Today, on October 19th, the new SF strategy game Galactic Civilizations IV launches in the “Supernova” edition on Steam. MeinMMO author Schuhmann has already spent about 40 to 45 hours with the game and says in his review: It fulfills all your alien power fantasies.

What kind of game is this?

• Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova is a 4x game in space. You start with your alien species and a home planet that you can develop similarly to Civilization VI; you also have some spaceships to explore the cosmos. Quickly, you will possess further planets as resource colonies or settle them as core worlds.
• In the game, there are numerous resources and raw materials that you can mine through star bases or on your planets. Certain luxury resources are necessary to build “wonders”, unique buildings that can only exist once in the galaxy.
• You then fight against numerous alien races for dominance: 23 species are in the game. Additional races can be downloaded for free or even created by the player. There are also “smaller races”, plus pirates and space monsters – everything you need for a space adventure.

Check out the launch trailer for the new strategy game featuring the extraordinary alien races:

The series has been around for 20 years – the latest installment is a sort of 4.5

Where does it come from? The series began back in 1992 and then grew steadily, much like Civilization. Part 4 was released in April 2022 on the Epic Games Store. We tested it at MeinMMO back then.

Today, on October 19th, the “Supernova” edition is released on Epic Games and Steam.

This is a sort of “Galactic Civilizations 4.5”: Some game mechanics have been changed and 5 new races have been added. Those who are not familiar with Part 4 will hardly notice the changes:

• The important “Constructors” no longer require populations.
• For each race, it is now more beneficial to stick to their “corresponding” traditions.
• Additionally, research is now freer than in Vanilla Part 4.

For the Supernova edition, Brad Wardell returned, who invented the game 30 years ago and says: He wanted to take the game “in a different direction”. The Steam release was the right time for it, he writes.

The game is extremely customizable

That’s what makes Galactic Civilizations IV – Supernova special: You can customize the game extensively to your needs. The customization options cover every conceivable aspect of the game. For example, I play without technology trading, without giving up the AI, and with a slow research and gameplay pace, against all standard alien races available – thus against 2 opponents:

• There are 6 sliders alone to define the size and nature of the universe.
• Additionally, 6 fine-tunings for gameplay.
• Furthermore, there are 5 optional settings – for example, one can prevent the trading of technologies.
• And 5 different victory conditions.

At least 17 of these settings directly affect the gameplay – the victory conditions being the least impactful.

Depending on how large I make the galaxy, it leads to completely different gameplay:

• If I choose a galaxy with many systems and distant opponents, I can play for hours without encountering an enemy, as the 23 alien races avoid each other far into the midgame. This way, I can research in peace and grab countless planets and resources. It plays more like a “Sim Universe” – kind of nice but ultimately quite boring.
• With fewer systems (only 4) and 23 races, I can only conquer one or at most 2 planets before I encounter opponents. And quickly, the entire system is occupied by the AI. Here, contact with enemies happens early in the game.

I think every player will play around with the extensive parameters until they find out how they want to play the game.

This extreme customizability of the game certainly guarantees a high replay value.

That’s what makes it appealing: In Galactic Civilizations IV Supernova Edition, alien species and how you play them differ significantly from each other.

• The Yor are a race of cyborgs with which you can immediately go on the attack. They are technically very strong; you do not have to pay attention to some aspects of the game, such as food or approval ratings, but you need the resource “Duranium” to produce new robots.

• There is a kind of spider race that is totally geared towards attack and receives powerful bonuses when it can defeat and eat opponents.
• There is a religious race that plays rather passively and builds a religion, thereby collecting “culture points” and can conquer enemy planets without a fight.
• My favorite has always been the Mimots, small monsters that multiply rapidly and overwhelm opponents.
• There is also a tree race that can revive dead planets.
• Plus every imaginable sci-fi fantasy, from rock people to crystal beings to pillaging space orcs or noble dragon people.

With all these creatures, typical alien power fantasies from science fiction can be fulfilled: Do you want to be the Predator or the Borg or a race like the Zerg in Starcraft – do you want to be a greedy trader like a Ferengi, a noble warrior like a Klingon, or a plundering space pirate.

Everything is possible: The multitude of races, whether organic or not, continually changes the gameplay. It’s well done and promises variety.

Especially since the “ideologies” of the peoples also each prefer a playstyle that grants unique bonuses.

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Rewarding gaming experience with lulls in the endgame

This is my conclusion: The Supernova edition came at just the right time for me: After the disappointing “Star Trek: Infinite”, I had already played the standard edition Galactic Civilization IV and then purchased the Supernova edition in early access on Epic Games.

At first, it felt buggy and I couldn’t get used to the changes from the standard edition: After about 10 to 15 hours, I lost interest in Supernova.

But then there were several patches in the last weeks, and the game progressively improved. Soon, I was at my computer until 2 a.m.

The Steam version now offered me a good, varied 4x experience for 31 hours, which I can recommend to any fan of games like Civilization VI or Stellaris.

The game is deep, varied, and really fun. Just the Steam achievements, which I unfairly secured for myself before the game started, motivated me.

One will rarely finish games, but that’s genre-typical

Like practically every 4x game, the Supernova edition also has significant lulls in the endgame, when you have to manage 30 planets and 50 fleets and move them around every turn.

As with the Paradox games, Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova will become a game where you start many more games than you actually finish.

But especially in the early and mid-game, it has its weaknesses, particularly since the AI is quite challenging and often launches a counterattack.

A change from the original version: Games now end much later. In Galactic Civilizations IV, it was usually enough to win and dominate a system to achieve a prestige victory. In the Supernova edition, reaching the end is much harder.

In one match, I thought I had already won: 19 opponents were defeated, only 4 empires remained, and I had conquered 2 of the 4 systems.

So I took it easy, let the turns run out, researched luxury technologies because I wanted to pursue an easy prestige victory, but this laziness came back to bite me in the end because the opponents – unlike me – continued to build up their military and then bombed me away with an overwhelming fleet.

They apparently had no understanding that I no longer wanted to build 50 ships each turn and painstakingly move them to the other end of the galaxy.

My alien power fantasy blew up in my face.

I subjugate humanity with a band of rampaging space bunnies