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finally an AI to challenge the single player

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 86 / 94
Date: March 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

There are bigger names out there, there are bigger budgets out there, there are better mutliplayer games out there, but when it comes to 4X games one game will stand out for the best AI. Galatic Civilizations.
Galatic Civilizations is the new game from Stardock published by Strategy First. It places you in charge of the human race at the dawn of space colonization. Your job ... Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate.
Scouts and survey ships allow you to explore the map. It contains from 10's of stars (tiny) to 1000's of stars (gigantic) as well as resources and anomalies. Anomalies, which can only be explored by survey type ships, consist of many types, potentially granting all sorts of bonuses. Colonization ships allow you to colonise any empty planet, though only those with good enough planet quality are worth it. Constructor ships allow you to build starbases to exploit the rare galatic resources or to enforce your will on differnet areas of space. Many different module upgrades allow for everything from an economic trade based station to a star destroying TERROR star. Tens of different military ships allow you to exterminate.
Galciv does not require you to exterminate to win and is well balanced with the traditional reseach, military and diplomatic victories being augmented with a cultural victory where enemy planets can decide to join your civilization due to cultural influence. Cultural domination is a very enjoyable way to win, focussing all your efforts on building the galatic wonders and cultural starbases to expand your influence and convert the enemy.
The universe in Galciv consists of 5 other major races and a plethora of minor races and event races. Minor races exist on single planets only and do not expand. There are great sources of trade and will often trade money for ships, trade goods or technology. Event races are created by random events (such as civil wars, pirates, terrorists, new races) throughout the game and can expand. Some are fairly weak while others require immediate Galaxy wide efforts to exterminate before it's too late.
The developers have focussed on making the game challenging and enjoyable to play. During the 18 month beta testing phase a constant question of would I have done that was always asked of the AI. If not then it was modified to behave more intelligently.Because it is multi threaded the AI works during your turn allowing for a much better thought out strategy. It follows the same rules as the human player with the one exception that it knows where the starting planets are (background story). It's very enjoyable to see the chief developer post a report on a game he expects to win (not even on highest AI levels) and get beaten by better play. Interaction with the AI players is usually through the trade screen where you can trade ships for technology or bribe another race to declare peace with your favourite minor race.
So what's the catch? Well there is no tactical combat or in-game ship design. This is totally intentional as the focus is on strategy not tactics. Combat is between individual ships and takes place quickly on the main map. There is also no multiplayer as all the effort has been placed on producing a decent single player game.
This game is due out at the end of this month with a host of extra goodies being instantly available for download. The final cherry on the cake is that this game will not just be supported, it will be improved. Free improvements and additions will be available every few months.
Definitely a game to buy.

Great game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 82 / 89
Date: April 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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!!

Read the negative reviews carefully

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 90 / 102
Date: September 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

After buying this game, I went back and read the negative reviews more closely, and it seems to me that they are generally correct. I have loved 4x games since I played the first Civ, but this game leaves a lot to be desired. I get the impression that the designers were really focused on having a good AI (which is nice), but along the way they left out a lot of other things (which was not so nice). Galactic Civilizations seems much more like an experimental prototype for a later, more sophisticated release, rather than a fully developed game in its own right.

One thing that is completely missing is the ability to improve your territory. This is normally a big part of 4x games, and I never really realized how important it is to game play until now. During the course of the game you colonize planets, and each planet has a simple "quality score" that generally varies from 1 to 20. All planets of the same quality rating are exactly alike in game terms; you don't have some planets that produce a lot of trade resources, other planets that produce a lot of minerals, and so on. They are all just "generic planets of quality X." I think this might have been acceptable (maybe) had this game come out in 1990... but for a game released in 2003, this is just not sufficient in my opinion. The interface is also not that great... sometimes it would be nice to able to use the keypad for maneuvering your ships, rather than the mouse. However, they didn't include keyboard shortcuts for commands, so you have to constantly switch back and forth from the mouse to the keyboard, or just give up and use the mouse constantly. Also, the game lacks many customization options: for example, you always play against the same 5 alien races, no matter how large or how small the galaxy is, and you can't turn off "features" like random effects that can have a huge effect on the game. There is no multiplayer option, which was puzzling a couple of years ago when Civ 3 came out without multiplayer but is almost unbelievable now. Finally, despite all the talk about the "non-cheating AI" the fact is that the computer players start out knowing the location of all the good star systems, while you have spend quite a few turns stumbling around trying to find good spots to colonize.

