ULTIMATE EDITION
Galactic Civilizations I: Ultimate Edition combines the award-winning Galactic Civilizations with the Altarian Prophecy expansion pack to create a stellar adventure.
Executive Summary
Once upon a time, Galactic Civilizations was
released. And for the year after its release, Stardock released a ton
of free updates to the game.
But in response to user demand, Stardock has
created something particularly special, a true expansion pack that adds an
immense number of new features to the game.
The key features include:
• Support for custom scenarios including a scenario editor and in-game
scenario management.
• Support for campaigns including a campaign editor
• Support for custom maps (previously the game just generated random maps
each game) along with a map creation application.
• Two new alien civilizations
• New ships with unique special abilities
• New technologies, game play tweaks, and other changes to make the game
more fun.
• A set of customized maps and scenarios
• The campaign: The Altarian Prophecy
Stardock’s hope is that these new features will bring new life to the
award-winning game.
The Story: The Altarian Prophecy
The Altarian Prophecy campaign is the
included example campaign to help players learn how to create their own.
Stardock has set up a library at galciv1.com so that users can share
their maps, scenarios, and campaigns with other people.
But the Altarian Prophecy campaign does have
a specific story behind it from the Galactic Civilizations background
story. The story of why the Altarian civilization look very similar to
humans.
In the late 22nd century, humanity came into
contact with 5 major alien civilizations. These civilizations were called,
the Drengin Empire, the Torian Confederation, the Arcean Empire, the Yor
Collective and the Altarian Republic. Of these 5, the Altarians were
the most curious to us. Not for their cultural traits or their technology
but because they happened to look human. How was this possible?
The "Altarian Prophecy" is a campaign that
takes the player on a multi-game journey to solve the mystery alluded to in
Galactic Civilizations. In doing so, it introduces two new civilizations:
The Dominion of the Korx and the Drath. These two civilizations hold the
secret to Altaria's past, but worse, they know the Altarian Prophecy that
for tells the destruction of the galaxy that is connected to Altaria's past.
The Features
To create this campaign, Galactic
Civilizations had to undergo a great deal of development. Development that
also happened to add features to Galactic Civilizations itself that will add
a great deal of renewed replay ability long after the campaign is complete.
The Map Editor
In Galactic Civilizations, maps are randomly generated each
game. Expert players have made good use of the Ctrl-N keyboard combination
to regenerate maps until they get one that suits them. Random maps are a
must in any game of this kind for replay ability. But they can also be
unsatisfying due to the inherent chance of unbalanced playing fields.
This expansion pack introduces both a map editor to create maps and the
ability to choose a pre-created map within the game itself. Stardock, who
did the maps for the Starcraft add-on Retribution, has considerable
experience in creating good strategic maps and that skill will be applied to
generate several maps to be included.
The map editor allows the placement of not just stars and
planets but of ships as well. Players can thus generate maps that start out
with each side already having ships on the map. This combined with the
Scenario Editor (we'll talk about that next) will allow for games that
resemble Bungie's Myth but in space where each side has set units and must
make due with just that.
The Scenario Editor
In Galactic Civilizations all games are "free for all". That
is, you start the game on your own side and must fend for yourself. All
technologies are on the table and the pace of research, influence, and other
factors are hard coded into the game...
Not anymore. With the Scenario Editor, players can create
their own environment for GalCiv to exist and and load them from within the
game. For example, players can start their games with teams of 2 or 3 or 4
or their own custom teams.
Like maps, players will be able to save their scenarios as
their own files and share them with others in GalCiv's Metaverse library.
For long time strategy game players and scenario creators, the fact that
scenarios are NOT tied to the maps is a major advantage.
The scenario editor also supports triggers. Stardock plans
to continue to enhance the scenario editor after release with additional
triggers. A trigger is a programmable condition that when met launches
another condition.
Moreover, the scenario allows players to customize their
starting conditions such as money, what technologies are available in the
game, what technologies they start out with, and much more.
Galactic Civilizations itself has undergone a massive number
of changes in order to make use of all these new settings.
The Campaign Editor
For players who want to put together a campaign, the
Campaign editor allows them to tie scenarios and maps together into a
coherent group of missions. Any number of missions can be created in a
campaign with each mission starting with a description and its own ending
text.
Like scenarios and maps, Stardock is making the campaign
editor such that campaigns can be shared with other users. The Metaverse
will be enhanced to have the top players of a given campaign listed along
with top empires of a given campaign (though at present Stardock only plans
to provide Metaverse rankings to sanctioned campaigns whether created by
Stardock or players).
