GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS - Official Website

Galactic Civilizations is a strategy game set in space at the dawn of the 23rd century, where you become the leader of the human civilization. The galaxy has 6 major civilizations and the race is on to colonize, conquer, and dominate the galaxy using whatever means necessary. Players can use military, technological, economic or political might to become a major power in the galaxy and must also research new technologies, colonize and defend planets, construct Space Stations, initiate social improvements, build a fleet, fight wars, win elections and gain influence in the United Planets Security council. The game is won when all the races become united in a galactic alliance, someone researches technology that takes them beyond mortality or one civilization conquers the opposition with their military might.

Galactic Civilizations features:

  • Multiple, balanced paths to victory - Achieve victory using military strength, economic might, or political power.
  • Immersive story line - Playing as the leader of humanity, your heritage depends on your ability to lead the human race and become one of the principal species of the universe.
  • The Metaverse - Gamers who use Stardock.net to play will be part of the "Metaverse", where victories, defeats and campaigns can be recorded, allowing players to share their gaming experience.
  • Replayability - The game is readily playable by casual gamers and includes a powerful and sophisticated AI and game mechanics that make each gaming experience different and highly addictive.
  • Video and Sound - The game features state of the art sound subsystems and video resolutions of 1024x768 with over 16 million colors.
Game Chronicles goes inside this exciting new strategic space game with an exclusive interview by John Carswell.

GCM: Thanks for your time. Please introduce yourself and give us some sense of Galactic Civilizations’ history.
Brad Wardell: My name is Brad Wardell and I’m the designer of Galactic Civilizations. Years ago (back in 1993) while I was in college, I wrote an OS/2 game called Galactic Civilizations. I wanted to make a strategy game in which the computer AI didn’t cheat and would play intelligently both in terms of its tactics and diplomatic behavior.

That game helped launch Stardock, our company, and years later I was given the opportunity to revisit Galactic Civilizations. Having worked on 4 Windows multiplayer strategy/action games and being an on-line RTS player, I had become frustrated in feeling forced to play multiplayer to get challenged in strategy games. Many of us were also a bit frustrated with the drops, cheese tactics, and general pain that is often experienced when playing someone on-line. So we wanted to go back and do GalCiv with an AI that was complex enough that it would behave like a real human would. And one where the intelligence levels would translate into actual different playing styles.


GCM: For those new to Galactic Civilizations could you please provide a brief description of the game’s backdrop and gameplay?
Brad Wardell: GalCiv is a turn based strategy game that takes place near the dawn of the 23rd century. You take the role of leader of the human civilization at a time when galactic exploration and colonization is taking off in earnest. You must compete against up to 36 other interstellar civilizations including 5 major ones who are bent on galactic domination. Using a combination of technical, economic, diplomatic, and military prowess, you must ensure that mankind survives in a hostile galaxy.

GCM: Setting out to remake Galactic Civilizations, what aspects of the original did you did most want to add to and improve?
Brad Wardell: I wanted the diplomacy to be much more sophisticated along with having there be truly multiple paths to victory that were all equally enjoyable.

GCM: Galactic Civilizations has done away the standard single-player campaign mode in favor of a randomly unfolding universe. Why was this decision made and how many of these random elements will the game have to draw upon to ensure a high replay value?
Brad Wardell: Replayability is really central to what we’re trying to do with GalCiv. By taking the content that would have gone into a linear campaign and distributing it as hundreds of linked random events that the player has some control over, the game will have a much longer shelf life.

GCM: Galactic Civilizations gives the players a number of ways to win. Could you please give us a few examples of these and how they allow for a wide variety of playing styles?
Brad Wardell: Sure, first you have the classic “Conquer everyone” way. Next, you have the allied victory path, this is where you negotiate alliances with all the players. Then you have the cultural domination victory, this is where you control 90% of the galaxy via influence. And finally you have the technology victory, that is where you have received technology to move mankind to the next phase of its existence.

We wanted to make a strategy game where each path was equally fun to take and didn’t require warfare. I’ve won games where I didn’t build a single capital ship, for instance. I tend to enjoy playing the galactic trading czar where I build up my diplomatic abilities and then manipulate the other civilizations to do my bidding.


GCM: What sort of units will the player be given access to and how customizable will these units be depending on the player’s choice of intended victory and their movement along the tech tree?
Brad Wardell: There are a wide variety of units in GalCiv. You don’t customize them in the sense of designing them. Rather, they get designed and modified based on what technologies you choose to research.

The most flexible unit in the game is the starbase. The starbase can be upgraded in all sorts of different directions. For instance, it can be upgraded to magnify your cultural influence in a given area or slow down enemy ships or enhance your ships’ attack abilities in a local area, and so forth.


GCM: Please tell about Galactic Civilizations’ A.I. in both combat and diplomacy situations?
Brad Wardell: The main difference in GalCiv’s AI from most strategy games is that it is multithreaded. That means the game’s computer players are generating their strategies during the human turn. So when you hit the turn button, there is not much, if any, delay in going to the next turn. It also means that the AI has much more time to come up with a long term strategy rather than just reacting to immediate events.

There are actually 6 different AI engines in GalCiv rather than the typical single AI engine found in most games. We did this so that each player would have a different feel to it. And it would decrease the chances of someone finding some tactic that beats the game. If something fools one AI personality, odds are it won’t fool the others.

The diplomacy system has a lot of personality to it as well, each race has its own dialog, attitude, and responses. And because there are many of them and some are more frequent than others, and are based on their morality, players will continue to see new dialog for months.


GCM: What would you say to the gamer who equates Galactic Civilizations’ 2-D graphics with prohibitively complex or "elitist" gameplay?
Brad Wardell: I’d point to Roller Coaster Tycoon. It has 2D graphics too. In fact, the most popular, accessible games tend to be 2D (The Sims, after all, is 2D sprite based). We chose 2D because we wanted to make sure this game could be played by as many people as possible.

GCM: What are your plans for updating Galactic Civilizations after its initial release?
Brad Wardell: We have a program called Stardock Central that will allow players to get almost real time updates to the game. In addition, players will be able to download more traditional “patches” to the game on occasion as well. But with SDCentral, we’re talking updates almost every week and in some cases multiple times per week. A lot of our budget was reserved for after release development so that we could keep adding features long afterwards.

GCM: Thanks again for you time. Do you have any final thoughts or impressions that you’d like to leave the reader with?
Brad Wardell: If you’re looking for a strategy game with challenging computer players, fairly straight forward game mechanics but also has a lot of depth, GalCiv is right up your alley.