With the disappointing release of Master of Orion III, I've been itching - no hungering - for a satisfying turn-based, space-empire, strategy game. In that sense, the timing for Galactic Civilizations couldn't get any better. If MOO3 had lived up to its anticipation, Galactic Civilizations could have been outshined. Things being as they are, the game developed by Stardock Entertainment and published by Strategy First has its chance to make its mark. GalCiv was originally designed in 1994 for OS/2. With some tweaks and changes, it is now a title that can easily be picked up by the Master of Orion fan-base, and in many ways, fulfills the wants and hopes for an excellent strategy game.

Before playing the game, I strongly suggest downloading and installing the patch, which also includes a bonus pack. It adds a few extra options to the game such as more flexibility during game setup and extra modules for space stations. It may not sound like much, but these minor changes add a whole new dimension to the overall experience.

Empire building strategy games don't really need a plot. The premise of all of them are fairly straightforward: Build, Expand, and Conquer. Galactic Civilizations offers a minor storyline to start the player off. For fifty years, all species have relied on humongous and expensive star gates were the only means of interstellar travel. This being the case, aliens had very little reason to contact each other, and ultimately had very little to do with each other. Then, at the dawn of the 23rd century, humans make a groundbreaking discovery: The Hyper-Drive. By allowing ships to cross star systems on their own power, the star gates are rendered completely obsolete. Then, stupidly enough, the humans shared the space-faring technology with all five of the other known alien species. Here marks the spark that generates the struggle between species to dominate and control as much of the known galaxy as they can get their hands/tentacles/etc. on, and the beginning of Galactic Civilization.

As like all games of this nature, there are multiple paths to victory. However, it is often the case that any victory besides military conquest usually takes way too long, and is far too boring to be worthwhile. GalCiv took all these into consideration, and made their old twist to an age-old formula. Every path to victory is a form of conquest. You can either conquer everyone through military might, use your diplomatic prowess to unite everyone into an alliance, or embed your influence so deeply into the minds of others that you'd win a cultural victory. There is one more path known as the technological victory, where a player can win by researching the final project, ascending his or her species to a higher plane of existence. The technological victory is admittedly the hardest path in the game because it requires a lot of time and patience, and the tech trees are absolutely enormous. Researching becomes even more difficult during periods when money becomes scarce and opposing aliens become more aggressive.

Starting the game is straightforward. You have one planet (Earth), one unarmed science vessel, and one colony ship. Take these tools and make of them what you will! The alien AI may appear to be cheating at first because of the speed in which it expands, but it quickly becomes clear how they can afford to colonize so quickly. The short of it is that they can't. Each faction is not only allowed to buy ships, but they are allowed to buy ships from ship building companies off of credit! That's right, make you can choose to either pay the whole thing off at once, or make a deposit and pay the rest off in regular installments. This is a feature that makes so much sense that I'm shocked that I haven't seen it in more games like it.

Another new concept is the idea of morality as means of measuring an alien culture. Every species has a set morality that drives them, ranging in degrees from pure good to pure evil. The pure good try to band together with other good species in order to force evil empires into a government change. The evil empires, of course, will try to bully everyone else into submission. There is no way, even with the best diplomatic skills, that a pure evil species will ever get along with a pure good one. Humans, however, get to make their own path. At different points of the game, during colonization, the player will be asked to make a moral choice. Each choice will determine the player's good vs. evil alignment influence how other aliens relate to you. Should you enslave an indigenous population of a planet and gain a production bonus, or should you take population growth penalty by trying to live beside them because they were their first? Decisions like these could help make a break a civilization. By being evil, you can oppress your own people for immediate financial and political gains, but other species may resent you and may try to gang up on you. Being good takes longer to develop, but being friendly with other aliens means that they might come to your aid if you get into trouble.

Some players might be turned off by the fact that you can only play as humans, but there is so much flexibility with the gameplay that it really doesn't make a difference. The player starts off each campaign by choosing a political party, each with its own benefit. For example the Federalists get a +20 boost in economy. The downside of this system is that once the player reaches higher levels of government such as Republic or Democracy, the player's party can be voted out. The player stays in control, but the bonuses are lost for the time their party is out of influence. However, you don't gain the opposing party's bonuses either, which is plenty of incentive to bring yourself back into office. There is also a point system, where a player can choose to distribute ten points across varying attributes that will mark their species' capabilities, such as rapid military or population growth.

