Here are some ways GalCiv is different:
Most strategy games put military power as the primary mover in the game. Some go as far as to have economics as a major factor as well. And a few others try to have diplomacy be an issue. But Galactic Civilizations brings in the concept of political influence as well.
Military Power
Players can build up mighty empires full of military might. By researching the best technologies for manufacturing and weaponry, your civilization can become a military super power. Your ships and transports can go out and try to conquer the other players in the traditional way done in most strategy games.
Economic Power
Through trade and wealth, your civilization can dominate other players with economic power. All trade with a non-friendly player ends when war begins. If say the Drengin Empire is getting 30% of their income from you, they will think twice before attacking. But it goes beyond that, through “lend-lease” you can supply arms and money to other races covertly to fight your wars for you. Crush enemy civilizations without ever having to battle them yourself as you watch from the safety of your various sensor drones the battles occur.
Political power
Every star system has a base influence rating. Virtually all stars are rated at the base 1.0 in influence. But a handful of star systems have greater than 1.0 ratings. Influence is then modified by the population of the star system along with influence building improvements and super projects. Influence matters because of the United Planets Security Council where the actual game rules of GalCiv can be changed. The number of votes each player gets is based on their influence. Players can quit the United Planets any time they’d like but galactic trade is impossible without belonging to it so there’s a real economic penalty for not being part of it. We’ll talk more about the United Planets later.
Ethics
Another way Galactic Civilizations is different is that it brings in ethics into the game and your ethical choices matter. People tend to condemn nations for their actions in the past as being “evil”. But being a nice guy is very tough in a competitive galaxy.
For example, your civilization has discovered a planet with a pre-industrial society. What should you do? A) Enslave them and gain a 10% bonus to the planet’s productivity. B) Put them in reservations. Or C) Only colonize parts of the planet not already inhabited and lose 30% of the planet’s productivity.
Being a “good guy” becomes a lot tougher in the game when you need every resource you can get to keep the Arceans or Yor from conquering and enslaving you. How you deal with these situations determines what types of technologies, weapons, and even planetary improvements that you can build. Some types of technology are only possible through being evil and vice versa. The way the game looks and feels changes as your choices do.
One note with regards to ethics in the game since a few recent games have focused on good and evil as game mechanics. The ethics features as described here were also in Galactic Civilizations on OS/2 in 1994. It was the first strategy game to introduce ethics as an actual strategic game mechanic.
It's still a pain, what with the "killer phalanx" syndrome. (For those who don't know, the "killer phalanx" syndrome is when an obsolete unit, for example a phalanx, defeats a more modern unit, for example a battleship. It happens entirely too often, if you ask me.) I've modded the heck out of Civ3.
. No better way to drop an opposing empire's bar on the "relative power" graph... On the other hand, in MOO2 you can march through an enemy's empire and melt all his planets with Stellar Converters. I also liked the customizable races in MOO2 and the introduction of psionics as a racial ability. Less thrilling was the lack of custom graphics for the custom races, and the fact that psionics kind of bit as an ability. Ah well, both games were still loads of fun, and 3 looks like it might have potential as well. Though from the look of it they may be going all Koei on us with the NPC subordinates and limited actions per turn. And my poor Darloks gone...(*sniff*)...
