Galactic Civilizations III

Galactic Civilizations III is a turn-based strategy game in which you lead a civilization as humanity enters space and encounters alien societies with their own histories and ambitions. Choose a race, including Humans, Drengin and Altarians, then research technologies, design starships, colonize worlds, negotiate trade and treaties, wage war, spy on rivals and promote citizens. The game includes the Crusade and Retribution expansions and the Mega Events add-on.

Shape your civilization

Each game generates a different map, worlds and challenges. At setup, you can choose map size, the abundance of planets and resources, the frequency of events and other options, and play against 16 to 100 opponents. Sandbox games let you create a new future history for your civilization, while the story campaign covers the ancient histories of alien civilizations and one possible future for humanity.

You can pursue military conquest, cultural domination, technological ascension or political alliances to win. Each playable faction has its own technology specializations, and each civilization has unique history, technologies and ship components. The custom ship designer lets you shape your fleet, while faction customization lets you create a civilization with its own appearance, ships, technologies and options for how the AI uses it.

Worlds and strategy

Every world has its own mix of resources, which can affect your strategy. Planetary Governors let you assign leaders to decide which improvements to build and when, leaving you to focus on broader strategic goals. The technology tree has considerable breadth and depth, with choices that influence how your civilization plays and wins.

Multiplayer

Play online against other players, with support for custom civilizations and saved multiplayer games. Multiplayer lets you take on opponents beyond the AI.

Expansion content

The Retribution expansion adds artifacts buried on planets that grant abilities, and Hypergates that link together to help fleets travel faster through hyperspace. It also introduces the Drath, who manipulate events across the galaxy, and the extermination-focused Korath; both have their own abilities, bonuses and ship parts. Supply ships can deliver goods and services to other planets to aid their development, and an overhauled technology tree adds depth to research choices. In the Retribution Campaign, the Drengin Empire’s belief that humans are soft and peace-loving leads to a conflict that could end in the Empire’s extinction.

Crusade adds a Civilization Builder for creating factions with custom leaders, ideologies, abilities, navies and dialogue. You can train citizens as soldiers and plan invasions of enemy worlds while keeping your own homeworld defended. Spies can steal technologies, spread rumors to cause civil unrest, sabotage enemy worlds or assassinate enemy citizens. You can also appoint citizens to more than a dozen roles, including commander, engineer, farmer and celebrity.

Mega Events brings unexpected challenges and galaxy-wide issues that call for strategic decisions. Events include responding to the assassination of a popular leader, deciding what to do with a mysterious alien artifact and facing the Dread Lords.