Greetings!
I was thinking the other day on how Galactic Civilizations has evolved over the years. Let’s take a look:
| Feature | GalCiv OS/2 | GalCiv I | GalCiv II | GalCiv III |
| Core 4X mechanics | x | x | x | x |
| United Planets | x | x | x | x |
| Moral Dilema Events | x | x | x | x |
| Anomalies | | x | x | x |
| Galactic Resources | | x | x | x |
| Galactic Events | | x | x | x |
| Galactic Resources | | x | x | x |
| Starbases | | x | x | x |
| Ship Design | | | x | x |
| Combat Viewer | | | x | x |
| Cultural Conquest | | | x | x |
| Unique Tech Trees per race | | | x | x |
| Asteroid Fields | | | x | x |
| Invasion Tactics | | | x | x |
| Colony Imp. Map | | | x | x |
| Ideology Tree | | | | x |
| Hex Map | | | | x |
| Multiplayer | | | | x |
| United Planet Proposals | | | | x |
| Fleet Combat Decisions | | | | x |
| Technology Specialization | | | | x |
| Nebula & Ion Storms | | | | x |
| Strategic Resources | | | | x |
| Colony Adjacency Bonuses | | | | x |
Not all features are created equally, however. For example, the Starbase addition in GalCiv I was, by far, the biggest change from the OS/2 version.
GalCiv II added the ship designer and meaningful cultural warfare (many of my favorite games were about trying to convert my enemies to my culture via influence).
For GalCiv III, it’s too early to say which features will ultimately be the most game changing. As an AI guy, I think the ideology tree is going to matter a great deal because it’ll heavily affect how diplomacy works in the game. I also think the introduction of strategic resources (i.e. if you have resource X, you get access to using component Y on your ships) could be pretty amazing in what people choose to fight about. Then there’s the fleet combat system which I think people will enjoy a great deal once implemented.
Each new GalCiv expands the features of the game universe more and more. The key, as always, is how these concepts are executed on.