Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition
In a word: Addictive. Yes, addictive in that terrifying, inescapable, “just-one-more-turn” way. Galactic Civilizations II is what you get if you take Master of Orion II, expand it so that the galaxy, tech tree and ship customisation are roughly a hundred times as huge without ever becoming boring, bump the graphics up to a standard still respectable today for a TBS, give each civilization some serious make-or-break differences (hint: the Drengin and the Yor almost always end up dominating most of the galaxy that ISN’T YOU), and shove it out there to give almost every other space-based TBS a serious poke in the eye.
– Real player with 216.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Grand Strategy Games.
I decided to pick up a new 4x space game after pouring many hours into Endless Space. Endless Space lacked complexity and I searched for a more in depth game. Galactic Civilizations 2 fulfill that criteria. I started playing this in 2015 so I have no nostalgic feelings for it. The game is quite good and fun despite its age and limitations, in fact it is the best 4x space game I have played so far (other space 4x I’ve played are MOO2, Endless Space and Sword of the Stars). Take a good look at the pros and cons because some points might put you off.
– Real player with 196.7 hrs in game
Civilization IV®: Warlords
I’ve enjoyed this episode the most, usually playing the Terra map in order to be able to expand first into an unclaimed territory.
The ability to modify the game text by editing XML has been fun – part of the enjoyment in both Civ II and Civ IV for me has been editing the resources.
On my platform (Win 7/2.8GHz HP home PC/8 MB RAM), the UI alternates between snappy and very slow. After a while (presumably a memory garbage collection) it gets fast again. Using some of the shortcuts like right-click to move makes the slow-down bearable.
– Real player with 5678.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
This version has a good balance of factors. The economy enables everything of course, but you can take territory with guns or culture, and any of the victory methods is achievable.
Mostly I win either by dominance, or by culture, or by winning the space race. Econ victory is a grind but I have never tried to optimise it.
Funny thing: I took out the French with culture once. I just squeezed them right off the edge of the continent. Never fired a bullet at them. Even their capital revolted and joined my civilization.
– Real player with 2885.1 hrs in game
ENDLESS™ Legend
Good game, but I will give more preference to endless space 2 with more mechanics and more elaborate gameplay.
– Real player with 364.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
Pros:
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Great strategy experience
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Interesting fantasy theme
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Enjoyable equipment mechanics
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Heroes add an interesting strategy layer
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Tweaking a faction to your play style is awesome
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Complicated subsystems that make the game always interesting to optimize
Cons:
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No in game encyclopedia to learn game terms and mechanics (tooltips aren’t enough)
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Game speeds other than standard are imbalanced
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Subsystems need better explanation
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Too much and too costly DLC
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DLC should not radically change the way the game is played (here it feels like what should be an update is DLC)
– Real player with 228.6 hrs in game
Galactic Civilizations® I: Ultimate Edition
This was one of the few games I played over and over as a teen.
I’ll be honest, I never got into the sequel, because I didn’t like the way the planets were depicted (though it probably made influence more intuitive). So I don’t know how this one holds up to GalCiv II. But on its own merits, it’s a good game.
In Galactic Civilizations, you start out as ruler of united Earth. The various alien races, having gotten the secret of hyperdrive from the humans, have turned off their massive wormhole portals and scrapped them for hyper-capable colony ships. The real space race has begun, and it’s up to you to determine the path you want humanity to take.
– Real player with 194.6 hrs in game
In my ongoing and likely futile effort to write a Steam review for every game in my library (#291 out of 612)… it’s time for Galactic Civilizations I: Ultimate Edition.
You might know Galactic Civilizations by its other name: “Oh, yeah, there was a game before Galactic Civilizations III, wasn’t there?” Indeed there was! The obvious question here is: why should anyone play Galactic Civilizations 1 when the third game exists, and is so, so good? Historical context? Pure, unadulterated whimsy? A PC so old and out-of-date that it doesn’t even qualify as a toaster? Galactic Civilizations I has got fewer features, less polish, and less depth all-around. Furthermore, you’re in for one hell of an uphill battle if you’re even -thinking- of trying to get the game to run on a modern operating system. Galactic Civilizations does not play nice with anything more advanced than Windows XP!
