This diary was originally published back in 2007, when this site was just a cosy corner of CVG. We're republishing it here a few entries at a time, every Saturday.

Tom has since switched careers to game development, and is now making a space game of his own, Heat Signature.

"I just finished the game you saw me start at 4.30," I messaged Tim, at half past midnight. "It was a 'Medium' sized one." I'd gone home and eaten in the meantime, but other than that I'd been utterly lost in Galactic Civilizations II, specifically the Dark Avatar expansion, and I could no longer imagine what other people do with their evenings. Or jobs.

GalCiv invites careful thought about each turn—economies crash easily, people become restless and revolt, other races storm ahead of you in at least one respect, and rash choices quickly lead to war. So we got talking, or I got talking, about what lay beyond the seven-hour game I'd just finished.

The galaxy sizes go up to 'Gigantic', I had a third of the maximum number of opponents, and the AI on the third of twelve degrees of difficulty. Cranking that up too high would be counter-productive—my demise would be swift. But putting everything else on maximum would set me up for an epic game that would take me weeks, at least, to complete.

So this is the saga of the largest, longest possible game of the largest-scale, longest-lasting space strategy in years.

Day 1: Full of stars

Ulp. Gigantic appears to be somewhere close to the actual size of a galaxy. My race—the suspiciously bunny-like Spectres of Agony—found itself in a cluster of around twenty solar systems which, upon further exploration, turned out to have only one other race in it. We were isolated by a vast stretch of void on all sides, large enough that our ship's range would barely cover it, and which divided us from a chain of central clusters where presumably most of the other races lived. A few other islands like ours were dotted around, one as remote as us, but we were on the outskirts of an incomprehensibly vast nowhere.

I got off to what seemed like a good start. Conserving cash as much as possible, I put what little I could afford solely into grabbing the juiciest planets and asteroid fields, including an absolutely utopian class 18 right on my rival's doorstep. I even stole one in the same system as his homeworld—only a class 6, but it's the malicious, gloating thought that counts.

Nicely settled in, I locked my war-chest, cut spending, and dropped all taxation to zero. This made my people very, very happy. This made my people very, very horny. This made my population growth very, very fast. This is the Super Breeder ability, and at our peak, two-billion Spectres of Agony were being born a week. We were breeding like Spectres, definitely not space bunnies.

We were mighty.

Day 2: I did not have diplomatic relations with that species

It didn't last long. I hadn't bothered to build up a military, because I was neighbour only to an incompetent pacifist, an opponent so feeble he wasn't even worth the warmongering reputation crushing him would garner. And it wasn't like one of the warlike races—the huge Drengin empire, for example—was about to cross the void to conquer what must have been the two militarily weakest races in the galaxy, sitting on a cluster of superbly fertile planets.

In fairness, that isn't what happened. What happened was that I crossed the void with a single defenceless mining ship that didn't have anything better to do, and wandered around their territory for a bit. They opened negotiations and suggested I donate 132 billion credits and the Universal Translators technology in exchange for my 'continued existence'. I amended the terms of the deal to them giving me 4.5 trillion credits, their entire military fleet and their homeworld, in exchange for shutting the hell up. They impolitely declined. We parted ways, snarling. I knew our next meeting would be even less productive.

The trouble is, with no military—even with one of the highest populations in the quadrant—everyone fancies their chances. I was the defenceless fat kid being bullied for my lunch money. Before long even the normally upstanding Altarians were demanding tribute for my continued existence, and eventually the unthinkable happened. The Torians, my incompetent pacifist neighbours, were bullying me for pocket change. The Torians! The joke was on them, of course—my early-game economic balancing act involves making exactly no money for the first few years, and the only technology I had that anyone seemed to want was Universal Translators—the very devices both of us were using to negotiate in the first place.

Nevertheless, I had to sit back and breathe deeply for a while before I could trust myself to touch the diplomatic relations window without demanding every penny in their coffers for the privilege of being incinerated by the glorious ionised fire of the majestic Spectres of Agony military (which I would be building any day now). Instead, to vent my anger, I made a counter offer of their entire civilisation—their treasury, every planet they owned, their fleet, all of their technology—for 1bc. They ceased talks in a huff.

