Galactic Civilizations III

It's ok, less polished than I expected. Also a lot of lists are too busy looking and hard to sort through. I'm not sure if I want to say "buggy" because it works, it's just rough in spots. I'd only recommend to people who play nothing but galciv games. Otherwise you might have more fun with the second one.

I remember playing "Galactic Empire Builder" on my Commodore 64. This is the same thing, only with graphics and additional buttons to press.

When this game first came out, it was barren, dry, and shallow. I personally waited 5 to 7 years before really getting into it. After getting all of the DLC and installing a few mods, I can say this is one of the best 4x Space Strategy games ever made, but it was a long road getting here. The game has plenty of depth now with the Intrigue, Crusade, and Retribution DLCs installed. The campaigns are mediocre - the sandbox mode is where the game truly shines. And this is important: the game starts up quickly, loads games quickly and smoothly, has never crashed a single time, and runs like silk even into the late game, unlike Stellaris and many other 4x Space Strategy games which take forever to load, crash often in the late game, and slow down to a crawl even on a high-end PC. Galactic Civilizations had its flaws, but for those who enjoy a smooth and clean experience it has become the standard.

I've always been a fan. Owned Galciv 1, 2, 3, and soon 4. Put it on steam, bitter.

I just spent 20 minutes writing an extensive review and then clicked a button in steam and it got deleted :) so I'll just be writing a short text that will devolve into a slight rant as it progresses: Played GalCiv2 as a teenager. Liked it. Good memories. This game, perhaps because older and more critical - not so good (but also not awful, mind you). Securing borders (the game keeps telling you there's ships inside of them!) tedious as heck, game would need area denial starbases, a way to prevent factions from sending ships into your realm ("get out or I'll destroy your ship", but w/o declaring war since it's your own damn airspace (spacespace?) and as such defending it should not be a huge offense. They flew into it). Built up a million ships and micromanaged everything just so my borders were secure. I lost a planet early on before I learned you had to defend them with ships. I reloaded the game and did it differently, no big loss, but it bothers me that planets are completely unable to defend themselves when besieged. It's instantaneous. Realistically, wouldn't they have armed forces? Shouldn't it take at least a few turns...? Not really a problem once you understand, but unintuitive and imho badly realised. Game is really bad at giving you the information you need when you need it or even explaining stuff - I come from CK3 and that game does that really well. I never felt "in the know" in this game, and that bothers me. Information display is chaotic and unorganised. Maybe I was playing on a difficulty too low to be enjoyable but the game quickly devolved into a turn-by-turn "what stat can I improve by 1% this turn" and building up a million ships because I could do that with no upkeep. Exciting things just stopped happening. The thing that just made me quit - and I think I might not pick this up again - is the fact that every time I try to conquer an empire, I take 1-2 planets and the empire gives up. They either give their planets to another faction - which is fine, I can just take them - or they stop existing. You know the Dwemer in Elder Scrolls? Yeah, they just go poof and their planets with them. [i]The entire planet disappears in a single turn along with its billions of population.[/i] I'm not a friend of unrealistic game mechanics, and surely there are better ways to handle this. Have it become independent. There's no endgame. Unless you view bullying NPCs into rage-quitting as an endgame. In general, poor design in many ways. Chaotic. Bloated with features. I had a spy on my planet and I think I managed to make him go away? By sending my spies? And then my spies just disappeared? Also constructor ships and supply ships and transport ships disappear. I do not understand why everything just disappears in this game. Just because I don't have legions remaining doesn't mean the ship poofs out of existence. Also, starting to build a ship that costs administration and then cancelling it doesn't seem to give you back administrators. More disappearing stuff. Nothing is really explained, everything is just micromanagement, there doesn't seem to be a goal at some point. Fun sometimes! Fun coated with tedium. I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of minor annoyances, but I'll leave it at this. Maybe I haven't spent enough time with this game - maybe some people who know more about all this and understand the intentions of the devs have less of a problem with things - but for me, as someone who casually picked up this game to spend a bit of time on, it just... wasn't that fun. It didn't keep me engaged. Overall, "meh" - 6/10. Thumbs down because Steam is asking if I would "recommend this game to other players" - I would not, simply because there's nothing much to recommend about it. It's flat. It gets boring quick. Do not expect anything special. If you're looking for a good grand strategy, I recommend CK3.

a little tedious gameplay , graphics are behnd the times, but game is relaxing . I can be played off an on over time and becomes a nice outlet during school breaks.

12-22-22 latest update causes game to crash upon startup

Hate to say it but I found the game tedious and boring. And nonsensical.

Tried all sorts of bug fixes. It takes too much effort just to get the multiplayer working on a new game. Can not in any fashion get a previous save in multiplayer to work. Game is good and fun single player. The invite button serves no function. The ability to insert custom pictures is obscure to the point you just need to know how to insert pictures in files on your own.