The new version of Galactic Civilizations III includes an updated campaign screen that shows the campaigns as part of a timeline. We wanted to help players know where different campaigns take place in the overall story.

It's hard to believe that the base GalCiv III campaign, Crusade, actually takes place in the middle of the stories that were released for GalCiv III!

Our story so far...

During the campaigns of Galactic Civilizations II, the story ends with the human main fleet teleporting to a pocket universe, but not before using a Precursor (Arnorian) artifact to protect the Earth from Drengin invasion.

Galactic Civilizations III deals with the fleet's return from the pocket universe with a new artifact. A powerful orb known as "the bane" that was a weapon used by the Mithrilar (the beings who created the Arnor in the first place). The Terran fleet, armed with Precursor technologies, swiftly frees the people of Earth, who have been busy building their own fleet behind their protective shield.

The humans go on a crusade to free the other civilizations from Drengin thralldom. Their campaign to free the galaxy starts to turn dark as the Thalan, a species introduced in GalCiv I, explain that they are travelers from an alternate future and that the bane exacts a terrible price for its use (which is why it was hidden in a pocket universe in the first place). The bane's user will begin to lose all manner of perspective, which will lead to the destruction of the galaxy.

Retribution is at hand

The Retribution campaign is a 4-part campaign. I will say, at the start, that Galactic Civilizations, being a space sandbox game, doesn't lend itself to story-based campaigns. I generally don't recommend that people play the campaigns until they are done playing the main game (as opposed to the other way around). The campaigns exist to help players know the lore for the world in which the game takes place.

With that warning said, let us begin destroying the universe.

Into the fire

The campaign introduces (or reintroduces) players to the Drath and Korath, who were both eliminated as major powers during Twilight of the Arnor and Dark Avatar, respectively, in Galactic Civilizations II. 

This campaign is the conclusion of the 23rd century era of Galactic Civilizations stories. While I won't promise you'll love the campaign gameplay (they're not my cup of tea), I hope you enjoy the story they tell.

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Retribution Journals

Journal #1

Journal #2

Journal #3

Journal #4

Journal #5

Journal #6

Journal #7

Journal #8

Journal #9 (Current)

Battle hordes of enemies in Siege of Centauri
a new massive-scale tower defense game

Set in the Ashes of the Singularity universe, the player takes on the role of commander of the defense of Earth's first colony on Proxima Centauri.  Stardock's new take on the classic genre comes by leveraging its new game engine, first seen in Ashes of the Singularity™ and more recently in Star Control®: Origins.

"With tens of thousands of enemy machines pouring toward your base, we want to give players a very new experience of what it means to defend yourselves against overwhelming odds," said Derek Paxton, lead designer for Siege of Centauri. "The benefits between a rail gun that fires 1 deadly round every 10 seconds and a high-speed plasma arc array that does low damage, but to dozens of enemies at once, is obvious to players, especially when they see a huge mothership surrounded by hundreds of escorts coming at them." 

The veteran strategy game developer is also incorporating some strategic elements to the genre, such as defending resources and deploying fast response teams to battle, providing players with difficult choices about which areas to defend and which areas to let go.

In the early access period for Siege of Centauri, players will:

• Defend Centauri: Gain access to new technologies and fight off enemy invaders from region to region.
• Deploy Your Defenses: An arsenal of emergency rapid deployment defenses are at your disposal. Use them in strategic locations to halt the swarm's progress.
• Strike From Above: When all else fails, use your ship's formidable capabilities from orbit to destroy your enemies.

Steam Early Access begins on April 16th for $9.99 and is designed to allow fans of the genre to get early input into game mechanics, pacing, and balance. You can add the game to your Steam wishlist or join the Founder's Program and get access to the beta today at www.siegeofcentauri.com. 

Visit www.siegeofcentauri.com for more information.

What is tower defense?

Tower defense is a genre of strategy game in which you have ever more daunting enemies trying to attack your base (or simply escape).   Your job is to place defenses ("towers") to stop them.

Each of your towers has specific strengths and weaknesses.  Some are fast firing but do little damage while others fire infrequently but do a lot of damage.  There are towers that do area damage and towers that can only target one individual at a time.  There are towers that can target just air and towers that can fire great distances but only hit the ground. 

Because you have finite resources, knowing what enemies are coming and where they are coming from is key as you will need to choose your towers carefully.

