Galactic Civilizations III (PC Digital Download) Expired

Galactic Civilizations III is made by Stardock Entertainment. While I had good fun with Galactic Civ I & II, III is an incomplete game. It is possible that Epic is giving us the $100 GalCiv 3 Ultimate Edition, but I suspect this is the base game (demo?) with hopes that people will buy the roughly $130 of DLC. The Prices lifted from Steam page for GalCiv3 [steampowered.com].
Okay, chances are we're getting the version that Steam sells for $40, with the Mega Events DLC and the Crusade and Retribution Expansions. Shame on you if you were an early adopter on Steam - you don't have those $44 of DLC, which is probably why the recent rating of the game is Mixed.


Stardock Entertainment has had a few bumps in the road over the last decade:

They made Impulse (in 2008), a direct competitor to Steam. It did not gain enough traction for them, and they eventually sold it to GameStop.

GameStop subsequently rebranded it, crapped on it, set it on fire, and then slammed it into the ground, similar to what they did to Babbage's, Electronics Boutique and the used console game market.

Digital sales were the fuel that MS/Sony/Nintendo threw on GameStop's dumpster fire of used sales - a whole $5 off retail for buyers, while sellers were limited 1/4 to 1/6 of retail for store credit. Oh, and the whole selling used as new because they put some more shrink wrap on it.


They created Elemental: War of Magic - supposedly a Warlords 2 or Master of Magic clone. While the lore was good, the game was very effective at putting me to sleep. It was a seriously good cure for insomnia. Anyway, they felt bad, and gave out the next two expansions (Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes) releases for free. Day one DLC was sold separately. Also, LH includes Stardock Goo DRM, even though it is distributed via Steam.

They had a big fight with ToysForBob over Star Control / The UrQuan Masters. I'm not precisely sure what Stardock thought they were buying; I think Atari? spun it as they had purchased whole series from the remains of Acclaim, but TfB had actively maintained the ownership of everything in the game but the name. Lawyers were involved quickly by Stardock. Ultimately, I believe TfB won the case.

On the plus side, they make some interesting desktop widgets, and sold an inexpensive replacement for the full screen Start Menu for Windows 8 that emulated Windows 7. They've been around since 1991, and in gaming since 2001.

The Stardock CEO (Brad Wardell) is known as FrogBoy online, and he frequents the Stardock forums.

Nice give. A solid 4x game which is more 'relaxing' than 'punishing'. Good soundtrack too.

Base game, yes, but this version is the "new" base game that includes 2-3 game enhancing DLC with it. There are some early adopters on Steam that did not receive the additional DLC, and are stuck with an incomplete game. That's probably why the game has a "mixed" rating there.

Earlier, I mentioned the free game Star Control 2 / The Ur-Quan Masters [sourceforge.net] and did not provide a link. Fixing that now. Keep in mind that it is from the 90s, but the game play holds up today. Pixel graphics, similar to Terraria. Only complaint over SC1 - the ship and captain names are much shorter. I do remember getting an Earthling ship with a captain Kirk in SC1 - they may have had to change Kirk to Pike for SC2.

ProTip: Save early, save often, and use multiple slots. Auto-save can sometimes save precisely when you don't want it to. Also, on the download page, the 3DO music and voices are available. I prefer the MOD music format myself. The 3DO voices are nice to have, though.