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Game
Game2023
Galactic Civilizations IV
Developer Stardock Entertainment
Galactic Civilizations IV is a 4X turn-based strategy video game developed by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It features standard 4X space gameplay such as colonizing a galaxy, engaging in space combat, and discovering new technology and alien species. As the fourth entry in the Galactic Civilizations series, the game adds an artificial intelligence assistant, a scoring system, and a larger galaxy organized into… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
249 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 6, 2026 · last updated Oct 7, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
61
Fresh
142 positive · 91 negative
95% range 55–67%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 142 | 91 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
16 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
1,893 of 2,623 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 249 · most liked first72,99€ Expansion Pass 2...nope...I'll pass and uninstall... Too much is too much, sorry... Age of Wonders 4 is a better game and the Expansion Pass is 49,99€. Also, AI use should reduce production cost... "The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this: This game used AI to help quickly iterate through designs for some UI elements using our own artwork as a baseline. AI is also used to help translate the game; and is used for the AlienGPT custom species system using…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →-1 "You asked us to leave you a review without really getting the full experience yet, but being routinely frustrated and disappointed by various lag-issues, bugs, or weird illogical conflicts and underdeveloped features." :( The game drags on, barely anything happens, AI does not seem capable of doing anything since their logic got frozen by me placing 4 fighters in front of a hyperlane creating a "blockade", and they simply station a number of their fleets beside them for the *rest of the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hate to post a negative review for any game but this is really feels like a cash grab; a tiny iteration on Gal Civ III with a Gen AI smear over everything, the art direction is inconsistent and the relentless pop ups and events just throw nausea inducing AI slop in your face every ten seconds.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Gotta say the game is good, but I keep running in to what I consider a game ending bug. Ships get stuck in shipyard, planets, starbases and will not eject. Tired of losing hours of time building and training a fleet to have it get stuck. Game has been out too long and bug is too well documented to ignore. So I cannot recommend this game, since they keep rolling out new dlcs without fixing old bugs. Stop trying to take my money for new features when you won't make the features that have…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So I got this 'cause I played galciv2 a while back and it was OK. And this is... OK. Honestly the thing that tips it negative first is the price. You can get much better for this price (or much, much better if you pay a little more for Stellaris or Age of Wonders). The ship building is really dated, these days with the likes of Space Engineers where you can actually fly the things it feels a bit weak sauce. Also you never really get to use any of the systems it's all automated combat,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There seems to be a trend in 4x games of devs adding layers of unrelated systems that all contribute to the ultimate 'number go up' that turns the whole game into spread sheets and math puzzles. I'll confess, heavy micromanagement isn't my thing but I also don't like setting everything to automate as the game tends to just disappear and turns into rattling the end turn button, and here it seems like micromanagement is most of the game. It feels a lot less like making interesting strategic…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Crippled child of stellaris and gc3, with all CRUCIAL mechanics locked behind DLCs. Basic game has 0% content, you saw everything it has if you played your first campaign after tutorial, and devs are trying justify that with "supporting developer team capable of improving the game". So they are selling unprepared and zero content game which will be playable (probably, i dont know how good dlc content is) only with DLCs. It seems lead developer likes Chris Roberts and sucks out money from small…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have played hundreds of hours across Galactic Civilizations 2, 3, and now 4. I was right at the front of the line when the fourth installment originally launched on Epic Games. To the developers' credit, the game has definitely improved in many areas over time through a process of trial and error. Every few months, the itch returns and I find myself jumping back in for a few matches. However, that genuine sense of satisfaction and breakthrough is almost always missing. I constantly find…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is fine mechanically, but the amount of ugly LLM slop is unbearable.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've been a long supporter of Stardock and typically love their design philosophy. I really hope Stardock rethinks slopping up their games with Generative AI. Even if trained internally on their own assets. I thought I could ignore it but it just kills my enthusiasm to even start the game. :-( Maybe I will come back to GalCiv IV at some point but feel more of a pull towards returning to GalCiv 2 or 3 for now. Maybe this is my old man moment where new tech just whizzes past me but things…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Clunky UI, barely anything new compared to previous games and the typical aggressive DLC policy that adds things that sholud've been standard in a game like this. And what is worse, the DLC pricing is simply greedy.