Explore. Expand. Exploit. Exterminate. This is where the term "4X" originates.
The granddaddy of our genre is, of course, Sid Meier's Civilization. Where Sid Meier's Civilization leverages our common history from the dawn of agriculture to the moment we leave the Earth, Galactic Civilizations begins at the moment we leave our home world.
In Galactic Civilizations, players create their own histories. Each game is a different possibility.
When we released Galactic Civilizations III, we began taking notes on what players wanted to see in future updates or expansions to it. Many of the features ended up in updates which culminated in the recently released 2.0. Other features would take a great deal of time and thought to do.
The biggest, most important features have come together in Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade.
Those features are:
These aren't the only features in Crusade of course. Far from it. It doesn't even touch on the Crusade campaign, the new alien civilizations, the new graphics engine, the new resource system, the combat changes, the continued evolution of the AI (I am happy to say that the free update to GalCiv III in v2.0 now surpasses the AI in GalCiv II -- sorry it took so long, I'll be happy to discuss AI coding in another diary entry).
Each week between now and the release of Crusade, we will be posting Development Diary highlighting a major element of the expansion. Here is a sneak preview of the first three:
CRUSADE DIARY 2: The Civilization Builder
February 9, we will walk through how you can build your own civilization to play as or to play against including how to assign specific ships for different roles, share your creations, create diplomacy behavior and more.
CRUSADE DIARY 3: Galactic Citizens
February 16, Take a tour of the all new citizen based economy. Gone are sliders and dials and in their place are your people. Much strategy (and AI coding) goes around how to get the most out of your most valuable asset: Your people.
CRUSADE DIARY 4: Spies and Saboteurs
February 23, The galaxy is a dangerous place. One of the vocations your citizens can take is to be trained to be spies and sent on dangerous missions. We will walk you through how espionage works, its consequences and the importance of knowing who is doing what and when.
Q: Will Crusade be a stand-alone expansion?
A: No. It will be released as an add-on to Galactic Civilizations III (DLC).
Q: When will it be released?
A: Our target date is Spring.
Q: How much will it cost?
A: $19.99
Q: Will there be a public beta?
A: No.
Q: How will I be able to get it when released?
A: It'll be on Steam, GOG, direct and elsewhere as a DLC to Galactic Civilizations III.
They have stated in the latest dev stream that there will be changes to the tech tree.
Instead of 4 separate ones there will just a big one.
And now the civilization traits determine what will be in the tech tree.
Looking forward to this.
I haven't played as much GalCiv III as I would have liked, unfortunately. Hopefully with this expansion that will change.
Indeed. Time to replace GalCiv2 with GalCiv3.
Really can't wait for you guys to get your hands on this. I'm enjoying it as a psuedo-beta tester (sorry, not a public closed beta) and think it's really going to make this game significantly b better!
Dude, you're so cruel! Especially to us Founders... The first part of your nick is very appropriate!
Yea I have a good game started in 2.0 and it is great, however knowing that Crusade is nearby I am putting my GCIII on pause till that releases and crushing my neighbors in Civ VI.
If you have both versions for free then why would pause the game when you could play both just as easy.
Cause ....toys...new stuff.....
My main disgust. I have to spend $20 more for a invasion system that I've been waiting on since day 1 of playing this game
Wtf? All games get added with new features, major updates, and overhauls. Look at other popular strategy games like Stellaris, Endless Legend, etc which have gotten new features and complete overhauls. The game has been more than complete for ages, and now when they feel like they can expand on it, you complain? Next time, don't buy a game ever until every single new feature and expansion has been released.
"Disgust" is laughable. If you hate it, move on with your life and drop the $20 elsewhere
Not sure what you are upset about. Invasions currently work and have been in game since launch. We are getting a new invasion system which improves upon the one already available.
It is rather annoying to have a feature that the devs talk up before launch, then pull because the initial iteration was broken and never going to make the launch date (though the game wasn't ready by launch anyway) with the promise that something was just beyond the next update and it never happening. Though it isn't the only thing in this expansion that was at one point promised as a free patch. The civ builder with workshop support was another thing just on the patch horizon for ages as well. These things can leave you feeling like you were deceived. Not that I believe this is the case, rather it is probably more indicative of the depth and breadth of the issues in the base game coupled with resource allocation towards the project in general. In the end it results in "plans change".
Wtf? All games get added with new features, major updates, and overhauls. Look at other popular strategy games like Stellaris, Endless Legend, etc which have gotten new features and complete overhauls. The game has been more than complete for ages, and now when they feel like they can expand on it, you complain? Next time, don't buy a game ever until every single new feature and expansion has been released. "Disgust" is laughable. If you hate it, move on with your life and drop the $20 elsewhere
As was pointed out 2 posts above me, The Invasion system that came out with GalCivIII was only supposed to be a temporary until the next patch or so. So my disgust is having paid since I dropped the money for Crusade for an invasion system that is supposed to be at least on Par with GalCiv II's Invasion screen. It doesn't matter now because I paid them the $20.
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