Steam:http://store.steampowered.com/app/226860/Galactic_Civilizations_III/
Release Name: Galactic Civilizations III Intrigue-CODEX Game Version: First Release Game Releaser: Cracked By CODEX Size: 9.13 GB Galactic Civilizations III Free Download
Galactic Civilizations III Intrigue CODEX – Build a civilization that will stand the test of time in the largest space-based strategy game ever! Choose from dozens of unique races and make a name for yourself across the galaxy through diplomacy, espionage, technological advances, and more.
Game Details
Title: Galactic Civilizations III
Genre: Indie, Strategy Developer: Stardock Entertainment Publisher: Stardock Entertainment Release Date: 14 May, 2015 About This Game
What if one day, humans woke up to find that they weren’t alone in the galaxy? They make their way into space and discover other alien civilizations with their own histories and motivations looking to make a name for themselves. Choose your race – Human, Drengin, Altarian, and so many more – and lead your civilization into a golden age in one of the largest 4X strategy games ever made!
Research new technology, design starships, and colonize new worlds as you face threats and conquer challenges from new and mysterious sources. Negotiate trade and treaties, wage wars, spy on your enemies, and promote outstanding citizens. And when you’ve finished that, play again as one of the many included alien civilizations each with its own history, technology tree, ship components, and more.
Galactic Civilizations III now bundles in the Crusade expansion and Mega Events add-on content for an even greater gameplay experience! Join the ranks of galactic leaders today, and answer the question: how will you rule your galaxy?
NEVER THE SAME GAME TWICE
Each new game offers an array of options as you set it up – choose your map size, abundance of planets and resources, frequency of events, and more for a unique play experience every time. Galactic Civilizations III also removes linear victory conditions and offers you multiple objectives that you can choose to pursue in order to win, such as military conquest, cultural domination, technological ascension, or political alliances. The new multiplayer capabilities also allow you to expand your challenges and fights beyond an AI in order to face off against fellow players. All of this, topped with a rich and in-depth custom ship designer ensure an immersive and exciting experience as you decide how to rule your galaxy.
CORE FEATURES:
BASE GAME
CRUSADE
MEGA EVENTS
System Requirements
Minimum:
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DirectX:
Network:
Storage:
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Recommended:
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ScreenshotsVideo Tutorial – Galactic Civilizations III Free Download
Actually I think that there is not need to record video tutorial. Instructions below are enough. It’s simple to download and install it.
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Introduction – Part 1
If you don’t know anything about the Stardock game, Galactic Civilizations III, then this post won’t help you in any way other than by possibly providing you with some form of entertainment. I wish you luck in that direction. This is serious business.
I, for one, have fallen in love with the GalCiv gaming series. I don’t normally speak ill of the dead, but I must blame this debilitating flaw of mine on the late, beloved Gene Roddenberry. He, after all, is the sole reason for my space-faring 4X gaming addiction. I blame him and no one else. It can’t possibly be my fault.
Introduction – Part 2
I like introductions, what can I say. They allow me time to ramble on without actually saying anything. Don’t test me– I may throw a Part 3 your way…
Let me say right off that winning Galactic Civilizations 3 (GC3) is not necessarily child’s play. Many people on the Steam GC3 forums have sounded like they were about to shed tears because they simply “didn’t get it” and “could not win”. They complained that their understanding of the game was inadequate. There was no documentation. They didn’t have a clue. And so forth. Apparently, the mystery was mystifying. I even saw a person who complained that after 100 or so hours of game time they just “couldn’t understand how to win.”. 100 hours?! Ha! They have no clue…
GC3 is complex. It is deep. And it will take time, a lot of time, before you “get it”. Once that lightning bolt strikes, however, it becomes a piece of cake. I think the game is won by understanding it. Therein lies the challenge. Once you understand it, the AI doesn’t stand a chance in hell. The more you know, the dumber the AI seems to get.
Playing against human players will be an entirely different scenario. Using the strategies I lay out in the following paragraphs will probably not work against them unless you are lucky enough to run into a human player who is as stupid as the AI. Do not despair, I’m sure they’re out there… in numbers… just sayin’.
Note 1: If you own the Mercenaries Expansion DLC, then please be advised that I will give some exceptions to my “rules” as we progress.
