There are plenty of options for ship customization

May 21, 2015 22:01 GMT  ·  By

In an ideal world, I would be ready to spend hours in the Ship Designer feature of Galactic Civilizations III, seeking interesting ways to make all the units I am seeking to produce fit the theme of the particular customized faction I have created for a campaign.

The development team at Stardock has done a good job when it comes to the development of the feature, allowing players to combine hulls, components and cosmetic elements in a large variety of ways.

Unfortunately, it takes time to first understand exactly how to use the Ship Designer and to then test out all the possibilities that it creates, something that a modern gamer who is interested in turn-based strategy probably does not have in abundance.

It would have been a good idea to launch that feature of Galactic Civilizations III before the game arrived in order to give fans something to do while they waited, at the same time making sure that ship creation did not get in the way of galaxy domination.

But the Ship Designer offers more evidence that the new Stardock experience is all about customization and that the team in charge of its creation made sure that all aspects of the game were open to the choices of gamers.

Galactic Civilizations III combat is a small disappointment

The problem with the Ship designer is that, while beautiful, the vessels that move across the galaxy are not the stars of the strategy title.

This is in part because combat is not in the hands of the player, who can only choose between getting results relatively quickly and watching the space ballet of fleets (beautiful at times) without being able to make meaningful choices to influence the results.

The fact that the focus is never on the actual combat is a good thing for Galactic Civilizations III because it tends to encourage players to see war as just another tool they can use to progress and make their faction more powerful, rather than the focus of the experience.

In my mind, the perfect science fiction-themed strategy experience is a mix between what Stardock delivered when it comes to management and civilization development and the combat mechanics that Sins of a Solar Empire introduced.

Such an experience might be unmanageable and too complex for its own good, but I would love to see a developer take some risks and try to create it.

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