Altogether I rate this as something of a disapointment: a good AI in search of a game.

An excellent space strategy game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 58 / 59
Date: April 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

First, Four Stars, Falling Further With Time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 50 / 51
Date: January 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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.

Looking for a game that you can play for months?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 45 / 48
Date: September 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have been a gamer since the Apple II days and have had a lot of titles that I've really enjoyed, my favorites have always been TBS games like Civ, Master of Orion II, and Alpha Centauri.

Galactic Civilizations is worthy of being mentioned in this category. At first the simplicity is deceptive, but the game is so well designed and balanced, that each time you play it you can try a different game plan without knowing how the AI will react.

That's because the AI is actually handicapped for the first 7 difficult levels, plays without a handicap at difficulty level 8, and gets bonuses difficulty level 9 and 10.

I have been playing this game for months and I cannot regularly beat the two highest difficult levels, though I can beat Civ III at deity in my sleep. The unhandicapped UI can even beat me occassionally.

The diplomacy / trading element is also great. It is much more intelligent (at all but the easiest difficulties) than I've seem in other games.

Stardock (the maker) is constantly updating the game (there was been at least 3 major releases since May) and the each time something new gets thrown at you.

The game is well supported and though this is a single-player game, there is a lively multiple player feel through the competition of empires and message boards.

The message boards are filled with happy player (which is unusual for any game), but not surprising given the quality of the title.

Given the whole of my experience, this is definitely in my top five games of all time.

And to address some points in the negative reviews:
1. You can only play the humans, but you can define all the attributes of your race (skills, bonuses, temperment). The AI chooses from the same pool (and occassionally varies it's selections) so it's not as if you always are stuck with the same experience.
2. There are five AIs that are balanced along alignment lines (2 good, 2 evil, one nuetral) -- you can alter their alignments as you wish - but the default package is clearly playtested to provide a challenge.
3. A new manual is available on the website. (The initial manual is out of date). The forums contain a lot of stragety information, the players and designers are helpful, and there are many high-quality player written strategy guides available.

This game is a gem. You won't be sorry you purchased it, but you may be surprised at how many hours of your life it will consume.

MUCH more playable than that "other" game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 45 / 50
Date: April 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Galactic Civilizations absolutely delivers...and more. FUN!

I have played the Civ games, Alpha Centauri, the MOO games, and other strategy games dating back to such early dinosaurs as Sword of Aragon. GC delivers a very thorough strategy experience. Mention has been made that GC involves the player in the "feel" of the game. It does so, and very well. The game has made me feel very much a part of an epic story with the ebb and flow of politics, blunders, victories and defeats inherent in any storyline.

Here is a comparison to MOO3, which I recently purchased and played for many hours:

*MOO3 - flat story and feel. No feel of involvement or depth. The races all hate you.
**GC - Good alien AI, you get a feel sometimes that a real person is playing their side. Some like you, some don't, some even regret being your enemies.

*MOO3 - CARPAL CLICK INTENSIVE. My wrist hurt after playing a couple games. For days. If there is ANYTHING that can be clicked, MOO3 will make you click 5 times to accomplish it. Ouch.
**GC - Normal clicking. Some decent keyboard shortcuts. Could have used a couple more, but way better than MOO3.

--RESEARCH:
*MOO3 has an extensive tree that is sometimes confusing and uninteresting. Click a category and hope you get something good.
**GC has a large tree that is somewhat limiting. You will likely research everything as the game progresses, but you can leap ahead in areas to gain a particular advantage over other races. Little guessing as to the benefits you get, and a single advance CAN help you turn the tide in a war.

--STORY:
*MOO3 had a story?
**GC involves you with hints and tidbits as the game progresses - not rigidly canned like some games (oh, its turn 4 - time for the X-event), but very fluid and varied from game to game.

