I subjugate humanity with a gang of ram-crazy space rabbits

Our author Schuhmann was looking for an alternative to the Steam hits Stellaris and Civilization VI and found what he was looking for: Galactic Civilizations IV is a way to unleash your inner space tyrant and be all cuddly while doing it.

This was my situation:

Resistance is pointless, it will simply be hugged away

This is what’s special about Galactic Civilization IV: Most strategy games take themselves terribly seriously: In Stellaris, killer robots wipe out humanity, in Victoria 3 you get a really bad feeling when you suddenly receive the order to annex Alsace-Lorraine as the German Empire.

In Galactic Civilization IV everything is a little more relaxed: there is an orc race that wants to eat you, but there are also talking trees and somewhat sluggish stone people.

But my favorite breed are the Mimot: They are a gang of rambunctious space rabbits that are roughly based on the “Tribbles” from Star Trek: They are kind of cute, but they multiply like crazy and simply crush everyone else with their mere presence.

In messages to other races, the little wolverines always emphasize what big eyes they have and how cuddly and furry they are, but they also let in the fact that there were once 5 other races with consciousness on their planet that evolved on the planet have remained on track.

In the game, the rampage is noticeable in the fact that the race multiplies quickly and every time you make a ship, you get a second ship for free. As a “compensation”, the people’s ships have 25% fewer hit points.

Furlings are ideal for rapid attacks on humanity

This is my tactic: In every 4x game, there is actually always a “best way” to get to winning ways: it’s like the first step in a zombie apocalypse. Attack your neighbor directly with your knife drawn and take everything he has.

In my game with the Mimot, my neighbor was humanity.

In a match like this from Galactic Civilization IV there are, at least according to my settings, 17 different species in the universe, but at the beginning 2 of them are isolated from the rest in a sector until you explore hyperspace travel at the end of the early game.

My tactic is to first spread my cuddly monsters across the entire sector and quickly research the planetary invasion. Although small colonies can be conquered with attack spaceships, large populated planets can be subjugated on foot, which requires transporters.

In Galactic Civilizations IV, an attack on your defenseless neighbor is only really worth it when you can set up a reasonable attack fleet with transporters.

Going on invasions so early in the game goes against my established urge to build up the economy first: because for the planetary invasions you have to research a number of military things that initially don’t help.

I even suffered a small setback because the 4th planet, which I was only able to colonize after researching new technology, was in a space claimed by humans.

Ultimately, humans were able to take over the planet via “Culture Flip”: My traitor rabbits apparently found it cooler to hang out with humans and be constantly petted and fed than to serve their rightful space tyrant, i.e. me. Wait!

Rabbits simply turn unique special ships into two ships

How did the fight go? The key to victory was a perk in the game’s “Culture Tree” that allowed me to expand a starship fleet from an initial 10 units to 18. Blessed with 2 relatively strong starting planets, I was able to set up four fleets of 18: 2 of them with troop transports full of space rabbits.

The remaining ships in my fleet were lightly armed starting ships and special ships that you get when you put leaders in the cockpit.

I also received special ships that you unlock through events: In the game logic, these are unique mercenary ships that you unlock through special events.

The nasty advantage of the cuddly monsters: Because you “have to build” these ships, you always receive 2 copies of these particularly powerful unique items.

Ultimately, humanity had no resistance to my furry attack and Earth, Mars and the remaining colonies quickly became mine.

The last world of humanity, trapped between stone monsters and space rabbits

But humanity was not yet completely wiped out: they had seized a world in the neighboring sector via hyperspace and were already involved in a war with the stone people living there.

So I, furry as I am, made peace with the subjugated humans, collected another 1000 credits as a victory bonus and watched my subjects settle the new worlds they had just conquered.

Then I prepare my next attack, on the last remaining world of humanity and my new friends, the stone creatures.

Galactic Civilizations is coming to Steam in a new version in October

Is the game also on Steam? Galactic Civilizations IV was originally released in April 2022 on the Epic Game Stores and not on Steam. In a new “Supernova” edition, the game came to Steam as an early access title in April 2023. The full version of this version is scheduled to be released on October 19th.

A week before, on October 12th, Star Trek Infinite will hit Steam:

“Shut up, Wesley” – New strategy game for Steam sounds like every Star Trek fan’s dream