Galactic Civilizations 4 announced

Loved GalCiv 2, never really got into GalCiv 3, but honestly I think I’ve just gone off 4x as a genre in the last five years or so. I can’t think of any that have really grabbed me recently (I deliberately put Old World on hold until it properly releases so maybe that will), and I haven’t even picked up Civ IV or SMAC in years now.

The research model seems pretty similar to the “deck” in Stellaris. Weighted random presentation of research options and hard choices where going with option A now means you might not get the chance to research option B for a while.

I like the idea of a “map of maps”. Would perhaps be nice if there were more tiers of tech so there are more than two waves of exploration. Does it say anywhere how narrow the lines between sectors will be? Can you fortify the “jump-point”?

Stardock lost me as a customer, and GalCiv 3 played a large part in that. As such I have no interest in this. Which is kind of sad, because I played a LOT of GalCiv 2, and I loved it for what it was.

What role did GC3 play, out of curiosity?

The overall quality of the game (specially right after release), and the way they handled purchase of DLC for early purchasers of the base game. I mentioned it somewhere here.

EDIT: here, found it:

Hey everyone! Glad to see so many of you jazzed about GalCiv IV. Here are some links that might be of interest for you:

Forum post

Trailer

Website

I’m happy to answer what questions I can, also! Brad wrote a dev journal talking a bit about where we want to take GalCiv IV, which you can find here.

As always, thanks for all the support and enthusiasm!

Thanks for digging that up. I can see how that would rankle!

Is Brad’s honey going to be part of any pre-order bonus? :)

Not going to lie, for a moment my sleep addled brain thought you meant his wife, until I realized we were talking about his bees, LOL!

Oh, wow, yes. The BEES. Actual honey. How creepy would that be? Haha. It is the internet, though, probably not even the creepiest thing you would have read today…

Very exciting :)

It’s a shame that @Scotch_Lufkin’s nice simple thread name got the axe, and that in 10 years we’ll be posting about the latest $5 sale in this announcement thread sans roman numeral.

The early bird gets the thread! My preference would have been “All good galactic civilizations go to…”, personally.

Cool…played the other 3 over and over.

image

Yep, this is why I will never buy a Stardock game on release at the very least, and possibly never given they lose relevance quickly by the time the last possible DLC releases. It isn’t just Gal Civ, I had the same issue with Offworld Trading Company and the DLC on Steam where I have to buy the DLC at full price while newer customers get 30% off the Ultimate Edition. Because I own the Base Game, there’s no way for me to expand upon it unless paying full price. I don’t know who is responsible for dealing with Steam’s online presence, but they’re not favouring existing customers.

If a game has lost all relevance by the time it’s discounted, then it’s a better deal at launch at full price…

This is why I tend to buy my MP games full price, but am more willing to wait on most SP games.

If I’m desperate I’ll get a new SP game, and I’m starting to tire of MP games (even fighting games, where I’ve kinda pledged to limit myself to 2 series , which I may never see again)

Count me among those who couldn’t get into GalCiv 3 after enjoying 1 and 2. Mostly I think it’s because I changed, not the series. Some of these changes sound promising. Despite that I don’t know if I’d bite on this right away because:
1- Every time I see a game say they’re focusing on characters I think it’s because of Crusader Kings, and I don’t like Crusader Kings.
2- I’m afraid the AI will still ignore the fog of war and still make a beeline for my fleet even though they can’t see them legitimately. It’s way too annoying when that happens.

AI omniscience like that drives me absolutely bonkers. The Age of Wonders series is one of the worst offenders of this.