Recent reviews by hamilmac

If you loved Banished, you'll love this game. It is a very relaxing city builder, perfect to bleed off stress from real life. For early access, the game is very stable. Didn't crash once. If you've played city builders, the mechanics are fairly easy to learn, though the water physics takes some getting used to. Several unexpected floods. I wish the wind physics were dynamic like the water physics. Doesn't matter where you place windmills. Maybe the devs will fix this. And, yes, you can kill beavers with explosives.

The District mechanic also takes some getting used to. I don't hate it like some reviewers, but I didn't love it at first. I preferred Banished's mechanic of using market places as distribution hubs and population centers, with the sims being able to go anywhere on the map to work or move resources. Districts require a level of micromanagement that becomes a bit tedious later in the game with many Districts. Not a deal breaker, though. The AI is fairly sound, though there are rare times when trade routes don't seem to work. Haven't figured out if I'm doing something wrong or there is a distance limit.

The music is nice and unobtrusive. The graphics are good. All in all, glad I bought it.

If you love 4x games, you'll love Galactic Civilizations III. I'll mention what, for me, makes this game great:

* A wicked AI. Seriously. I prefer to play 4x games solo. I need a good AI to keep me challenged and interested. On the Challenging difficulty setting, the AI expanded at about the same rate I did (sometimes a little faster), kept up with me technologically and economically, even sent warships ahead of its colony ships to clear out pirates so it could colonize worlds before I could. It designed its warships to counter the strength of my warships (since we shared a border). It understood the threat when I moved warships close to its border, which affected our diplomatic relations. And so much more.

* The Ship Designer. No other 4x game (or other game that I know of) gives you so much freedom and control in designing your own ships (if you want to; it has a basic template of ships if you don't). From a palette of basic ship parts, combined with powerful design and even animation tools, you can create awesome looking ships that actually work and fight in the game. Yes, weapon, defense, and other components matter in the game and can mean the difference between defeat and victory, but designing my own ships and seeing them in the game is just SO COOL. I even created a warship that looked like a mythical dragon.

* Custom civilizations. Powerful but simple menus allow you to create your own civilizations quickly, providing many different traits, behaviors, and strategy options. Ten opponents not enough? Make 20 more! Each of them different. You can even play sandbox games as one of your custom civilizations (which I do).

* Modding. This game is designed with modders in mind. Don't like something about the game? Change it! There is hardly any gameplay aspect of this game you cannot mess with.

* Insane map. I like big maps and I cannot lie. Okay, not everyone enjoys really big maps with thousands of stars. But if you do, the insane map is for you. (Beware that management of your empire can take awhile on a map like this.)

There's lots more and I highly recommend this game. And, Stardock has committed to supporting this game for years to come. As good as the game is now, it's going to get even better.