GALACTIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: GAME MECHANICS

Galactic Civilizations

Game Mechanics 

Summary

Galactic Civilizations is a strategy game that takes place largely in space in the 23rd century.  The player must guide mankind by making strategic decisions that include warfare, diplomacy, economics, manufacturing, and trade.   

Object

The object of the game is to unite the galaxy under one rule. There are multiple ways to accomplish this:

         Conquest – Using massive military might you conquer the other races.

         Alliances – Through diplomacy, you persuade the other races to unite
             together.

         Economics – Using massive economic power, you coerce the other
             players to accept your rule

         Technological – Over thousands of years, eventually someone is going to
             evolve to the next level. All other races will gladly unite with you to achieve
             that level with you.

         Random – Once in a very very great while, there will be random events
             that will bring unique ways of winning the game (example: you discovery
      
       a way to evolve to the next dimension of existence by controlling a
             monolith that exists on 7 planets spread throughout the galaxy, control 
             all 7 planets and you win).

…In the Beginning…

Players create a character that helps determine what their civilization is going to be like.  The difficulty level determines how many points the player gets and how many points the computer players get to distribute to their character. Players can put points towards navigation, research, economics, diplomacy, warfare, espionage, or production. Each point is a 10% bonus towards the particular stat.

Additionally, players will choose their political party which will provide additional configurablity:

         Federalists – gives 1 points toward wealth creation, lose 1 point in
             prestige

         Populists – gives 1 points in morale, greatly increases the rate population
             becomes angry at high taxes

         Socialists – gives 1 points towards keeping people unhappy due to high
             taxes, lose 1 point in production

         War Party – gives 1 points to military units, lose 1 point in diplomacy

         Pacifists – gives 1 points to diplomacy, lose 1 point in military units

         Technologists – gives 1 points to research, lose 1 point in tax income

         Neutral party – no points either way

 So after choosing what type of game you’re going to play (single player, multiplayer, etc.) the second screen is the character creation.  Once the player hits the “..Next..”  button you are taken to the player setup screen. On this screen, players set up who they are playing against. It also has a small chat screen available during multiplayer.

Players can decide the intelligence and moral alignment of their opponents.  The smarter the alien race is, the more parts of the SDS/AI the alien race gets to use in creating its strategy.  The moral alignment has a lot to do with how the race will behave.  Do not confuse alignment with aggressiveness.  An evil race may not be aggressive at all, it just means they will have no scruples in what they do.

Also on this screen is the size of the galaxy. The Galactic Civilizations galaxy can range from tiny (only a few sectors) to gigantic (hundreds of sectors). Multiplayer games will typically involve tiny or small galaxies since those games can be finished in a single evening. A gigantic galaxy will take months to play out. The game mechanics change dramatically depending on the size of the galaxy too.

The sizes are: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, Gigantic. 

To boldly go

Each side starts with one planet and a single colony ship. From this planet, the planet, players can build more colony ships as well as scouts and improvements to the planet that boost morale, productivity, technological research, prestige and more.

Players will know roughly where other stars are located but will not know where habitable planets are. They will need to explore the galaxy to find these habitable planets are and colonize them. They will also need to remember that the other races are attempting to do the same thing so time is of the essence.  There is also a general fog of war in the game but it is done in a very unique way. Star ships that have come within sensor range can be tracked even when they leave sensor range. The longer they are out of sensor range (time wise) the greater the chance that a given opponent will no longer be able to track them.  Up to six color coded tiny dots appear on the bridge of the ship to indicate which races can track that player. 

