Classic gameplay is what keeps gamers playing for not just hours, but days and weeks, and Galactic Civilizations (GalCiv) has it in spades and then some. Right from the moment you open up your first in-game menu, you'll realize just how "right" GalCiv's developers have gotten it.

At the first menu, you choose your game options and the type of fledgling space empire you're going to build. You're allowed to customize the name of your empire along with assigning a name to your leader. Your next choice is the political party (system) of your government. There are six political parties to choose from, ranging from the all-aggressive War Party to the "can't we all just get along?" Pacifists Party. Each political party has inherent bonuses that it will apply to your empire, further enriching the gameplay. You can, however, modify your choice even further by shuffling points between categories.

For example, if you're more of a subversive player, you could drop points from influence and use them to boost the espionage rating for your empire. Each point thusly shuffled adds a 10-percent boost to that particular area. One you've put together the political framework of your empire, you need to choose the galaxy size, which directly relates to the likelihood of habitable planets within the galaxy. Your choice in galaxy size runs the gamut from tiny to gigantic allowing for a quick 1-2 hour game or a massive weeks-long campaign.

Now that you have a basic political structure and a home galaxy, your next task is to put together a collection of races, which will be playing against you. All the races are governed by two attributes that you either you or the computer can select. The first racial attribute is the morality of the enemy race. The choices run in the classic RPG vein from Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Good. The morality choice is not superficial and will directly affect gameplay. The second racial attribute is the race's intelligence, which ranges from idiot to genius. If you wish to see how profound a difference this makes, just place one race on "genius" and watch how quickly they tend to assimilate the galaxy. Kudos to Stardock for getting the AI right, as each setting definitely plays to its own ability.

Once your empire is configured, it's time to get down to taking over the galaxy. GalCiv starts out as most games of its genre, setting you out with just a home world, a colony ship and a survey ship. Right off the bat, you'll need to send your colony ship to the planets you wish to claim and use them to build your fledgling empire. While scouring the galaxy for planets, you'll also need to dedicate resources to research, which generates advanced technologies, which in turn help advance your empire. As with just about everything else in GalCiv, the advanced technologies will directly affect gameplay. For example, should you choose to research Communications Theory, you'll soon discover the Universal Translator. The Universal Translator is required for any diplomatic ties to other races.

The main areas of gameplay are the political and economic systems, which are quite detailed. Domestic and foreign policy divide the political system. Your planetary Senate always starts out under the complete control of the political party you chose in the beginning of the game. However, as time passes, your actions can have an adverse effect on the morale of your citizens. They may seek to make their displeasure known during planetary elections in which you could lose control of the senate. If this happens, you lose all the bonuses that came with your party of choice. Now you will have negative modifiers generated by the party that has won the most Senate seats after an election. This can devastate your well-laid plans, especially when you're planning a massive military incursion and the Pacifist Party takes control of the Senate. In the beginning of the game, you're limited to one type of government, but as you continue to play, you'll encounter others and be able to modify yours to fit the style of government you prefer.

Foreign policy is extremely important as each race attempts to spread its influence throughout each sector of the galaxy. Gaining influence in a sector can come from having planets colonized, generating planetary improvements, or having starbases in the sector along with other means. Influence is power, as your civilization's influence will represent how much voting power you will have in the United Planets. The United Planets comes into play after you research diplomacy and is the de facto government of the entire galaxy. If you are invited to join the UP, be forewarned that you have to abide by its laws. If you opt not to join the UP, you will be at a serious economic disadvantage, as no one will establish trade routes with you. Once the UP is formed, it meets every four years. Joining the UP is the way to go if you want to mold the galaxy to your liking, since getting enough UP votes means you can basically make the laws that the galaxy must follow.

