Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth doesn’t officially arrive until next month, but gamers are already buzzing about this Firaxis/2K Games Civ-in-space entry.
Land on a planet and go to colonize it, and voilà, it’s a Civilization game with quests and aliens and space objectives. But October 24 seems so far away, you say. What will you do until then?
How about some nice 4X space strategy games for PC, where you eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate in (mostly) turn-based grid combat across the galaxy? They too have strategy, aliens, and space! And you can play them now! What’s not to love?
I’ve picked out three options for you. Call them 3N games: They’re iN beta, iNclusive of a variety of audiences, and/or iNexpensive. And they’re just the thing to tide you over iN the meantime.
Yes, I’ll stop now.
Galactic Civilization III: Space is a big place
Galactic Civilization III, available from Stardock Entertainment via Steam Early Access when you pre-purchase it for $44.95, is the fully respectable entry of these three. Gaming publications have handed the previous entries in the series fistfuls of awards, and every installment just gets deeper.
Above: Pick a faction, any faction.
The game’s depth is obvious from the start. You choose from eight factions, including several new ones, each with their own bonuses to dozens of stats. Choose the opponents they’ll face. Choose your galaxy size and shape and options including how often asteroids and black holes happen and the incidence of interstellar rifts or habitable planets.
And then you choose how you want to defeat your enemies: Fight them? Overwhelm them with technology? Form alliances, influence others, assemble relics to “ascend to a higher plane of existence,” or just flat-out beat your opponents before a limited number of turns runs out? Sadly, most options aren’t available in the beta yet. Combat is one of your only choices here, though the other options are present, just greyed out.
Difficulty, pacing, events, and exploration are all in the menus (though again, all are not yet tweakable in the beta).
Above: Grid, sweet grid: See, we told you it’d slake that Beyond Earth thirst. It’s got hexes!
Once you’ve made your choice, you’ll be dropped on a hex grid overlaying your fully animated home system. See that shipyard over there on the right? Double click it, and you’ll shoot over to the user interface to build new ships. And when I say build … I mean build.
Above: The screen where the magic happens.
Click on a part of your new craft, and you can flip it, rotate it, stretch it, move it around, and otherwise make it your own. You can also scale it up, save a group of parts as a new part, or change the speed and the nature of its animations. Later, you’ll be able to save your creations for others to see, but that feature isn’t yet available in the beta.
And this is just one tiny ship in one tiny system in a humongous galaxy (early promotional material promises thousands of stars and hundreds of empires, but even what’s in the game now is impressive).
You’re starting to get the idea.
The game doesn’t occur only in space: On all of those planets out there, you’ll find resources and sites to build things and people to shoot at, in hexes on the ground, looking very much like … hmmm…. Beyond Earth. Unfortunately, diplomacy is not so much a thing in the beta, so you’ll have to shoot. I didn’t figure you’d mind. Currently, the beta supports four-player online competitive battles.
This isn’t a review or even a preview. So much of the game is not yet available — other than combat … lots and lots of combat — that all I can say is, well, the fighting is pretty entertaining. I like my ships and my amusingly described weapons, and I just want more people online to throw them at. Or, you know, talk with in a diplomatic fashion. Right?
Above: Resources are in! Governors and trade and colonies, not so much.
I’m willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt at this stage in the beta because of its impressive pedigree and the strong foundation you can already see in the game. It’s already worth playing.
You can see it for yourself in weekly developer livestreams (held Friday afternoons at 3 p.m. EST).
If Galactic Civilizations III is just too much fussing for you, two other new games give the “4X strategy lite” experience. They include the basics of the genre but are very easy for casual players to pick up.