Galactic Civilization III Free On Epic

Monday, I spoke of a bald man choking people while wearing a French maid’s outfit (not a sexy thing), and I later spoke of the Scott Pilgrim game selling a lot of physical editions (a very sexy thing). Tuesday, I spoke about Sony’s San Diego studio working on an “existing franchise,” and Alexx went on to talk about Session backsliding into a new publishing deal, and I returned (don’t I always) to say Apex Legends might be coming to the Switch soon. Wednesday, the world had a sigh of relief and Taylor spoke about Pokémon‘s 25th anniversary. Thursday, I spoke about walls from the console wars that might divide us but temporal mechanics can’t, and later Alexx would talk about that very weird Japanese game (no, the other one; no, the other one.) Balan Wonderworld.

This week’s free game on the Epic Games Store is actually the one that I’ve ended up playing the most in the short period of time we have between it becoming available and so on. Galactic Civilization III is a 4X turn-based strategy of the grand space flavor. It shouldn’t shock you to find that I, of course, like it. In fact, I spent a while carefully creating my own group of people outside of the game’s own factions. An example includes the United Federation of Planets, lead by Jean-Luc under the motto, “Ad Astra Per Aspera” (rough translation: “To the stars through hardships.”)

A majority of the time was spent carefully phrasing things such as “a collective of peoples, of all race, gender, and belief, with one common goal…” If this was any other game, or if it featured any other end goal, I’d probably never bother with touching the fluff text (phrasing the game uses itself) to showcase the ideals of Starfleet. However, I know full-well that Galactic Civilization III is the type of thing I’ll play several times over, facing off with different threats to our common goal. To discover, to “look towards diplomacy[,] and [to provide] defense [of those who need it most].”

Even if you aren’t too great at 4X games – I am remarkably unmatched in how dreadful I am at them, but I enjoy them when I can – it isn’t as imposing as some of its cousins. Take this from someone who tried to play a bit of Galactic Civilization II about two or three years ago, which was a wash thanks to the dated UI and general grand nature of all the systems explained through lengths of text that I didn’t want to even bother with. However, III brilliantly gives you a gentle start before introducing all the systems upon systems. In essence, even an idiot such as myself can get a general understanding of the mechanics after only a few turns. That said, I was stupid enough not to instantly use my Colony ships to do what they are meant for, colonizing worlds. I am stupid.

I am (nevertheless) endlessly happy I now have a Galactic Civilization that I am not sobbing at because the UI is horrifically dated even for the time of its release. I know in the short time I’ve given it, I’ve hardly scratched the surface of what Galactic Civilization III could be, with only a fist full of hours at hand so far. Of course, it doesn’t touch anything close to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion or Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, both of the more real-time variants on 4X. It is possibly best explained as a more accessible space take on Sid Meier’s Civilization series.

All this week, you can pick up Galactic Civilization III which includes the Retribution, Crusade, and Mega Events expansions/add-ons (for which there are far too many) until the morning of the 28th of January. Next week, we’ll be covering an action 2D Metroidvania called Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition, something I’ve been trying to find the time to play and clear off my large to-do list of my near-endless library at this point. It shall be interesting.