I like notes nearly as much as I like introductions, so…
Note 2: I didn’t learn all this stuff on my own and I want to give credit where credit is due. I watched many hours of game play on YouTube and have read a lot on the Steam Forums about different GC3 strategies. I will tell you about those most clever people and provide some links at the end of this post.
Note 3: The following points are all made with two presumptions in mind:
Note 4: The higher the difficulty level, the better. Higher levels will ensure the AI has more stuff to trade. Abuse the weak Trade System in this game to the max. Get Gold from the Minors and Tech from the Majors. I’ll mention this again later. It’s a critical point.
Shame or Fame
I have over 1200 hours invested in this game. I don’t know if I should be bragging, or ashamed of myself. There are 2000 normal work hours in a year. I’ll let you do the math.
The bottom line is that I know pretty much how this game works. Is that an achievement? I’ll leave that for you to decide. I don’t think I’ll be lying on my death bed complaining, “Gee, I wish I’d gotten better at Skyrim…”
No matter how you feel about addiction of any kind, if you want to win GC3, I’m here to tell you how to do just that in this article. Read on…
In The Beginning
Winning can be achieved if you begin the game ‘correctly’. That is to say, if you fixate on some simple rules-of-play right from the get-go, you are almost guaranteed a win, no matter which Victory Condition you may choose. You can build massive fleets of ships to obliterate your opposition, choose to make Alliances and win in a perfectly peaceful way, Research Technology and win via intellectual means alone, or reach Ascendance. Each Victory condition has its own set of complications and nuances, but the decisions you make in the Early Game will make or break you.
It really doesn’t matter which course you ultimately choose, the beginning is the crux of it all, and that is what I’m here to talk about.
I must tell you that the first part of the game is so important that it will take a while to explain it all. After that, it boils down to a lot of plain old common sense– Do I need this now? Get it. If not, then get something else. Basically, get what you need right now and forget about the rest of it for the time being. Always ask yourself the same question, every turn, “What do I need at the moment?”, and “How do I get it as quickly as possible?”
Settings
Make sure Tech Brokering is disabled. You don’t want to trade a hard-won Technology to a Minor alien only to have them trade it to a Major! Control those trades as much as possible.
At every planet, make sure Auto-Upgrade Improvements (buildings) is disabled. You’ll find this on each individual planet’s Governor Screen.You want the infrastructure to be built before expending resources on upgrades. That can come later…
This game allows you to set up auto-governors. They will automatically choose which buildings to put on your planets and when and where. This will save you a lot of micromanagement but will also cause your planets to develop as stupidly as the other AI planets in the game. If you want to win, you will have to take control of your own destiny. At least some micromanagement is necessary.
Later in the game, when you begin running out of high-class planets, you will find yourself colonizing lower-class (4, 5, and 6) planets. You’ll do this if for no other reason than to keep them out of opposing hands, or claws, or tentacles, or whatever. When this happens, and those planets are not in strategic locations (eg, next to an enemy), you may want to allocate a Governor there. Basically, set it and forget it. It’s one less thing to think about, and mid to late game, you’ll have plenty to think about. Trust me.
Note: I like to rename planets according to their specialties. For example, I’ll rename a manufacturing-focused world to “M – <planet name>”. This will group all the “M” planets together in the Planet Lists. You can use any system you like, or none at all. I find it simpler to keep things organized when I have 40+ planets to deal with. I use “E” for Economy worlds, and “R” for Research planets. There are a couple special cases, a Trade World and a Hyperion World, that I’ll talk about a little later.
Race Choices, Traits and Abilities
I’m not going to delve deeply into race choices and traits. The reasoning is that it’s probably a book in itself and ultimately doesn’t matter when you give the following strategy a go. I don’t care which traits all the Artificial Intelligence (AI) have, I will still beat them. And I don’t care which traits you may choose for your own personalized race, either. Once you master this game, it simply won’t matter in the long run.
To help get you started, though, here are a couple things to think about:
Race Choices
Your choice of which race to play the game as entirely depends on which Victory Condition you’d like to aim for. You want to beat people up? Drengin or Snathi should work for that; they have strong manufacturing and military abilities. To effectively choose one, you will have to look at the traits and special abilities of each race until you find one that meets your intended goals.