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander (LIGHTSPEED EDITION)
Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition is a turn-based combat space simulation R.P.G. both developed and published by Massive Damage, Inc. After a devastating attack by a relentless unknown alien species decimates the New Terran Federation, you are immediately put in command of the starbase Halcyon 6. It’s up to you to rebuild the Federation, make lasting alliances with alien species, gather vital resources and prepare to stop the impending alien invasion that has it’s sights set on Earth. Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition includes a number of additional content, optimizations and new updates to the original award winning title, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander, that vastly improves the overall gameplay experience of the first title. Prepare to take your seat in the commander’s chair for this thrilling spacefaring adventure.
– Real player with 39.3 hrs in game
I was expecting some revival of MOO2.
I started my first game at “Commander level”, expecting to take a quick and severe defeat, but learn enough for an enjoyable second round.
For the first 8 hours, it was fun: build your ships, evolve your captains, oh! there is a tech tree, great! And those aliens, are they friendly or not? Pirates, space travellers, threats, offers.. Excellent!
After 8 hours, I started to realize that:
1/ I did not made any strategic decision, I just clicked randomly on the various “evolution trees”, I did not experience a single defeat.
– Real player with 24.4 hrs in game
Master of Orion 1
I played this game when it first came out kids. That’s right. I played on DOS. My CPU was so slow in late game you’d hit ‘next turn’ and go grab lunch and PRAY it was done when you got back. Games took a while.
Back then you kept your games on a shelf, in boxes like freakin' board games. Back then you went to a physical store and walked around trying to decide what to buy because the gaming magazines with reviews lagged behind the release of games so you had to decide what was good by the box art.
– Real player with 4370.9 hrs in game
Minimal micro-managing. Multiple choices: play one of 10 species; 1-5 opponents; 4 “galaxy” sizes; 4-5 levels of difficulty; up to 15 random events, positive or negative that may or may not occur. There is usually more than 1 choice, often 2-4 of next level of technology to focus research on (computer, construction, force field, planetology, propulsion, weapons) and options via sliding bars to apportion research points among categories; likewise choices @ ea planet to apportion among shipbuilding, missile bases, industry, ecology, tech. You have shipbuilding choice features (size/ propusion/weapons/special features); espionage/sabotage/limited interactive communication choices; ship/fleet combat. Graphics limited (2D). If you want to spend less time learning the game and just playing, this is an easy game to learn and can readily be made more challenging by your selection of species, level of difficulty and size of star domain. If current tech-graphics and very detailed management are more to your liking, you will want a more modern version of MOO or one of the more recently developed similar themed games.
– Real player with 1154.0 hrs in game
Master of Orion 2
This is probably the game I’ve played most of. The game’s difficulty relies on how you choose your race, or your race traits. It takes foresight and decision making calculation (skill) to become an effective leader. Noted, it is still possible for the most skilled players to loose on the ‘impossible’ difficulty.
Best 4X game i’ve played thus far.
Big (+)’s
-Music is good (excluding variety in it though)
-AI play their set difficulty level
-Custom race traits are resolute and have sensible outcomes
– Real player with 155.6 hrs in game
I’ve received this game from a friend.
How one can rate masterpiece? Masterpiece is a game that is complex, with many possibilities, allowing experimentation on one hand, but on the other it has easy GUI, navigation and is not overloaded with too many statistics, options, etc. (this is where MOO3 failed). Such game also should have good music and good graphic with nice effects (this game also had this when it was published). Many games tried to copy from this game, but most failed.
At the beginning I strongly recommend to tweak dosbox settings, the default Steam window setting is barely playable. Edit the dosboxMOO2.conf file, change the lines to:
– Real player with 96.7 hrs in game
Stellar Monarch
If you are familiar with Eurogame style tabletop games, then the abstractions and economic focus (vice military control) will feel very familiar to you. The game’s pillars are not based on American-style wargames.
