Beta 3 is Now Available 
Create your own custom civilization, explore brand-new
leader events, and much more

Join the Beta

View the Beta Guide Here

Seek out new star systems and discover the exciting potential of the subspace realm in Galactic Civilizations IV. You are the all-powerful leader of a spacefaring civilization and will discover thousands of worlds and dozens of civilizations - both old and new - as you explore the galaxy and try to build a civilization that will withstand the tests of time.

Beta 3 brings the highly anticipated Civilization Creator to Galactic Civilizations IV! You can now create your own civilizations, complete with unique citizens, art, personality, ships, and so on. Play as or go up against your new civilization to see how it stacks up against others! Beta 3 also adds Leader Events, new command ships, policies, and improvements, plus several fixes and balance updates. Check out the changelog at the bottom of the post to see everything that's new!

Raining fire from a distance is a much more effective plan than trying to get too close to that.

Civilization Creator

Create your own civilizations and bring them into battle! You can customize the citizens and the overall personality of your civ, import your own art, design special ships, and so much more. If you're feeling spicy, you can also challenge your newly created civilization just to see how you stand up against them.

Leader Events

Leaders now have their own storylines, event chains, and quests! Governors may also ask for help when something is going wrong on their worlds. From countering crime waves to finding a mysterious brooch, there are all manner of unique quests that you can undertake in order to help bolster the citizens within your civilization. 

New Command Ships

New commanders have been added for the Manti Cluster and the Torian Regime. Recruited citizens can become commanders of one of seven vessels that are unique to their civilization, granting you an edge over your enemies if you plan it right. While some grant bonuses to stats like influence and attack, others allow unique access to things like Promethion chambers or grant other special abilities.

New Events, Improvements, and Policies

Some new improvements and policies available to the game's aquatic civilizations have arrived in Beta 3! You can now build Tide Pools, Barrier Reefs, and Exotic Hatcheries for Amphibious species on Oceanic worlds. The Underwater Homes policy will also help you increase the population capacity on all worlds. The new Security Lights policy - available to all civilizations, not just amphibious! - will lower crime on all worlds as well.

Sandbox Multiplayer Mode

Sandbox Mode is now available in multiplayer for those who enjoy playing the classic style with their friends!

Customize your own civilization right down to the image and flavor text! It's about time the Yor had some competition...

To learn more about how Galactic Civilizations IV is developing, please check out our Dev Journals. Want to know more about what's in Beta 3? Check out the changelog below.

Join the Beta

View the Beta Guide Here

Features

• Civilization Creator- You can now create your own civilizations, set their citizens, art, personality, ships etc. Play as them, or play against them.
• Leader Events- Leaders can now have their own storylines, event chains and quests. The following events and event chains were added. Governors may ask for help when something is going wrong on their worlds.
  • Cultural Assault
  • Countering Crime
  • Geothermic Fissures
  • The List
  • Mysterious Brooch
  • Compassion
  • Gambling Problems
  • Arranged Marriage
  • Scars
• New Events
  • The Minor Planet
• Manti Command Ships- The Manto are obsessed with examining space for their lost generation. As part of this, all of their command ships are also survey ships.
  • Pearl of Babble Glee- Generates research each time it surveys an anomaly.
  • Small Dragon- A survey ship, and a tough little fighter with powerful kinetic weapons.
  • Chill of the Deep- Power sensors all it to search deep space for anomalies, and the sensor range increases as it gains levels.
  • Sheltered Sky- A powerful defensive survey ship.
  • Brine of Brachyura- A powerful attack survey ship.
  • Hissing Shoal- A warship with strong kinetic weapons.
  • The Sythe- A survey ship with missile weapons that allow it to strike at a distance.
• Torian Command Ships- Torian command ships are versatile and cover a wide range of military, exploration and economic roles.
  • Eye of Od- A fast scout ship with powerful sensors.
  • Mordrain- An armored survey ship.
  • Undertow- A small warship with moves increase per level, great for responding quickly to threats.
  • Gravity's Heart- A powerful warship that slows all enemy fleets in range.
  • Tlas's Flagship- Every battle this ship wins increases the influence on all worlds.
  • Everhold- A powerful warship that repairs all allied fleets in range.
  • The Reef- A missile ship that boosts the Manufacturing and Approval for all worlds in range.
• New Improvements
  • Tide Pools- Increases the world's Influence and Approval (only available to Amphibious species on Oceanic worlds).
  • Barrier Reef- Increases the world's Influence and Planetary Defense (only available to Amphibious species on Oceanic worlds).
  • Exotic Hatchery- Increases the world's Tourism (only available to Amphibious species on Oceanic worlds).
• New Policies
  • Underwater Homes- Increases the population capacity of all worlds (only available to Amphibious species).
  • Security Lights- Decreases crime on all worlds.
• Added sandbox mode to Multiplayer.

