"A smaller company could survive off of what Galactic Civilizations II does,” Paul Boyer tells me. It’s not a humblebrag, but a testament to the passion that fans have for Stardock’s flagship 4X game. It’s also a telling statement from Boyer, who was art director on Galactic Civilizations II and is now in charge of Galactic Civilizations III, the developer’s forthcoming sequel.

After working on the GalCiv II expansions, Boyer decided that he didn’t want continue as an art director, and made his case to CEO Brad Wardell that he should be a game designer. Wardell agreed, and Boyer was handed the reins to the franchise and a new sequel. Boyer feels the weight of his new responsibility. “My biggest focus as the designer of the game at this point is to more or less not screw up.”

Part of that "not screwing up" means keeping what fans love about GalCiv II – features like its ship designer, where players have built an astounding amount of custom units. To that end, GalCiv III’s ship designer will get a big shot of steroids, to the extent that Stardock will be including basic and advanced modes. Every ship in the game will now be constructed out of basic parts, and users will be able to go in and take them apart and create whatever they want.

“All of the data side of the game will be available in an editor,” Boyer explains, “and I think that the people who have gone through the hoops to make crazy mods in GalCiv II, their heads are going to explode.” He’s also prepared for the dark side of user-generated content. “I’m ready for an assault of penis-shaped ships – that goes without saying.”



The biggest change in the core game mechanics is the switch to hexes, which was divisive among strategy fans in the past, such as when Civilization V went hex. “It was a decision I made because I was always bothered by the fact that if you move diagonally, you’re technically getting two tiles. We moved to hexes so everything could be equidistant, and it just looks sexier – more science fiction. But gameplay wise, it should help balancing substantially.”

Many of the familiar races from the game, such as the Krynn Consulate and the Iconian Refuge, will return alongside new races. The Iridium Corporation, for instance, was always part of the series’ lore but never a playable race. Boyer notes that “they are essentially ultra-capitalists, like if Apple was a race that was going to take over the universe”.

Other tweaks include revamping the UI, building a better tutorial system (including a tutorial campaign), and finetuning the AI, all within the confines of a brand-new game engine, referred to internally as Kumquat 2. Also new is the fact that Galactic Civilizations III will only run on 64-bit systems.

While some players might consider that requirement overkill for a turnbased game, Boyer considers it vital for expansion. “What tends to kill turn-based games is the fact that you can end up with thousands of units on screen at one time, so we need that memory.”



The 64-bit architecture will allow for improvements beyond the visuals as well. “Nebula storms, black holes, asteroids will be more important... all of these things are going to be out on the map. The AI will be able to do amazing planning ahead. Each of these decisions can be bigger.”

GalCiv II’s alignment system has been completely jettisoned, and in its place is a new Ideology system. “It’s not a tech tree,” Boyer explains. “It’s actually three separate pyramids, and you will be able to earn Ideology points through improvements, or more interestingly through planetary events, through cosmic events.” Each cosmic event will require you to make ideological choices, which generate points used to unlock new abilities and most cultural traits.

The final major change is that multiplayer is coming to the series for the first time, although Stardock isn’t saying how many players the game will support simultaneously. “More than four,” Boyer jokes. But he does plan on remaining true to the solo roots. “Singleplayer is the heart of the game. This is not DotA; it’s a turnbased game. There will be a campaign of course – hopefully the best campaign we’ve ever done.”

The team has a long way to go, and Boyer quoted the familiar “when it’s ready” line when asked about possible release dates for alphas, betas and beyond. “This game has to be perfect,” he says. “We’ve had games in the past where bad things happened because they had to be out a certain time. So this game will be released when it’s done, and we’re going to make sure it’s awesome.” Which means you might want to add a fifth X here for "exhale," as we might be waiting a while.

We're back! After a few weeks of work on special operations, we found a moment to catch us (and you) up on October and November's big games: XCOM: Enemy Within, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Battlefield 4.

Sprint across a flowered field and embrace PC Gamer Podcast 365 - Ghost Grenade Dad.

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To celebrate the launch of addictive CCG free-to-play Might & Magic: Duel of Champions, Ubisoft has teamed up with the best hardware brands in gaming to give PC Gamer readers the chance to win a complete powerhouse PC. With a motherboard and graphic card from ASUS, processor by AMD, storage by WD, case and power by Cooler Master, RAM by GSkill and the best in gaming peripherals by Steel Series you will dominate the opposition with this impressive prize pack.

The powerhouse PC includes:

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
Asus 7870 DC II TOP
AMD FX8350 4.0Ghz Processor
WD 4TB Black Hard Drive
Coolermaster Silent Pro Hybrind 1300W Power Supply
Cooler Master Scout II Case
G.Skill Ripjaws-x 1600Mhz 4GB x 2 RAM
Steelseries APEX Raw Keyboard
Steelseries Sensei Raw Heat Orange Mouse
Steelseries Siberia V2 Heat Orange Headset

The prize package totals nearly $2,000 worth of gear, so it's more than worthwhile signing up to PC Gamer (see 'Join' at the top of the page) and answering the following question in the comments section below:

If you could pitch your own free-to-play collector card game, describe in no more than 300 words what universe it would be set in.