Stardock's take

Stardock has a new game engine that is specifically designed to handle massive entity counts.  By massive we mean like 100X more than what has been seen before.  That allows us to think of game designs that weren't previously doable (at least without an insane PC).  An entity is a full-on unit. Not a clone or a visual trick but an actual unit with its own AI, weapons, pathfinding, targeting, etc.  

Having more enemies isn't enough on its own.  We also wanted to bring some of our 4X strategy game experience into Siege of Centauri.  Here are a few examples of what we mean:

• Maps have Metal Refineries which produce resources. They provide alternative locations that the player may, or may not, want to defend.
• Scavenging.  Players don't collect resources from killing enemies by default. Instead, player-built scavenger modules will collect resources of units destroyed in their area.
• Orbitals.  The player has a set of orbital abilities that can be called down to take a direct hand in the action in a pinch.
• Map Objectives.  There are various achievements attached to maps that give the player additional twists in trying to solve the map.

What Early Access is Missing (or what we're working on still)

It is important to stress that this is a BETA and not feature complete. This isn't some demo.  We have a number of features we have in various states of completeness that we may or may not add in based on player feedback.  That's the point of having early access.

Features that are definitely coming, just not ready yet:

1. Voice-overs.  Lots of them.
2. More enemy unit types.
3. More weapon types.
4. More orbitals.
5. Survival Mode (maps where you will definitely, eventually lose but see how far you can make it)
6. Equip screen.  Eventually we will limit your active tower types to 10 and you'll need to pick from your arsenal the 10 you want to use on based on the enemies that will be on there.
7. Much better effects (we have lots of programmer art in right now).
8. A lot more optional objectives.
9. More battle locations (a lot more) on bigger maps.
10. The Archive screen is still an early work in progress.
11. More paths (general map pass with enemies taking out other buildings that aren't on a direct path to your base).
12. Placement grid (makes it easier to place your towers).

Features we have in various states of completeness but want player feedback on beta 1

1. Tower upgrade tree (versus linear progression). Again, this is one of those things that sounds good on paper but might make the game too busy.
2. Destructible walls (place obstacles to force the enemy to either destroy them or find another way)
3. Night maps (we had these but they weren't fun, you placed light beacons to see, seemed like a good idea on paper)
4. Second resource (that is used for Orbitals rather than orbitals being set to a time out).

The take-away here is that Early Access here is designed to give players input into the game before things are locked down.  We have a lot of work ahead of us and we are excited to hear your ideas.

Founders get to Play the Beta Right Now
They also get access to a private forum, all future betas,
a special forum badge, and access to the full game when it releases

Earth's first colony on Proxima Centauri is under attack by an unknown enemy. Take on the role of Commander and defend the colony against hordes of enemies in Siege of Centauri. 

Tens of thousands of enemy machines will pour toward your base, giving you a new experience of what it means to defend yourself against overwhelming odds. You’ll be able to test out the benefits of a rail gun that fires 1 deadly round every 10 seconds to a single target, a high-speed plasma arc array that does low damage, but to dozens of enemies at once, and more.

You’ll gather resources from enemies as they’re destroyed, dealing with balancing overwhelming enemy forces with having to make some tough choices on what areas of a given map you need to defend. Some areas, you’ll have to let go in order to safeguard your resource production.

Siege of Centauri Founders were emailed their Steam keys, alternatively they can go here to obtain their key. 
Ashes of the Singularity Lifetime Founders can find Siege of Centauri in their Steam accounts.

Play the Founder's Beta Today for $9.99

Visit www.siegeofcentauri.com for more information.
Note: Ashes of the Singularity Lifetime Founders received Siege of Centauri for free.

Dawn of War 2 (DoW2) got slammed on launch by many fans of the original for its removal of base building. I found the base building in DoW1 to be shallow, so I never viewed DoW2’s removal of it to be a detriment and DoW2 is still one of my favorite RTS games. Base building in RTS is typically the manifestation of strategic investment, so it’s always meaningful in that you’re choosing to build an Armory over teching up into Tier2. Though base building isn’t always needed for strategy in RTS and DoW 2 clearly shows this. (Offworld Trading Company alternatively shows you don't always need units for strategy in RTS either!)

Continue Reading...

