The Terran Alliance have had a tough time in the Galactic Civilizations universe: with the optimism, and some might say naivety, of a new species discovering they were not alone in the galaxy for the very first time, mankind shared their advanced technology “Hyperdrive” with the Arceans. Those precious plans were stolen by Drengin spies and from there, this advanced technology for rapid space travel was sold, hacked or otherwise disseminated to the other races out across the Centauron sector, and beyond.
On the one hand, this one act of benevolence probably caused more death, destruction and misery than any other before it. On the other, it closed the vast gap between the different species of the galaxy and heralded a race for galactic outreach that spurred each civilization on to ever greater heights.
Unfortunately for the Terrans, they were eventually conquered by the Drengin Empire and retreated back to the surface of Earth, protected by an ancient Precursor device that prevented anything from getting in, or from leaving the planet. After finally pushing the Drengin back and waging a dreadful war of vengeance, they were freed to once again chase their own destiny.
Today we’re going to take a look the Terran Alliance and check out some of the features that differentiate them from the other civilizations in the game. Space 4X games tend to have the human faction as the “vanilla” or baseline faction, and while that’s also true to some extent in GalCiv IV (we want new players that tend to gravitate towards playing a familiar race to learn basics of the game without too many unusual mechanics to get in the way), we’ve tried to add a bit more flavor in for them to make them just as fun to play as the other races.
The Terran Alliance start in the Sol system and have access to two potential colonies early on. Both Mars and Artemis have their own colonization event, so you can pick an early game boost and help shape the direction you want to take the Terran Alliance in.
Mars gives you the choice between an early Leader, +1 Minerals or +1 Technology. The Leader can be useful to staff a government position, saving you paying for one yourself and freeing up valuable Credits for rush-building an early Probe or Colony Ship for faster expansion out into the sector, Minerals will help kickstart your industrial development faster, while Technology is a good choice to hit an early research goal sooner.
The Artemis event gives either +10 Culture Points, to advance you quicker along a desired Ideology to grab an early Ideological Trait. Alternatively pick a +3 Cultural Significance and a +10% Approval bonus for Earth, a solid choice which would gradually increase Influence on Earth, spreading its borders faster and keeping its Citizens working harder and faster.
Finally, the +500 Credits has precisely 500 Credits worth of utility, and can be used in all sorts of ways to get the Terran Alliance off to a strong start. Purchasing a competent Leader, rush building a valuable Improvement, trading for a much needed Tech with a neighboring civilization… you get the idea!
The Terran Alliance start with access to the standard set of Improvements: the Industrial Center and the Capital Mainframe, both working as strong centerpieces for your Manufacturing and Research assets respectively.
We don’t need to cover those as you’ve seen them before, but with the Tales of Centauron DLC the Terrans do get access to a homeworld Event that gives yet another choice of three rather powerful Improvements to be placed onto a random hex on Earth.
First up is the Global Wellness Initiative. In previous developer journals we’ve discussed just how important Approval is in keeping your Manufacturing and Research going, and this handy resource grants a +15% Approval bonus right off the bat, with +5% more for each adjacent Approval boosting District or Improvement and an extra Adjacency Level Bonus of +1 Wealth and Approval to those neighboring tiles too.
The Citizens of Earth are going to be happy to be pushed harder and longer towards whatever goal you have: whether that’s increasing their tax burden for more Credits, or keeping your more ideologically possessed Citizens from causing too much unrest, having a high Approval will help you get the best out of your world.
Your second choice is the Civil Stability Corps, this time granting a more modest, but still significant+5% Approval bonus, but this time with an accompanying -10% to Crime, with that reduction increasing by -5% per level of adjacency scored. Furthermore this Improvement will improve adjacent Manufacturing assets a little, and any Military Improvement a lot.
Crime is one of those statistics that can really hurt if it is piled on, and while more Approval might seem like a better overall statistic to boost as it does somewhat mitigate the worst effects of Crime, there will be times when a big Crime reduction will be more effective. Furthermore, if you decide to build Earth as your main Manufacturing world, the adjacency bonuses are likely to be attractive.
On this topic, I’d suggest that while Approval might initially seem like the better option here since it does mitigate some of the worst effects of Crime when it is very high and is a big help to your Manufacturing and Research output, it does give diminishing returns the more you stack it, and the Global Wellness Initiative does give a very big stack of Approval. If you’re playing like the Drengin and your people are very unhappy, this might be the way to go, but even the smaller boost of +5% from the Civil Stability Corps could be enough to support your playstyle, and then the Crime reduction and extra Manufacturing/Military centre could be a better bet.
Finally, the Human Expansion Council option gifts you an Economic Council Improvement, granting a flat +10 Social Skills per Citizen located on Earth, with an additional +1 Social Skills and a +5% Gross Income per attached qualifying District or Improvement. It’ll also boost adjacent assets by a huge +3 Wealth and +1 Military.
The Terran Alliance are geared towards Individualism and if that’s the route you take, this is a strong option to pick: Social Skills will not only allow you to train very effective Entertainers for higher Approval, but will also the Entrepreneur job once you’ve unlocked the Ideological Trait called Private Property Rights.
This is a nice build if you’re planning on hothousing Growth on Earth to pump out a lot of Citizens. With such high Social Skills, you can train a lot of Entrepreneurs and the Entertainers to keep your high, cramped-in population happy too. Now think of the Credits you’re gonna be generating with all those beautiful, shiny golden Wealth Districts surrounding the Economic Council, and all those high Social Skills Entrepreneurs to make use of them?
And that’s not all. The Terran Alliance have yet another Event that comes early in the game, the New Generation Event, which grants you an option of a new Citizen in a Job: do you pick a Solider, a Scientist or an Entertainer? I guess that could depend greatly on your neighbors, or to support the build you’ve picked with your earlier choices, right?
As you can see, the Terrans get a whole lot of options now when it comes to building Earth and its surrounding Colonies, and that means more ways for you to play them.
If you’ve forgotten about the good ol' Terran Alliance, or never played them before, why not give them another spin and see if you can conquer the galaxy in a new way?