Intertwined with, and just as crucial to victory as politics, is the economic system. You can only earn money in three ways: taxes, trade income and tribute. Taxes are handled by the use of two sliders representing the tax rate for your citizens and government expenditures. Your tax rate determines what percentage of income you are taking in from your citizens. Higher taxes obviously equal less-happy citizens. At a certain level you will see your income go down even though you’re raising taxes. This is due to the fact that your populace will either be going bankrupt or hiding their income from you. You need to find a happy medium that gives you the maximum income without sacrificing taxpayer morale.

Trade income is starts rolling in after you’ve completed the required trade research. This enables you to establish trade routes between you and any friendly races. Income increases respective to your current level of trade research. The value of a trade route is determined by its length and age, with longer, more-established routes generating the most income.

The last form of income is derived from tribute paid to or by you. By adjusting a simple slider, you can ensure that you're spending the right amounts of cash to keep your empire alive while also keeping it out of debt. It's important to understand that in GalCiv, there's no such thing as deficit spending, you either have the money or you don't. You'll need to experiment with an economic structure that suits your strategy best at any given time. In GalCiv, you'll find yourself needing to shift your strategy throughout the game if you hope to conquer the galaxy.

All of this fine-grained control may seem a daunting proposition at first, but thanks to the game's interface you'll find it quite enjoyable. GalCiv's interface should be a model for all other 4X space-sims. Whether dealing with domestic or foreign policy, all the data is provided in an accessible format that makes controlling an empire that much easier. While the level of sub-menus may appear overwhelming at first, you'll find they're well designed and quite approachable.

I do wish, however, that the users’ manual were as well done as the interface. With the complexity of the economic and political systems involved, it’s a crime that the manual was such a token effort. It seems to have been given the short shrift with a lack of any useful information about game options or the effects decisions have on gameplay. In fact, the only place to find more in-depth information is at the Galactic Civilizations website. I can't help but think that some bean counter decided it would save tons of cash by printing a minimalist manual with almost illegible black-and-white screenshots. This is a crying shame, as GalCiv deserved better than the cheapest way out in any aspect.

Let's be honest; graphics aren’t usually the strong suit of the turn-based genre, and GalCiv is no exception. The graphics are average at best. That being said, however, all the pertinent menus and tabs are easy to read and well-placed. The in-game movies and cutscenes are reminiscent of those in Civ III or Alpha Centauri and are well done, though they do tend to get repetitive. Ship graphics are outdated, and I wish there would have been more done to differentiate between ship classes such as a battle cruiser and the fighter. The battle graphics are very simplistic and archaic and add very little to the impression that there is indeed a fight going on. Alien racial portraits are nice, but they don't vary to reflect the mood of your opponent. Overall, the graphics are well done and serve their function - no matter how outdated they may seem.

"Functional" seems the most appropriate description for the sounds in GalCiv. After leading off the game with some quality theme music reminiscent of Star Trek, it goes downhill. Sound effects are laughable and limited to the same old explosion sounds and laser-beam effects that have been the staple of the genre for time eternal. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were recycled from some "space sim clipart collection." It's also a shame that there's no voice acting for the alien races, which could have added character and flavor to the diplomatic encounters. The game's soundtrack helps to enhance the mood without being too overwhelming.

With all the play options and diverse game settings, you'll be hard-pressed to play the same game twice. To give the game even greater replay value, Stardock has allowed users the ability to completely modify events, ships, technologies and modules available in the game. There are already quite a few modifications posted by users on the GalCiv website. One of my favorite modded events includes an homage to Star control 2, and I’m sure soon there will be modded Star Trek and Star Wars ships and events. If you're one of those players who like to see how you stand up against everyone else, GalCiv provides an online "ladder" (the MetaVerse), showing the rankings of participating players. Players can also band together to form empires, which keep their own stats. Even though GalCiv is a single player game, the game's website encourages interaction with plenty of downloads, forums and the Metaverse.

Overall

While GalCiv can’t be considered revolutionary or even evolutionary, it is a solid and well-done 4X space-sim that will provide any aspiring galactic emperor with hours and hours of entertainment. All in all, kudos to Stardock and Strategy First for this unexpected yet thoroughly enjoyable time-eater.