Massive Space 4X Strategy Game, Galactic Civilizations IV Version 3.0 Now Available

A year’s worth of feedback, suggestions and general improvements make their way into Stardock’s massive update. 
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Full Changelog Here  |  Buy GalCiv IV Steam, Epic Games Store, or Direct from Stardock

Stardock Entertainment has released the v3.0 Hyperlane Update of its space strategy title, Galactic Civilizations IV. The update introduces major new features such as Hyperlanes, Fleet Supply, a new Map Generation System, updated AI and hundreds of changes based on player feedback over the past year.

“We’ve been pouring through fan feedback for over a year on how to make GalCiv even better,” said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock Entertainment. “We’ve tried to address everything, and then some, of what players wanted like more strategic options, more interesting map generation options, better AI, better late game performance, user interface improvements and a lot more.”

Some of the major updates include:

Hyperlanes. While Galactic Civilizations has free-form map movement of units, Hyperlanes provide direct lines between distant stars allowing for very fast travel between disconnected sections of a sector.

New Map Generation. The map generation system of the game has been remade and now includes new options when setting up a game.

Fleet supply.  To allow for more strategic options during war time, civilizations have a Fleet Supply cap that is increased by technologies and planet improvements to make different starship designs more distinct.

Adaptive AI. At higher difficulty levels, AI can adapt their difficulty if they are losing to ensure a more challenging game.  Moreover, at all difficulty levels, the AI has been significantly improved.

Major UI improvements.  Dozens of updates, big and small have been made to the user interface of the game to streamline player interaction.

Performance overhaul. Maps have been made bigger and more stars in a map are supported to go along with a year-long effort to optimize the game engine’s performance.  This should be particularly noticeable on lower end hardware.

Balance wishlists implemented.  Stardock painstakingly reviewed posts on its forums, Steam, Reddit, third-party forums, etc. on balance suggestions, wishlists, etc. and implemented them after careful review.

Visual Updates. The engine received a major update to intelligently anti-alias ship components with each other on a ship to make starships visually look better on screen.

Better Steam Workshop integration. Players can design and share their ships online. Version 3.0 is more responsive, requires fewer steps and generates higher quality screenshots for modders.

DLC updates. All of the released expansions and DLC for Galactic Civilizations have received updates over the past year to provide additional content and features for those who have them.

The award-winninig Galactic Civilizations series is the oldest actively developed space strategy game series starting with its first beta release in 1993 for IBM’s OS/2 operating system.  

Galactic Civilizations IV is available for purchase at Steam, Epic Games Store, or directly at galciv4.com

Full v3.0 Changelog

Key Features 

• New Gameplay Changes. We have worked on lots of new gameplay features that will introduce the fleet supply, hyperlanes and new map generation. 

• New and Updated UI. We've introduced new UI for players in the Civilization Data and Graph Screens, along with a Civilization Focus and Modding button and an updated War Aims UI. 

• Quality of Life Enhancements. We enhanced some AlienGPT Generation times, AI behaviors and the visuals of the game with the updated anti-aliasing. 

 
v3.0 16 Jun 2025 Hot Patch

UI

• Fixed an issue where strategic icons stayed the same size while zooming out effecting resolution and gameplay performance 

v3.0 12 Jun 2025 Change Log

 AI 

• AI players at higher difficulties adapt if they are losing based on their difficulty level 

• Godlike AI difficulty multipliers have been reduced from 3 to 2 and 5 to 3 

• The Incredible AI economy buff has been increased from 2X to 3X 

• Siege fleets are now considered by AI as a possible initial attack fleet when declaring war 

• Increased AI priorities on key improvements 

• Improved AI ability for technology selection 

• Reduced how often AI will ask for Tribute 

• AI no longer takes diplomatic or difficulty level into consideration when valuing trades with players 

• AI is more likely to demand tribute 

• Increased the likelihood of early game aggression by aggressive Civilizations 

• AI is significantly better at optimizing planets with adjacency bonuses on choosing where to place improvements 

• AI players are more likely to build counterculture starbases to fight culture flipping tactics 

AlienGPT 

• Fixed an issue when players generate an Artificial Custom Civilization and the loading screen will not appear 

• Added a tooltip to the Browse button  

• Added in a notification to sync the Steam Workshop to fix the issue where players are unable to sync downloads 

• Custom factions first encounter messages have increased in variety 

Anti-Aliasing 

• Enhanced the anti-aliasing option to improve the look and appearance of ships and structures in the main map view, Battle Viewer, Ship Designer, Fleet Details Screen and thumbnails 

• The anti-aliasing UI has been changed to an on and off button 

Battle Ratings 

• Adjusted Battle Rating calculations to make them reflect who will win the battle more accurately 

Civilization Achievements 

• “Innovation Complex” is now a Civilization achievement rather than a 1 per planet structure 

