would enslave galaxy again.

So BAD i mean really it may aswell have been released as a remaster of galactic civ 2, Grphics are terrible interface is as bad as its predecesor. tutorial if you need it is laughable, unbelievably bad on every level.

Have played a few sandbox games and have just started one of the scenarios. Not having played a previous Gal Civ game thoroughly before, it took a few attempts to get to grips with how things work and what works best for the different races etc. This is a positive point however as I gain a lot of enjoyment out of working things out and doing better each time.

Although I have experienced a couple of bugs with the new notifications system, this hasn't affected my enjoyment of the game and I reckon I'll be playing it for a while yet. If you like turn based strategy games (instead of realtime) then this is definitely worth playing. I think I've played about 50hrs in total so far and have only just stratched the surface of what is possible.

This game has a pretty intense learning curve but it is well worth the time spent leaning. This game's customisation, strategy, and replayability are the best I've seen and even monor changes from match to match can cause major shirfts in effective tactics. I'd give it 9/10 and it only losses that one point for the affore mentioned learning curve.

Grind, grind, grind. That's what this game feels like whenn you hit the midway point. Way too many microtech options, where you feel like you're contantly at the tech tree. Space stations are the same. Tons of upgrades and just too easily destroyed. Way too much for work too little payoff. Ultimately the AI is only interested in one thing, war. Even the more "peaceful" races will declare war on you if you happen to be weaker than them. So ultimately there's only one strategy to the game, which seems wrong to me. It just comes down to the fact there are not enough peace time options. You mad dash to build up a fleet, wipe someone out, and repeat.

I got GC III on the summer sale and so far it was really great. There's plenty of possibilities and I discover new aspects and strategies with every game I start. Here's some of the more interesting aspects about the game:

Look at me - I'm a space race:
You get to choose a civilization and go develop, expand, explore and conquer. Alternatively you can create your own species, which is a load of fun: Choose strenghts and weaknesses, splash screens and your leader's avatar, the look of your ships, the tech tree and some more things. I created Space Horses. Ahahahaha, their leader is actually a horse in a space suit. Anyway.

Many a way to victory:
The game comes with 6 ways to win the game: You can conquer all other races, you can bring 3/4 of the galaxy under your cultural influence, you can win by negotiating alliances with all other races - and there's still a couple more ways!
That said, the easiest way to win is with war. The other ways take a rather long time, so expanding through warfare is the only way that feels like you're making progress.

Diplomacy:
What I really like is the possibility to trade technologies with other races. What I don't like is the limited influence you have of the diplomatic doings in the galaxy: Your allies will wage war against one another and you have no means at your disposal to stop them from doing that. Also it would have been nice if your allies automatically joined your side whenever an outside race declares war on you. Then what are alliances for anyway?

Pimp my fleet:
The possibilities for outfitting your fleet are endless. The arms and countermeasures follow a traditional rock-paper-scissors-scheme. But there are plenty more things you can stuff in a space ship hull: warfare tools, fleet range enhancers, repare modules, exploration modules...but there's more to the fleet editor!
You can select your races ship hulls from a range of sets. But when designing a ship, you can model that ship almost freely, scale and rotate parts and so give every ship type a unique look of its own. If you are patient, this is an awesome tool that adds a lot of player individuality to the colourful world of GC III.

One quick word about the workshop races:
You can upload your race to the steam workshop of GC III for others to download. That is really cool and I addded a lot of workshop races to my game to make games with up to 36 (!) factions more interesting. Some people delivered some really cool races.
Sadly, many players felt it necessary to add bewbs content. Dudes, you have the entire internet to your disposal and is densely plastered with pictures of bewbs! There's absolutely no need to add any to a steam workshop, so please please please keep that to yourself!

All in all: Try this game, it's awesome! Also, bring some time with you, GC is not a game you play for just 10 minutes.

Its a Good Game.

Minuses:
- Issues
- AI freezes. A lot reloads when game hangs on AI move
- Can't control tactical combat

Pluses:
- MO2 clone. With less features than old cool game.
- Good diplomatic model
- Really big map on insane map mode

Great game, love the franchise since the first one.

If you like Civ, you should like this game as well. It's the best 4x space stradegy game there is.