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For the massive price of the base game and it's DLCs, together with YouTube reviews I have seen, the actual game was astonishingly underwhelming. I expected more player freedom going into the ship builder. And above it all, to be actually able to SAVE the ship designs. I looked for the so-called "fighter modems" or modules for 2 hours, almost tearing up that after going through the difficult hazzle of trying to make sense of the advanced ship designer from the main menu - where I could not even…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →IMHO, GC II is better. Optimized interface, more simple way to create own design starship, etc. So many years between GCII and GC IV, but so tiny gameplay progress. It's even few steps back ;( Some management is not comfy at all. They should have options for old gameplay like GSII in gameplay menu of GS IV. UPD: please, fix minor bugs, like unplanned end of turn, while i'm building starbase(or upgrade it), or speed up in planet building... Is it bug or feature? - i cant build planet's…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a bit of a tough one. If the game were still in Early Access, I'd give it a thumbs up for potential. But since it already released years ago, it seems like many of the issues are here to stay. Generally this plays like Master of Orion 2, but many things seem a bit off and I found myself struggling to find things it really does *better*. Longer write-up below. Balance issues & design choices I really get an Early Access feel for some of the elements in the game in terms of balance…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The combat is the best it has ever been in a GalCiv game. The races are varied and I like a lot of them, the look and backstory are great, a lot of variation. The game is just boring. Especially the empire building part. Everything takes 50+ turns to create so you build a lot of industrial tiles and now there is no room for anything else and even if there was room, there is nothing interesting to build. Starbases barely do anything, there just isn't much you can do to grow your empire. Maybe…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really want to love this game. I enjoy designing custom ships, the load outs, not the physical shapes. The UI for that is terrible. I also like customizing the pros and cons of your race. I also like the beam and missile attacks outside of combat. Can really make use of them when using hit and runs to take on larger fleets. It is cool to see the computer try and lie about it's military power to bully you into giving them stuff. Like, you just begged me for peace and now you're trying to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game forces you to login to stardock to use multiplayer, but doesn't actually tell you at any point that you need to do this to use multiplayer. Just gives you a tooltip that says connection to steam failed.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lots of reused assets from the last 2 GalCiv games, the newest assets are AI generated. Basic features like the "Create species" button locked behind outrageous DLC
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's "click next turn simulator". Boring and uninspired game, coping and pasting things from other successful games like Endless Space 2 or Stellaris. Weak lore, a lot of bugs in translation due to excessive AI tools involvement during game development for everything, not verified by human. Artwork and 3D graphics are OK, some prerendered cutscenes are very good, but gameplay sucks, it's boring, repetitive and belongs to games from two decades ago. This game is total garbage and I regret…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In reviewing the game, I saw multiple comments that the base game of Gal Civ 4 offered only minor updates to Gal Civ 3. It took me five hours to confirm this and that unfortunately put me beyond the two hour time limit to request a refund. I bought the game at a large discount during the Winter Sale, but still feel like I overpaid.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Disclosure up front: This is my first Gal Civ game. A lot of the negative reviews I've seen seem to be centered on the experience returning/veteran players are having with this game. The consensus seems to generally follow that GC4 is not enough of an advancement on GC3 to justify paying for it if you already have previous entries in the series. I'd like to acknowledge the existence of this consensus opinion and concede that it is not mutually exclusive with anything I've written here.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it is 1 of the better 4X turn based games out there. it has a lot of replay ability. there are different styles of play you can use. each race has its own play style. i have over 100 hours in it and like it and play it. the only thing it needs is more attention given to telling the new player what different means, like military plus 1 or plus 10%. i still have no idea. the other thing that is important is you can make the game as hard or easy as you like. i'm 76 so i do not play the same as 18…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is by far my least favorite of the series. GCIII got better with time so I waited a few years to pick this up. This game starts off really slow. There seems to be far less control over what you can do in almost every screen. I do like some of the additions such as the guy speaking when an event occurs. I also like the new government types. I am going to just keep on putting more hours into GCIII as there is where my time is more spent
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game still feels like an unfinished project. It has a clunky UI, where simple functions are not working, like clicking on a new info to locate the source, but you can't find it. Diplomacy is... well, it really doesn't matter as for some reason every treaty is timed, so you create an alliance, and poof, 50 turns later you are no longer allied. We can call the graphics "retro style" if we want to be kind. Although the series has a history of (somewhat dumb) galactic events, here we only have…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am perplexed by the studio's seeming inability to build upon their legacy, particularly given their three decades of experience within the gaming industry. The fourth installment in this esteemed series falls short of expectations, offering little more than a superficial graphical update. In comparison to its predecessors, particularly Galactic Civilizations III, this title exhibits a marked decline in quality. I must confess, even at a price as low as four dollars, I was not prepared for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I