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Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova lets you AI-generate your own civs

As Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova releases on Steam, the space 4X strategy game unveils its ChatGPT AI-driven tool to create your own civs from scratch.

Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova - an orange alien blob creature with numerous large eyes and thick tentacles spread across its fleshy body

Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova introduces a new AI-driven tool to let you generate custom civs from scratch in the space 4X game. The Galactic Civilizations 4 revamp is out now and also marks the long-awaited GalCiv 4 release on Steam after a year-long period of exclusivity to the Epic Games store. Alongside the return of series superweapon the Terror Star, new starship combat, and an improved diplomacy system, Supernova also promises you a powerful way to quickly create unique civilizations of your very own.

Supernova is a stand-alone game that builds on the base GalCiv 4 in numerous ways, but one of its most distinctive offerings is a system that developer Stardock calls ‘AlienGPT.’ This tool, powered by OpenAI’s hugely popular ChatGPT technology, allows players to input a short text description of a potential civilization and generate a playable faction completely from scratch using the chatbot’s large language model.

“The use of cutting-edge AI technology [that] allows players to generate entire civilizations that look and feel unique with just a few lines of text has us particularly excited,” Stardock CEO Brad Wardell remarks of the new feature. In addition to this, an AI art model that has been “trained on decades of Stardock’s alien art” will craft custom graphics for you that should feel in-keeping with the in-house style of Galactic Civilizations.

Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova - civ creation screen showing a faction called the "Stellar Paragons" and their various traits and details

AI certainly comes with plenty of caveats, such as its occasional unerring confidence in delivering factually incorrect responses, or the way its “creativity” leans entirely on the works it has been trained on. But implementations such AlienGPT show how such tools can be used in more fun, innovative directions that, in this example, innovate upon the developer-crafted core game of GalCiv 4.

Elsewhere, there’s plenty more new additions included in the Supernova upgrade, which include the return of a weapon of mass destruction from past games in the series that lets you destroy a star system in Galactic Civilizations 4.

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Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova release date on Steam and Epic

Galactic Civilizations 4 Supernova is out now in early access. Players who own the original Galactic Civilizations 4 on the Epic Store can upgrade to Supernova at a discounted price, or you can buy the game as a standalone release on either Steam or Epic.

If that’s still not enough to sate your need for interstellar discovery, take a look at the best space games on PC and keep a watchful eye on the Starfield release date for more ways to explore the stars. We’ve also picked out the best strategy games in 2023 for those of you that love the rewards of careful consideration and planning.