
Dev Journal
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #21 - What to do about Space Bugs in Battle
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #21 - Pretty vs. mechanically satisfying space battles Forget realistic space battles. In a real space battle, the ships would be incredibly far apart and only missile weapons that are flying at relativistic speeds would matter. So putting that aside, let’s talk about the challenge of making space battles look pretty. The Mechanics We want kinetic weapons (guns), direct energy weapons (beam weapons) and payload weapons (missiles) to have very different ran... [read more]

News
GalCiv IV: Supernova v1.55 Early Access Update
v1.55 - Introducing New Features and Major Balance Overhauls Greetings! We're excited to announce the release of GalCiv IV: Supernova v1.55, a significant step forward. This update brings a collection of new features, key balance changes, and improvements that will transform your intergalactic adventures. Here are some of the highlights: Gameplay Overhaul : Expect a major rework of the technology tree, including an entirely new approach to Exotic World colonization, Interstellar cabi... [read more]

Dev Journal
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #20 - How people use AlienGPT
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #20 - How people use AlienGPT The Generative AI feature of Galactic Civilizations IV seems to be the breakout feature so far. To recap: When a player wants to create a custom civilization, they can choose to enter in a short description and then press “Generate”. There are two parts of this. The first part uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT which generates the text and code for describing the civilization as well as quests in the game. The second part uses AI... [read more]

Dev Journal
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #19 - Culture is your Civilization's Character
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #19 - Culture is your Civilization's Character The feedback we got from Beta 1 of GalCiv IV: Supernova was that the Cultural Progression tree was too big and too “soft”. Soft meaning the choices didn’t have meaningful consequences. We read all the feedback and used it to rethink the concept of culture in a 4X game. Here’s what we’ve come up with. Culture vs. Influence Influence affects how far your borders go from your planet. Culture is the input that ... [read more]

Dev Journal
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #18 - Should there be a campaign?
GalCiv IV: Supernova Dev Journal #18 - Should there be a campaign? Sandbox 4X games generally lack a campaign, but that changed with GalCiv III, which introduced one. Over the past 30 years, a wealth of lore has been created for the GalCiv universe. I started writing the lore that would come to be used for GalCiv when I was in college which is when I wrote the first game. The question remains: should we include a campaign in the base game or offer it as DLC? Each GalCiv game has been gui... [read more]

News
Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova v1.51 is Now Available
GalCiv IV: Supernova v1.51 brings big updates: improved visuals, new gameplay settings, unlocked civs and much more. View the full changelog here Get into Early Access: Steam | Epic Additional Custom Civ Portrait Options Users can now select "More Images" until they get the image they want (based on the description of your civ) . Previously, to get more potential race images to choose from, you had to regenerate the entire civilization. Because ... [read more]

Dev Journal
GalCiv IV: Supernova - Experiments we're trying
Greetings! In recent years, "Early Access" has meant "Game is basically done but with bugs". And while it's true that the engine for this game is pretty "done" we are trying to take advantage of early access to try out a lot of crazy new things to get your ideas and feedback on. GalCiv IV: Supernova is being developed by the GalCiv II team and so some of the changes the team wants to make are things that come from the things we really liked in GalCiv II but in a GalCiv IV game. Some of ... [read more]