Galactic Civilizations 4 is shaping up to be a wonderful 4X style space game. I'm also a fan of GalCiv2 and GalCiv3.

It's hard to do a full review of this game so early in play, so I'll update later with any relevant details. GalCiv4 has been available for quite some time, but this is its Steam launch, and I just picked it up a week ago.

Galactic Civilizations has always done a tremendous job at telling stories in the 4x genre. You create the universe how you want it to be created. You populate it with interesting races, and you can customize races how you like. You can set the intelligence of the various factions how you like them as well. Or you can leave everything to chance when you start a new game. Not only does this give GalCiv great replay value, it creates fun stories in how the galaxy grows and the races interact with each other. You never know exactly what is going to happen.

Graphically, GalCiv4 is beautiful. The stars are bright, planets are colorful. The interface is bright and easy to read. The alien portraits and animations are really well done, as always. Stardock always puts quite a lot of effort into the ship designer, and the ship designer in GalCiv4 is no exception. It looks great, and you can make all kinds of custom ships if you like. The default out-of-the-box designs are great too.

Sound design is also really good. The ambient music is nice without being distracting. Combat sounds are good, and interface sounds like notification beeps are well done. Voiceovers are also really nice.

The game itself is lots of fun to play, but the tutorial and tip screens don't quite tell you enough to learn to play the game. Even as a GalCiv veteran I found myself questioning how things worked in the game. I found myself a bit disappointed by what was available in the help menus, as it didn't always have answers to my questions. That said, after watching a couple brief "Let's Play" videos, I got the hang of what I was missing. On the positive side, I think the learning curve of GalCiv4 is much lower than some other 4X games, like Stellaris, X4, or Endless Space. I think the learning curve for GalCiv4 is closer to Age of Wonders in terms of difficulty.

I can't say enough good things about the AI so far in my game. It's smart, and it will keep you on your toes. Historically most of Stardock's games do a good job with AI, and this game is no exception. Keep in mind I'm playing on a slightly higher difficulty than normal. I'm not playing at the highest level. Once I learn the game mechanics better I'll likely try a harder game.

Stardock has done a really nice job with planet management in GalCiv4. Managing your empire becomes an issue in most 4X style games eventually, including the GalCiv series. GalCiv4 handles this by having a system of "Core" worlds and "Colonies". By default when you colonize a new planet, it is a colony. It sends its resources to the nearest core world, and you don't have to worry about anything else with them. Large or especially strategic planets can then be assigned a governor, which turns them into a "Core" world. Core worlds can be developed, grow population, and managed however you see fit. Even then, you can "Automate" a core world's development if you choose. So far I'm very much enjoying this system.

I am very much enjoying the "leader" system in GalCiv4 as well. Essentially you recruit leaders, and you assign them to become ministers, governors, diplomats, and faction leaders. Each leader has their own attributes and unique traits and loyalty, which gives the whole system a good deal of personality.

Some things that could use improving:
The interface is very good. I'll start with that. Generally speaking it works. There are lots of helpful tool tips to give you the information you need without having to click into endless sub-menus. That said... sometimes the information is not clearly presented, and it's not obvious how the game is calculating certain values for you.

Also some things are easily missed due to the UI not being obvious. For example planets can be upgraded with orbital upgrades. These upgrades aren't selected on the planet screen, but from a nested button on the galaxy interface. I completely missed this at first.

Another thing is the tech tree. It's very large. Fortunately there is a search feature. Unfortunately the search feature only brings you up the names of the technology. For example, you can search "Industrial" and you will get every technology that has the word "Industrial" in it, but you won't get a technology that gives you an Inustrial bonus that isn't actually named that.

Combat in GalCiv4 I hate to say it... looks a little janky so far from what I've seen. This isn't really a big deal since GalCiv4 essentially auto-resolves combat based on your fleet composition. I've always enjoyed watching the battles though... since you get to have those awesome ship designs! It's fun to see your ships in action! Unfortunately the combat animations haven't been improved all that much from what I've seen so far. It looks mostly the same as GalCiv3. This isn't a deal-breaker... I just sort of wish the combat animations looked cooler. That said, it's only an animation, it's not core gameplay.

Stardock has a long history of constantly tweaking their games and improving them (for free!) so I know GalCiv4 will continue to improve. Looking forward to putting more hours into this one. The devs are also very active in Discord and the Stardock forums to take feedback.

Overall, if you like 4X games like Civ, or Stellaris, Master of Orion, etc, I definitely recommend giving GalCiv4 a try.