New DLC Introduces Unique Alien Species, Customization Tools, and Community Sharing Features
Stardock has released the anticipated Species Pack DLC for its popular space 4X game, Galactic Civilizations IV, along with the major free update, v2.7 "Taxonomy." This latest DLC and update bring a wealth of new content and features that promise to enrich the gameplay experience for all space strategy enthusiasts. The free v2.7 "Taxonomy" update introduces significant enhancements to Galactic Civilizations IV, including the addition of distinct species types for all civilizations, a new search bar for easier navigation, and improved map generation for better player placement and more exciting gameplay. "We're incredibly excited about the Species DLC," said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock. "This DLC not only adds a variety of fascinating new species to the game but also empowers players to create and share their own unique civilizations." Species Pack DLC Features:
For more information on the Species DLC and the v2.7 "Taxonomy" update, view the full changelog here or below.
Galactic Civilizations IV and the new Species Pack DLC are available on Steam, Epic Games Store, or directly at galciv4.com.
v2.7 Full Changelog
2.7 Highlights Species All civilizations now have a "species" type – you can now play as spiders, zombies, plants, or radiotrophes (feed off radioactive materials). Each species has different bonuses and traits. Owners of the DLC can create their own species, share their creations in the Workshop, and get access to exclusive species. Search Bar Added a search bar to the Main Game window for Fleet, Planet, and Starbase tabs in the main UI. This feature is useful mid to late game when you have hundreds of fleets, planets, and starbases, and need to quickly find the right one. It also rewards players who write custom names for their fleets, planets, and starbases to make special elements easier to find. Enhanced Map Generation Updated the game to provide more interesting maps and better player placement. Sectors are closer together for more exciting game play. We have also balanced the Research costs now adjust based on the map size. v2.7 Taxonomy Update Change Log Art Created new Ship/Fleet task icons. Core Fixed crashes associated with Chinese characters. Fixed potential crashes related to translated strings. Fixed MP desyncs. Gameplay AI AI can no longer build multiple one-of-a-kind improvements. Add checks to prevent the AI from going negative on resources. Citizens Citizens provide slightly more Manufacturing and Research help. Human default approval decreased from 50% to 40%. Human default expectations lowered from 0 to -5. Home World Citizens no longer turn into irradiated nymph scientists when playing as Krynn. Events Updated Event that Mentions "Vast" Antimatter to Give 10 Antimatter. Fixed choices in Colonize Events that removed tiles. Fixed the crime mod in the Water Reclamation event. The leaders granted by the Cryosleep event now use random names. Improvements Colony Capital Maintenance was reduced from 5 to 4. Civ Capital now provides +1 Manufacturing and +1 Research. The Wealth District bonus was increased from 4% to 5%. Map Generation Increased maximum player counts on single Sector Maps. The largest Sector size increased from a radius of 300 tiles to 360 tiles. Map generation was updated to provide more exciting maps and better player placement. Map generation will now increase the size of the sector if there's only 1 sector (for single-sector play) Tiny maps made slightly larger. The Tiny sector size was reduced from 48 to 32. The minimum distance between Sectors was reduced from 8 to 2. Research costs were adjusted based on the size of the map. The number of Sectors was greatly increased for all settings above binary. Updated maximum player counts based on map settings to ensure better placement. Research costs are now adjusted based on the map size!!! Misc "Ancient Ability" now gets Research benefits from all Relics. "Arnor Embers" have been prevented from being wasted. Clarified that you must be at war with your target for the Sabotage and Poison Enemy modules gained from Anomalies. The game will potentially provide two or more designs for the player to choose from if they are equally good. Exploration Treaties relations requirement has been relaxed. Maximum Exploration Treaties increased from 1 to 4. Military power counts substantially less towards Prestige Victory. The Heart of the Empire policy capital world wealth bonus increased from 10% to 25%. Asteroid Mines' default production increased from 0.1 to 0.25. Earth default minerals/tech/wealth increased from 3/3/3 to 4/4/4. Asteroid Factory tech production boost increased from 0.20 to 0.25. Pirate Faction starts with fewer ships. Updated Manufacture Populace Project & Executive Order to work with all Cybernetic Species. Traits Updated Courageous