--COMBAT:
*MOO3 shines here for those that like tactical combat. The MOO2 and 3 games disappointed me from the MOO original due to not knowing exactly what ship helped, hurt, or lost/won you the game. MOO3 has a tactical maneuver element despite the other lack of detail.
**GC has simplified combat. You immediately know if your ships suck, and why. There is no tactical maneuver element here; you move your ship into contact and combat is immediately resolved.

--GRAPHICS:
*MOO3 has flat, simple, and colorless graphics. Might as well have been a technical manual. Only the alien interaction had any color.
**GC has lively colors everywhere. None are too bright. None are flat. A VERY appealing game to the eye. However, the graphics aren't the BEST or most advanced out there. Has more of a good arcade video-game feel to it.

--GAMEPLAY:
*MOO3 seemed to come down to every game being a click war against enemy spies. #&@* spies controlled the game and there was NO way to be "rid" of them, no matter how high you oppressed, no matter how many unassigned counter-operatives you had... whatever you spent years building, you would lose a tenth of everything to a spy with a bomb in one turn. VERY frustrating game. My wife offered to throw it away for me several times.
**GC has been different each time so far. You can win by CULTURE, TECHNOLOGY, ALLIANCE, or CONQUEST. All are possible and likely. GC ALSO adds in an interesting twist to the gameplay. Often you are faced with ethical choices involving benefits and penalties that are often realistic and interesting. Your choices determine whether you are good, evil, or neutral. Research based on your moral standing becomes available too. The game mixes elements of Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and every other famous sci-fi big-screen storyline in a well-balanced offering.

My OVERALL review here is 5 stars. It earns it. The producer, Strategy First, is well known for offering improvements and updates to their games. There is already 2 updates out as I write this, and the game has only been out for a week. The game is well-priced and a much better entertainment than MOO3. If I had to break it all down to one small description, GC is smooth, streamlined, and fun.

Everything Master of Orion III should have been..and wasn't

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: July 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Ok, I admit to a certain fascination with strategic space combat games. Two of my favorites continue to be Master of Orion, and its sequel. Master of Orion III (recently released) however was a real disaster.. formula over substance, a bizarre mix of uncontrolled AI and tedious micromanagement, and no replay value. Galactic Civilizations is, somehow, an exact opposite of Master Orion III despite stemming from the same basic concept. Here's a quick run-down of the best parts of this game (although there are many more). I will likely lapse into a comparison with Master of Orion III as a good example of every point this game made the right decision, but Galactic Civilizations is equally accessible to even the most casual strategic gamer.

