Galactic Civilizations 4 Review

Galactic Civilizations 4 reviewed on PC by Kris Cornelisse.

After completing a few campaigns I'm left struggling to find reasons to come back to Galactic Civilizations IV. What few new ideas it brings to the space 4X genre prove to be poorly implemented and ultimately uninteresting, with promising features like Sectors and Galactic Challenges missing the mark and feeling unfinished. Every option and playstyle inevitably blurs together into a galaxy-spanning land grab, and without flavorful writing to back it up the tedious nature of that and its whack-a-mole warfare mean I'll probably forget I played GalCiv IV by year's end. Other 4X games have solved these problems more effectively, and with more flair and identity. This leaves Galactic Civilizations IV feeling barren, hollow, and in desperate need of a balance and polish pass - which, to be fair, Stardock has a respectable history of doing with its games after launch. In its current condition it's not particularly good or bad; it's just boring, soulless, and not up to par with other recent games in its style.

#IGN #Gaming

[ShasLaMontyr]

This is mostly just reminding me how great Gal Civ 2 was and making me tempted to reinstall it.

[tadasrimkus]

when a 4x space game's best part is the ship designer

[CrazyLegsjack]

They need to combine gal civ series and sins of a solar empire. Have gal civ for the tactical part and whem u choose to initiate combat (or even just move your ships) you can have option to either auto battle how it is, or control battle and its like sins of a solar empire in tactical battle. Similar in how total war is succesfull in this way. Would be so awesome building your ships, out fitting them with the weapons you want them stomping the enemies with you fly RTS skills.

[TeleologicalConsistency]

The problem with Gal Civ is always once you pass a certain size you're completely unstoppable and it just becomes a tedious mop-up operation. Stellaris offset this by implementing various penalties for having too large an empire and the end-game crisis. If a game combined the best aspects of Stellaris and Gal Civ it would be the ideal 4x space game.

[Opportunist]

it feels like every iteration in this series gets blander than the last

[KuhoinX]

Still waitnig for Sword of Stars 3. I don't understand why there is not another game like SoS that combines space 4X and Total War...

[diederickbrauer]

They release on Epic because it does not have user reviews. This game doesn't even have ANY wiki, docs, Tutorials, explainations of how ANYTHING works. UNFKING BELIEVABLE.

[laalki]

Still waiting for a game to beat Master of Orion 2. Not really holding my breath.

[imperatorofman]

Bought it and played it and loved it. Not sure what people want because no matter what direction smaller devs like this take they get offended.

[maxm]

Very helpful review! Too bad the game devs were unable to do better.

[KatalistProductionsKozzySasha]

Galactic Civ 2 was one of the best strategy games ever, didn't like 3 much and 4 doesn't look to interesting either.

[Otis]

The ship building was fun in the previous game. I’m glad they brought it back.

They should port it over to another developer haha.

[Yungbeck]

I'mma wait for Mandalore to speak on this one.

[OmegaTrooper]

Ouch. Less than 30 seconds in and the evisceration is already bone-deep.

[whade]

"It is not bad, it's just soulless and boring" So what are your criteria for "bad"?

[flowerdealer]

This review is way too hard based on what the game is.

[diederickbrauer]

The truest review needs be only one word: "Unfinished",
IF two words "Clearly unfinished",
IF three words "Finish your GAME",
IF four words "Give me money back"

[ArgieHandle]

Take the Amplitude-pill and play Endless Space 2 instead.

*BEST UI IN THE INDUSTRY!*

[bottasheimfe]

Knowing Stardock they'll probably release some story campaign DLCs in the future.

[PatGunn]

Guess I'll stick with endless space 2