It is impossible to overstate the value significance of the new planetary management elements. The number of new strategy elements this creates is really staggering. Espionage is often overlooked in Galactic Civilizations because it has a very narrow scope of use, but if you happen to have put some time into it you could find out that your neighbor has made heavy investments into a border planet and turned it into a massive research facility but is currently poorly guarded. Zooming out you can see that a defensive force could be on the way but won’t arrive for many turns, if at all, you can decide that the time is ripe to strike. Launching an assault force you can take over the planet and its resources and rob your opponent of not only a valuable planet but all of the time and resources they put in to building it up.

When it comes to the significance of a new feature, the planetary features has a rival, custom vessels. This ability is a showcase for the capabilities of the graphics engine and like the other major new feature, the creation of custom star ships has a massive impact on strategy and gameplay. As you progress through the various stages and branches of research, a constant stream of abilities, enhancements to your empire are made available as well as a plethora of new ship elements are now at your fingertips. New hulls, lasers, particle beams, missile batteries, sensor arrays, shields, armor, engines and even and array of specialty items can be combined to create new vessels to suit any need or whim. Each faction begins with a minimum of three standard ships, Scout, Constructor and Colony Ship. Each ship contains modules specific for mission capabilities and the default ships simply contain the most generic modules. Each element of a custom ship schematic affects both the cost and construction time of the vessel. Hull size is the most significant factor, as you might imagine, since it not only takes significantly more time and resources to construct but it is also the basis for the number of modules you can install on each hull. Obviously a Tiny class hull would not be able to have as many engine modules installed as the Huge class hull. There are a number of factors that impact ship building, researching advancements in particle weapons creates more powerful weapons that are somewhat smaller and cheaper to produce. But more subtle technologies such as Miniaturization can actually have a far more significant impact. This particular tech reduces the size of every module, which in turn allows for an overall increase in total space available.

The most interesting aspect of custom ship building is in the creativity that can be used when constructing a vessel. Obvious trends will still emerge with someone creating an optimal design for creating a flying gun from the Tiny class hull or piling on the hardware and turning a Huge class hull into a Dreadnaught. My experimentations in ship design yielded some really interesting results. In one test I use the largest hull at my disposal and loaded it up with engines, life support and sensors. The thing had a ridiculous speed and range. Combined with the massive sensors, this crate just tore up the map. My guess is that it was ten times more efficient than my best scout, basically revealing three times as much map area in half the time it would take three of my scouts. It goes without saying that every design choice has a consequence as well as a benefit. Sure my UberScout vessel could open the secrets of the galaxy before my eyes, but it could also be destroyed by a Toddler with a potato gun and a nasty diaper rash.

This does not mean that Galactic Civilizations is perfection incarnate, but its current beta state is significantly advanced enough that I would still give it my strongest "buy it now" recommendation. The only really issue I would like to see addressed is some just some basic gameplay balance. The economy seems out of balance and much too difficult to get a solid foundation started let alone generating some serious profits and some of the technology branches do not appear to have appropriate research times. Basic technologies take more time than I thought they should and some of the advanced techs were very quick to research and provided significant enhancements. Believe me when I say that I am quibbling over truly minor issues.

Look for the Dreadlords to invade your space this February.