Fixes

• Fixed a stuck turn caused my a neverending battle.
• Fixed a bug where players could buy infinite culture traits between turns.
• Added missing diplomatic modifiers on the Request for Support event.
• Fixed an issue where talking to minor factions wouldn't open the dialog immediately after you had completed their quest.
• Fixed an issue where Advanced Composites wasn't applying its HP bonus.
• Fixed an issue where Orbital Deployment wasn't applying its HP bonus.
• Fixed an issue where Subspace Field creation wasn't applying its HP bonus.
• So many typo fixes.
• Fixed an issue where battle markers could be placed on planets and therefor made the planet unclickable.
• Fixed some data that wasn't being saved from battles.
• Fixed an issue where components callouts weren't always being displayed on the ship details screen.
• Fixed an issue where multiple ships on autosurvey would sometimes go for the same anomaly.
• Removed some redundant precursor world bonuses.
• Fixed an issue with missing mining starbase graphics.
• Fixed an issue where unit specializations that required antimatter would show the credits icon.
• Fixed an issue where the policy icons looked faded.
• The advisor recommendation for "beware <civ>, they dislike us" now requires a negative diplomacy.
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't add AI players to the human's team.
• Fixed an issue where leader stat modifers would show "Missing Info".
• Fixed an issue where the main game window would show through the mode panel.
• Fixed the Pilgrims mission.
• Fixed the bonuses on the disloyal governor event
• Fixed the mining bonus from factions.
• Fixed techs that weren't correctly giving their relic bonuses.
• Fixed an issue where weapons are getting put in the wrong category in the ship design screen.

Performance

• Won't recalc colony stats on adding an improvement if it's an AI player (major perf).
• We don't need to recalculate all the civ stats for two players at the end of a battle. (major perf).
• Only update the stats on a planet during a turn if it's the human player (major turn perf).
• Trades no longer do a full recalc of a player (major perf).
• Choosing to research a tech no longer does a full civ stat recall.
• Slight change to AI research priority calculating.
• Removed a redundant CalcAllStats.
• Removed CalcAllStats (for the entire Civ) when adding or removing a ship from orbit.
• Arriving at an anomaly no longer recalcs all the stats for tha player (note that this was happening for all players so it just got worse as the game went). Major perf.
• Influence will only be recalculated from scratch at most 1 time per turn per civ. (major perf change).
• Old empty shipyard queue reupdate of planet stats no longer needed since the shipyard is separate (perf).

