Galactic Civilizations IV Enters Early AccessPlayers can now Play the Alpha
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View the Alpha Guide Here
Stardock released an Alpha version of Galactic Civilizations IV into Early Access today. As the all-powerful leader of a spacefaring civilization, the player must seek out new star systems and discover the exciting potential of the subspace realm. There are thousands of worlds to colonize and dozens of civilizations - both old and new - to encounter.
The game takes the best of what the award-winning space 4X strategy sandbox game series has to offer and adds many new and exciting features while vastly increasing in scope and depth. Galactic Civilizations IV utilizes new features like AI characters, star sectors, ministers, central control, a much bigger technology tree, and more.
Because of the dramatic changes from previous Galactic Civilizations games, the early access program for Galactic Civilizations IV is starting at the Alpha phase rather than the more typical Beta phase, so that player feedback can be incorporated early.
“Great games are built on player feedback,” said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. “We have always valued our community and encourage them to participate in the process as we develop new things. Putting Galactic Civilizations IV into an Early Access period during its Alpha phase allows us to hear what our players have to say now so we can deliver the best game possible later.”
Galactic Civilizations IV introduces sectors, which are connected through lanes that provide checkpoints and strategic interest. Each sector is like its own map, with several different solar systems contained within.
Players will need to assign governors and enact policies while also tackling big problems like pollution or crime on individual worlds they control. Citizens play a critical role with unique traits, specializations, and ideologies.
A reworked combat system provides tactical depth with players waging epic battles across multiple turns. Several new alien races join the favorite classics from previous games, each of them with their own strengths and weaknesses.
To get into the Alpha, visit www.galciv4.com
Really? I have about 400 GOG games...never had an issue with them. Of course I download all the files and only install when I want to play one in particular.
Epic is actually a decent platform and is improving all the time ... its really sad that people seem to have such misplaced hatred for it
I don't think it's misplaced. The fact that they will throw money at développers for timed exclusivity deals is sad and is something we really didn't need on PC. If they were good enough people would just buy games on there but this exclusivity crap is their only chance of getting any customers at all (besides the Fornite crowd).
Well, I'm a customer ... even more so when I see great games like Galciv4 being released on the platform! Sure, my Steam library is a lot bigger and I like that platform ... but I welcome competition and want to support game developers to keep more of their hard earnt $ (even though i'm a bit of a scrooge myself).
I’d wager that regardless of how good of a platform epic was there would be people hating and those people hating they’d be the loudest. I got epic for this game. Didn’t have it before that most likely never woulda got it. Epic game me a free game and a 10 dollar off coupon. I’ll grab my pitchfork those MFers giving me free stuff and a coupon.
Also remember Steam takes 30% of the sale price epic takes 12%. “Well why aren’t games cheaper on epic?” Because you try that steam will kick you off and since gamers are reluctant to have two store fronts losing access to steam is losing lots of revenue.
They said steam won’t let them remove stolen mods from the workshop. ( good mods take time and work we want good modders to stay in the community )
We all watched Galactic civilization 3 get review bombed because of the extensive changes it experienced. If I was a game developer releasing a game that wasn’t finished I’d avoid steam like the plague. I wouldn’t release it there until it was finished and polished.
But like I said let’s get some pitchforks! Who the hell does epic think they are fighting steam’s basic monopoly if they actually get semi effective Vavle may have to make new games instead of profiting massively from inertia
For the record I have steam and like the way it works. Don’t care for their 30% greed mongering. The storefront is effective and efficient.
Also I’m aware there are probably and entire slew of grammatical errors in this post.
Basicaly some of us HATE to launch through on line launchers which lead to other launcher I know it is a DRM thing but come on guys this is ridiculous,
thes4e launchers may remove our game for any reason at any time. When I buy something I expect to be able to run it any time I please.
With Epic you're not buying the game.... you're leasing it. And they can terminate the lease any time.
The last hard copy game I got was in 2011 with Skyrim. I haven’t missed them. I’m also 31 so buying games digitally just seems normal not having a hard copy just seems normal. I’ve had hard copies but I actually prefer digital because the disc doesn’t get scratched. Hell the new computer I built doesn’t even have a disk drive. Also terminating leases to games seems like a great way to deliver a probably fatal blow to your storefront and if you invested tons of money into that storefront it seems like something you would want to avoid at nearly any cost.
I had titan quest a long time ago can’t remember even where I got it. It wasn’t steam or epic it was another program or something it was sold before the titan quest license was acquired by a new company. Lost access to it so I brought it again on steam and dropped another 60 hours into it with friends. I didn’t mind buying it again because I enjoyed the game.
The point is buying it from epic makes the most sense for Stardock. They probably crunched the numbers well I assume as a business they did. I don’t mind supporting Stardock so I installed epic.
So basically the same as with steam: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games
Did someone find out if we have to buy the game again on release? And if so, do we get a discount, etc, etc?
Yes EA is especially bad, they frequently just drop games from their list and tell you to buy it somewhere else if you want it. I find this ideology repugnant.
Sure would like some assurance from Start Docks that I have actually bought the right to run the program despite what epic might do.
How about the workshop item then?The current ones are on steam Think i'm gonna pass this one if it's Epic
Why not, just the possibility to buy it directly (now) on Stardock. And then (later) choose a key for Steam/Epic/GoG at launch? And then too bad for alpha/beta.
So we can support without supporting Epic which I don't want on my computer just cause of exclusive they brought on PC (even if for one year and not lifetime).
For now, I will not buy and then just wait on Steam or GoG with hope it will be on one of those.
The whole point of Epic is they give the developer money and in turn they get exclusivity for awhile (usually one year).
What's weird is Old World has been on Epic for over a year but is still exclusive. So... WTF? Does the year start from the early access release, or the 1.0 release? Or has Epic changed their deal so they get longer exclusives?
As for me I'll wait as long as it takes - no way I'm doing business with Epic.
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