Many devs who make 4X games seem to have the souls of engineers; Aurora 4x being the archetype. In those games micromanagement focuses on design, production, and use of things like ships. Mastery of those concepts leads to victory.
This game requires micromanagement and is numerically obtuse as well, but it focuses on the qualitative values of game elements (i.e. cards) instead of design, production and use of things.
– Real player with 30.3 hrs in game
There’s a lot left to be desired in this game. The UI is clunky, the artwork is amateurish (think early D&D), and there are some strong biases (no female officers, everyone is Caucasian). Maybe there’s a button to change that - but if there is, I havent dug it out from the UI yet (oh, that tiny button on the map pulls up a list of worlds? Which cannot be ordered to tell me most populous, most rebellious, etc?).
For all that, however, the game does two things well. It lives up to what it says it is - you’re the Emperor, not a warehouse clerk. You dont deal with the minutae of the empire, you have People for that - who are, admittedly, often trying to kill you. Or skim off the top. Or are just idiots. But you’re the Emperor, you have People for those People too; people with sharp, pointy objects - my purges havent reached Stalinist levels, but every once in a while, I do feel the need to prune my court of the more corrupt or stupid couriers or officers (‘fire’ all corrupt governors except the loyal ones? Meh heh heh heh).
– Real player with 23.5 hrs in game
Xenia’s Ark
Any fan of 4X, grand strategy, and / or turned based strategy games should consider this game. It is vast. It is challenging. And most of all it is very fun to play. The developers are supporting the game well and this title may become a classic to rival total hours played with Panzer General and Civilization. Blends land based and space based development and combat better than any game I know. This is totally a, one more turn game that can keep you up all night so beware. This game is a hidden jewel and if you purchase it you will be very glad you did. Five out of five stars. Looking forward to what comes next. Game editor, expansion packs! The works.
– Real player with 886.6 hrs in game
The things I like in my game for 150+ turns so far are:
***** the map modes (a rotating globe for planets, hex map for the solar system and what looks like a stained glass window for the galaxy colored by who owns galactic territory with brown for visited but unclaimed stars, and grey for areas not visited)
*** combat with mechs vs predatory wildlife. I suspect that combat vs other empires will be more fun once I actualy find one
*** being able to move anywhere on planet with non combat units in 2 turns by going upto orbit then down anywhere on planet next turn. Combat Mechs can board a freightor to go up and down and can move and attack the turn they disembark
– Real player with 37.7 hrs in game
Deity Empires
Short description:
DE is the most faithful (playable) successor to Master of Magic. It has some
*4x Fantasy Strategy with seperate magic and civic research
*points to spend on perks at game start
*sophisticated economy
*incremential elements like resource upgrades and unit leveling ( (which you can turn off))
*Tactical battles and Rogue like dungeon diving (simplistic Rogue Like at the moment but there is more to come)
A negative point is, that this game is complex and/but has very limited manual (and no tutorial). As I understand it, the devs wait for the big and essential updates, before they spend time on manuals. The DE community is very welcoming. The forum search function is your extended manual.
– Real player with 783.5 hrs in game
This review is from the perspective of someone who has played a significant amount of the Age of Wonders series and the Fall from Heaven 2 mod for Civ4. I’ve also dabbled in Endless Legend, Fallen Enchantress, Dominions, and Master of Magic.
Right now this game feels like a cross of Age of Wonders and FFH2, and I love it. Below are some of my thoughts:
City Development (Tall vs Wide):
Cities start weak but can become incredible powerhouses given time and investment. For example, a starting city will produce approximately 100 gold per turn, which is enough to fund a low tier army or a level 1 improvement every 5 turns. My capitol in my latest game, however, produces 4000 (!) gold a turn, and is still not yet fully developed. I basically don’t have to care about income because this city is basically El Dorado.
– Real player with 357.3 hrs in game