GalCiv3 has come a long way since release. It has added governments, mercenaries, citizens, thousands of free to download ships and factions to play as and more tools to manage your growing empire. I sat down to play some today with the 3.8 patch and decided to have some fun.

One of the new features in 3.8 is the Galactic Ascension Status. So I wanted to play a game where I pursued an Ascension victory. I picked the Altarian's since they get a boost from Precursor Artifacts, I set my universe to Huge with 20 other factions in it and divided us up onto 7 teams with 3 members on each team so I would have some allies to deal with. I also increased the amount of Precursor Artifacts and Ascension Crystals in the universe to make fighting for them more interesting.

I like playing with teams in GC3. It means that even from turn 1 I already have allies out there.

I have an Echoing Heartstone artifact n my homeworld. If I upgrade it I can unlock charges I can use to dramatically boost the influence on a planet. That will be very helpful since it is going to be a crowded galaxy with 21 factions on a huge map. My strategy is all set, explore the galaxy, find artifacts and ascension crystals and lock them down before other players get to them. Help my allies when needed and try to avoid war.

I've always loved the look of the Altarian ships. And my plan was going well until I encountered this planet:

A class 12 planet, but I need Xeno Adaption to be able to colonize it. In most games this wouldn't cause me to abandon my strategy, but in a galaxy with 21 other factions (and I didn't boost the default amount of habitable planets) a class 12 planet is gold. So I abandon teching towards Ascendancy upgrades and switch to Planetary techs (so I can get to Xeno Adapation before someone else grabs the planet.

My plan works and I pick up some extra planets and start a Galactic Government. I tend to be benevolent, my planets aren't overcrowded and my people have low expectations so my approval remains high and my people like me.

But focusing on planets means that other players beginning to grab all those Ascension Crystals. And here we see the new UI that makes this all very apparent.

The Iconians have already claimed 5 and the Mu'Kay are 654 turns away form an Ascension victory if they do nothing else between now and then (and they will do things to increase that rate). I'm going to need to start some wars either trade, culture or military if I want to turn this around.

Wish me luck!