I almost always play using a race I’ve created myself, a Custom Race. I played a lot of The Elder Scrolls games and liked the Argonians and this led to the creation of a GC3 race of the same name whose home world is Argos. Not very original, I know.
Traits and Abilities
The traits I like are Productive (a manufacturing boost), Clever (for a Research bonus), Dense (Mass – so I can put more components on my ships), Observant (Sensor Power – increase line of sight), Fast (Moves per turn – speedier ships) and Organized (Logistics – to put more ships in fleets).
The Colonizers Special Ability will give you a free first building on every new planet you colonize (not the Home Planet or any in the Home Group). Since a couple factories are my first choice for any new planet, getting a free one right off is a great benefit.
Intuitive will give a large number of Research Points at the beginning of the game. This, in turn, gives a head start in the Technology Tree which you will definitely need on higher difficulty settings. At any difficulty level above Normal, the AI gets a lot of free techs to put them ahead of you. The higher levels don’t make the AI smarter, they just get advantages over you, and that’s what is supposed to make the game harder.
This type of advice causes great contention among GC3 gamers. “Advice” is the key word here, so please accept it as such. Ultimately, as you learn the game and develop your own style of play, you will undoubtedly decide on your own races, traits and special abilities. And I predict that you’ll eventually end up being just as contentious as the rest of us.
Victory Conditions
I always leave them all enabled. The Victory Options are available in-game, so it might be possible to change these settings even after you’ve been playing for a while. I don’t know this from personal experience; I’ve never tried it.
Conquest and Research victories are plain time-consuming. You’ll know you’ve won long before you will actually see the Victory Screen. If that’s your cup of tea, then go for it.
Influence Victory is merely owning more territory on the map than anyone else (75%, I think), and holding that advantage for a certain number of turns (10, I think). This will also take many turns to accomplish.
Alliance Victory is by far the shortest route and can be accomplished relatively quickly. I’ve seen huge maps with four AI beaten in 50 turns. Stardock was apparently traumatized when they saw this happening so they “nerfed” the settings to make it more difficult. They need to “nerf” it some more because I still think it’s the easiest victory available in the game. Too easy, in fact.
Ascension Victory has proven elusive to me. You have to own the majority of the Ascension Crystals on the map. You must also accrue a significant number of Ascension Points to win. You get one point per crystal per turn and you need in the neighborhood of 3,000 points (it probably fluctuates depending on difficulty level). This can’t be done without extensive research in certain technological areas that I don’t normally explore.
You must also defend your Ascension Crystals because once the AI figures out you are heading towards this victory type, they might start attacking them. You’ll know they know because they will start whining about it and they won’t like you anymore. Awww…
Given all the research you need to do, and all the military oomph you will eventually need, the Ascension Victory strikes me as the most daunting to achieve. Oh, and you’ve got to find all those crystals in the first place, which are scattered randomly all over the map, too! Many may be located inside enemy territory. All in all, not an easy task, I’d say.
You can bet that I’m going to give it a go someday, for sure. For that, I’ll set up the smartest, most militarily robust race I can come up with. We’ll see what happens.
Turn Limit is one that I never concern myself with. The limits are so high that if you haven’t won the game long before the time expires, you are doing something terribly wrong.
The Early Game Is The GameGalactic Civilizations 3 Ship Building Tutorial
If you get the first 100 turns “right”, you’re going to win every time. It’s just that simple. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing on a Huge map or an Insane map, against one or 20 aliens. The focus is the same in each and every case. The only thing that changes is the timing, and your understanding of that concept will be directly proportional to your experience.
The first 20 turns are so critical, in fact, that I will only focus on them in this post. If you don’t get them right, you’re going to be in trouble anyway. The next 80 turns won’t make much difference unless you’re really clever and are able to play a unique game of catch-up. I’ll leave that to you, mighty warriors.
The First 20 Turns
There are a few things you need to get “your mind right” (thinking of “Cool Hand Luke“) from the start:
If you get all of the above working ASAP (before turn 100), you’re on the right path towards winning this game.