Civilization Trait Tiers to affect Planetary Defense. Updated Xenophobic Text to match 150% Research Benefit. Text/Localization Increased the Chinese font size to match other languages. Fixed missing text on the Trade Screen. Fixed typo and removed redundant text from tooltips in the Hate Speech event. Updated Peacekeeper and Cryosleep events text. Removed references to a "Haunted Trait." Performance Optimization of late-game turn calculations to significantly reduce turn times late-game on big maps. Fixed excessively slow tooltip rendering. UI A search bar for Fleet, Planet, and Station tabs was added to the Main Game window. The mouse wheel scroll speed was reduced slightly to make it easier to do precision zoom-in and zoom-out. "Starting new turn" notice now consistently appears when it should. Fixed the shipyard obsolete button from overlapping the "favorite" button. Improved end-of-turn calculations to improve the responsiveness of UI when turns are occurring. Create a popup dialog for the Obsolete Button displayed on the Shipyard Screen. The tech library for Terrans, Drengin, Yor, Festron, and Krynn now all have appropriate hot spots on tooltips. Altarian highlight text is now gold. Fixed invisible text from displaying for Phalenoid, Inteuri, and Mimots. Species Pack DLC Features New Species: Discover and interact with several new species, including Gaseous species, Mollusks, Mammalians, and more, each bringing their unique characteristics and abilities to the galaxy. Create and Customize: Design your species with specific strengths and weaknesses, choose their advisor pictures, and determine what their citizens look like. Share Your Creations: Use the built-in Species uploading tool to share your customized species with other players online. Phenotypes: Experience a more detailed classification system for species with new Phenotypes.
Species All civilizations now have a "species" type – you can now play as spiders, zombies, plants, or radiotrophes (feed off radioactive materials). Each species has different bonuses and traits. Owners of the DLC can create their own species, share their creations in the Workshop, and get access to exclusive species.
Search Bar Added a search bar to the Main Game window for Fleet, Planet, and Starbase tabs in the main UI. This feature is useful mid to late game when you have hundreds of fleets, planets, and starbases, and need to quickly find the right one. It also rewards players who write custom names for their fleets, planets, and starbases to make special elements easier to find.
Enhanced Map Generation Updated the game to provide more interesting maps and better player placement. Sectors are closer together for more exciting game play. We have also balanced the Research costs now adjust based on the map size.
Created new Ship/Fleet task icons.
Fixed crashes associated with Chinese characters.
Fixed potential crashes related to translated strings.
Fixed MP desyncs.
AI can no longer build multiple one-of-a-kind improvements.
Add checks to prevent the AI from going negative on resources.
Citizens provide slightly more Manufacturing and Research help.
Human default approval decreased from 50% to 40%.
Human default expectations lowered from 0 to -5.
Home World Citizens no longer turn into irradiated nymph scientists when playing as Krynn.
Updated Event that Mentions "Vast" Antimatter to Give 10 Antimatter.
Fixed choices in Colonize Events that removed tiles.
Fixed the crime mod in the Water Reclamation event.
The leaders granted by the Cryosleep event now use random names.
Colony Capital Maintenance was reduced from 5 to 4.
Civ Capital now provides +1 Manufacturing and +1 Research.
The Wealth District bonus was increased from 4% to 5%.
Increased maximum player counts on single Sector Maps.
The largest Sector size increased from a radius of 300 tiles to 360 tiles.
Map generation was updated to provide more exciting maps and better player placement.
Map generation will now increase the size of the sector if there's only 1 sector (for single-sector play)
Tiny maps made slightly larger.
The Tiny sector size was reduced from 48 to 32.
The minimum distance between Sectors was reduced from 8 to 2.
Research costs were adjusted based on the size of the map.
The number of Sectors was greatly increased for all settings above binary.
Updated maximum player counts based on map settings to ensure better placement.
Research costs are now adjusted based on the map size!!!
"Ancient Ability" now gets Research benefits from all Relics.
"Arnor Embers" have been prevented from being wasted.
Clarified that you must be at war with your target for the Sabotage and Poison Enemy modules gained from Anomalies.
The game will potentially provide two or more designs for the player to choose from if they are equally good.
Exploration Treaties relations requirement has been relaxed.
Maximum Exploration Treaties increased from 1 to 4.