1) Ease of play. I cannot stress this enough. I took the game out of the box for the first time, installed it, started it up, and away I went. Some of the nuances may require the manual, but everything is logically laid out and you can navigate throughout any sub menus with a simple point and click. This is the exact opposite of Master of Orion III, which delights in instantly generating a baffling maze of overlapping and arcane sub-windows.
2) Dynamic galaxies. Not only are the galaxies as generated filled with all the necessary different planets and weird space phenomena, many of those phenomena will keep appearing throughout the game. Your survey ships (used to explore weird asteroids, wormholes, and other space debris for potentially beneficial discoveries) are in constant motion. Even sectors in the center of your galaxy can suddenly sprout temporal anomalies, derelict spacecraft, and other goodies.
3) Morality counter. Throughout the course of the game you are greeted with various Emperor-level decisions you have to make. Each typically has three 'answers'..one "good," one "neutral," and one "evil". For example, your scientists may have suddenly realized a way to re-animate the dead, giving you potential access to billions of zombies. You can decide to 1) purge all knowledge, which is 'good' but costs you 500 credits, 2) store the knowledge and never use it (neutral), or 3) Let the brain-eatings commence (evil, but your soldiers get 30% stronger).
4) Turn-based. Take your time, no need to worry that the 10 minutes you spent pondering which incredibly cool research option to choose (see #5) puts you behind the eight ball.
5) Wild technology trees. Not only are the technology research trees vast, they react to your in-game decisions and morality counter. Evil empires get the option to research evil things, and so on for good ones. Unlike many strategy games where any variation in the tech trees comes from randomness, much of this one comes from you. Show a predisposition to loving evil mind control powers? Time to dig up some more. Can't get enough of pretty terraforming techs that spruce up (ahem) your planets? Dig in.
6) Smart, well-played enemies. Your computer opponents (both Major races, your primary challengers, and minor races, France-like civilizations of one or two stars that often appear later in the game) behave intelligently, and don't cheat. They won't go to war with you the turn after signing an alliance, nor randomly try to invade your most powerful planet with a single scout ship every single turn for 20 years. You can even vary the difficulty setting of _individual_ civilizations, not the game itself. So you can play against two races at "moron" intelligence, one at "normal" intelligence, and another at "genius" level all at the same time. Heck, even their racial descriptions change depending on how smart they are. Nor do they cheat at higher difficulties by getting free techs, money etc..they really are just a lot smarter in what they do.
7) Engrossing political systems. I never thought I would ever say that about a strategy game. In the Civilization games, for example, you can choose between various governments as you learn them, typically upgrading each time, or using one type for war. While in Galactic Civilizations you can also research new government types, you also have to choose a political party to be affiliated with. Each party (military, pacifist, technologist etc) gives you various racial bonuses in addition to those you apportion when you start the game. Moreover, every few years there is a short internal election (unlike those tedious voting conferences in MOOII and III) where, if you lose control of your senate, you lose some bonuses until the next election. There's also a galactic council to play around with.
8) Pre-built ships, and free-range space stations. At first, I thought not being able to design my own ships would suck. It doesn't. In fact, it's oddly liberating..as you learn new techs, you get better ships by default, speeding up the whole process (also see the morality effects on technology trees above). Also, you can use special ships to build space stations anywhere. Those stations, as you upgrade them, give bonuses in the sector they're in for everything from trade to diplomacy to battles. Layer them for even more fun.

Anyway, check this game out. You won't be disappointed.

Pretty Good Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 21
Date: April 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For the most part, I enjoy playing this game. Just as it was during my OS/2 days, it's a good turn-based strategy game (with much improved graphics). There are a few problems with it which, hopefully, they'll fix in future updates. First, it seems that all resource allocation is done at a global level. So, if you have a really advanced planet that's built all the social projects, there's no way to turn off the social spending on that planet alone. It has to be done at a global menu for ALL planets. I've played games where all my planets except one had built everything they could (at that point). But, to keep my lesser planet moving forward, I had to keep dumping tons of cash down the drain on those other planets. The unused spending doesn't get put back into the treasury. It just disappears. Secondly, it would be nice if you could set a destination for ships at the planet level. IOW, tell the planet that every ship it builds should automatically head for some location on the map. This would be especially useful when building Starbases. They take dozens of ships and every one of them has to be manually targeted to the location. There are a few other quibbles, but those two are my biggest complaints. Overall, still a pretty good game.

BTW. Make sure you download the updates to this game as soon as you get it installed. Apparently, they contain quite a few fixes which enhance game play.

Strategy First is Right

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 21
Date: May 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The company name of Strategy First describes their approach to this title. While the game doesn't allow for close ship-to-ship tactical combat, and the combat graphics are minimilistic at best, this game will change the way AI is viewed for all computer games. First and foremost, the AI doesn't cheat. At higher difficulty levels it has some starting advantages (better economy for one), but otherwise it plays by the same rules as the human player. And a very cool innovation is that instead of 'computer vs. player', each AI (separate AI for each race) is out to win for itself.

In addition, this game is probably one of the most intelligent AI's I've ever played. One example is that in a recent games, one of other races approached me in diplomatic negotiations simply to suggest that since the Yor were in control of an awful lot of the galaxy, and neither they (the Arceans) no I (Humans) were able to take on the Yor, we would be wise to feed money and ships to the races that were already actively at war with the Yor.

And Stardock's support for this game is awesome! Frequent updates to the game, player mods easily constructed, and the developers themselves actually respond and even debate various suggestions and issues in the GalCiv forums.

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