If this game is a marathon, then the early game is a sprint. If you play at higher difficulty settings (anything above Normal), you are beginning behind the starting line. Your goal, in the beginning, is to not only catch up to your opponents, but to pass them by. More planets, higher populations, and more research are paramount. That is why these first few turns are so important; you can’t afford to make debilitating blunders here.
Credits
As promised I will give you a couple links to the creative people who made this GC3 Guide possible:
Icemania – I only have a link to a Steam guide that he published a while back. It is now a bit out-dated due to new developments and versions of GC3 having been released since it was written. You will notice many similarities, and differences, between his guide and this one and he deserves much credit for helping me when I had questions.
I don’t know how to contact him, so if anyone reading this has the answer to that question, please let me know.
Macsen – Macsen is a unique case. He seems to have been born with an innate sense of timing and strategy-type gaming skills. What’s more is that his many YouTube “Let’s Play” videos are pleasant to listen to, unlike others who appear to be pure nut-cases or others still who can’t speak two words without using some sort of vulgarity– “Profanity is a weak mind trying to express itself forcefully” ~ Spencer W. Kimball
Macsen has his slip-ups, of course, but they are few and far between, and all the more humorous because they seem somewhat out of character. Great stuff!
Macsen is pure pleasure to listen to and if you want to learn something about a game, I highly recommend him as the go-to guy. Subscribe to his channel and hit that “Like” button; he is worth every minute of your time. In most cases he will try to explain his reasoning and justification for a particular “move” during game-play. He is the main reason I felt the least bit qualified to write this article in the first place.
He is also very responsive to any comments and/or questions you may pose– even on older videos that he has published.
In the next installment of this article, Galactic Civilizations III – How To Win – Part II, I will delve more deeply into goals you should strive for by the turns. In the meantime, I welcome any and all questions/comments you may have.
Stay tuned and have fun!
Richard
—
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is a 4Xturn-based strategy by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to the original Galactic Civilizations (in turn based on the OS/2 games Galactic Civilizations and Galactic Civilizations 2), and was released at retail and on Stardock's online subscription service, TotalGaming.net, on February 21, 2006. An expansion, Dark Avatar, was released in February 2007. A second expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, was released in April 2008.
Dread Lords is set in the 23rd century, when multiple alien civilizations, including Terrans, scramble to conquer the galaxy, planet by planet, by force, diplomacy, influence (culture), or technology. Dread Lords focuses on the single player experience that consists of a Campaign mode and a 'Sandbox' mode, and omits multiplayer. The game is notable for its artificial intelligence, which is challenging without being given resources and abilities not available to the player, as is common in the majority of strategy games. The game was a modest commercial success, and it was received favorably by critics, winning multiple Editor's Choice awards. Stardock also opted for a rather unusual distribution strategy that lacks copy prevention, and allowed for extensive modding by the community.
A sequel, titled Galactic Civilizations III was announced by Stardock on October 15, 2013. A pre-release version was made available through Steam in March 2014, which allowed customers to play the game while it is still in development. The sequel was the first game in the series to feature multiplayer and used hex-based game tiles. The full version of the game was released in May 2015. The game's first expansion, titled Mercenaries, was released in February 2016.
Storyline[edit]
The story of Galactic Civilizations II and the back plot of the ingame universe it inhabits is based on a series of short stories written by Stardock CEO Brad Wardell.[1]
A powerful, highly advanced civilization, remembered in legend as the 'Precursors', colonized much of the galaxy thousands of years ago. As younger specimens throughout the galaxy began to develop the beginnings of their own primitive civilizations, it led to a philosophical rift within Precursor society, splitting it into two factions. The Arnor faction wanted to guide the younger civilizations toward enlightenment. The Dread Lord faction wanted to exterminate them.
This dispute erupted into a catastrophic civil war. The Dread Lords came close to destroying the Arnor in the war's final battle. However, before the final blow was struck, the Dread Lords and the Arnor both mysteriously vanished.
The younger civilizations eventually began to explore the galaxy on their own but their progress was slow. The first wave of exploration was made possible after the invention of stargates. A stargate was expensive to build and would only transport a ship to another stargate, which first had to be constructed at the destination.