Each planet has numerical rating that lets the player know how hospitable it is to colonization. One is the worst, sixteen and up are the most welcoming. These values can be raised through habitat improvement or lowered through acts of war. Environmental improvements can only go so far. I've gotten pretty far through the tech trees, but was only successful in raising a planet's status two or three levels. There is no way, as far as I know, to make a completely inhospitable planet a top-notch planet like you could with Master of Orion II. Prime real estate is pretty hard to come by in GalCiv, even with habitable planets set to "abundant." Minor civilizations will appear from out of nowhere to mix things up, making it all the more important to expand quickly.

Influence over the stars doesn't just lie in the planets. Space stations can be built at any point in the galaxy by slow moving and expensive constructor ships. You have to build more constructor ships to upgrade the space stations with modules, and there are a lot of modules to choose from. Upgrades can range from cannon stations to help friendly ships in combat, to trading posts to enhance trade, to shopping malls to push cultural influence. Enhancing space stations takes a lot of time and money, so choices have to be made carefully.

I have to admit, I usually hate to trade. Even with games like Civilization 3 and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, I usually chose to build up and internal infrastructure than rely on other people to support me. I knew I'd only end up conquering them anyway. In GalCiv, the trade system is so easy that it's almost impossible to resist using it. Have a planet build a freighter. Send that freighter to an alien world. Once that freighter reaches its destination, a trade route is established and a bunch of tiny trade ships fly back and forth. The farther the route, the more money it's worth. Trade is nice and dynamic. If civilization you are working with has a poor economy, or if the opposite planet on the route is small, revenues will be small. Trade routes will drop dramatically in value if a planet is conquered, even if it is by a allied species. At the same time, long trade routes are open to attack by either enemies or space pirates.

Fans of Master of Orion's tactical combat system might be disappointed with the fighting in GalCiv. Battles are done in the traditional Civilization style, where two adjacent units or groups battle it out. The computer calculates victories according to ships' defenses, hit points, and offensive capabilities. Similarly, people who enjoy designing their own units might not like the fact that you can't do it here. There are a small number of pre-made ships and they are automatically equipped with the latest technologies as they are discovered. There is little need to have a varied fleet, but at least you don't have a computer that builds a million tiny ships and tries to invade with them like in MOO2.

What about the Orions, you might ask? Is there a grand mac-daddy race out there ready to lay in the smack-down? Yes there is. They're not initially on the map, but they tend to arise inconveniently from the worst places. Namely, from within one of your own colonies. The star gates I mentioned earlier were built by a long-disappeared race called the precursors. I have lovingly named them "The Damn Stupid Ugly Evil Aliens Who Kick Too Much Ass." I haven't found a way to prevent them from rising, but they tend to spontaneously pop out from the middle of one of your colonies (destroying it and taking the planet) and then they proceed to open up the galaxy's largest can of whoop-ass to crush your girly-man's civilization. At least the Master of Orion had the decency to stay in his own solar system. These precursors are like locusts - destroying, acquiring, and moving on - specializing ONLY in destroying the player's planets! It was a very... humbling experience.

With the galaxy's resident ass-kickers aside, I found the end game to be much better than any of the other imperialistic games I have played. Most games will have other factions spontaneously declare war on you, just because you are powerful, even if you have been on relatively friendly terms with them. In GalCiv, they will either declare war on you because of an event, if they hate you, or if they have a good chance at winning. Sometimes factions will be eager to band together with you because being allied with the top dog is better than being eaten by another. Also, with most other games, as you approach the final solar systems or cities, winning becomes a long, drawn-out, and painful struggle. These territories tend to be the most highly fortified, and take forever to wear down. Instead of fighting to the last man, the computer will usually surrender to you, or better yet, to the next most powerful civilization out of spite, hoping that someone else will eventually put you in your place.

GalCiv is a single player game only, so people who want to burn 1000's of hours trying to compete with other human players will not get the chance here. There is, however, a built in posting board called the metaverse where players can put their final scores and compare with other GalCiv players.

If there is any one thing to be admired about Galactic Civilizations, it's how each layer is skillfully implemented and subtly dependant on each other. The balance of power is always tipping back and forth, and the player is caught in the middle of it all. The AI never feels cheap, stupid, or full of unfair advantages (not counting the resident ass-kickers). This is the kind of game that will eat away at the hours of your life one turn at a time. I really got into this game. It made conquering the universe fun again.