Star Systems

On the main map display, you will see a sector and it will be filled with stars and star ships. By left-clicking on a star, the right side display will change (the star map and graphs windows will change) and show a solar system. There are up to 5 planets in each solar system (actually there can be dozens of planets but any given solar system is not going to have more than 5 significant planets in Galactic Civilizations as utterly useless planets are simply not displayed).  You will also see what star ships are in orbit of planets in the solar system as well as see some basic information on the star system such as what kind of defense modifiers are in place and free resources. Free resources comes from uncolonized planets and are therefore controlled by the local star system’s government (not the federal government).  Under an imperial government (what you start out with) these resources go to waste. But in the more advanced forms of governments, each star system can assign these resources towards military, social, technology, or morale building projects.  By default, the resources go towards improving the morale of your people in the advanced types of government.

By double-clicking on a star ship (or single clicking and choosing “leave” from the bridge) the star ship returns to the sector map.

By clicking on a planet, the player goes to the planetary management screen. 

These worlds

Each planet has two particular ratings to be aware of.  The first one is how habitable the planet is. Galactic Civilizations does not get into the minutia of whether a planet is mineral rich or good for farming. There are twenty planet classes.  A class 15 planet or above is considered Earth like.  Any planet above a class 10 can be colonized. Planets below 10 can’t be colonized but their resources, along with any other uncolonized planets in a star system add to the resources available to a planet.  Good planets are rare.  There is also a class 30 planet which is extremely rare.

The second rating is the prestige rating of a planet. Some players may take issue of having a second rating like this but any student of history knows that propaganda value is not necessarily firmly rooted in reality. When it comes to negotiating with others or forming the United Planets it isn’t population, it isn’t wealth, and it isn’t military power that determines your prestige (these factors are calculated into your overall prestige value to a degree) but instead the prestige level of planets. Some planets are worth more than others in prestige due to their location, resources, beauty, and other political reasons. Players will be able to enhance the prestige of their planets through building improvements.

The planets themselves can build a military project and a social project at the same time. Moreover, players can build galactic achievements here as well. A galactic achievement may only be built on one planet per side. Additionally, there are galactic wonders which only one side can build.  To speed up production, your entire civilization can contribute to the construction of ships or improvements via your treasury. If you don’t have enough money, you can borrow the money to get it done in which you pay the money back in small sums per year with some interest.

Beyond prestige, the other issue players need to keep an eye on is morale. Morale represents your approval rating. If it falls below 30%, the inhabitants may cause uprisings or in dire situations rebel or even switch sides if bad enough.

Social Projects/Wonders/Super Projects

As previously mentioned, planets can build both star ships as well as social projects.  Each project can improve a given portion of your planet or civilization’s abilities. These include: 

  • Industrial Improvement – how much your factories will improve.
  • Morale Improvement – how much happier your people will become
  • Economic Improvement – how much more money it will allow you to bring in.
  • Research Improvement – how much more research that planet can contribute to your civilization.
  • Defensive Improvement – How much ships orbiting your planets will gain in planetary protection when attacked as well as improving your ground defenses from invasion.
  • Military Improvement – how much star ships built on this planet will be improved over the base type.
  • Prestige Improvement – This will improve this planet’s prestige rating.

 

Planetary Details

You can check the nitty gritty details on all your planets if you so choose. By clicking on the “details” button, the player can look at the following pieces of information:

  • Planetary Ranking in terms of Production, Research, Economy, and Population as compared to the rest of the galaxy.
  • How important this planet is to your civilization.

Display me the money, Human

The domestic policy screen allows players to set their tax and spend rates for their civilization. Unlike other games, Galactic Civilizations allows you to go as far into debt as you would like.  However, each year you are in debt increases the unhappiness of your citizens which affects your civilization drastically. 

The tax rate can be set from 0% to 100% and represents the percentage of your people’s incomes that you wish to tax. The higher it goes, the more unhappy your people get. Your political party can lose seats in the senate (if you are a democracy or federation) if you lose the will of the population (more on this later).  Typically, going above 33% is where people start to get really mad in Galactic Civilizations. 

Politics and Elections

Once your civilization attains interstellar diplomacy or federation, players will have to keep an eye on their approval rating. While the player has been elected El Presidente for life, every 20 years an election is held and the various political parties try to take control of the Senate. 