The youngest civilization, Humanity, obtained plans for the construction of a stargate after the Arcean civilization initiated first contact with them. Human scientists realized that, with the inclusion of a fusion power source, the technology behind the stargates could be modified to create a hyperdrive engine. Hyperdrive allowed starships to travel great distances on their own.
With the entire galaxy now within easy reach, the major space-traveling civilizations began a race to explore, colonize and, in some cases, conquer the galaxy. Armies were mobilized, fleets of warships were built and the galaxy was once again on the verge of total war. As the younger civilizations prepared themselves for the coming conflict, the Dread Lords began to return.
The player must guide Humanity's actions as they attempt to prevent Precursor technology from being discovered by their enemies, fight a galactic war between the major powers and survive the onslaught of the genocidal Dread Lords.
Features and game concepts[edit]
The game is played in what is known as a 'sandbox' galaxy mode, where the objective is to achieve victory over AI opponents in one of four ways - military conquest, cultural domination, universal alliance or technological supremacy. The sandbox analogy represents the free-form style of playing, where the player is free to develop the game however he/she chooses. This 'sandbox' may be customized in terms of galaxy size, planet habitability and similar features as well as difficulty of the opposition. The game also includes a story-driven campaign, featuring the titular 'Dread Lords'.
Civilizations[edit]
The game has 10 playable preset civilizations, and also allows the user to create a custom civilization. Eight of the preset civilizations return from the original Galactic Civilizations game and its expansion: the Terran Alliance, the Yor Collective, the Drengin Empire, the Altarian Republic, the Drath Legion, the Torian Confederation, the Dominion of the Korx, and the Arcean Empire. The other two preset civilizations are new: the Iconian Refuge and the Thalan Empire. Minor civilizations (which do not factor into winning conditions, and have a weaker AI), such as the sentient rodent-like Snathi, can also appear in the game.
Each preset civilization has a distinct combination of AI, personality, and built-in advantages. The Korx, for instance, focus on money, and thus have an economic bonus. The Terrans are excellent diplomats, the Drengins have superb ships and soldiers, the Torese have fast population growth, and the Yor have very loyal populations.
Ship design[edit]
One criticism of the original Galactic Civilizations was its lack of ship design features.[2] New ships simply became available when the appropriate technology was researched to create them. Galactic Civilizations II includes a highly configurable 3D ship design editor. Technological research now unlocks components that players use to create their own custom ship designs in 3D from a variety of hull bases. The users' ships are rendered in real time and shown on both the main screen and in fleet battles. Other than component selection, the design of a ship has no effect on its combat abilities, since tactical combat is not a feature of the game.
Galactic Civilizations 3 Crusade Tutorial
Every ship is designed around a particular class of hull - tiny, small, cargo, medium, large and huge - and has a predetermined number of hit points and capacity. Each ship component takes up a certain amount of space. Technological advances can lead to enhanced components that take up less space (but which typically cost more to construct). Existing ships may be upgraded to use these new components, although it is often cheaper to use them as cannon fodder and replace them with newer ships.
There are three types of paired 'offense-defense' combinations:
Defenses work best against the offensive weapon with which they are matched. A defense mechanism used against a mismatched attack is diminished to the square root of the defense value (with a minimum of 1). For example, nine units of shield defenses would afford the same protection as only three units of armor when used to defend against mass drivers.
Engines are another component, and become available in increasing power/size ratios with later research. Several extra components available at all times include sensors, life support (for extra range), colonization, and construction modules. Each component may be added multiple times with summing effect; a player could create a fast long-range fighter with two lasers, two ion engines, a support module, and a shield.
A wide variety of non-functional components ('jewelry') such as wings, pylons, wheel structures, and lights may be added for artistic purposes. These take up no space and cost nothing to build. There are several sets of jewelry, one of which is assigned to each civilization, though the player is not restricted to choosing from these.
3D engine[edit]
Galactic Civilizations II is powered by a custom 3D game engine, although most user interface elements are displayed in 2D. Planets and ships are restricted to a single plane in space, but the user may pan and zoom as they wish, even to view the details of individual ships. Players may zoom out to view the galactic map on a wide scale, at which point the ships, planets and anomalies are replaced by icons. It is possible to play the game in this mode.