Military power counts substantially less towards Prestige Victory.
The Heart of the Empire policy capital world wealth bonus increased from 10% to 25%.
Asteroid Mines' default production increased from 0.1 to 0.25.
Earth default minerals/tech/wealth increased from 3/3/3 to 4/4/4.
Asteroid Factory tech production boost increased from 0.20 to 0.25.
Pirate Faction starts with fewer ships.
Updated Manufacture Populace Project & Executive Order to work with all Cybernetic Species.
Updated Courageous Civilization Trait Tiers to affect Planetary Defense.
Updated Xenophobic Text to match 150% Research Benefit.
Increased the Chinese font size to match other languages.
Fixed missing text on the Trade Screen.
Fixed typo and removed redundant text from tooltips in the Hate Speech event.
Updated Peacekeeper and Cryosleep events text.
Removed references to a "Haunted Trait."
Optimization of late-game turn calculations to significantly reduce turn times late-game on big maps.
Fixed excessively slow tooltip rendering.
A search bar for Fleet, Planet, and Station tabs was added to the Main Game window.
The mouse wheel scroll speed was reduced slightly to make it easier to do precision zoom-in and zoom-out.
"Starting new turn" notice now consistently appears when it should.
Fixed the shipyard obsolete button from overlapping the "favorite" button.
Improved end-of-turn calculations to improve the responsiveness of UI when turns are occurring.
Create a popup dialog for the Obsolete Button displayed on the Shipyard Screen.
The tech library for Terrans, Drengin, Yor, Festron, and Krynn now all have appropriate hot spots on tooltips.
Altarian highlight text is now gold.
Fixed invisible text from displaying for Phalenoid, Inteuri, and Mimots.
New Species: Discover and interact with several new species, including Gaseous species, Mollusks, Mammalians, and more, each bringing their unique characteristics and abilities to the galaxy.
Create and Customize: Design your species with specific strengths and weaknesses, choose their advisor pictures, and determine what their citizens look like.
Share Your Creations: Use the built-in Species uploading tool to share your customized species with other players online.
Phenotypes: Experience a more detailed classification system for species with new Phenotypes.
Slightly *frumple* there were no pre-designed playable races with this DLC and lore that goes with them ... ~25mbs of content doesn't seem like much.
I understand quite a bit of thought has been put in behind the scenes but it would be nice to see some real cosmetic changes on the outside for those of us who don't like to create new races and prefer to use the ones that Stardock have created.
Just my personal opinion ... it was one DLC I was most excited for but am slightly downbeat about it now.
I think a lot of people, myself included were disappointed with this DLC because they were expecting some new pre made species to play around with. The initial sales pitch for this DLC was "a dozen new species" and there are zero new species unless you make them yourself. I do really like the new customization options and I think the new taxonomy update is great and has a lot of potential; but it seems to me that this isn't really a "species pack" and its certainly not "a dozen new species". Frankly I think Stardock should just bundle the content from the species pack into the base taxonomy update to give the base game customization options more meat and then delay launching the "Species Pack" until its actually got some new species in it. I feel like you guys just didn't get your homework done in time so you tried to carve out part of the Taxonomy update into a DLC and that's just not up to your normal standard. It would have been better if the species pack just got delayed until it had the content people were expecting. I got the species pack for free with my season pass so I'm only a little disappointed; but if I'd paid $10 for this DLC I'd definitely be asking for a refund. Up to now I think Stardock has been doing a great job updating Gal Civ 4 and I think the taxonomy update is a great example of that; but the species pack most certainly isn't.PS: Stardock still have more of the animated leader portraits from Star Control: Origins sitting around that I'd like to see incorporated into the game. They aren't as high resolution as the Gal Civ 4 leaders; but I think they still look great and they're fun character designs that could be incorporated into the game pretty easily judging by the fact that 4 of them are already in the game and the Mowlings and Mu'Kay were both added to Gal Civ 3. Taking those animations and the ones already in the game like the Slynne and Phamyst and then plugging them into the game with a set of citizen portraits and races made with the Taxonomy update framework and a set of ships and starbases made using the ship customization would be a quick way to turn the "Species Pack" into an actual "Species Pack". Likewise the Naxari are an animated leader, a description and a set of ships and starbases away from being a new species.
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