There's a lot to like about GalCiv 4 but yet again it runs headlong into the same issue as every space grand strategy/4x game nowadays. Why would I play this over Stellaris?
There are indeed some compelling reasons. The game is beautiful. The animated species screens, the planets, the shipsets, the cutscenes for different milestones in a save. All very well done, very pleasing. They're better than Endless Space or Stellaris.
The game is snappy. It loads much faster, processes turns much faster and in general runs a lot smoother than any other space 4x out there. The sounds are nice too. There's a sheen and a sharpness to everything about the game. Not just a competency that often seems lacking in this genre, but a real veneer of high quality gaming. It feels good.
Many of the tediums of other 4x games are just not present here. To be honest I love that the only thing gating the production of fleets is hammers (manufacturing points) and not some pool of mineable or rare resources. You can churn out armies from shipyards without delaying the building or manufacturing of other things or needing to sift through incredibly rare resources. Once a civilization is capable of colonizing and settling multiple star systems it's silly to imagine they'd ever have major shortages such that none of their multitude of planets could build a single scout ship. That sort of alloy management nonsense from Stellaris simply isn't present here.
You also get to colonizing straightaway. No nonsense needing a thousand technologies that take till the midgame, or frustrating processes of having to build bases first to then colonize later with every step in the process requiring a thousand turns. It's much more like Civ where you can build a settler and get to settlin. Feels pleasing to spread out and conquer the galaxy in this way without terrible needs to slow down everything in the damned game. Sure there are some limits in terms of planet size and what constitutes a colony versus a core world (also a brilliant and well implemented mechanic). It's not that it requires no trade off or strategic thinking. It's just not bound by piddly little annoyances. GalCiv 4 really captures the feeling of setting out to create a starfaring empire.
I also quite enjoy the planet tiles and having to place specific buildings and districts. It's much more engaging, strategic and interesting than the current incarnation of Stellaris (which did originally have a similar system). I also find the general empire management to be far better as the planets just sort of take what they need from the communal buckets of stats you're producing. And they all share them across one another. In a terrestrial game like Civ I understand why the production in one city needs to be translated in some way to another city via trade (symbolizing trading workers or certain raw materials) but in a large space 4x it just feels tedious to have to do this. So it's nice that GalCiv 4 strips away that sort of inanity.
But there are still some other big problems that just keep this one on the shelf. Exploration is depressingly boring. The sectors model is too small and feels too cramped the properly emulate a sprawling galaxy, even when playing with tons of sectors. There ends up being too little to do with star systems that house only dead planets. I don't even understand the point in populating those? You can't mine them, you don't need them to expand starbases or anything, you can't interact with them in any fashion. At least in Stellaris these are used to connect territories, you can terraform many planets, you can use starbases (which must be built on stars) to form massive defensive outposts in otherwise dead systems. The uninhabitable planets can still be mined or have research bases built on them. In GalCiv 4 you'll end up with many dead systems that have no purpose nor function. I don't have any beef with the way GalCiv 4 allows systems to sort of seamlessly flow into one another, in fact I think it's a preferred model to me, but it does ultimately make individual systems feel less important and particular. It makes for much worse map readability and strips away some of the whimsy and roleplaying that comes with star systems being distinct.
There are artifacts and anomalies just like all other space 4x games but they don't feel very interesting. They usually amount to a simple binary choice of take a thing for later or sell it for cash. Sometimes there's a free ship to be gained or a tiny temporary stat boost. They're all pretty generic. There's also somehow too few and far too many of these at the same time. There's lots but most of them offer boring choices so exploring them isn't engaging but the map is littered with these boring things. I do enjoy how simply discovering the fog of war around a planet is sufficient for 'discovering' the planet though as opposed to Stellaris where you must survey in detail each celestial body before you can claim a system. However, it rips away interesting narrative opportunities like Stellaris's archaeological sites.
Once you start to hit the midgame, where you've discovered all the planets you can discover and settle without waging wars on your neighbors, the game starts to slow down drastically. It suffers from the same sort of midgame sins as Civ or other 4x games. There's just nothing to really do. The planets are settled, you're building buildings, you're building fleets and you're spamming next turn. Nothing left to build. Nothing left to find. If you're not inclined to wage wars, there's not a lot to do. And unfortunately you hit the end of the tech trees and building lists pretty quickly. Far more quickly than in Stellaris or in Civ or in Endless Space. You just run out of stuff to build and places to build them. You start running out of things to research. You've improved every planet tile and mined every asteroid. There ends up being quite literally nothing to do besides wage wars or build some trivial little things here and there.