Our favourite answer will be contacted via private message when the winner is drawn on Friday, November 29. Only entries based in Australia are valid.

Black Mesa: Source, the free high-def remake of Valve's first-person shooter classic Half-Life, is a clear example of how awesome the PC gaming/modding community is. For no reason other than they wanted to, the team behind Black Mesa painstakingly rebuilt Half-Life inside the Source engine, prettied up all the art, and released the result for free. On Tuesday - Half-Life’s fifteenth birthday - Black Mesa received permission from Valve to be sold on Steam.

“Last year, Black Mesa was one of the first Steam games to be Greenlit by you, our amazing fans,” project lead Carlos Montero wrote in a post on the community forums. “We've had quite a year since then, with a lot happening internally that we haven't been able to talk about... until now. Black Mesa has been given the opportunity to be sold as a retail product on Steam!"

The big surprise is Valve allowing Black Mesa to profit from what is, basically, a work of fan tribute. Although a groundswell of popular support put Black Mesa on the Steam store, there was never an expectation that the game would ever be anything other than free-to-play. "The use of Valve's for monetary gain was not predicated by our being greenlit," Montero tells PC Gamer. "This was really the only thing we thought to be possible at the time." It says a lot about the quality of Black Mesa that Valve is allowing them to profit from the Half-Life universe.

"This is an incredible honor—one we never expected—but also one we found hard to accept," Montero continued in his forum post. "We never developed Black Mesa with money in mind. Our team is made up of average, hardworking people, and no one joined the team to make money. For us, Black Mesa is purely a labor of love.”

While no price has been set, you'll soon be able to support the Black Mesa team for a “relatively low” price. The free version will still be available, however, and the team continues to plan frequent updates. High on that list is the release of Xen, the much-anticipated final chapter of the Half-Life remake, but unfortunately that update is "still a ways off."

When we last left space opera The Mandate, this ambitious indie game was burning through its Kickstarter campaign toward a half-million dollar funding goal. To help climb that summit, developer Perihelion Interactive has released a new trailer starring David Bradley as the grizzled high admiral.



You’ll remember Bradley as prolific corpse generator Walder Frey from Game of Thrones. That menacing patriarchal growl is used to great effect in the video, titled Ghosts of the Mandate. There’s not lots of new gameplay on display, but it is an excellent indicator of the tone of the series and the burdens of command. If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, Bradley will provide the voice for Lord High Admiral Suvarov in the finished game.



The Mandate is a little more than halfway to its funding goal with 12 days remaining, so if you’re interested in seeing the mess made by tsars ruling space, it’s time to pony up. You can get a DRM-free copy of the game, along with some art, the soundtrack and other goodies, for $20.

The more we hear about The Elder Scrolls Online, the more massive it sounds. But we're also getting more insight into how the MMORPG will balance the experience of navigating its ambitiously designed world. Campaigns, the possibly months-long battles between the game's three alliances for control of Cyrodiil, will feature "soft caps" on player participation, according to a new Ask Us Anything with ESO developers.

The soft cap represents an initial step to balance the faction warfare, but from what the developers say below, there's still a good chance you can help out a buddy in need when the time comes.

"There’s room for overflow that will allow you to join your friends or guild members in an otherwise full campaign, but eventually there is a hard limit to that," wrote the developers. "You’ll be able to join campaigns with your friends, but we want to ensure that an alliance can’t bring too many additional combatants in and hurt the overall balance."

Helpfully it looks like all the political shenanigans that will govern the struggle for domination through the campaign system won't extend to at least two of ESO's famous guilds, the fighters and the mages. It seems they prefer to sit on the sidelines counting their bounty payouts and hunting for dusty books somewhere.

"Neither of these guilds take sides in the ongoing conflict in Cyrodiil," the ESO developers explain. "They prefer to focus their resources towards solving problems that are, in their eyes, more important, such as fighting Daedra and recovering lore on the brink of destruction."

And in a way that opens play rather than narrowing it for the sake of balance, any member of any alliance can join up with the fighters or mages, according to the developers. We've heard before about certain "rare locales" for solo wanderers, so it makes sense that guilds will also have their own particular part to play in the ESO universe. For more information on player names and lock-picking, take a look at the full Q&A.

 

Sometimes even the perfect siege gets a false start. Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep, a new expansion to the Tolkienesque MMORPG, was supposed to go live on Nov. 18. But thanks to a power outage at the game's data center, the release has been delayed until Wednesday, according to an update to developer Turbine's Facebook page.

The new content, which we first heard about back in April, is set to open up the Western plains of Rohan as well as the iconic mountain fortress known as Helm's Deep. But as we see so often in Middle Earth, the unexpected happens and plans change. While you'll have to wait just a couple more days before diving into another strange and epic corner of Tolkien's world, there is some good news—the developers are also extending the current pre-release double-XP event for two more days.

