Galactic Civilizations IV

This is a bit of a tough one. If the game were still in Early Access, I'd give it a thumbs up for potential. But since it already released years ago, it seems like many of the issues are here to stay. Generally this plays like Master of Orion 2, but many things seem a bit off and I found myself struggling to find things it really does *better*. Longer write-up below. Balance issues & design choices I really get an Early Access feel for some of the elements in the game in terms of balance (Normal and ...Bright(?) difficulty). The mechanics are in place, but all the values seem off. Influence (cultural borders) seems crazily overpowered and colonies switch owners at the drop of a hat. Repairing ships takes a ridiculously long time. Refitting ships costs so much that it doesn't seem practical, especially since you have to manually apply upgrades ship-by-ship. Technology trades either have weird values within the game or some internal mechanic (diplomacy?) isn't communicated at all, because it seems like I'm offering 100 units worth of tech to get 10 units worth and it's still not good enough for the other party. The galaxy is populated with storage containers and random things to discover. But for some reason more keep appearing as the game progresses. The cash value of selling the discoveries is high enough that just having 2-3 ships continually searching through newly added containers is enough to offset most of your economy well into the mid-game. This seems odd, like if Civilization kept popping up new villages next to my cities through the whole game. Churning through the containers and replaying the same events over and over started to feel like a chore later in the game. Star Bases have nice variety and the upgrade modules are interesting. But gameplay-wise the military ones don't seem to ...matter. I often found that a nearby starbase could destroy my entire fleet in combat, but that I didn't actually need to fight it at all, I could just invade the planet next to it and ignore it. They should work like in MOO and force you to engage them in combat before allowing invasion. Open Borders don't seem to matter at all. AI will happily fly through my space regardless of agreements and will seemingly let me do the same. As for AI in general, it seems to make terrible choices in colony management (tile placement) and in fleet management. I won a game where the reports said my last opponent was far superior to me in power. But they kept sending small fleets to attack my big fleet and losing all ships without making a dent. I destroyed their entire empire without losing a single fight. Rather anti-climactic. My biggest disappointment compared to MOO2 is the combat. I get the decision to not have turn-by-turn decisions for each ship, but since there's no agency in the combat at all (like fleet formations or having one or two mid-combat choices to make), I just ended up skipping watching the combats entirely. Narrative While 4X games aren't super story-driven, the background and context of the world you're exploring is still an interesting thing for me. But the execution here is a bit incomplete. I found it rather jarring that the text of events is almost entirely different from the spoken narrative. I'm guessing the audio is AI-generated, because at least one spoken dialogue line pronounced "prototype" as "proto-tippy". Some events have a pay-off in the form of a short video. But other times you do something momentous and don't get anything. Exterminate a race? Pop-up window! Build a Galactic Achievement? Nothing! It kind of made me feel like nothing mattered. Technical issues (especially UI) First of all, running at 4K resolution, the UI of the game doesn't fit fully on the screen. The bottom right corner UI has some buttons that just get clipped off. At least I can see the "End turn" button. The artifact bar for one-use items you find clips off the right end and I had to use several items just to actually see the one I needed. Generally the game struggles to communicate relevant information at a glance. I can refit ships, but I can't actually see the individual components/weapons I'm meant to be upgrading. I can't see how many turns it will take for an enemy fleet to reach my homeworld. I could almost never find what ship is active on my turn, because the icon is just a very light green ring *somewhere* on the screen. I ended up zooming all the way in and deselecting the ship, so that re-clicking the "idle ship" icon at the bottom right would then shift the screen to the ship. There are also some issues with information updating late. Like combat odds in pop-ups not immediately reflecting changes in fleet composition if you add ships. Or a Flagship module not appearing on a ship until the next turn. I often felt "oh, is this bugged?", but then saw the change applied the next turn. I also saw my fair share of bugs and performance problems. Star bases wouldn't collect minerals in their radius. The game slowed down to 1 fps and I had to quit to desktop to fix it. Animations like ship travel flicker and bug out. Other faction leader animations don't loop seamlessly, but have a clear skip where the head jumps slightly to start again from it's original position. Conclusion I think this *could* be a very satisfying 4X game, but the execution is lacking polish. As stated, it plays very much like an Early Access title with potential. Maybe some of my complaints are addressed in the numerous DLCs, but I'm not inclined to fork over more cash to find out. If the base game is somehow updated in the future to address the issues I've outlined, I might reconsider my review.