There's just nothing. Nothing to work on. Nothing to see. You run out of projects. At least in Stellaris you could begin terraforming some dead planets or helioforming some stars. You could work on gigantic gigastructures like dyson spheres or matroishka brains. You could build increasingly large fleets to take on the non-player enemies on the map that hide certain secrets. There's really nothing in GalCiv 4 to do after you establish your borders within your sector. The game just halts. You either go on a conquest, wait to get declared war upon or you just spam end turn till someone wins a non-combat victory.
It's rather displeasing. You wait and wait to see if there's just some set of techs or culture policies you need to unlock to open up the cooler stuff. And nothing ever comes. There's nothing to do. Combat is boring, shallow and pretty much always amounts to 'the bigger number wins' like in Civ. With some minor considerations for what is essentially melee vs ranged (bombers vs. cruisers/destroyers/carriers). But unlike Civ there aren't interesting luxury resources, or unlimited city construction opportunities or heaps of world wonders to be built. Again, there truly just isn't anything.
You'll hit this spot much, much sooner than you even realize. Because by the time you realize there's nothing left, there's been nothing left for like three hours. You'll either wrap up that save or quit it and start a new game with some new settings and a new species only to find yourself again moreorless back at the same spot in the next game. The well runs dry quick and you're left with your thumbs to twiddle. Game over before you get to game over. Well before you get to game over. Game just stops.
And that's a shame. There's plenty going for GalCiv 4. Plenty of things to like. It's got some issues but the biggest sin if that the game just doesn't fill its own shoes let alone the footprints left by the Stellaris-shaped elephant-in-the-room. It lays out a nice little game world for you and then gives you three hours worth of stuff to do in it. Players interested in a more war heavy, Risk-style gameplay may get more out of it. Players who either like a sandbox nature or a more diplomatic game will be disappointed in a hurry by the lack of compelling mechanics.
Ultimately it's not like GalCiv 4 is bad. And it's not like Stellaris is perfect. But when the games are so similar and in such a similar genre....why would you play GalCiv when you could just play Stellaris. And so it goes...
There are indeed some compelling reasons. The game is beautiful. The animated species screens, the planets, the shipsets, the cutscenes for different milestones in a save. All very well done, very pleasing. They're better than Endless Space or Stellaris.
The game is snappy. It loads much faster, processes turns much faster and in general runs a lot smoother than any other space 4x out there. The sounds are nice too. There's a sheen and a sharpness to everything about the game. Not just a competency that often seems lacking in this genre, but a real veneer of high quality gaming. It feels good.
Many of the tediums of other 4x games are just not present here. To be honest I love that the only thing gating the production of fleets is hammers (manufacturing points) and not some pool of mineable or rare resources. You can churn out armies from shipyards without delaying the building or manufacturing of other things or needing to sift through incredibly rare resources. Once a civilization is capable of colonizing and settling multiple star systems it's silly to imagine they'd ever have major shortages such that none of their multitude of planets could build a single scout ship. That sort of alloy management nonsense from Stellaris simply isn't present here.
You also get to colonizing straightaway. No nonsense needing a thousand technologies that take till the midgame, or frustrating processes of having to build bases first to then colonize later with every step in the process requiring a thousand turns. It's much more like Civ where you can build a settler and get to settlin. Feels pleasing to spread out and conquer the galaxy in this way without terrible needs to slow down everything in the damned game. Sure there are some limits in terms of planet size and what constitutes a colony versus a core world (also a brilliant and well implemented mechanic). It's not that it requires no trade off or strategic thinking. It's just not bound by piddly little annoyances. GalCiv 4 really captures the feeling of setting out to create a starfaring empire.
I also quite enjoy the planet tiles and having to place specific buildings and districts. It's much more engaging, strategic and interesting than the current incarnation of Stellaris (which did originally have a similar system). I also find the general empire management to be far better as the planets just sort of take what they need from the communal buckets of stats you're producing. And they all share them across one another. In a terrestrial game like Civ I understand why the production in one city needs to be translated in some way to another city via trade (symbolizing trading workers or certain raw materials) but in a large space 4x it just feels tedious to have to do this. So it's nice that GalCiv 4 strips away that sort of inanity.