When your party has control of the senate, you receive the benefits of that political party without any of the negatives (i.e. if you’re a Federalist and your party controls the Senate then you get an additional point towards economics without the down side).  But if another party takes control, you get only the negative side without the positive. 

Additionally, when you try to declare war, the Senate will vote. Depending on your political party, getting that vote through could be more difficult. 

Guns ‘n Butter

There are 3 slider bars on the domestic policy screen that determine where you spend your money. These 3 sliders represent:

         Military Spending – how much of a priority building new ships is

         Social Spending – how much of a priority building planetary
             improvements is

         Research & Development – how high of a priority researching new
             technology is
 

Governor Management

Also on the domestic policy screen is the ability to set up what you want your governors to do. There are two types of governors – military and social. The military governor will assign planets that you’ve instructed governors to manage for you to different military projects. You can, for example, instruct all the planets not doing anything to begin building battle ships or all planets building scouts to build freighters and so forth.  It’s a powerful yet relatively straight forward way of running a large empire. 

The social governor is nearly as simple. Realistically, many Galactic Presidents will want to build the same sorts of projects in the same order on non-critical planets.  The social governor is told what projects to build and in what order. Those planets will then automatically do just that. It’s a great way of managing a large empire where realistically only a few key worlds are your focus and thus you avoid being bogged down in having to micro manage all your minor worlds if you don’t want to. 

Type of Government

Finally, the domestic policy screen allows you to choose your form of government. At first, your government is “imperial”. What this means is that your home planet (usually Earth) controls your expanding empire directly. Colonies are just that – colonies. As time goes on, this mode of government is shown to be less and less effective. To hold together a huge interstellar civilization you will need to explore other types of government since a planet with 9 billion people half way across the galaxy is not going to want to be micromanaged from Earth (Governors aren’t even available until Interstellar Democracy is researched). 

         Interstellar Democracy

The first level up is Interstellar Democracy. It allows governors to take over the planets if you choose and even if you do not choose governors, it still allows for much more local control over parts of the planet that you are not really concerned with on a galactic scale and thus allows for your planets to become more populated and more efficient.

          Interstellar Confedration

The next level up is Interstellar Confederation. It greatly improves your productivity and population caps on planets. The downside is that now there is a Galactic Senate and your political parties really kick in. You will have to now keep in mind how popular you are with the other planets or else your political party may find themselves not in control of the senate which has all sorts of negative issues.

          Interstellar Federation

The final level is Interstellar Federation. This is the ultimate form of government in Galactic Civilizations. The down side is that it gets harder to control the senate.

Bear in mind, while losing control of the senate means your civilization gains the negative aspects of whatever political party is in control, this doesn’t impact your civilization dramatically, it’s more of a thorn in the side. 

Technology

On the technology screen you can see the status of your research projects as well as choose new projects to research and keep track of how you are doing compared to your opponents. 

There are hundreds of technologies available to research in Galactic Civilizations.  Depending on your moral alignment, these technologies will change.

The amount of resources given to researching technology largely depends on what priority you gave it on the Domestic Policy screen.

Researching new technologies allows you to create new types of ships, improvements, research new diplomatic options, new trade approaches, as well as new forms of government.

Players will be given a list of technologies that they can currently research as well as be given a status on their current research project. Research projects can be queued up as well.  In addition, if you pay for general espionage, you can keep track of how your opponents compare to you technologically in terms of Military, Industrial, Social, and Medical technologies.  There is no bonus for being in 1st other than the knowledge that you’re ahead in a given area.

Diplomacy

On the foreign policy screen, you will see your relations with the other players as well as be able to set up your espionage, trade relations, aid, and destabilization policies.

Your relations with the other races range from War to Alliance.  The values in between include:

…Close…Warm…Friendly…Cordial…Neutral…Wary…Cool…Angry…Hostile…

By clicking on the “speak to..” button by a given race, you enter the diplomatic screen which will provide you with multiple options which include everything from trading technology to negotiating an alliance.  You can also use diplomacy to bully opponents into doing what you would like them to do such as giving you planets (and vice versa) in exchanger for peace.