I have played hundreds of hours across Galactic Civilizations 2, 3, and now 4. I was right at the front of the line when the fourth installment originally launched on Epic Games. To the developers' credit, the game has definitely improved in many areas over time through a process of trial and error. Every few months, the itch returns and I find myself jumping back in for a few matches. However, that genuine sense of satisfaction and breakthrough is almost always missing. I constantly find myself chasing the deep, rewarding feeling I used to get from playing Galactic Civ 2, but the current game falls short where it matters most: the AI. The AI opponent remains deeply disappointing and stagnant. I always play on Incredible and occasionally step it up to Godlike, but increasing the difficulty in this game doesn't make the computer any smarter. Instead, it simply showers the AI with absurd, unfair economic and production bonuses to compensate for the fact that it remains completely unchallenging from a tactical and strategic standpoint. Furthermore, actual in-game interactions with the AI feel incredibly bland. There is rarely any dynamic interaction or meaningful back-and-forth diplomacy that reacts organically to how the galaxy is shaping up; it all feels static and scripted. Winning doesn't feel like you outsmarted a living, breathing galactic empire; it just feels like you cheesed a computer that was handed free resources. Because of this core issue, the upcoming extra content and expansions honestly don't appeal to me anymore. No matter how many shiny new features they add, it just lose its charm when you’re forced to play against that exact same, flawed AI. It’s a decent game with great foundations, but until both the core tactical AI and the dynamic galaxy interactions are fundamentally reworked, it will never live up to the legacy of its predecessors.

V3.3 is NOT it. Buggy Gameplay that can sometimes break the game. Sounds repeating over and over, pop ups not going away, portraits of leaders randomly popping up outside of the leaders menu. Many things that are supposed to affect your entire empire do nothing instead, it's a mess. The map generator is awful. You will spend hours trying to get a decent start on larger maps because the map will not have planets you can colonize anywhere near your start. Even when setting the map generator to abundant planet generation. It will take 15 min to scout around the map only to realize you have start over - again.

4x are my favourite genre. This game has interesting concepts and lots of diverse mechanics. However, the horrible UI, bugs (game is not new), unimplemented or unfinished game mechanics and no optimization or meaningful graphic options control make it not worth the time.

There seems to be a trend in 4x games of devs adding layers of unrelated systems that all contribute to the ultimate 'number go up' that turns the whole game into spread sheets and math puzzles. I'll confess, heavy micromanagement isn't my thing but I also don't like setting everything to automate as the game tends to just disappear and turns into rattling the end turn button, and here it seems like micromanagement is most of the game. It feels a lot less like making interesting strategic decisions, and more like playing sudoku. Like 90% of the decisions, there IS a best choice, you just need to compute it. It's not an interesting choice, or even a stylistic choice, it's a numerical choice. The graphics don't help, they've been the same since GalCiv 2 if you have the map zoomed out to any functional level. The descriptions of events seem to be read out by some AI voice, but it doesn't say the same thing as the text says. This dissonance kind of sums up my whole game experience. Squinting at the screen like Fry from Futurama wondering why it is like this and when does it get fun? Playing this game makes me physically tired. I guess it's good if you want to go take a nap.

It may not have the story-telling potential of Stellaris, but this is a solid space 4X game. The more I play it, the more that I appreciate its design. As quoted in Wikipedia, "[In] early 2022, CEO Brad Wardell shared that 'one of the reasons I think GalCiv IV is turning out so well is that we have no shame,' saying that their team would 'borrow/inspire/steal as needed' from other 4X games including Stellaris, Endless Space, Distant Worlds, Civilization VI, Old World, and Humankind." Yes, I can definitely see much of that in here. Well done.

This game still feels like an unfinished project. It has a clunky UI, where simple functions are not working, like clicking on a new info to locate the source, but you can't find it. Diplomacy is... well, it really doesn't matter as for some reason every treaty is timed, so you create an alliance, and poof, 50 turns later you are no longer allied. We can call the graphics "retro style" if we want to be kind. Although the series has a history of (somewhat dumb) galactic events, here we only have sandbox. The random events are repetitive and not meaningful. Probably the best part is improving the planets - and that's sad.

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En general el juego es interesante y rompe con las tipicas "hiperlanes". Pero tiene varios grandes problemas: 1. La traducción al español es un insulto. "Cerca en vez de cerrar, Realizado en vez de aceptar, Misa en vez de masa, Cascarilla en vez de contramedidas, etc, etc. He tenido que corregirlo a mano en los .xml. Ridiculo 2. La interface es la peor que he visto desde Distant Worlds universe. Parece hecha por un chimpancé, y sobra todo el editor de naves es super caotico y no tiene ningún sentido. Tenía bastante hype por este juego, pero la verdad, me vuelvo al Endless Space 2. Stardock, sois unos chapuzas de cuidado. ESTAFADORES

really great turn based strategy game. I come back to it all the time when I am in the mood for click and wait. IV made some nice improvements from III. I hope V will give us a more realistic galactic scale and be even more 3d. I also hope they make it so you can design your own race and really make their appearance without just borrowing previous ones. I have struggled to know what I get out of the add-ons and I have not been able to get a mod to work, but that's likely user error. All that said, its a staple in my house....oh one more thing. Can we get a setting where I can truly use my PS5 controller? All the mouse clicking can cause injury and the controller is so much more immersive. Cheers!