Day 3: Populous

I had a bigger problem. People were unhappy. I'd never quite been able to work it out, these plummeting approval rates as my civilisation expands—perhaps because by the time it kicks in, I'm usually in a position to obliterate any colonies my wretched inhabitants might want to emigrate to. But I'd still like to know why it happens. My dim red approval percentages offer only "-50% from population" as an explanation. I didn't understand. Every planet had masses more food than it needed, and yet they all cited as the cause of their malaise simply the number of people.

I was being stupid, of course. What it really meant was over-population, because however much food they might have to spare, eighteen billion people just don't fit on a planet. My fallacy had been to assume that high-quality planets—since they have more buildable land - were larger. In fact they're the same size or frequently smaller than their less habitable counterparts, and the game takes that into account.

My homeworld—my richest, most populous and most productive colony—was also my least happy planet, partially because its citizenry had swelled to fill the generous eating-room I'd given them by building so many goddamn farms. My generosity had been my downfall. My most loyal people were about to defect unless I stopped charging taxes entirely, and thanks to my knife-edge budgeting that would bankrupt me in weeks.

The solution was as clear as it was terrible. Six billion people on my homeworld of Blood had to go. I'd never be able to deport them with spacecraft—I didn't have any, and I wasn't even sure if I could move them to planets on which I already had colonies. No, there was a simple, cheap and very quick solution to this problem, and I took it. I razed my farms.

In one week, six billion people starved to death, and my approval rate among the survivors went from 49% to 99%. I could see why dictators did it.

Look for the latest entry every Saturday right here on PCgamer.com

There s often a fine line between revolution and evolution, and which side is right varies dramatically from game to game. Sometimes we want the next best thing. Sometimes we want a thing we like, simply done better. That s what GalCiv 3 offers—not so much picking up where the last game off as returning to its template with a stern expression, some better technology, and a few years of lessons well learned.

Stardock s series is pretty much unique in the 4X genre—a space conquest game that sits alongside Master of Orion instead of simply in its shadow. It s not just a game of rules and strategy, but of quirky charm—witty descriptions to take the harsh edge off the technologies, an attempt to make the aliens you encounter feel like they have personalities instead of simply being a rendered face on some stats, and enough wrapping to feel like there are could actually be people/aliens somewhere behind your comma-filled population figures.

The biggest two differences between this version and the last, aside from a graphical polish, is that GalCiv 3 now supports multiplayer and demands 64-bit. The former speaks for itself. After years when the characters themselves would occasionally mock the idea, you can now have multiple players fighting over a galaxy. The 64-bit side of things is more interesting, though for the future rather than now. Much like a Civilization game, GalCiv is intended to have a long life. For the moment, it allows for crazy things like having a map with a hundred empires on it (though good luck actually doing that, never mind playing the result). It does however mean that future expansions, and player mods, have far more room to breathe than they once did, which bodes well. From another company, it would be hard to take that on the nod. Stardock though has proven form in this regard, both in improving its good games, and fixing up the originally dreadful Elemental.

Back into space

Either way though, the core game is extremely well-made. It s not simply a question of rules and options but the general feel that made the series what it is, the biggest being that (with a combination of tech and wrapping, much like Alpha Centauri) playing against the AI has the feel of being up against opponents rather than simply algorithms that happen to have a face on top. Where so many 4X games, particularly space ones, are almost willfully cold, there s a warmth to GalCiv that s key to the fun of casual to at least mid-tier play.

Like past games, it does have a few irritations that only really strike mid-way through, such as finding out what s actually wrong with a planet that looks like it should be performing far better, and otherwise tracking down some numbers in a pinch. By the time you ve gone from a few systems to a bursting empire, there s enough of them splashing around to drown in. Individual sections are very well laid out, with the Tech Tree especially making it easy to see what leads to what and what the benefits are, but the lack of a good centralised in-game Civpedia type resource does make looking things up harder than it should be.

The biggest omission from the last game—for now—is that political side has been stripped down. No elections, no governments, no spying. They re due to return in a later expansion. The sting of that is helped by a few new arrivals though, such as ideologies. Where past games had a Good/Evil system, the civilisations this time are judged as Malevolent, Pragmatic, and Beneficial, with moral decisions providing points in each that can be cashed in for special perks. These range from basics, like a free colony ship or a top-quality planet, to galaxy-affecting boosts like any race who attacks your homeworld being automatically declared war on by everyone but their outright allies, and every planet or starbase within your Influence range joining your empire. Nobody ever said you can t be both Benevolent and bastardly sneaky at the same time! Other new additions include pirate bases that become more of a problem the longer they re left alone, a shift to space based ship construction, and new environmental dangers to deal with while exploring the map.

