"Galactic Civilizations 4" bills itself as the most accessible game in the series. This is true, just as the tail of the tiger is the most accessible part. Stardock's longevity 4X series has an official tutorial. But in a game that explains everything as if it came from another dimension, space clippies are of little use.

Take the module for example. At first I thought modules were optional extras that could be selected to customize the starbase (which serves as a resource harvesting and deployable control point, and modules enhance those functions in various ways). But then I ran out of modules and realized that modules are actually expendable resources. But unlike almost every other resource in the game, which is either harvested in space or produced on the planet, modules are built in shipyards.

And, modules can only be built after researching the relevant technology.

Like many other systems, GalCiv does not explain them properly. Space Clippy simply points to the various menus like an unsympathetic waiter in an alien restaurant. Ironically, GalCiv 4 is not as esoteric as it appears. It's just bad communication, and it takes many failed attempts to get the best out of the game.

This is not just about understanding the individual systems, but also about how important features are represented. Take the game's biggest new idea, sectors, for example: rather than displaying the universe as a vast expanse of stars, GalCiv 4 divides it into self-contained bubbles, connected to each other by subspace warps (aka space roads). The randomly generated map contains about a dozen bubbles, each of which contains approximately 30 stars.

This has led Stardock to proclaim "GalCiv 4" the largest game in the series' history. However, while visually impressive, it is not that much fun to play on this scale. A "Galactic"-sized game is painfully slow, and ship management can be very fiddly, as you have to constantly zoom in and out to give orders to individual fleets. "GalCiv" is more fun on smaller maps," Stardock said. Not only does the game progress faster as more empires are forced to rub shoulders, but the strategic importance of sectors becomes more apparent. This is because the space roads connecting sectors turn into highways that can be monitored (but not completely blockaded) to protect empires.

Keeping invaders at bay does not guarantee victory; GalCiv 4 introduces a new victory condition called "Prestige." It tracks how great your empire is in a wide range of categories, with prestige points awarded to reflect how good your military, research, and tourism industries are. If you earn enough prestige points, you win the game. This facilitates nonviolent victories and helps prevent large maps from becoming a war of attrition. Prestige bonuses can also be earned by completing various quests that replace the standard campaign of the previous game and are unlocked once a civilization meets certain requirements. This allows the player to experience the "story" of GalCiv 4 without being forced to play as a particular faction.

These welcome additions are accompanied by a distinction between colonies and core worlds. Core worlds are planets that you directly control. You have the option of appointing a governor, constructing buildings to increase productivity, and building a space base nearby. Colonies, on the other hand, do not require direct control; you simply send resources to the nearest core world.

The idea is to reduce your administrative tasks from 100+ planets to perhaps a dozen or two. And it works. At least it works if you know how to effectively distinguish between colonies and core worlds. A colony becomes a core world when you appoint a governor, so functionally it is up to you. However, the only worlds worth making core worlds are those rated "excellent" or better. The game doesn't tell you this, so you tend to rush to colonize barely habitable remote areas while the AI plucks all the good planets out from under your nose, snout, and proboscis.

The "proper" way to establish a core world is time consuming and complex. Conquering another empire is mechanically simple: just click on a fleet or planet, attack it, and wait until the battle or siege is resolved. But again, GalCiv fails to mention that core worlds can only be conquered after researching a specific technology called planetary invasion. On the other hand, a colony can take any ship, even a single starfighter, at any time. This is going too far in the opposite direction, and unless every colony has a couple of ships stationed there for defense, the war will be reduced to mere pest control.

Once one parses GalCiv's garbled attempts at communication, the universe feels strange and full of possibilities enough to be a vast science fiction sandbox. Not only are there a variety of species to encounter, from the mantis-like carnivorous creatures that thrive in the marine world to legions of sentient robots that do not need food to survive. There are also many anomalies that can be scanned for little rewards, such as ships that can be repaired from shipwrecks or strange artifacts that grant ad hoc powers.

As the empire develops, various "orders" are unlocked."

"Orders" are special orders that instantly recruit new colony ships, increase income, or cause new star systems to appear on the map. In a game where progress is so gradual, these immediate bonuses provide a satisfying immediacy. In one instance, an artifact was used to give a colony ship additional movement, allowing it to evade a fleet of pirates, defeat a rival ship, and gain the best planet in its sector.

As the game unfolds, the means of approach become more varied. Diplomacy, for example, seems limited at first, and it is difficult to get anything resembling a decent deal from other factions. As you gain access to better diplomatic skills, your options for forging different relationships and alliances widen considerably. But there are still problems, such as enemies who sue for peace during a war while you refuse to offer incentives to stop the war.

Indeed, most of GalCiv's "problems" stem from poor onboarding, but in the background glow of competence, I see several other black holes. By far the biggest is research: the GalCiv technology tree is like a technology arboretum, and to facilitate decision-making, the game presents several new technologies that have been semi-irregularly trimmed from the tree as the next research project. This is an important mechanism to leave to the whims of chance, although it works fine until one is tempted to actively pursue a particular technology, for example, the planetary invasion system mentioned earlier.

It is possible to exchange technology with other species, and I eventually did so, but it does not guarantee that they will be willing to do so.

More broadly, "GalCiv 4" does not have much of a hook compared to other space 4X games. There are few narrative nuggets tied to anomalies here that I haven't seen done better in "Stellaris," for example. Other new features, such as the "Crusader Kings"-like Governor and his relationship with the citizens, are very simplistic, basically meaning that if you devalue the Governor too much, the planet will abandon him and he may move on to another faction. The Ship Editor is a good match for GalCiv's general visual pizzazz. However, it is a very ancillary feature and has little meaningful impact.

Galactic Civilization 4 is buzzing with hot new spaceships and innovative ideas, with a pioneering little band of upstarts bursting onto the scene as if some ancient alien race has awakened. The company's answer to this is to go big, but also sketchy and conservative. Space Clippy represents a token effort to make contact, but Galactic Civilizations 4 ultimately doesn't care if its message is understood.

There is a decades-long legacy, thousands of disciples, and a formula for space exploration that has worked since time immemorial. It doesn't need your approval. That is GalCiv.

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