enjoyed playing this game and checking out the new AI features, I was impressed by the improvements to the in game AI as patches were dropped, the fact I played it for almost 700 hours should attest to that. I took a break from the game, I reinstalled it being curious about how the in game AI decision making had evolved. I go to create a new race and use the AI race generator using a brief description, which was one of the new really cool improvements with this instalment of GC, except the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is all about influence. Nothing else in the game really matters much. Just boost your influence as much as you can and ignore everything else. You will win every time. If you don't the enemy will take over your entire civilization. Conquering your worlds without a fight. Even so, spending every moment boosting and increasing influence, you will still encounter enemies who have triple or quadruple your influence and will take half of your territory before you can counter them…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hell no! I thought after long i give it a try. I was a huge GalCiv II player, 3 was ok. But now, hidding core Game features behind pay walls is a no go. I was willing to pay for the Warlords DLC. But not including at least a basic Species Editor in the main Game is an absolute no go. Not to be able edit the Traits of the existing races is just bad and I certainly don't pay you extra for it. Refund! Why Stardock, why did you fall so deep!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →299 hours played, no sorry only about a 1/3 of that playtime the rest is lag, until they fix this i can not recommend
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've tried and retried to get into this game and I simply don't enjoy it as much as I did Galactic Civ 3. As a primarily solo play focus gamer, I'm more focused on adventure and excitement. Galactic Civ 4 feels too...balanced...and uninteresting (E.g. I preferred the bazaar in Galactic Civ 3...the fact there was only 1 of each ship available often led to a race to acquire the ship one wanted...whereas the new bazaar is simply a marketplace for goods).
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Buy GalCiv 3, this one is a mess. I find it very messy. The UI is all wrong, the mechanics all twisted. The new gameplay is disengaging, boring, the sectors (yes, they can be switched off) are nonsense imho- they make trade impossible until much later in the game. Policies seem to be worthless, tons of OP ships around which can't be dealt with until late, cluttered map. I found nothing that I like, honestly. Citizen management is also confusing, there's lack of cause-effect data. Research is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i would reccomend the high seas for anything stardock related
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not a lot of fun, Gal Civ III was better. The different civs feel almost identical to each other.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's been almost 5 months since I was able to play this multiplayer with my brother. The game desyncs by around turn 6 or 7. Apparently on the discord, it's not an isolated event and developers seem uninterested in fixing this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game. Big tech tree. Combat is automated but the customization is insane. The ship designers is deep. Sectors and hyperlanes fixes the major issue with Gal Civ 3 and created choke points. There are a dizzying amount of civilizations that are very different from each other, different themes, tech trees, fluff and lore, etc. I'm cheap so I recommend buying on sale and only playing it when you can dedicate your neurons to it, this is not a "grab and casually try to play it" at the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In spite of having been in released for over 5 years (it arrived on steam later than other platforms) this game still never found it's stride and, like it's immediate predecesory, is still more of a sandbox game than a fully fleshed out game in it's genre. Even after a few expansions some game systems feel half baked and playstyles limited. If you just want to design a civilisation and some spaceships and can pick this one up cheap you might enjoy goofing around with it though I wouldn't…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →V3.3 is NOT it. Buggy Gameplay that can sometimes break the game. Sounds repeating over and over, pop ups not going away, portraits of leaders randomly popping up outside of the leaders menu. Many things that are supposed to affect your entire empire do nothing instead, it's a mess. The map generator is awful. You will spend hours trying to get a decent start on larger maps because the map will not have planets you can colonize anywhere near your start. Even when setting the map generator…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was hoping for more improvement since the last rendition, and there's some.. but not enough, it still pales in comparison to Endless Space 2 in my opinion. And the 'missions' that it added in are either lame.. reserach a tech I was going to research anyway, or vague and unclear so I don't actuallly know what to do.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it's like all AI. all the "art" is AI. don't support that so the devs know not to include that in the next title
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have close to 1000 hours invested into GalCiv III and I'm honestly blown away by how much better this game is. Even though this is a 4X, it is nice to be able to see immediate results when you do something. This game is also much easier to understand how everything works which helps you know what to do in order to improve your civ. Great job on this game Stardock. I think it is my current favorite of all time. I have not yet experienced any of the DLC (I want to ease in slowly), so keep that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game honestly feels like a massive let down and a cash grab in general.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Obviously made in a hurry, possibly with poor use of AI.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have played several iterations of the Galactic Civilizations game. At the beginning, it was quite innovative, due to the possibility to design and produce spaceships of different classes. As time passed, the game resisted fairly well, but in its most recent versions it starts to pay for its slow pace and not so nice graphcs. So, as it is now, I can recommend it only to people who do not look for a rapid development of the game situations, and are able to dream exciting emotions starting from…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Galactic Civilizations IV Starodck Entertainment. Steam disclosure -y