The player's ship designs are tested in full-screen fleet battles in an environment separate from the main screen. The battles are not user-directed, but it is possible to watch from several viewpoints and fast-forward and reverse through them. Planetary invasions are dealt with separately, depending on a combination of general technology, soldiering ability, quantity of forces available to each side, and optional methods of attack (which tend to provide advantages at the cost of decreasing planetary quality or destroying planetary improvements).
A.I.[edit]
A major focus of Galactic Civilizations II is the artificial intelligence of its opponents, due in part to the deliberate omission of multiplayer in favor of the single-player experience. The game offers 12 levels of AI intelligence for opponent civilizations. Full AI capability is granted at the 7th level ('intelligent'). Levels 1 through 6 implement less sophisticated strategies/counter-strategies and (except for level 6) are hindered by economic handicaps. Levels 8 through 12 are aided by economic advantages and other bonuses.
The AI also makes use of technological developments to design ships of its own. At higher difficulty levels these ships are tailored to the opposition, so players sending fleets of laser-armed ships may find them repulsed by shielded defenders, while those preferring to employ mass drivers will find that they come up against heavily armored opposition instead.
Stardock has changed the AI's capabilities with various updates.
Planetary management[edit]
This planet has two 'bonus' tiles that can give a boost to the planet's food production and research.
In the original Galactic Civilizations, planets were part of a star system, and located in the same square. In Galactic Civilizations II, each planet (or colony) is a completely separate entity in space. Moreover, planets may now only have a limited number of improvements built upon them. A planet's class determines the number of improvement tiles that are available for building. There are improvements to aid manufacturing, research, planetary influence, morale, and the economy, as well as several 'wonder'-style improvements similar to those popularized by the Civilization series of games.
Certain technologies allow the unlocking of extra tiles, a feature that allows more advanced civilizations to make better use of a low-quality planet. Planets may be focused on military production or research, allowing the creation of military outposts or research bases. In addition, a proportion of tiles offer bonuses for manufacturing, research, agriculture, influence or morale improvements built upon them.
The necessity of customizing planetary improvements (which is a big part of the game) can be an increased burden on the player. To help with this, the game offers an auto-update system that can automatically upgrade any available planetary improvements as new technology becomes available.
Economics[edit]
The largest departure made by Galactic Civilizations II from other 4X games is its economic system, which is very different from the systems used in most strategy games. Typically, 4X strategy games receive money based on a tax rate or based on the income of specific tiles in use by a city or planet. Civilization IV uses this system, and most other 4X strategy games use a variant of it. These incomes are increased by economic structures and sometimes by population, and the profit made off this economic income is used to pay maintenance fees and rush-build units. Galactic Civilizations II adds another layer of complexity by requiring that the income of an empire is used to pay for all forms of production. In order to produce one unit of product, be it research or manufacturing, the player must pay credits (usually in denominations of a Billion Credits, or BC). It is therefore critical that the player balances the economic income of their empire with their industrial output, and not just with the maintenance of their empire. If the player does not have the economy required to support an industrial planet, then they will have to spend at a deficit, and if the player does not correct their economy, they will eventually go broke. This stands in stark contrast to the Civilization series, where industrial output has nothing to do with the player's economic income.
Random events and alignment[edit]
At random times throughout the game, though commonly in colonizing new planets, the player is presented with ethical choices in the form of events where a wide-ranging decision needs to be made. Typically the good choice will cost the player something (either directly or indirectly). Conversely, the evil choice can bring benefits, albeit at the expense of other civilizations or the player's own population. A neutral choice is also presented as a compromise. To keep the game's ethics uncontroversial, the choices are made very clear-cut.
For example, one random event involves the creation of a super-serum that can enhance soldiers' performance at the expense of decreasing the life expectancy of those who take it. The player may forbid its use and destroy all of the research at government's expense (good), only allow it to be used by those who volunteer (neutral), or require all army recruits to take it (evil). In this case, the 'loss' of the good choice is mostly an opportunity cost in terms of the foregone advantage.
The main advantage to making good choices comes in diplomacy with other civilizations; good civilizations are more picky about interacting with evil civilizations than evil ones are with good ones. In addition, once the 'Xeno Ethics' technology is researched, it is possible to pick one of the three alignments, which grants access to various bonuses and improvements. Picking an alignment other than that already established by the player's actions costs significant amounts of money.