GalCiv is far more focused on the strategy side of conquest than the tactics of individual ship encounters. You don t get any direct control over your ships at all, though you can watch the very pretty laser-beams and explosions from assorted cinematic angles if you choose. Instead, ships are given classes based on their load-out. A basic hull might be a Guardian, but slap life-support on it and it becomes a Support. Its role determines what it does and who it goes after in combat. How it actually looks though is almost entirely up to you. The design panel includes a huge selection of aesthetic items that can be scaled, moved, stuck onto hardpoints and even given some basic animation, all free . Ships can also be shared, with Steam Workshop support coming.

Whether new to the series or returning though, GalCiv 3 is easily the best recent 4X of this scale— the whole galaxy as campaign and sandbox. It s hardly the most dramatic upgrade a game has ever had, but it s both a more than solid update in the here and now and a great base for expansions and mods for the next few years.

Galactic Civilizations 3 left Early Access earlier this week. We'll have a review next week, but in the meantime, Richard Cobbett brings us his impressions so far.

There s a wonderful new page smell to the start of any 4X game. No alliances have been made, no mysteries spoiled. Your empire is a ball of potential, just waiting to be formed, channelled, attached to a metaphorical chain and smashed into enemies you ve yet to even meet, never mind make. It s the point of a game when anything will happen, and where all the surprises are ready to be revealed. In Galactic Civilizations III though, it goes deeper. It s a game, and not to spoil the review, a really good one (with a few expected irritations, especially in the endgame and once your empire swells to beyond a certain size). However, and not to damn with faint praise, it comes across less as the sequel than the beginning of the sequel.

It s a little unfair, but different games do come with different expectations. Some, you play and expect to be perfect, or as close to perfect as possible, at launch. Others are openly the start of a journey that both you and the developer are going to be on for a while. Pardon the jump of series, but the Civilization games offer a good contrast. We expect a new Civilization game to be good, obviously, but also to be playing it for the long-haul. A feature being missing or underbaked at launch isn t ideal, but we know there ll be expansions like Gods and Kings for the major stuff, with the added focus that they allow on their subject areas compensating for the wait. Conversely, Beyond Earth is inherently a shorter-term proposition, meaning that while tomorrow might be great, it s today that really counts. See also MMOs versus single-player RPGs, MOBAs vs. shooters.

GalCiv 3 feels like a game with its sights set on tomorrow, preparing the ground for expansions and updates and new features in a way that only a company with Stardock s past form can make feel exciting. That s not to say it s stripped down or missing features—it s not, or at least not too many. The political side has taken the biggest hit, along with spying. Mostly though, it plays like a more polished version of the last game, with its changes primarily focused on smaller scale but important rules, such as how planetary resources and similar are handled. You can now have space-based shipyards for instance. The old morality system is no longer about classic Good and Evil but Benevolence and Malevolence, with rewards on offer for picking and sticking to one. Likewise, the overhauled tech-tree is now split into three broad Ages—Expansion, War and Ascension—to help clear things up and add a more obvious backbone to the constant cosmic warfares.

There are big-ticket items too of course, including a move from squares to hexes, and the almost heretical introduction of a multiplayer mode, as well as some lovely polish. Overall though, it s very, very reminiscent of GalCiv 2 in look, play, focus, and ambition. If that was all it was going to be, that d be disappointing, especially after so many years. As a base to work on though, it seems excellent. Changes are careful, well-worked over and stable, with the biggest change being under the hood—the limitations of 32-bit cast into the pit in favour of 64-bit processing. Stardock s gimmicky example of what this means is that if you want, you can have a galaxy with a hundred empires duking it out. Honestly, I ve not tried it yet for myself, though I m fairly sure it would result mostly in a glimpse of the hell awaiting the naughtiest strategy fans when they die.