Balance

• Onyx Hive starting system redone with lots of asteroids.
• Precursor Relic Proficiency now gives +25% to relics.
• Precursor Relic Mastery now gives +25% to relics.
• Xenophobic civilization trait now gives +50% to research and -3 to diplomacy.
• Reduced the max turns of battles (ie: battles are more likely to end before either fleet is destroyed).
• Burran now have an option to award 0.2 Helios Ore per turn
• Orphica now have an option to award 0.2 Hyper Silicates per turn
• Odair now have an option to award 0.2 Arnor Spice per turn
• Boosted the defense provided by the Planetary Dome improvement
• Reduced the approval bonus for amphibious species living on oceanic worlds form +20% to +10%.
• The Onyx Hive can no longer build Caretakers.
• Starbases can now build sensor modules.
• Sovereigns get +5 to intelligence, resolve and diligence.
• Increased stat variance between citizens:
  • Drengins get +3 Resolve and -2 Social
  • Arceans get +2 Resolve and -1 Social
  • Drath get -2 Dilligence and +3 Social
  • Onyx Hive get +2 Diligence and -1 Intelligence
  • Altarians get -2 Resolve and +3 Social
  • Iridium get +1 Intelligence, -2 Resolve, +2 Social
  • Yor get +2 Diligence, +1 Intelligence, -2 Social
  • Iconian get +3 Intelligence, -2 Social
  • Festron get +2 Resolve, -1 Social
  • Manti get +3 Diligence, -1 Intelligence, -1 Social
  • Mimot get -2 Intelligence, +3 Social
  • Navigators get -1 Diligence, +3 Intelligence, -1 Social
  • Xeloxi get +2 Intelligence, +3 Resolve
  • Baratak get +3 Diligence, -1 Intelligence, -1 Social
  • Xeloxi get +10% Approval on Desert worlds
  • Xeloxi no longer have an approval penalty when on worlds with other species
• Crimelord trait civilizations (the Xeloxi) can no longer imprison
• Smuggler Port improvement no longer requires a tech
• Crimelord civ trait (like the Xeloxi) can no longer accept the Security Lights policy
• Crimelord civ trait civs can no longer get the governor reuest to lower crime
• Xeloxi homeworld changed to 25 planet class, 4 minerals, 3 technology and 9 wealth
• Civs wont ask Crimelord trait players to kill pirates
• Eufemies Skill is now a survery ship
• Marisail now has Missiles instead of Kinetic weapons
• Galactic Festival executive order improves Tourism by +40% instead of +10%
• Exploit Nature executive order increases Pollution by +5% instead of +10%
• Exhort Governors reduces loyalty by 12 instead of 15.
• Exhort Governors gives 100 credits per governor (and its shown in the tooltip now).
• Normalized accuracy and cooldown across weapon types
• Reduced the Apporval bonus on the Pleasure Dome from 20% to 10%
• Increased the Tourism bonus on the Pleasure Dome from 10% to 20%
• Switched Reinforced Hull X upgrade ship component to +6 Armor and +4 Hit Points
• The selected civilization ideology will effect the starting ideology awareness.
• Added the Gem Traders Mission
• Added the Ore Traders Mission
• Added the Silicate Traders mission
• Rebalanced the Stolen Drive event.
• Reduced Drath growth from 1 to 0.8.
• Reduced the amount of planets that you can pick from for starting homeworlds.
• Removed some tech prereq restrictions that make it nearly impossible to get to things like colony upgrades.
• The Synthetic Life biology now has the world start with a Durantium Cloud.
• Yor start with a Barren world instead of a Durantium Cloud world.
• Drath homeworld class increased from 25 to 28 class and switched to a Jungle world.
• Terran Resistance homeworld increased from class 25 to 28.
• Third small colonizable planet added to the Mimot home system.
• Two small worlds in the Baratack starting system switched to dead worlds.
• Mountainous worlds give a significant Planetary Defense bonus (they are harder to Siege).
• Bombarded world give a significant Planetary Defense penalty (they are easier to Siege).
• More asteroids added to the torians home system.
• Increased the Promethion cost of Kazar's Mainframe from 1 to 5.
• Increased the Promethion cost of the Galactic Mainframe from 1 to 5.
• Increased the Promethion cost of the Eyes of the Universe from 1 to 5.

UI

• The planet screen now has a background movie based on the type of planet it is.
• Planet icons you can't colonize for missing tech are tinted red.
• Lots of new icons and art.
• Deflector and Beam weapons look 20% less cartoony.
• Clean up Mass Driver FX.
• Update plazma and Doom Ray colors to be correct.
• There is now a sfx when a planetary invasion completes.
• You can now right-click to bypass a siege turn notification without going to it.
• Tons of new human citizen and leader portraits.
• All war declarations now explicitly state in highlight text that war has been declared.
• New "Fast Move" option.
• New "Fast Battles" option.
• New event art for completing the Universal Translator quest.
• Added a glow to the re-roll button on the research screen.
• Normalized diplomatic modifiers (players were confused when they were getting +1 / +2 etc and the modifiers didnt match).
• Move "cursor flush positioning" further away from the cursor, which should make it show up in general further away from the tile being moused over when used for the main map tooltips
• Increase how far you can zoom in in the ship/fleet details window
• Improved the tooltip when a bonus applies to all worlds
• Population added to the planet tooltip.
• Added to new to the mission popup.

Audio

• Lots of new music added
• Sfx and music added to many of the cinematics.