Some random events affect not only individual civilizations, but also the entire galaxy. These galaxy-wide events can upset the balance of power, transform weak civilizations into powerful ones, lead to wars between allies and even result in chaos. In one event, a civilization unearths an archeological relic that will eventually transform them into 'god-like' beings. Some events can spawn devastating pirate fleets across the galaxy or triple one civilization's influence. Others are more benign, with all civilizations experiencing a short-term economic boom, or a 'wave of xenophobia' (usually triggered by prolonged warfare) that halts tourism.
Starbases and galactic resources[edit]
A late addition to the original Galactic Civilizations game, starbases are a central component in Galactic Civilizations II. There are four main types of starbases:
All four kinds of starbases may also be upgraded with defensive capabilities. The AI is more than willing to make its own starbases, and may take exception to the player building them too close to the AI's planets.
Civilization bonuses, politics and government[edit]
When designing a custom civilization, the player is given a set of points that can be allocated to various bonus abilities. These bonuses cover most game mechanics - it is possible to make a civilization with highly militant and loyal researchers, or with influential and highly prolific diplomats.
At the beginning of the game, the player chooses one of eight political parties, each with its own advantages. These advantages are cumulative with the civilizations bonuses, so they may be used to cement an established advantage, or to shore up a potential weakness. However, these bonuses are only preserved as long as the player's party stays in power, which depends on keeping morale up (generally above 50%). If the player loses an election they do not lose control of the game, only the bonuses previously granted. In addition, the bonus of the party currently in power (if you are not) is applied as a penalty to your civilization instead. Morale also has an effect on reported population, and thus on tax revenue, so it is important not to tax for short-term gain.
The player can eventually research advanced forms of government that grant significant bonuses to the economy and social production. However, it becomes increasingly harder to keep morale up while progressing from an imperial government to a republic, democracy or galactic federation.
The United Planets[edit]
The United Planets is a council formed of all major civilizations in the galaxy that regularly convenes to make decisions. The number of votes a civilization has in the council depends on their influence, which is partially a factor of population, but which is also affected by planetary improvements and civilization bonuses (among other factors). The United Planets does not usually have a great effect on the game, but some of the propositions — for example, the transfer of unique researched technologies, or the imposition of a certain governmental system — can be extremely destabilizing if passed. The player does have the option of permanently leaving the United Planets, but at the expense of losing all trade revenue.
Diplomacy and civilization relations[edit]
Diplomacy is a key part of the game. Players — both human and AI — may trade technology, starbases, ships, planets, and trade goods (unique improvements built by one civilization that provide a bonus to those obtaining them). Negotiation skill is an important factor which varies with inherent civilization bonuses and research; it can be possible to gain a significant technological advantage through careful trading with less sophisticated civilizations.
Each civilization has customized text used during negotiation that signifies their current relations with the player. Relations depend on a number of factors, including current trade, relative ethical alignment, belligerence, military might and past actions. AI players may decide to initiate technology trades or demand tribute from the player, or to warn them of perceived threats.
Reception[edit]
Upon release, Galactic Civilizations II received positive reviews from GameSpot,[6]GameSpy,[7] and IGN.[8] The overall critical reception was highly positive, awarding an average score of 87%.[3]
The editors of Computer Games Magazine presented Galactic Civilizations II with their 2006 'Best AI' and 'Best Independent Game' awards, and named it the year's sixth-best computer game overall. They wrote, 'Galactic Civilizations II may not lead to a resurgence of space conquest games, but as long as it's available, the renaissance can wait.'[9]
Ten days after its launch, Galactic Civilizations II had matched the lifetime sales of its predecessor, with 75,000 copies sold.[10] According to Stardock's CEOBrad Wardell, as of March 2008, Galactic Civilizations II has sold around 300,000 copies in total, bringing in an eight-figure revenue, on a development budget of less than $1 million.[11]
Distribution[edit]
Stardock has not instituted any stringent or cumbersome copy prevention schemes in accordance with what its CEO Wardell has defined as the Gamer's Bill of Rights.
