Galactic Civilizations III

The moment you unlock the Aggression + Awe combo, even a god-tier civilization with cheaty stats turns into trash. Why are we putting effort into the other Malevolent tree focuses when we only have Awe and Aggression? Why even have a focus tree if the mechanics are this broken? In a straight game, pick an expansionist civilization, combine it with a high population growth rate + distance, add Awe first, then Aggression. Planets you colonize with Awe V can't rebel, so you quietly occupy enemy planets within their borders. After a certain point, the Influence mechanic peaks, and you can incite neighboring enemy civilizations to rebel using your influence points and incorporate them into your empire. Each planet you incorporate will give you 1 overlord with Agression V. By turn 50, you'll have a fleet of 60 overlords for free + your existing fleets from previous production = 200-400 fleets of galactic domination. This is only valid for 2 focuses; you'll unlock a total of 10 focuses with Awe and Agression. You still have Awe & Agression I, II, III and IV. Immunity + political supremacy + free heavy armor + rapid influence gain + increased production speed + increased trade income....

I will no longer purchase any Stargate product.... The adjustments to the AI are so ludacress that their games are no fun. If you learn to adapt and become dominent the AI will give away a civ you are fighting and give it to a weaker civ .....so stupid... the only fun is the earlier stages.

I like the ability to create my own ships and model them after themes from sci-fi movies, TV shows, and games from my childhood. I really am impressed with the ability to frame an entire civilization's style, mood, culture, tech, and interactions with players. The 4X aspect of Galactic Civilization creates a new adventure each time. The one thing I would love to improve on for GC is its complex and tedious process of developing a new fleet. Building a ship and saving it to your build list would be the intuitive process for this but it's much more complex than that. Instead, It's a tedious trial-and-error procedure to build your own fleet ships and then integrate them into your new civilization. Revisiting this in future updates would be a huge benefit for all who love building scratch civilizations. A sense of scale is a problem where you often make a huge ship but ends up looking like a medium size hull. Getting front from back can become confusing when building a new hull. Maybe adding a colored side to the "front" of the starting cube might help. Saving as a "Template" to make your newly designed ship available for fleets was unknown to me until I read it in a blog. Make sure to save your ship as a ship first then as a Template because if you save it as a template first you will not find it in your user list of ships. GC has a lot of nuances and texture making it a truly fun game. Its made great strides in improving itself over the years and I am happy it's still getting the support and effort. Thank you to the team who brought it all together for us for a reasonable price. It is appreciated! Thumbs UP!

I remember playing this when it first came out, and man has it changed!!! I have thoroughly enjoyed the game. Last time I went full out military, this time I have used the diplomatic route to slowly take over the map through influence, only having to crush a few of the factions. I do have to say though, I hate that when factions are weak, they suddenly fold and give everything to another faction. This is not at all realistic, the world is filled with weak countries and they don't simply fold and call it quits. Also when you conquer a faction, they surrender and out of 3 factions only one surrendered their planets to me. The rest gave them to another faction, which is not right nor realistic, you conquer them, you take whatever they have. These things really need to be fixed and the game would be much better.

This is pretty fun. I like it a bit less than Stellaris and Endless Space 2 as far as space 4x/grand strategy games go, but it is still fun. I found the customization to be a bit too much for me personally, but I'm glad it was included. It seems as though you can create and use the tools provided to make all sorts of ships, playable races, etc. Feels like this game is the most customizable in this sense. The tech tree is interesting and absolutely gigantic. It is a game that facilitates a lot of different strategies and approaches to winning. Some included DLC provide some pretty unbalanced elements though that are detrimental to the fun. I don't like how exploration changes based on the merc ship that has over 10 sight range. It like instantly uncovers your entire starting area. I think I prefer a slower exploration burn. The economics of this game and management aspects are probably the most fun. I think they are even more fun than most other games in this genre. I am not enthusiastic about the combat system though. Anyway, I think this game is interesting enough to check out. Look for it on sale now that GC IV is out.

Fun space strategy game.