"Our goal with this expansion pack was not just to add new content to Galactic Civilizations but add in the kinds of features and tools that would give the game, as a whole, a new lease on replayability," said Brad Wardell, Designer of Galactic Civilizations at Stardock. "What we wanted to do is ensure that the game had a long term lifespan by enabling the fans of the game themselves to extend the game on their own. That said, we also wanted to add in a host of new features and content that had been asked for by players."
Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy provides these additions:
- Two new major alien civilizations with their own artificial intelligence engines.
- A new campaign called "The Altarian Prophecy" that explores the history of one of the major alien civilizations.
- A Map editor that allows players to design their own custom maps. Previously Galactic Civilizations used randomly generated maps each game. Now players will be able to load maps and create their own.
- A scenario editor that enables players to create specific game environments. For example, players can create scenarios that begin the game with players on teams. Previously, Galactic Civilizations only supported "free for all" starts. The scenario editor also allows players to tweak the various game rules and settings, triggers to generate custom winning conditions, and much more.
- A Campaign editor allows users to create a set of games that are linked together to tell a story. "The Altarian Prophecy" is the included campaign that takes players deep into the Galactic Civilizations mythos to give the back story about the alien civilization, Altarian Republic.
- Dozens of new technologies, ships, planetary improvements, game tweaks, game setup options, and more.
All in all, the expansion pack will include hundreds of new features and improvements that will enable players to extend their game playing enjoyment of Galactic Civilizations.
Galactic Civilizations was released last year and has won several Editor's Choice Awards including ones from Computer Gaming World and Computer Games Magazine. It has been recommended as a top turn based strategy by PC Gamer, Gamespot, Gamespy, Games Domain, amongst others.
Galactic Civilizations is still available at many retail outlets and is also available directly from GalCiv.com for $39.95. The expansion pack, Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy, has an introductory price of $19.95 and can be purchased on CD or via electronic download. A retail version of the game should be available later this summer along with a bundle of the original game and the expansion pack to be titled "Galactic Civilizations Gold".
Players can pre-order it now at http://www.galciv.com/purchase.asp.