The game's CD contains no copy prevention and there is no requirement to have the disc loaded into the computer to play the game. Stardock's anti-piracy plan is that players must complete product activation with a valid serial number before they may receive any of the several game updates. Serial numbers can be used multiple times and the company owner, Brad Wardell, has stated that they are taking an approach based on the view that people who install the game illegally were unlikely to purchase it anyway.
Reselling copies of the game is against Stardock's license terms. Resold/used copies will not be supported, meaning that the buyer of a used copy cannot download game updates.[12]
Copies of the game purchased from Stardock's online store use product activation before the game can be played. The game can only be installed and activated a limited number of times before needing to contact support. Installing on a computer without an internet connection require the files to be downloaded into an archive on another computer, and an activation data blob emailed to Stardock; a signature file is returned to be used on the activated computer.
On November 21, 2015 'Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition' was released DRM-free and without product activation on the digital distribution website gog.com.[13]
StarForce controversy[edit]
On March 5, 2006, a StarForce employee publicly posted a working link[14] to a BitTorrent search engine listing of Galactic Civilizations II torrents during a discussion about the popularity of the game. Their action was publicized on various websites, including Digg, Neowin,[15] and Penny Arcade.[16] Stardock also posted an article,[17] partially in response to inaccurate reporting of their own reasons for releasing the game without copy protection. Starforce later closed the thread, posting an apology and stating that the employee 'just wanted to show that every non-protected game can be cracked'.[15]
Expansions and modifications[edit]
Cover art for Endless Universe
Stardock has released two expansion packs for the game as well as a major update (GalCiv 2.0). It will not release any more as they are currently working on their upcoming projects.
Dark Avatar[edit]
Stardock released an expansion pack named Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar[18] in February 2007.[19] A number of things are added in the expansion, such as:
Twilight of the Arnor[edit]
A second expansion pack named Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor[20] was released in April 2008,[21] the expansion added new content to the game, such as:
According to Stardock, Twilight of the Arnor is the final expansion for Galactic Civilizations II.[22]
Endless Universe[edit]
Galactic Civilizations II: Endless Universe is a compilation featuring the content of Dread Lords, Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor. It was released exclusively in Europe on September 26, 2008 and it was published by Kalypso Media. The compilation was released as Galactic Civilizations II: Ultimate Edition in North America on February 9, 2009.
Community support and modding[edit]
Significant modding features have been built into the game in terms of user-editable XML files. The ship designs are also intended to be redistributed to others, and popular models (both derivative and original) appeared shortly after the game's release.
Since September 2014, the game's community works on a Stardock endorsed community patch,[23] whose beta version was already applied on the November 2015 gog.com release. On December 17, 2015 the community patch was canonized as official patch version 2.20 by Stardock.[24]
Notes and citations[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Galactic_Civilizations_II:_Dread_Lords&oldid=881308191'
Galactic Civilizations III is a 4Xturn-based strategyvideo game developed by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to 2006's Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords.
In October 2013, Stardock announced that the third installment in the Galactic Civilizations series was in production. A pre-release version was made available through Steam in March 2014,[2] which allowed customers to play the game while it is still in development. It was the first game in the series to feature multiplayer and hex-based game tiles.[3] The full version of the game was released in May 2015.[1] The game's first expansion, titled Mercenaries, was released in February 2016.[4]
Storyline[edit]
Ten years after the war against the Dread Lords, the Drengin Empire and their Yor allies reign supreme.[5] Most of the races which allied against the Dread Lords have been exterminated or subjugated. Earth lies protected, yet isolated, behind its Precursor shield. In 2242, the Terran First Fleet returns from the pocket universe with advanced technology and a mission to liberate Earth. The three missions of the campaign detail the fleet's efforts to liberate Arcea, deal with the Thalan, and finally dismantle the Drengin presence in the Sol system before bringing down the Precursor shield. The lifting of the shield allows the massively rebuilt Terran Alliance fleet into the galaxy, thus beginning the 'Terran Crusade' the Thalan had previously warned about.[6]
Reception[edit]
Galactic Civilizations III received generally positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the game 85.65% and 85/100.[7][8] Richard Cobbet for PC Gamer said that the game was 'easily the best recent 4X of this scale'.[11]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Galactic_Civilizations_III&oldid=846910517'
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