The MMO's obviously grown a bit since our first review more than two years ago, but it's a great starting point for getting to know the game. Check it out here.

Hat tip, Polygon.

Saxxy. It's a good word to say. Try it out for size. Repeat it, over and over, until your mouth goes numb and your friends and co-workers have long since abandoned you. As well as being an enjoyable utterance, it's also the title of Valve's now annual film-making awards. This year, the competition is exclusively based around the Source Filmmaker tool. Luckily, the versatile animation suite has been out long enough that we're in for some exceptional shorts. For instance, this excellent film about a helpful mini-Pyro.



You can find the voting page for 'Lil Guardian Pyro' here. Alternatively, head to the main Saxxy's Steam page to browse and vote through all submissions. All while continuously saying Saxxy. Never stop saying Saxxy.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Typical politicians. They promise the moon on a stick, but do they ever deliver? Well yes, in this case. As part of the weird Guild Wars 2 voting event held a few months ago, the winning candidate's election promises have formed the basis of next week's update: Fractured. It's a new Fractals of the Mists event, set during the explosion of Metrica Province's Thaumanova Reactor. Fractured also continues the Nightmare story chain, that formed the basis of the last two updates.



Fractals are one part of GW2's endgame, offering players a series of mini-dungeons that increase in difficulty as you go. In addition to the special Thaumanova Reactor story instance, three new Fractals are being introduced, with two new bosses drawn from the history of the Living Story. ArenaNet have gone into more detail on the change to Fractals over at their blog.

The other segment of the update continues the Nightmares open world event: "The Tower of Nightmares is heading towards its collapse, but the fight isn’t over yet! Join in the fight against the vile Toxic Alliance and destroy the foul structure."

Fractured will go live November 26th. More details can be found on the GW2 release page.

Football Manager makes sense to me again. The series had slowly driven me away as it crammed more detail into its already stat-heavy simulation of football. I never seemed to be able to tell what information mattered, and which decisions were the cause of my various triumphs and failures.

Classic Mode changed that. Introduced last year, it strips back the game to something that, on the surface, resembles Championship Manager from ten years ago, but is underpinned by the same rich simulation that drives the main game. The mode returns in Football Manager 2014, and it’s still my favourite way to play the game. This release doesn’t have any equivalent flagship feature, but the hundreds of changes it does make are important. Most notable for fans of modern football is the inclusion of expanded player roles, and a tactics system that replaces sliders with the language of real football tacticians. That means being able to deploy players in the midfield as a trequartista, a false nine or an enganche.



Doing so allowed me to influence the outcome of matches in meaningful ways. I brought Marek Hamsik, a traditional enganche, from Napoli to Manchester United, but found success playing him in different kinds of roles in different matches. It’s both simpler and a better representation of how football is now played, and allows you to better represent the tactics of teams like Real Madrid or Arsenal.

If you want to see your tactics play out, the match engine does a great job of showing the consequences of what would otherwise be abstract decisions. People are always quick to criticise the 3D version of that engine – and it’s true its animation doesn’t compare to something like FIFA, but there’s a flow and rhythm to FM matches that’s more realistic than any other football game.



You’ll be better off making match decisions for yourself. Football Manager lets you expand the role of your assistant manager, letting them take control of the parts of the game that overwhelm or bore you. In the middle of matches, that includes listening to their recommendations, the quality of which are dictated by the stats of your managerial sidekick, but also by the strange blind spots in the game’s AI. When Man Utd are struggling to get many shots on target, for example, clicking the button to apply Steve Round’s advice saw my squad booting balls at goal from all over the pitch, ignoring my strategy of retaining possession.

When I play the game in Classic Mode I like to watch each match myself, but the Instant Result button lets you complete seasons even quicker. Last year, pressing it felt random – a big gamble. To help, you can now set up Match Plans, telling your assistant when to use substitutes and what to do should you be trailing at half time.

No matter how the matches turn out, there’s more variety in both the press’s questions and your responses during pre- and post-match press conferences, and you can forge relationships with specific hacks and use them to frustrate other teams before big matches. If a player on your own squad steps out of line, you can now tell them off in more subtle ways without public condemnation or large fines.



When combined, these tweaks and tactical shifts let me better understand the series’ ambitions. Sports Interactive are building a world, not a game, and one populated by people rather than statistics. They’re approaching football with the same scope and ambition as the designers of Dwarf Fortress. It feels more like an Alex Ferguson RPG and less like the baffling strategy game I once struggled to control.

The scarf I hold aloft still has ‘Classic Mode’ stitched on it, as it’s still the most elegant distillation of Football Manager, but I can see now that it’s only a matter of time before I’m swallowed whole.

Expect to pay £35 / 50$
Release Out now
Developer Sports Interactive
Publisher Sega
Multiplayer Online Seasons
Link www.footballmanager.com