Stardock Releases Sci-Fi Game Galactic Civilizations IV

Stardock Releases Sci-Fi Game Galactic Civilizations IV

Stardock released Galactic Civilizations IV today. The newest installment of the award-winning space 4X strategy sandbox game series takes the best of what its predecessors had to offer and adds many new features.

As the all-powerful leader of a spacefaring civilization, players seek out new star systems and discover the exciting potential of the subspace realm. With over a dozen starting civilizations and the ability to customize one from scratch, the possibilities for each playthrough are endless.

“Galactic Civilizations IV is the result of years of thinking about exciting innovations in strategy games,” said Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO. “We want to provide the ultimate turn-based strategy experience by improving the depth and scope of the game through new features, while incorporating player feedback.”

For nearly 30 years, the Galactic Civilizations series has focused on four pillars: simulated universe, strong AI opponents, rich lore, and multiple victory paths. Galactic Civilizations IV supports this through several new features.

Multi-sector maps span the adventure across an enormous map with multiple sectors, giving a true feeling of galactic conquest and exploration. Each sector is connected by subspace streams that will allow the player to travel between them.

Citizens change the story of the game depending on who the player recruits and how their various backstories manifest throughout. Keeping citizens happy is important – a disloyal and unhappy governor might take their planet and corresponding colonies and start a new empire.

Galactic Achievements solve the problem of a player seeing a clear trajectory to victory that is locked behind another couple hours of gameplay. With this feature, players can take on a challenge to earn “prestige points” toward a win. This cuts down on the “grind” of late game and allows a story to come to a much more interesting conclusion.

The Core Worlds system was introduced to reduce micromanagement. When a player colonizes a subpar world, it will feed into an already established core world. This reduces late-game micromanagement, but still gives players benefits for colonizing and conquering as many worlds as possible.

Players can set and update policies and issue executive orders during gameplay. Policies allow a player to choose different buffs and focuses mid-game, while executive orders use a new resource called control to do things like print money or draft colonies.

An in-game tutorial and advisors that offer strategic and tactical advice make getting started easier than ever before. Many old and beloved features from previous games – including the ship designer and civilization creator – are also included.

Galactic Civilizations IV is now available for $49.99 through Stardock. Visit the forums or www.galciv4.com for more details.