In the last developer journal we took a look at the Drath Freehold, a race of ancient dragon-like creatures forcibly removed from their ancient homeworld of Altaria by the Mithrilar, only to be replaced by another new civilization who became known as the Altarians. These philosophically minded blue skinned humanoids bear an uncanny resemblance to the humans of the Terran Alliance and Terran Resistance, and there’s more to their past than meets the eye!
Like several of the other civilizations we’ve examined in this series, the Altarians have the Ancient Civilization Ability and can therefore access the Tower of Procipinee and the Elemental Fabricator.
We’ve seen those before, see this dev-journal, but let’s have a look at the homeworld Event that comes with the Tales of Centauron DLC and the options that it adds to the Altarians' early game.
The Altarians are one of the most influential and cultured of all the galactic civilizations in the game, and are utterly oppressive when it comes to Culture production. The Temple of Enlightenment powerhouses this playstyle and will gear Altaria up with a +25% Influence Growth and +3 Level to Influence Adjacency Level Bonus too. After some much needed balancing, Influence now requires the player to build for that type of playstyle a lot more, and this gives the Altarians much of their bite back when it comes to pushing for a Influence victory.
The second option from this Event is the Arcane Sanctuary, a rather expensive Improvement in terms of Maintenance but providing a huge +3 boost to Social Skills, Intelligence and Diligence. For those players who like to put their Citizens at the front and centre of their civilization’s growth, and like to keep large population numbers, this could be a very powerful strategy for the Altarians.
Diligence and Intelligence will ensure your empire keeps apace of your most productive and enterprising rivals, while the Social Skills boost keeps them happy too. Altaria is Tropical and already has a lot of Approval boosting tiles, ensuring you can keep a large population happy.
I’m sure a canny player can figure out a way to exploit this Improvement and push their civilization’s Research and Manufacturing levels through the roof!
Finally we have the Council of Sages, which provides a flat +1 Research and a flat +2 Level to Research as an Adjacency Level Bonus. This will provide a strong Research centrepiece when surrounded with like Districts and Improvements, and makes for a strong early-game play to push for the later Research tiers and those sweet high-tech goodies they bestow. If you’re not overpopulating Altaria, instead playing with less Citizens and going for Districts and Improvements for your Research instead, this could be a solid choice.
Finally, within the first few turns the Altarians get access to the Empathic Connection Civilization Policy that comes from their Cultural Trait “Empathy”, granting a +15% Approval bonus for free! Approval is one of the most punishing mechanics in GalCiv IV, and for good reason: push your people too hard, and they’re gonna push back by refusing to work or research for you. Any tool that boosts Approval allows you to push your people harder: more taxes, more colonies, more production.
These new tools help the Altarians in pushing their… unique and rather dangerous culture out into big wide galaxy around them very quickly, overwhelming their unwitting foes, who can only watch their own planets join their enemy one by one! Alternatively, you could take the option of playing somewhat tall, with Altaria as the centre of a thriving cottage industry of culture, economics and manufacturing. Or do they grab an early Research boost, rush for some early military technologies and either defend themselves from a scary neighbour, or take another civilization by force?
The Altarians have the power to claim their place in a hostile galaxy, and the way you do it is up to you!