Since its full release in May last year, Galactic Civilizations III’s developers Stardock have been hard at work on its first expansion, Mercenaries. It’s out now, adding a new campaign, new factions, new ships, and a new marketplace to the sprawling turn-based 4X strategy game. In the latter, you can shop for beefy, brawny mercs who’ll do your bidding for the right price.
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The addition of the Galactic Bazaar is the centre point of Galactic Civilizations III’s Mercenaries update, where you can fight with other players to enlist the services of the best rogues-for-hire within a shared talent pool. Interestingly, once a unit is hired and assigned to a certain player, that unit becomes unavailable to everyone else. And it’s not all about terror and testosterone either – mercs can also be used to conduct other duties on your behalf, such as research.
Two new factions come with the expansion – the Torians and Arceans – both of which offer unique abilities and skills. The new campaign is shaped around freeing the Torians from their Drengin oppressors, so as to “rebuild your shattered empire from the ground up and thrive in the face of adversity.”
There’s a host of new ships too, some of which can be seen in this here Civilizations III: Mercenaries release trailer:
Patch 1.6 for the Galactic Civilizations III base game is also out now, bringing forth a host of tweaks, balances, UI and visual changes. Full patch notes can be found over on the game’s site.