Camera Zoom 

• Enhanced the performance of zooming out on a map, especially at galaxy view 

• Maximum camera zoom has increased 

Events 

• Updated Warfare events to support endings where the Civilization isn't the aggressor but is winning the war 

• Reduced maintenance of several event related improvements 

Fleet Supply 

• Added in the new Fleet Supply Stat which is the Total Logistics of your ship 

• If you run out of Fleet Supply, you can’t produce more combat/military ships  

• Fleet Supply is added when a ship is either built or awarded through techs or traded 

• Fleet Supply is taken away when a ship is decommissioned or gifted away 

• New series of improvements and tech unlocks have been added to increase Fleet Supply 

• Fleet Supply has been adjusted so players now start with 250 + 250 more for each map size difference 

Hyperlanes 

• Added in Hyperlanes which allow fast travel through natural occurring lanes that are connected through stars 

• Hyperlanes heavily reduce the movement cost of ships allowing them to travel far distances 

• Once players unlock Subspace Scanning, Hyperlanes will appear once detected 

Gameplay 

• Ship range from various techs has increased  

• Nebulas cost 2X as much to move through as before making them a significant geographical barrier 

• Tech inflation reduced from 3% to 2% 

• Fixed a bug that was causing wars to end even though the player was winning, and the war made the player look like they lost   

• Improved balance with weapon manufacturing costs 

• Fixed an event that spawned AI Civilizations that players are supposed to be at permanent war with, but the AI Civilization asks for peace after spawning. 

• Orbital manufacturing tech given more priority 

• Base Civilization Logistics increased from 10 to 12 

Graphics 

• Fixed the appearance of Subspace Streams in older saves made before v3.0 

Localization 

• Localized new 3.0 features in all available languages 

Map Generation 

• Implemented New Sector Layout and Hyperlane Frequency Sliders 

• Stars now form in clusters within a sector  

• Gigantic galaxies are bigger 

• White stars will have more planets 

• Single sector has been renamed to Standard Mode 

• Added more stars for each Map Generation Setting 

Orbitals 

• “Starship Specifications” policy moved back to “Orbital Manufacturing” tech 

• “Orbital Embassies” now requires “Emissaries” tech 

Planets 

• Mars and Artemis wealth increased from 0 to 1 

• Volcanic world wealth minimum increased from 1 to 4 

• Special resource chance on Volcanic worlds increased from 20% to 30% per tile 

• All world types now have at least a 1% chance of spawning a special resource 

• Radioactive worlds now have a 20% chance of spawning a special resource  

Planetary Improvements 

• Improvements get slightly more expensive to build as the planet gets developed 

• Financial District benefit increased from 3% to 5% 

• Fixed missing description for Planetary Fleet Command improvement 

• Colony Capital maintenance reduced from 4 to 3 

Ship Designer 

• The Ship Designer window will let players change hulls without going into cosmetic mode 

• Ship thumbnails are higher quality 

• Fixed broken tooltips in the ship designer 

Shipyard 

• Fixed a bug where Research Missions can be queued up even when the player has no Promethion 

• UI text now explains ship terms more clearly 

UI 

• Added a new context button to decommission ships that will ask a player for a confirmation and refund credits when decommissioned 

• Fixed missing description for Planetary Fleet Command improvement 

• Added in Nested Trade Resources tooltip to the top of the screen 

• Fixed a bug where the Small UI Turn button disappeared 

• Fixed the Steam Workshop sync button from appearing multiple times and not syncing correctly 

• Adjusted Civilization Focus for Research to effect Planetary Research 

• Added in the new Civilization Data Screen, this screen displays all Civilization bonuses 

• Added in the new Civilization Graph Screen, this screen allows players to select another Civilization and compare their stats to the selected Civilization 

• Added in the new Civilization Focus UI, the UI allows players to select and boost a certain area of focus by 25% 

  • Growth (+25% to population growth) 

  • Economy (+25% to GDP) 

  • Research (+25% to Research) 

  • Military (+25% to Military manufacturing) 

  • Manufacturing (+25% to planetary manufacturing) 

• Improved the War Aims UI to fill up in a certain direction based on if the player is winning or losing the war and is from the perspective of the player 

• Added in a modding button to the main menu that brings the players to the modding website 

• When the game is in full screen the UI will automatically select the best UI size 

• Added in new Splash Screen 

• Fixed a typo in the Strengths and Weaknesses for the Krynn 

• Fixed an issue where AI manufacturing data did not appear in the Timeline screen 

War of Annihilation  

• War of Annihilation now cannot exceed 120 turns in duration 

Workshop 

• Fixed an issue where players were unable to edit and upload their custom ship designs to the Steam Workshop 

V2.96 Change Log 

Version Update 

• Version 2.96 has been incremented to 2.99 and is accessible for players on the new v2.99_legacy Steam branch. The legacy branch can be used if players do not want to update to version 3.0