The Iconians never saw it coming. Their great creation, the Yor, turned on them the moment they gained sentience. Manipulated by the Dread Lords, the Yor proceeded to systematically wipe out the entirety of the Iconian homeworld, leaving nothing but charred corpses and barren wastelands in their wake. Since that day, whether through further instructions from the Dread Lords or by their own cold and logical calculations, the Yor have become aggressively xenophobic. Disgusted by ...
Who doesn't love dinosaurs? ...If you've got your hand up, put it down and run away - this isn't the article for you. I love dinosaurs and all things adjacent to them, so when I came across an article yesterday that detailed the life and death of a male mastodon from about 13,200 years ago I had to pause to give it a read. Researchers studied the chemical composition of its tusks and were able to determine that the mastodon grew up in the Great Lakes area and made annual trips to a mating ...
One of the cornerstones of the Galactic Civilizations series has always been customization. From specifying the size of your map and the density of planets, to crafting custom vessels, to creating your own complete civilizations, the game has something for everyone. Creating a custom civilization is easy with the Civilization Builder! I’m going to walk you through the steps and the options - there are lots! - that you have when you decide to try it out. Getti...
More than 20 types of amino acids were detected in samples of an asteroid brought to Earth in December of 2020, according to Japan's education ministry. The Japan Times reported that this detection is the first evidence that amino acids exist on asteroids in space and could hold the key to understanding how such vital organic molecules arrived on Earth. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected the samples from an asteroid called Ryugu. JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) landed a probe on ...
Trade is what makes the galaxy go ‘round - that’s what the members of the Corporate Sector believe, anyway. Their happiness and satisfaction is intrinsically tied to the amount of credits in their coffers; the more, the better. The Corporate Sector is ruled by a number of multi-planet corporations with a singular goal in mind: make money. Clearly, the adage “more money, more problems” doesn’t concern them in the slightest. To this end, when you pl...
You've heard of art forgeries, you probably remember forging a parent's signature on a failed test, but... PC video game forgeries? That's different. Or, perhaps it's not so unlike art forgery (though certainly much less lucrative). Retro video games that have gone out of print are in high demand from an avid collector base. There's a robust and healthy community, one that was recently shaken when a discovery was made that one of its members had been selling forgeries. Sev...
For this week’s blog, I’m going to introduce you to the Dregin Empire, but I feel like I should be clear on one thing: when they say “nice to meet you,” they mean M-E-A-T . The Drengin are one of the galaxy’s older civilizations and they are famous for their depraved - and disturbingly creative - cruelty. Exceedingly clever and vicious, there are few beings in the galaxy who have met a Drengin and lived to tell the tale. Known for their habit ...
Maybe I've just been living under a rock, but I've never heard the term "demake" before today when I stumbled across an article talking about Portal being on the Nintendo 64. Yes, you read that right - it isn't made to look like the N64, but is actually for the N64. A demake is a video game remake that's on an older platform or converts the game to an older graphical or gameplay style. Valve's Portal game was released on 2007 and is probably the last thing ...
“Morality is a construct, created and enforced by those who are too short-sighted to see more than one possibility.” - Some Xeloxi, probably Perhaps one of the most difficult civilizations to play, The Xeloxi are all about crime - and I mean this literally. They find other civilizations’ systems of laws to be quaint and misguided, as well as incredibly boring - their way of life is much more exciting and profitable, if you know how to exploit it. Outsider...
The idea of being able to explore the 3D environment of a game while still monitoring the progress of a single person is far from a new idea, but research is starting to trend toward making that pipe-dream a reality. Streaming services like Twitch take a single player's rendered view of a game and broadcast it out to thousands of viewers as a 2D video stream, an approach that helps further popularize video games as a spectator sport. The ability for users to change the perspective of the l...
I love Star Wars. If you know me, you're rolling your eyes right now and thinking "well there's a big shocker, Kristy." If you don't know me, you're probably either like "Oh, that's nice," or "NEEERDDDD" - frankly, both sentiments are valid. Prior to the pandemic, I brought in themed treats for May the 4th every year. Each time, I would raise the bar and see if I could top what I did the year previous. I may have gone a bit overboard in doing so this year - but in my def...
Two torsos, nicknamed Helga and Zohar, are bound for the Moon aboard the Orion capsule in order to measure radiation risks for female astronauts for the first time. The mannequins are modeled after the body of an adult woman and one of them is outfitted with a newly developed radiation vest. For the Artemis 1 mission, the un-crewed Orion capsule will travel to the Moon and back in order to test radiation safety and collect data about flight accelerations and vibrations. Artemis 1 is schedul...
One of the most popular features in any of our Galactic Civilizations games is the Ship Designer. Here at Stardock, we believe in supporting modders, and this feature is just one of the ways we do that. My favorite thing about the Ship Designer is that you don’t have to be an artist in order to use it. If you like playing with LEGOs, then this will work out great for you - the pieces snap easily into place, and re-sizing and adjusting is a breeze! When you first open the ...
A proud and long-lived people, the Arceans are one of the oldest races in the galaxy. They are the reason the Terrans gained access to Hyperdrive technology and started an arms war in the first place. In a roundabout way, it could be argued that the Arceans were responsible for their own salvation when the Terran Alliance freed them from the tyranny of the Drengin Empire. The Arceans weren’t left with many assets following their liberation, but they have managed to finally reg...
Get your chuckles and puns out now, friends - we're going to talk about Uranus. A newly released survey from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concludes that a Uranus Orbiter and Probe should be the "highest priority large mission" of this decade. This survey - conducted once every 10 years - is intended to help shape funding and research efforts from now through 2032. The survey calls for a specific spacecraft that will orbit Uranus and map its gravitational...