Set in the Ashes of the Singularity universe, the player takes on the role of commander of the defense of Earth's first colony on Proxima Centauri.  Stardock's new take on the classic genre comes by leveraging its new game engine, first seen in Ashes of the Singularity™ and more recently in Star Control®: Origins.

"With tens of thousands of enemy machines pouring toward your base, we want to give players a very new experience of what it means to defend yourselves against overwhelming odds," said Derek Paxton, lead designer of Siege of Centauri. "It takes little explaining to the player on the benefits between a rail gun that fires 1 deadly round every 10 seconds, and a high-speed plasma arc array that does low damage, but to dozens of enemies at once, when you can visibly see a huge mothership surrounded by hundreds of escorts coming at you."

The veteran strategy game developer is also incorporating some strategic elements to the genre, such as defending resources and deploying fast response teams to battle.

"Another feature we're pretty excited about is separating resource gathering from enemy destruction," said Paxton. "You are, literally, dealing with overwhelming enemy forces while simultaneously having to make some tough choices on what areas of a given map you need to defend and which ones you need to just let go in order to safeguard your resource production.”

The Founder's program is designed to allow fans of the genre to get early input into game mechanics, pacing, and balance.

"There are a lot of interesting questions that we want to engage with our fans with before final release," said Paxton. "And with this genre so popular, it presents such a great opportunity to tap into that collective experience.

The Founder's program will begin on March 28
Pre-purchase today and gain access to the beta when it launches in two weeks

Visit www.siegeofcentauri.com for more information.
Note: Ashes of the Singularity Lifetime Founders will receive Siege of Centauri for free.

Galactic Civilizations III v3.6 Community Update improves custom ship mod compatibility, adjusts commonwealth worlds, and more

We're launching a version update today that addresses the most important feedback we get: YOURS. We've addressed several community reported issues in our continuing effort to bring you the best GalCiv game possible. We put balance and bug fix work into both the base game and the Retribution expansion with this update. Some of the biggest changes we made include:

• Merging fleets no longer renames them
• Custom ships work better with mods
• Artificial life forms can no longer build farms because robots don't eat food 
• Your commonwealth worlds can no longer flip worlds in your empire (because that was treason!)

See the huge changelog below!

Don't have Galactic Civilizations III?
Buy from Steam  |  Buy from Stardock

Owners, the v3.6 update is ready and waiting for you in your Steam client. 
Don't forget to pick up the newly released Retribution expansion today!

www.galciv3.com | www.galciv3.com/retribution

v3.6 Changelog Notes

Gameplay

• Nerfed "Lossless Life Support" module
• Fixed typos in "Lossless Mining" module descriptions
• Updated Tourism bonus for the "Popular Race" trait to be flat 1 and 2% instead of multipliers of 10 and 20%
• Updated united planet tourism board to be flat with a 10% bonus (was multiplier of 100% which was crazy)

• Colonizing the Promethion Refinery precursor world now grants 5 Promethion
• Set "Virtual Vacation" to be a player wonder
• Changed "Influence Per Turn" from multiplier to flat on the Galactic Showcase
• Fixed mismatch of description and text in the "Antimatter Weapon Colonizing" event
• Tweaked pathfinding so that it doesn't attempt to find a path to the node closest to a blocked destination if the start tile is already the closest node
• Silicon-based life can terraform and colonize high level extreme worlds
• Removed farms for Synthetic lifeforms and enabled terraforming improvements and high end extreme world techs
• Fixed "Orphaned Improvements" and techs in the Retribution tech tree
• Fixed issue with Iridium tech tree failing on "Tariff Focus" specialization

UI

• Changed it so that when you merge a fleet, it will keep a custom name for the resulting fleet. If both fleets being merged have custom names, it keeps the fleet name of the bigger fleet.
• Adjusted "Economic Warning" flavor text to fit with new conversation popup font size.
• Fixed typo in "Precursor Research Node" description.
• Improved the text alignment on the UP Resolutions window

Bugs

• Fixed custom ship style sets having the wrong strategic icons. Players will have to re-save their ship style sets (and change the effect ships classes to what they want along with their text, since that is info that is saved off). Prevents players from having to remake the ship style sets and only deal with what was changed
• You can no longer assign commanders to planets
• Ships with "one per player" components can upgrade to ships with the same components
• Cleaned up code that clears/applies rebellion status to prevent edge cases where planets can flip when they shouldn't (like when the tile is owned by a commonwealth of the planet owner)
• Addressed a MP crash related to mismatched DLC
• Fixed mismatched strategic icons on some ship classes
• Fixed typos in "Plasma Arc" event

Mod fixes

• Ships created with mods now show up correctly
• Prevents crash if a tech unlocks more than 12 things at once (modders -- you know who you are!)

