Galactic Civilizations III

The game never really reached its potential. The game is currently near the end of its update life as of 4.2.1 - I suspect only a couple of minor patches will be added in at this point. Currently the game is very micro-intensive later in the game. There were some features implemented to try to resolve it (an example being the Commonwealth system), but they were not well implemented and could have used a lot more work. There are quite a few drawbacks to splitting off your Commonwealth and they were never truly addressed by the developers. Combat as a whole needs a lot of work - there are a lot of features that could have been added. - Weapons sizes - Custom fighters for carriers - More graunlar targetting options (instead of the role system) The developer team has been less open to feedback than I had believed and I do feel disappointed by the way some of the issues have been handled and with the overall outcome. There also seem to be those in the community who feel the devs can do no wrong, which adds to the problems. I think that with a few more expansions, and some things streamlined, implementation improved, I would be willing to recommend, but given that this game will not be getting those much needed features, I can't in good faith recommend this game. Another matter is that you will need a fairly powerful computer with a lot of RAM - this game needs a lot of hardware resources, especially for larger maps. Again, maybe with a few more patches, the performance could have improved, but at time of this review writing (which is likely as noted earlier to reflect the final state of the game), it is a very hardware intensive game. Unlike many other hardware intensive games, the graphics are quite dated, as this game was released in 2015. I don't regret my time playing this game, but I do feel very disappointed by how the game turned out in the end, now that we are nearing Gal Civ 4 on Steam. Overall, between this, and the fact that the Gal Civ 4 appears to be an Epic store only for at least the first year makes me wonder if Gal Civ 4 will be worth buying when it comes onto Steam, especially as I remember back in 2015, GC3 was not in a good shape when it first launched and needed a lot of patches to get into a somewhat ok state. There was one review on YouTube with a person I feel is trustworthy that makes me question if GC4 will be worth it, at least early on. I don't think making the game an Epic store exclusive was a good move and that has weighed in my decision not to recommend this game. Apparently that Youtuber indicated that one reason why GC4 is on Epic only is because the game is "released" but really still in an incomplete state and needs a lot more development time (this would mean risking negative reviews on Steam if that a dual release were to occur). My advice would be to wait on GC4 when it comes on Steam until at least a few reviews come out to see if it is ready. I will say this, when this game (Gal Civ 3) launched, it was not in a good state and not all the problems even today were fixed. As far as would I recommend that someone buys GC3 right now? I would recommend you buy if you like 4X games when this game is on sale. It's one of those games where you will have to try it to see if you like it, but the price is very high with the DLC right now and I don't think given the limitations that it justifies the price. This is one of those games that requires you have at least the base game and a few key DLC (such as the Precursor worlds). I don't mind recommending a product when it is exceptional if the price is high, but there are too many flaws in this game for me to say "Buy this now" - instead "Buy when heavily discounted on Steam" if you are into 4X games is probably the best advice I can give.