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Design your own civ and spy on its enemies in Galactic Civilization III’s biggest expansion yet

Galactic Civilizations III Crusade

Galactic Civilizations III is about to get its biggest-ever expansion. Crusade will add three features that fans have been hankering after for a while: interactive planetary invasions, espionage and a deeper economic system.

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Here’s a short list of features promised with Crusade:

  • Interactive invasions:when invading a planet, players will take citizens that have been trained as soldiers and battle it out across its surface. Invaders can choose where to land and defenders will choose where to resist.
  • Galactic citizens: the player’s agency within their civilisation is now expressed through their citizens. Citizens are created every several turns and can be directed into various specialisations, either to boost your civilisation globally or to enhance a specific planet.
  • Espionage: citizens can be trained as spies, and used to attack rivals from behind the scenes. You can use spies to destroy planetary improvements, steal technology, or assassinate enemy agents.
  • Civilisation builder:you can now design your own unique civilisation, right down to the ships it uses – you can build your own custom ships or download any of more than 12,000 that are available on the Steam Workshop.

“Our focus with Crusade has been to create a much deeper yet more approachable space strategy game,” says lead designer Paul Boyer. “At the heart of your civilisation are your citizens. What you do with your citizens, whether that be training them to be scientists, engineers, farmers, soldiers, diplomats, merchants and where you send them will determine how your civilization evolves.”

Galactic Civilizations III Crusade - civilisation builder

For a closer look at the new features, developers Stardock say they’ll be offering sneak peeks of Crusade via a weekly developer diary on their community site. The first is up now.

Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade is due for release in spring this year.