Retribution

• Fixed issue where Hypergates didn't fire any shots during battle because they didn't have range
• Changed the Hyperlane tool tip to account for the minimum move cost, so it will now show the max bonus as 900% instead of +-100%
• Removed extra space in the Korath faction description
• Added "lossless life support" back into the Retribution tech tree
• Updated Thalan conversation text to reflect that they bring in multiple ships now in mission 4
• Add basic Block Hulls to Korath Ship style

Ironclad Games and Stardock are happy to announce the release of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion version 1.94 today on Steam and GOG. This newest update includes a number of fixes, improvements and enhancements for modders. For a full change log, see https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/493485

The epic space RPG, Star Control: Origins, is due to receive the second part of its 4 part expansion, Earth Rising, soon. Return of the Lexites presents the player with their most dangerous challenge yet -- a post-singularity species whose motives are a mystery.

The Lexites are impeding Earth's efforts to expand into known space. But why? Playing as the Captain of Earth's first interstellar starship, you will find yourself visiting new worlds, engaging in combat against strange new ships while trying to unravel the mysterious plans of the post-humans who left Earth.

"Because Star Control is a non-linear RPG, the Earth Rising expansion series doesn't require you to have completed the main story-line," said Brad Wardell, designer of Star Control: Origins. "As we release each part to the expansion, players get to experience an ever richer sandbox to explore."

Star Control: Origins - Earth Rising is $19.99. Part 1, Aftermath, is available now. Part 2: Return of The Lexites will release this spring. Part 3 arrives this summer, with the conclusion due this fall.

Get the Earth Rising Expansion Now:  Buy from Steam  |  Buy from Stardock

To get Star Control: Origins visit www.starcontrol.com, you can also get it on Steam.

Screenshots:

The Lexites have their own set of ships that you'll get to see first hand.

Of course the Tywom dress up like humans. Because: OF COURSE THEY DO.

New weapons and other goodies come with part 2 that you can experience in battle.

Encounter with a group of Lexites.

To learn more, visit www.starcontrol.com
Contact: press@stardock.com

Earth's first colony is under attack by an unknown enemy

Communications to Earth's first interstellar colony in Proxima Centauri have gone dark. In response, Earth has dispatched the Carpathia to investigate. Upon arrival, they find a colony under siege. Your mission, save the colony from these strange alien invaders.

Set in the Ashes of the Singularity universe, Siege of Centauri puts the player in command of the defense of Earth's first colony that is under attack by endless waves of alien invaders.

Seemingly unconcerned with self-preservation, the invaders are focused on annihilating the colony. Fortunately, the Carpathia has come with a host of defensive structures that it can drop from orbit to save the colony.

As the Commander of the Carpathia, you must determine the best strategy to defend the colony against the tens of thousands of alien machines that are approaching the colony. Each victory against the enemy expands the colony to a new part of the planet which is met by an increasing aggression by the enemy.

"We first got the idea for Siege during the development of Ashes of the Singularity," said Derek Paxton, General Manager of Stardock Entertainment. "With the engine's ability to handle tens of thousands of units, could we design the ultimate tower defense game?"

Siege of Centauri incorporates classic features from the tower defense genre and combines it with the unique features and capabilities first seen in Ashes of the Singularity.

"With our engine, there were so many new gameplay elements we could add," said Paxton. "For instance, our engine supports hundreds of simultaneous light sources allowing us to design interesting choices for players when it comes to map vision. Similarly, by supporting so many units, we can make defense choices in different situations much more compelling as there is a big difference between choosing a weapon that eliminates one unit at a time versus one that is designed to take out hundreds at a time."

Early Access, with a list price of $10, is coming soon, so keep an eye out on our website and the forums for more information.

Visit www.siegeofcentauri.com for more information.

Note: Ashes of the Singularity Lifetime Founders will receive Siege of Centauri for free.