At its most expansive, Galactic Civilizations becomes a nightmarish never-ending version of every other 4X game that falls into an eventual cycle of repeated build queues and punishing waiting times while the AI takes its turn. It's a feast delivered in very deliberate bitesize pieces but those pieces had become stale long before the campaign ended. Not because it has devious AI (although it does) and not because I'd bitten off more than I could chew. A couple of sessions on a tiddly set of territories is usually enough to learn the flow of a campaign and the quirks of the end-game, and then I'll dive straight into the biggest map and settle down for the long-haul.
I always rush toward the biggest possible map when I'm playing a new strategy game. It might be the most important decision of all because playing on a small or medium map is a completely different experience to the eventual micromanagement mire of the largest simulations. The size and specifics of the galaxy you're playing in mark the first big decision you'll make when starting a game of GalCiv III. They're preposterous and the decision to give players the ability to pack such enormous galaxies with starfaring species is bold. If I had to pick a stand-out feature, the one I'd slap front and centre on an imaginary marketing campaign, it'd be those map sizes. Maps can be absolutely gigantic, with over 100 competing races scattered across them. The moral alignment of your civ has been jettisoned, replaced with a three-way ideology system that presents a more compelling set of choices whenever colonisation or random galactic events occur. There are new resources to gather, new galactic 'terrain' features, changes to ship construction and design, and tweaks to the handling of the tech tree. Galactic Civilizations III often feels like a small step forward for Stardock's excellent sci-fi 4X series. They might also be of limited consequence, cosmetic even, but it's important that they exist and that you feel your actions are either defining the character of your civilisation or its place in the world. The decisions might be monumental, leading to long-term game-changing diversions, such as declarations of war or the construction of a unique building or colony. In the perfect 4X game, whether set in a hobbity shire or in the spaces between the stars, you always feel that there are several valid options at the start of each turn. I've spent a week looking to the stars and planting my flag in every planet in sight in order to understand the changes that have been made, and the improvements and failures at the heart of this behemoth. Galactic Civilizations III is the long-awaited sequel to the 24th best strategy game of all time.
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