New Ships
There are 4 new star ships introduced in
the new game that have special powers:
Paladin. Available only good good
aligned civilizations, the Paladin in a fairly tough capital ship that has
the added ability to restore the hit points of friendly ships in the same
sector slightly faster.
Wraith. This evil-only ship causes
all enemy ships to take a -1 -10% to their defense rating when in the same
sector.
Vamp. This ship, only available to
evil civilizations, is not terribly tough but in battle absorbs some of
its opponent's shield energy and adds it to its own hit point level during
battle.
Sovereign. This ship is the answer
to the wraith. All friendly ships get +1 +10% to their defense rating when
in the same sector.
Ship abilities don't stack but careful use
can make a big difference when determining the fate of the galaxy.
The Custom Scenarios
The Metaverse will be enhanced to support
10 new scenarios. Players will be able to play these scenarios any way
they wish in an effort to maximize their score (i.e. choose the galaxy
size, which players, etc.). These 10 scenarios will put GalCiv players
into a serious challenge.
Good vs. Evil. In this scenario all
civilizations are teamed based on their moral alignment. Human players
must pick a side or fall victim to one or both teams.
Altarian Alliance. The Humans and
the Altarians are teamed up against multiple sets of teams for control of
the galaxy.
Twilight of Humanity. Things look
grim for the humans as it is everyone versus mankind. Can the humans take
on all 7 major alien civilizations at once?
Attrition. No technology research in
this scenario, players have equal weapons and technology and must duke it
out.
Protection. The humans must win over
the galaxy while ensuring the survival of the Altarians who are on your
team. If they die, you die.
Diplomacy. The humans must survive a
hostile galaxy either through winning via traditional means or somehow
getting the Arceans to form an alliance.
Dark Earth. Take on the role as
leader of an evil Earth united with the Drengin Empire. Ship costs are
vastly reduced in this scenario allowing for the ultimate battle as the
good races are united to put an end to the humans.
Acceleration. The technology rate,
population growth, and speed of ships is greatly increased over normal
levels while influence and ship costs are raised in this battle of
logistics.
Influence. The power of influence
has been greatly increased in this scenario but will it avail you against
the alliance of evil powers?
Hyper Technology. Technology is
vastly easier to require but the technology victory condition is disabled.
With custom maps and scenarios now part of the game, players can design
their own games, download them from galciv1.com or make use of ones included.
Two new civilizations adds to the dynamics, particularly when combined
with the new team and permanent war options. Players can now select
intelligence individually or choose a general difficulty level to play at.
The Campaign
The campaign is a series of related missions which enable
the player to play through the Altarian Prophecy to conclusion. During
the campaign, players will meet two new civilizations and have to win the
game using very different tactics from mission to mission.
Some missions will require the player to avoid going to war
with a particular civilization. Others will encourage winning through
cultural assimilation. And still others will require good old military
power. The maps have been designed by the same team that created the
Starcraft: Retribution maps to ensure that the maps are properly balanced
and generate a lot of play style possibilities.
The campaign screen takes you through each mission outlining objectives.
Players can create their own campaigns with the included campaign creator.
Other features
In addition to the hundreds of features added to support the
Campaign Editor, The Scenario Editor, The Map editor and the two new
civilizations, Stardock is also adding a great deal of new content in other
forms:
-
A host of new technologies, many of which make use of an
upcoming new civilization ability called "Logistics".
-
New Galactic Wonders
-
New, cleaner United Planets screen
-
And dozens of small tweaks and changes to enhance the
game play further.
Altarian Prophecy integraets all the cool features Stardock has added to
Galactic Civilizations over the past year including Way points.
Diplomacy has been enhanced so that teammates are much more likely to
trade generously with you.
The new United Planets screen for Altarian Prophecy.
Set way points and control your plants from a single screen.
The new diplomacy screen for handling 7 civilizations at once.
The Korx in action. Each civilization has their own unique dialog and
personality along with its own multi-threaded AI engine underneath.
The Galactic Encyclopedia, a feature that wasn't part of GalCiv when
released (that should have been but wasn't because we're dumb) in action.
Political parties in action.
New events help create moral dilemas for players.
Managing your economy is still a central part of the game.
The Korx are the principle adversary of the Altarian Prophecy. But there
is another civilization pulling their strings later on...
New capital ships enter the fray, the Paladin amongst others have special
abilities.
The intelligent status report remains a major part of the feel of the
game.
The scenarios include triggered events that allow for specific star
systems to be game winning conditions.
Availability
Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy is now available!