Still, it s a good example. While giving every planet its own empire might redefine overkill , it speaks to how much more could be added to the strategic layers in the years to come, especially when its mod scene gets going. Steam Workshop support is coming in one of the first patches, with user-content opportunities in general ranging from full mods to new races, to weird and wonderful creations whipped up in the superb ship-builder. It s one of the most flexible around, not only offering a huge selection of fins and greebles in addition to regular ship parts, but basic animation to help things come alive. Or at least, spin around.

We ll have a full review for you soon, but my first impressions are very positive. GalCiv 2 was a fantastic 4X game and one of the very few that stands comfortably in Master of Orion s shadow. We just want to take a spin through the campaigns, which were only added at launch, and get some more time in the command chair before boiling everything down to a convenient number that ll definitely be lower than 100, but almost certainly higher than 32. Check back next week to see where it stands.

Galactic Civilizations III is out today, which in itself isn't really news, because the release date was revealed back in April. However, we do have a launch trailer to accompany it, and the promise of some free stuff for people who grab the game before next week.

The freebies in question are "exclusive launch weekend ship parts," which is admittedly a bit vague, but Stardock says they'll enable players to "customize their fleets further than ever." More to the point, these parts will only be available to players who spring for the game before May 18, which is this coming Monday.

"Galactic Civilizations III brings major improvements to the franchise and the genre aside from its triple-A presentation and the sheer size and variety that its 64-bit engine enables," Stardock said. "The game is extremely mod-friendly, allowing ambitious modders to add an effectively unlimited amount of content from races to ships to entirely new technology and ideology branches or whatever else they think of. The in-game ship designer puts incredibly powerful tools in every player s hands to create the starships of their dreams some of the most impressive ships in the game were created by the winners of the Early Access beta ship design contest."

Our review is already in the works—these things take time, especially with a game so big—so for now, have a look at lead designer Paul Boyer's super-powered PC, which is actually three systems working together as one, like some kind of giant Decepticon. Find out more (about Galactic Civilizations III, not the Decepticons) on Steam or at GalCiv3.com.

Paul Boyer is the Lead Designer on Galactic Civilizations 3, which comes out of Early Access this Thursday, at Stardock. He's got a powerful PC to show off, but it's only one of three that he has linked together to form a Voltron-esque workstation—without the battling giant monsters part, of course. Paul was nice enough to take the time and show off his setup, tell us what he's playing right now, and talk about his favorite games not in the 4X genre. 

What's in your PC?

• CPU: 8-core Intel Core i7-5960x @ 3GHz
• Motherboard: Asus
• GPU: AMD Radeon R9 290x
• Ram: 32GB
• Storage: 500GB SSD
• Display: Dell 28 Ultra HD 4k, 30 Ultra Sharp, and one old-school dell 19 Ultra Sharp.
• Windows 7 (64-bit)
• Wacom Cintiq 12WX
• Standard Dell keyboard and mouse

I actually have three PCs that I use daily: A Yoga 2 Pro that I use as my primary laptop and for testing GC3 s usability with touch interface, an older Core i7 that I use primarily for communication, and monster with a Haswell-E 5960x that I was able to score recently. They are all connected together with Multiplicity, so to me they are just one big beast that I control with a single keyboard/mouse.

What's the most interesting/unique part of your setup?

I have a first-gen 4K monitor that works great for testing large UI and mostly lets me play the game in its prettiest form, but perhaps my favorite part is my six-year-old Dell UHD 30 monitor. It s getting old, but it still feels perfect for everyday use.

What's always within arm's reach on your desk?

Mostly more computers and binders of design notes, as well as quite a few dog treats—my dog is a bit of a begger.

What are you playing right now? What's your favorite game and why?

I love 4X games in general. At the moment my world is Galactic Civilizations III, but I have been playing with Jon Shafer s At the Gates, which I helped Kickstart. In other genres I m a big RPG fan and I loved Bioshock Infinite, but my all-time favorite would probably be Skyrim, which I sunk 400+ hours before I had to go back to work.

Galactic Civilizations III has been available as an Early Access release for the better part of a year now, and it looks promising: "The pieces in place so far feel sturdy and well-implemented, and the charm and appeal of GalCiv is definitely there," was how our Early Access review called it. A lot has happened since then, and today Stardock announced that the game will be ready for full launch on May 14.

