Galactic Civilizations III

I like the consistency, the art, and the fact that is is turn-based. I am an old man (51), been playing mostly RTS games for most of my life. I am not big on fast-paced FPS stuff because I can never manage the controls (neither keyboard NOR controllers), most games do NOT have auto-targeting so I get frustrated and give up after 10 minutes tops. So, a game like Gal Civ (and others like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander) work for me because I can take my time, make decisions, and let the units do their thing... either in real time or turn-based. Also, in Galactic Civilizations, I can save the game whenever I want (in fact, it autosaves), go away, come back, and continue the muscle-memory, click-click, end turn, analyze, click-click, end turn... basically a zen-like meditation session with minimal worries about speed, aim, and the trajectory of my pointless life. I can be "in the moment", immerse myself in the gameplay, and avoid episodes of depression for HOURS at a time 😅👍🏾 People game for various reasons. This game hits the spot for me.

It's not much of a strategy game since the only strategy available is "prepare for war". Want to build a peaceful empire? prepare for war. Want to build a warring empire? prepare for war.

active ships are not well highlighted

Note that I played only the base game, and mostly on the 3 largest map scales as I really like the feeling of being on an enormous galaxy with hundreds of planets. So, did I enjoy the game ? Yes. But the reason I wouldn’t recommend it is that to me it feel like an unfinished beta rather than a full-game. Why ? - 1st, the difficulty ballance. The difference in difficulty between Gifted and above is so tremendous it feel honestly stupid. Gifted is supposed to be the « hard » difficulty, yet I feel like I’m playing on easy difficulty, normal on the best of days… but as soon as I get to the Genius difficulty, even doing my best with my early game boom is not enough to be around the same level of faction power as AI factions, and I have to use every tricks on my sleeve to even stay alive the first turns of war (as I invested that much ressources into said boom) then make a counter-attack. The AI is just so advantaged in term of production (which determine both construction speed, money and research), growth and influence it feel like I am playing against a cheater more than anything. I know why developpers do tend to use the same AI with every difficulty and just give them extra ressou…

The game snowballs. One civ gets ahead and conquers everything. I make that civ me by finding the best path to plantary invasion. I make my citizens generals and send out invasion fleets with a few escorts. The ai doesn't build a navy at all so I clear out the defense of the ai's capital and surrounding planets and conquer with no opposition to my invasion fleets. Now I am ahead and conquering everything. The problems with the game balance: - ai doesn't build a fleet to protect their home system - citizen system is bad. Generals shouldn't be a part of the citizen system. With one genral and the five legions it grants you can conquer a planet with 3 science citizens on it. This makes the general the by far best citizen followed by engineer. - diplomacy isn't much of a thing. Alliances aren't formed among weaker ai to protect against stronger ai. I can conquer ai players one by one without say a 3 way alliance to oppose me. I haven't played galciv 2 in almost a decade but I recall it being more balanced against snowballing.

LOVE THIS FRANCISE. I HAVE PLAYED EVERYONE OF THEM. JUST GOT A LAPTOP AFTER A LONG STINT IN THE POOR HOUSE AND THIS IS THE FIRST GAME I GOT BACK INTO.