade research, sign treaties, and trade goods, and there's a slider that indicates their attitude toward you.
Exploration is extremely important at the start of any 4X space strategy game. As you explore a new map in Galactic Civilizations with the one free scientific survey ship each civilization starts with, you'll run into astral phenomena like dust clouds, floating debris, or wormholes that you can investigate. There are a number of bonuses to be gained from these phenomena, including a new ship, money, and bonuses to your research, trade, or espionage, or even nothing at all. But because of the abundance of these phenomena, which appear littered all over the map, there's a constant reason to expand and explore further, and a rush to do so quickly before other civilizations nab the bonuses.
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- Strategy First
- Stardock
- Sci-Fi Turn-Based...
- Release: Mar 26, 2003
- ESRB: Everyone
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