Galactic Civilizations III

Like its predecessors, it brings something unique to the 4X table that goes beyond the sum of its parts.

It’s a fun, deep, and somehow accessible entry in a genre that’s often viewed as complicated and excessively complex.

Galactic Civilizations III stays the course on the strong path laid by Galactic Civilization II— at times to a fault.

GalCiv3 is a brilliant game that delivers seamless graphics with a tremendous engine that delivers as small or as large an empire-experience as you could possibly hope for. While some were nervous after Stardock stumbled with the poorly-received Elemental, they have used the time to take a running start and put themselves back in the pack, though one wishes that they included a bit more hand-holding.

Given how complex GalCiv3's overlapping systems are, getting good at the game can become quite a daunting task, but it's worth it. Few games offer the same sense of flexibility and depth that this game has.

It's not perfect, but it's a worthy successor to the now 20-year franchise. [Aug 2015, p.58]

Galactic Civilizations III lacks the magic of its outstanding predecessor. The developers promise that it’s just a beginning, that new content is on the way, but right now you’ll be better off playing Sid Meier’s Starships. [08/2015, p.77]

As a fan of Gal Civ II, I must say this game is all of the previous game and so much more! The game has IMMENSE maps, custom factions, a superb ship designer, large research trees, and excellent diplomacy! The game plays best on a rig at least 2 years old or younger and 6+ gigs of ram. I have not had any crashes or stuttering since release and many of my friends report the same. Make sure you have a 64 bit OS. The ai is great and only continues to get better. **** has an excellent reputation for updating their games and they have done so with Gal Civ III. Simply put the Ai in this game is perhaps the best Ai ever released in a 4x game (to date). It will threaten you, it will attack you, it will use diplomacy to get you to fight its wars. Fun stuff! The view of the ships and the galaxy are stunning. Graphically at first you recognize Gal Civ II then while playing you realize ..."This is a beautiful game" If you like 4x games and you liked Gal Civ II this game is definitely what you are looking for!

Civilization but in space, it launched rather lackluster but it's a lot better now, I think it's still not as good as Gal Civ 2.

Solid game, very fun in the early with interesting options with the ship creator. It becomes little repetitive in the mid game and boring in the late game.

-AI seems to cheat badly. I had no 1 military spending economy and research production and AI had always **** load of more ships and technologies even with disabled tech trading. I could not even pay upkeep for 1/4 of his fleet size and I had twice as strong economy. -star base defence modules seems to be unbalanced quite lot and its not worth to produce -still quite buggy and game gets lagy in mid phase since AI produces ships lige crazy idiot seemingly does not need to pay upkeep even for ships. -3d reall time battles and ship look designing stuff is pointless fancy waste. It servers no purpose. they should at least try to make it like gracious space battles

Just another game that was stripped of elements to package and sell separately as DLC, while trying to convince you that it is an upgrade of the previous installment. The scary thing is they still have a lot to do, and by the time they are done the total cost could be triple at their current prices. I strongly suggest waiting for a complete version in a few years, and do not get scammed with another DLC-shuffle. There is also the issue with the AI cheating to keep up with the player. **** claims there is no atrifical bonuses being handed out as many poorly designed 4X games rely on (usually a categorical production bonus as the player gets more powerful). Instead **** allows the AI to trade tech for free between themselves, as they did back in Gal Civ 2. Which is why when tech brokering was turned off in #2 the AI was such a cakewalk. Any player would jump at the chance to get free tech, especially since some of those give gloabal bonuses (e.g. +1 Speed to all ships). So not only do they get bonuses, but they are far more excessive than mere production (they get those too). This is to cover-up the continuing lack of actual intelligence in their system.