Players can also quietly aid players in a sort of “lend-lease” type policy. Click on “aid” and choose which player you want to give aid to and then move the money or military aid slider over (or both) to give them that aid.  Often times, you will see an improvement in relations but often times it is not appreciated too. Use aid to help others help you.  It’s a great way of getting someone else to fight your battles.

The destabilization button will allow you to spend your resource trying to make a given opponent’s people unhappy. Productivity is directly related to morale. Lowering an opponent’s morale therefore affects his productivity. In addition, if his people become unhappy enough, they will rebel.  It isn’t completely safe though, there is a remote chance you can get caught and the longer you do it, the more likely you will get caught which can have a very negative impact on your relations.

The espionage opens up an entire set of new options for you. Through espionage you can learn more and more about a given race until you finally can begin to steal technology from him.

The more resources you put towards it, the faster your information gathering will occur.  At first, you’ll learn things like the history of a given race, then their anthropology, then their economic statistics, then military statistics, and finally you will begin to see technology being taken.

The trade relations button allows you to punish a given race. You can turn on an embargo from here on a given player to punish them for not doing what you want them to do. 

The United Planets

The single biggest addition to Galactic Civilizations from the OS/2 edition from years ago is the introduction of the United Planets.

 In the fictional stories that make up the Galactic Civilizations universe, the United Planets are a crucial portion of the stories. They are, at last, brought to Galactic Civilizations.

Here’s the way they work:

As you work your way through the technology tree, you can eventually get to the United Planets technology.  Once you have researched this, you are automatically part of the UP organization.  Being the first in it can have massive advantages as only members get to vote on interstellar issues.

Non-members must abide by the decisions of the UP or face losing all their trade income until the next meeting occurs (every 100 game years).  Members of the UP who choose not to abide by the decisions of the collective body not only lose their trade income but may face war as they will take a dramatic political penalty.

Votes in the UP are based on each side’s prestige points. Prestige is based on a base star system value multiplied by the star system’s population multiplied by any improvements made to that star system.  Prestige has no other real value other than for voting in the United Planets.

Issues can range from mutually beneficial issues to issues that only aid the top 1 or 2 or 3 races in the game at the expense of the “little guy”.  

For instance, the UP may vote to give a small power some planets at the expense of a large power. Everyone will vote and everyone must abide by the decision or face the consequences.

Another example would be for the elimination of all military vessels. If you have  a large military, you probably wouldn’t want that to pass. Of course, if you don’t abide by it, you could face not having any trade income which would make it more difficult to actually pay for that military power.

The funny thing is, the one winning the game by every other standard may not necessarily have the most votes. Hence a smaller state that has put more effort into prestige could potentially dominate the proceedings. Of course, a super power could potentially choose to ignore the United Planets. Loss of trade is a two-way street and if you are powerful enough, you can afford to ignore threats of sanctions or military intervention. 

Combat

Military action is one of arms of foreign policy. If diplomacy does achieve your strategic aims, then military might can often be used to achieve what you failed to get at the bargaining table.

Combat is Galactic Civilizations is simple. Two ships intersect, there is a very brief battle and one of them is destroyed. There are no “ranged” attacks and no “fleets” in the traditional sense. Two ships simply intersect and one of them is destroyed. The other one may take damage as each ship has so many hit points allocated to them.  While this may seem simplistic, in actual use it plays very well as there is no issues with “unit AI” and there’s no such thing as “rushing” since even a unit not doing anything will automatically defend itself and swarms of ships do not give any advantage to the attacker.

Galactic Civilizations purposely highlights the importance of strategy over tactics. The player who has created the stronger civilization is going to win, not the player who sends a mass of ships to attack at the right time.  Military is just one factor (an important one) in the course of history.

..more to come..