Both of them can be crucial for a faction

May 18, 2015 23:53 GMT  ·  By

My current campaign in Galactic Civilizations III is conducted using the Thalan Contingency, chosen because I want to move away from my patterns of playing either the Humans or a customized race that tends to be close to them in terms of abilities.

In many ways, the first 50 or 100 turns of a campaign are the ones I love the most in a turn-based strategy title, and playing a civilization I have limited experience with makes them even more interesting.

One of the major dilemmas for the center, which I remember from as far back as the original Civilization, is whether to create new colonies, by selling planets or by creating new cities, as quickly as possible or whether to focus on scouting initially to determine which the best spots are.

In Galactic Civilizations III, my first choice is to use all the initial three ships to move around and check out the surrounding space systems for about ten turns and only then use my colony ship to settle somewhere.

I also have a tendency to buy another colony ship immediately after and focus on planet searching and fast expansion for a while, even if that means I need to ignore military build-up for a while.

Starbases are as important as planets in Galactic Civilizations III

For a while, I almost entirely ignored the resources that appeared on the map as my survey ship moved further away from my core planets, even the Ancestor crystals.

After all, they offer advantages in the middle and the late game, and I wanted to get as many planets integrated into my civilization as possible.

Since then, I have seen how powerful they can be when used correctly and my new approach is to consider them very important.

I just love the way a single pragmatic choice when colonizing a planet can allow me to get three customers for free, which is a great way to secure the most appetizing resources quickly and efficiently.

Further down that track, there's also an option to start off new starbases with an extra module delivered per construction ship, which makes them even more valuable in the long term.

The downside of the focus on planets and resources in the early game is that pirates and even other races tend to be more aggressive militarily because I basically have no solid fleets to counter their attacks.

Galactic Civilizations III Images (4 Images)

Galactic Civilization III has a lot of planets
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