Stardock says Galactic Civilizations 3 is "the largest and most diverse sandbox strategy" game ever made, with an "effectively infinite number of ways to design and deploy starfleets" and numerous paths to victory. Rulers can conquer the galaxy with brute force, or take a more peaceful approach by creating a culturally-enlightened society that other races will line up to join. The game also offers extensive mod support, allowing creators to add just about anything they can think of, from new ships to entirely new races and tech trees.

In spite of the looming launch, Stardock is still releasing new beta versions of the game, most recently the 5.3 beta that came out just a couple days ago. The latest update adds pirate bases, improvements to the AI and game performance, and "a multitude of polish points, balance improvements, and fixes large and small." Full patch notes are available here.

For those who can't wait until May 14, Galactic Civilizations III is still available as an Early Access release for $50/ 30 on Steam.

"Not only must justice be done," as the saying goes, "it must also be seen to be done." And it's the same with great battles in space: It's all well and good to have your Minister of War tell you that your interstellar conquest is proceeding apace, but sometimes the only way to properly scratch that Space Tyrant itch is to check in on things personally, and then watch them blow up.

That's where Galactic Civilization 3's new Battle Viewer comes into play: With it, you may now "see your fleets shoot lasers, launch missiles and blow each other up in glorious detail," from various camera angles, pausing, rewinding, and slowing or speeding the action in whatever way most tickles your fancy. A built-in battle log provides a blow-by-blow breakdown of what's happening on the screen, and developer Stardock says it plans to add even more explosions, weapons and defense effects, and sound effects in the future.

The new ideology system, meanwhile, replaces the old system of pyramids and adds a large number of new boosts and unlocks to Benevolent, Malevolent, and Pragmatic leaders, while "extreme planets" promise big advantages to players with the technology to colonize them. The new beta also enables Gigantic and Immense map sizes, and implements the usual array of fixes and balance tweaks.

Galactic Civilizations 3 is currently available as an Early Access release on Steam, and is expected to be ready for a full and proper launch sometime this spring.

Stardock's Galactic Civilizations III Ship Designer Contest is pretty simple as these things go. It's open to everyone of legal age in their country of residence, with the exception of Stardock employees. Entries must be original, must not be "vulgar or harassing," (so that's the Good Ship Spacepeen ruled out), and have to be submitted by 11:59 pm EST on November 16. A panel of judges at Stardock will select the top eight entries, all of which will be included in the game; after that, fans will vote to select the best overall design from the eight finalists. The winner gets a $1000 prize.

Simple or not, I would urge any and all aspiring shipbuilders to check out the rules at the Galactic Civilizations III Ship Designer Contest page. More information and a really brief FAQ are up on the Stardock forums, and if inspiration is what you need, have a look at our Galactic Civilizations III Early Access review—bearing in mind that since it ran, Stardock has added the missing trade and diplomacy functions, which you can read about here. 

Galactic Civilizations III is slated to come out in early 2015.

Andy recently ran down the contents of GalCiv 3's Beta 2 update. But, if reading words makes you itch uncontrollably... well, first, I'm very sorry, this very page must be unbearably hellish. Second, there's now a video that runs through the diplomacy patch's contents.

In addition to diplomacy, the update adds new victory conditions and trade networks. It's a significant step along the road to the early access 4X's eventual full release.

Our Early Access review of Galactic Civilizations III was quite positive overall, although it noted that "there's still a long way to go" before its release next year, in large part because it was missing major features like diplomacy and trade. Well, they've hopefully fixed that for you. The Beta 2 version released today brings both to the game, along with a new race and a pile of other features and fixes.

The Beta 2 update will install automatically through Steam, after which players will be able to enter into diplomatic relations with other races, establish trade routes to other planets and trade credits, tech, ships, and other resources, set fleet rally points, and earn victory through a number of new conditions. The United Planets, essentially an intergalactic version of the United Nations, is now in the game, as are the Krynn, who will bring a more aggressive approach to their relations with others than they've previously been known for.

On the less-spectacular-but-still-significant side of the coin, the new beta adds a number of interface changes, punches up the AI, fixes a bunch of bugs, and makes "too many balance changes to mention."

The full list of additions and changes in the Beta 2 release is up on the Galactic Civilizations III forum. The game is currently available as an Early Access release on Steam, and is slated for a full launch in early 2015.