Galactic Civilizations IV

Galactic Civilizations 4 is a vast and dependable grand space strategy. But there's little here that radical, and expect to meet it halfway.

Galactic Civilizations 4 is a competent 4X turn-based strategy game, but it doesn't offer any reasons to choose it over its competition.

Unfortunately, I can’t say I have had huge amounts of fun with Galactic Civilizations IV. Although all the basics are there for an enjoyable experience, and Stardocks added a good amount of specific systems to make the experience unique, crucial aspects like war management and IA behavior ended up ruining my time with the game.

Despite having some interesting concepts and refreshing mechanics, Galactic Civilizations IV suffers from an unintuitive UI, lack of tooltip information, and production queue bugs.

Stardock has created a game with good bones. Some of the new systems, such as the core world management and ideology system, add to/improve the game. Unfortunately, other systems feel tedious at times. They are not broken per se but are not quite there yet. They either bog down the gameplay or lack impact on the experience. The core gameplay loop is decent, but it just didn’t hook me into feeling the need to play one more turn before bed. If you enjoy the series, Galactic Civilizations IV is worth picking up. Otherwise, I would wait for a few patches or DLC to help flesh out some of the systems.

There’s a lot of unique civilizations you can try out in this space strategy giant. But there’s also a plethora of design mistakes and oversights and a late game that’s generally tedious. What’s more, Galactic Civilizations IV sorely lack a proper tutorial.