Galactic Civilizations III

This game is the perfect blend of Civilization V, Masters of Orion, and Alpha Centari.

I have played many races and created my own custom races, min-maxed as much as I could so I feel confident to make a review of this game. What you get is a game where you can create your own race and see how it fares with other races in a sandbox turn based strategy game. Pros: -You can save when you like and try things out. -Create combination of race traits and variation of them. -Combat is an auto resolve(not a bad thing) based on preparation rather that skill.(strategy oriented) -Technology is deep but strait forward and races have different tech and limitations dependent on traits. -Exploration in the first few turns of a random generated universe always keeps you curious what you will find and thus the resource limitations will dictate your military production. -The games allows you to customize some conditions of the maps like size, quantity of resources, etc.. -Strategy in getting the correct resources before the other races is an enjoyable race. -you can make your own ships the way you like, but also focus on the aspects you researched to stack those modifiers. This gives the player attachment to his race and an urge to see how it will fare. -You can put any combination of equipment on your ship template, this giving huge variety of game-play.(eg: fast ships/support/balanced/tank) -different races play differently and give different experience. -good mod support(eg star wars race mod) Cons: -The co-op is not well implemented but it is there if you have the patience to wait for your friends turn. -The AI is not bad but by the late game all those inefficiencies multiply so bad that any human can beat an equally big AI. -Trade requires you to be liked by the AI to get a fair deal, which pretty much removes trade as a feature for most of your campaigns. Also you have to wait a few turns before interacting with them again(12 turns I think) which should not even be a thing. -Some campaigns could last days if you chose the normal maps. Even the tiny map could last a few hours. -The story campaigns are just too restrictive and not polished, avoid them like the plague. -The ideology system is horrible because you can only get ideology points by colonizing, but if you play on the smallest maps(which is what you should do) it just means that you cannot get much out of that mechanic at all. + most of the stuff in there seems like an afterthought. -AI cheats on everything when you touch gifted difficulty or harder. -You can set the AI to manage your colonies but it is so bad at it, that you are forced to micro manage all your planets and this becomes tedious when you reach the 30+ planets.(= play on tiny or small maps) -the game lacks proper explanation when it comes to economy. Tourism is how you make money and it opens up when you research it and choose the appropriate government type. Until then your economy is on life support. This is not explained anywhere. Conclusion: If you like to create your own race and let it loose on a new universe this is the game for you. A game for strategists but don't expect a challenge by the late game except trying to achieve victory before the late game. It is not perfect but still worth your purchase on a sale. If you are looking for something with skill based combat or a proper co-op/VS, this is not the game for you.