unlabelledView post →One of the least-inspired 4x games I've ever played. Normally, the "period of discovery" in a new 4x game (where you are finding new content before it repeats or becomes stale) is fairly extensive. Not so, here. The map quickly became very cluttered with various objects that did little to nothing to liven up gameplay after they began repeating. I am not going to get into the use of AI-generated art assets, but I ultimately felt like the game itself was AI-generated given its very generic…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have played all the galciv games but this is the worst. It's so full of bugs and design errors that it's ruins the game. Sure, this is nothing new with games today. But why are there still game breaking bugs in it 2 years after the release? Want to save up artefacts? No can do. Scrolling the artifact list is not working unless you find yourself an old fashioned wheel mouse.... How hard can it be to add a key binding for something as simple as SCROLLING? Want to zoom out from a ship? No can do…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you are going to play it single player only, pretty great. Multiplayer it absolutely falls flat on its face! Desyncs - Check Errors- Check Slow load (And I mean ridiculous initial game load..just can't understand how it past its first test) - Check Did we mention desyncs? - Because it'll desync if you look sideways at it. Lack of fixing any of its multiplayer in the near 3 years its been out? - Check. If they fix multiplayer and actually try. I'll change the review, until then. DO…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This increased my desire to install Galactic Civilizations 3 or 2 or even 1
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to love this game. I've tried real hard (177 hours.) But, I can't. I'm a long time Gal Civ I, II and III player, but this one misses the mark. The game, as implemented by design choices, is simply too chaotic to be called a "strategy" game. There are nodes scattered throughout space, you go investigate them and a random event happens. If you do not investigate these nodes, you will lose because your opponents will investigate them. But the random events are... random, and most…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Galactic Civilizations IV’s depth is its greatest strength" Its not deep. It's actually kinda shallow. Makes me appreciate Stellaris more. For the price tag, pass on it. Get it on sale if you want like 25 hours of fun but nothing new after that.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Galactic Civilizations IV is a map game
unlabelledView post →Feels dumbed down from the previous game. Maybe this makes sense in the end game, but the range of customization and control has been limited.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Although I've played the previous games in the series, and I particularly liked 2 and 3, this one could one day be my favourite. A few things have been streamlined compared to earlier games in the series. Even in the late game, it feels like it's quick and painless to get through a turn, with prompt buttons in the bottom right taking you to the unit or screen which needs your attention. The game runs pretty well. It does demand a lot of RAM if you want to play on larger maps. The ship…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I only play multiplayer, and this game is hamstringed for multiplayer. 3 is a better game. If single player is your jam, skip this review. The multiplayer maps are limited to very small maps (small, medium, binary sectors) in a game whose selling point to me was that there would be huge map with a bunch of sectors to explore and exploit. I figured this would give me a couple battle phases where in 3 I only really got one. Well if you want less than half the map with less opponents maybe that's…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've been playing 4x since the original Sid Meier's Civilization. Played pretty much every one and enjoyed them. I came to this one because I like to play games after their launch and shake down cruise and the Holiday sale. Gal Civ 4 feels like, "What if we did Civ in space? Instead of land to upgrade, you can build starbases between planets." So it's great; it's a highly polished version (4th generation) of Civilization in space. A better tech tree, AI, more customizable units, more…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ever since Microprose released Masters of Orion, there were only few games making the top of the mountain with GC taking its rightful place among those. GC IV is as good as all the previous versions. Can't complain.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is just okay. It is basically Galactic Civilizations 2 with more bugs. The game feels like it is still in early access. The ship designer is absolutely terrible too.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Multiplayer is very broken. Played 5 games, never got to finished even one. Every game would desync after 30-40hrs of play. Worst.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I realised game is using over 90% GPU at all times, other than when in main menu, no matter what , if anything, is happening. It's gotten to the point that it stop or stutter a youtube video i have in the background. Ridiculous.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Seemed similar to Endless Space 2 or Stellaris. But so far the Tutorial missions seem bugged, quests repetitive or bugged (planet with 54 pollution was getting "new plague emerged" event every month for 10 months in a row),... Will update later if I decide to give it another try. Update: Definitely don't recommend. Playing as Cosmic contaminat. Getting "Super bacteria" event 4 months in-game. Event that tell me my elderly are in danger from bacteria. Elderly in a race of irradiated…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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