But there are still some other big problems that just keep this one on the shelf. Exploration is depressingly boring. The sectors model is too small and feels too cramped the properly emulate a sprawling galaxy, even when playing with tons of sectors. There ends up being too little to do with star systems that house only dead planets. I don't even understand the point in populating those? You can't mine them, you don't need them to expand starbases or anything, you can't interact with them in any fashion. At least in Stellaris these are used to connect territories, you can terraform many planets, you can use starbases (which must be built on stars) to form massive defensive outposts in otherwise dead systems. The uninhabitable planets can still be mined or have research bases built on them. In GalCiv 4 you'll end up with many dead systems that have no purpose nor function. I don't have any beef with the way GalCiv 4 allows systems to sort of seamlessly flow into one another, in fact I think it's a preferred model to me, but it does ultimately make individual systems feel less important and particular. It makes for much worse map readability and strips away some of the whimsy and roleplaying that comes with star systems being distinct.
There are artifacts and anomalies just like all other space 4x games but they don't feel very interesting. They usually amount to a simple binary choice of take a thing for later or sell it for cash. Sometimes there's a free ship to be gained or a tiny temporary stat boost. They're all pretty generic. There's also somehow too few and far too many of these at the same time. There's lots but most of them offer boring choices so exploring them isn't engaging but the map is littered with these boring things. I do enjoy how simply discovering the fog of war around a planet is sufficient for 'discovering' the planet though as opposed to Stellaris where you must survey in detail each celestial body before you can claim a system. However, it rips away interesting narrative opportunities like Stellaris's archaeological sites.
Once you start to hit the midgame, where you've discovered all the planets you can discover and settle without waging wars on your neighbors, the game starts to slow down drastically. It suffers from the same sort of midgame sins as Civ or other 4x games. There's just nothing to really do. The planets are settled, you're building buildings, you're building fleets and you're spamming next turn. Nothing left to build. Nothing left to find. If you're not inclined to wage wars, there's not a lot to do. And unfortunately you hit the end of the tech trees and building lists pretty quickly. Far more quickly than in Stellaris or in Civ or in Endless Space. You just run out of stuff to build and places to build them. You start running out of things to research. You've improved every planet tile and mined every asteroid. There ends up being quite literally nothing to do besides wage wars or build some trivial little things here and there.
There's just nothing. Nothing to work on. Nothing to see. You run out of projects. At least in Stellaris you could begin terraforming some dead planets or helioforming some stars. You could work on gigantic gigastructures like dyson spheres or matroishka brains. You could build increasingly large fleets to take on the non-player enemies on the map that hide certain secrets. There's really nothing in GalCiv 4 to do after you establish your borders within your sector. The game just halts. You either go on a conquest, wait to get declared war upon or you just spam end turn till someone wins a non-combat victory.
It's rather displeasing. You wait and wait to see if there's just some set of techs or culture policies you need to unlock to open up the cooler stuff. And nothing ever comes. There's nothing to do. Combat is boring, shallow and pretty much always amounts to 'the bigger number wins' like in Civ. With some minor considerations for what is essentially melee vs ranged (bombers vs. cruisers/destroyers/carriers). But unlike Civ there aren't interesting luxury resources, or unlimited city construction opportunities or heaps of world wonders to be built. Again, there truly just isn't anything.
You'll hit this spot much, much sooner than you even realize. Because by the time you realize there's nothing left, there's been nothing left for like three hours. You'll either wrap up that save or quit it and start a new game with some new settings and a new species only to find yourself again moreorless back at the same spot in the next game. The well runs dry quick and you're left with your thumbs to twiddle. Game over before you get to game over. Well before you get to game over. Game just stops.
And that's a shame. There's plenty going for GalCiv 4. Plenty of things to like. It's got some issues but the biggest sin if that the game just doesn't fill its own shoes let alone the footprints left by the Stellaris-shaped elephant-in-the-room. It lays out a nice little game world for you and then gives you three hours worth of stuff to do in it. Players interested in a more war heavy, Risk-style gameplay may get more out of it. Players who either like a sandbox nature or a more diplomatic game will be disappointed in a hurry by the lack of compelling mechanics.
Ultimately it's not like GalCiv 4 is bad. And it's not like Stellaris is perfect. But when the games are so similar and in such a similar genre....why would you play GalCiv when you could just play Stellaris. And so it goes...