Dev Journal #109: Day & Night NEW

The Phalenoids Advance are a Civilization of light loving moth-like creatures adapted to a world split into many month-long day and night cycles, and today we’re going to take a close look at their game mechanics to see how they play.

As always in GalCiv IV, you can play them pretty much however you like, and you can even alter their Civilization Traits and Abilities here in the “Customize your Civilization” screen to make them play more like evil Drengin, or money-grubbing Iridia if you prefer!

Genocidal moths? Knock yourself out! There are endless options here and you can really go to town customising your own Phalenoids to play however you you want.

That reminder aside though, let’s look at how the Phalenoid Advance are set up as a Core Civilization, and how their unique Civilizations Abilities and their traits go toward informing their playstyle.

Played with their Core Civ rules though, the Phalenoids are a Civilization made up of fundamentally good and well-meaning creatures, characterised by their intense delight in meeting new sentient life out in the galaxy. Their Civilization Ability Hopeful represents this, and Citizens in the Phalenoid Advance’s dreams of a peaceful galaxy keep them working hard when the going gets tough around them. The diplomats of other galactic powers pick up on this optimistic outlook too, and can be persuaded into signing deals they might not normally agree to. In game terms, this means you’ll get more out of diplomatic trade with rival Civilizations and this helps support a more peaceful style of play.

However, the Phalenoids have access to a rather dramatic and unique Civilization Ability in Nocturnal. Every 15 months, the Phalenoid Advance will enter a new cycle. Each of these two Seasons grant the Phalenoid Advance a significant boost to two Planetary Output values on all their planets.

During the Season of Waking, your Core Worlds improve, with more Citizen Growth and industrial projects springing up. In the Season of Dreaming, you’ll get more Research done and your borders will grow out from your Culture production assets more quickly.

This gives the Phalenoid Advance a certain ebb and flow to their game. As if often the case with Galactic Civilizations IV, you’ll notice the effect of this more or less at various times of the game. If you’ve got neighbors with borders pushing aggressively into you, you’ll be grateful for the Season of Dreaming, but you’ll also notice the relative lack of Manufacturing and Citizen Growth, when you might want that extra economy to find other, less peaceful solutions to the problem.

I’ve found that the Phalenoid Advance really want to lean into these cycles as much as possible. The Season of Waking can be leveraged to build a Galactic Wonder before your opponents do. Set your Civ Focus to Manufacturing to get even more of industrial power out of your Civilization. And if you’re not in immediate need of construction projects or Ship building on your Core Worlds in the Season of Dreaming, set the Civ Focus to Research, and set your shipyards to construct Research Missions and beat your enemies to an expensive, advanced Tech that’ll give you an advantage.

The natural inquisitive nature of the Phalenoids is well directed into their preferred Ideology, Progressivism. While the Research bonuses gained from the Season of Dreaming are only reaped through 50% of your playthrough, heading into the Progressivism tree can be very rewarding regardless of the Season you’re in. During their night cycle of course, you’ll gain even more benefits from research but efforts here will work regardless of Season. If you can grab the capstone Ideological Trait for Progressivism, Singularity, you’ll be well on your way to victory.

Of course, pressure from the other Civilizations often makes greedy like this play difficult and so you’re going to need to balance things with adequate military development too. One natural benefit of playing such a strong Research faction is that you’re going to get access to some of the best Ship components in the game well before many of your rivals.

The Phalenoids aren’t particularly oriented towards warfare, but they can quickly arm themselves for it very quickly during the Season of Waking particularly, while the Season of Dreaming’s Research push can help you reach those larger and stronger Ships and Components much earlier.

Also, playing the Phalenoids in their trademark friendly manner will bear fruit in Diplomacy too. Positive bonuses quickly stack up as you help your neighbors during the many Events that pop up during the course of play, and the more friends you have in the game, the better you can race for one of the more peaceful victory conditions.

You can keep monsters like the Korath Clan off your back for a while if you have cunning Diplomacy, but you’ll also get better deals from Diplomatic Trades if you keep your other neighbors sweet. You can dominate the game by carefully navigating the various wars and alliances that form around you.

If you do end up in a situation like this, where the Manti are being squashed into a corner by our powerful Influence output and are constantly warring with us to take back their territory, you’re going to have to move towards a war footing and build ships. That will flatten your economic growth curve significantly, and so carefully chosen Trade Routes with the right neighbors will not only boost your Credit production, but strengthens diplomatic ties even further: while the Phalenoid Advance’s advanced Ships can often fight more than one enemy at once, many of the other Civilizations have Abilities that make them very dangerous in war and so you’ll generally want to keep yourself to just one conflict at a time.

Building your diplomatic bonuses up through Research goes hand in hand with a strong Influence game, as you need good Diplomacy if you’re going to steal enemy territory and not have constant warfare. The Manti here are close to entering Rebellion with several Core Worlds, and since they’re incredibly difficult to kill in their own borders, defeating them culturally is a sound option. Building your Diplomacy bonuses high can delay a declaration of war until it’s too late for your victim to do much about it.

Phalenoid Citizens are interesting too. They get even more Approval bonuses from sharing a world with Citizens of other Species. Conquering other worlds and sending your moths off to live there can quickly negate the Approval penalty you get for such aggressive behavior, and if you find some other way of gaining other Citizen Species into your Civilization, they can make up for their relative fragility without penalty.

Research and keeping your Citizens happy will not be a problem as the Phalenoid Advance but they do have one downside as a Species.

Invasions are not easy as the Phalenoids though: while not overtly pacifistic, they are not strong.

Your Influence output may put you at war with a neighbor you’d rather not be at war with, and so you must prepare for this. You don’t have to invade to take Colonies and Core Worlds from an enemy, waiting instead to peace out and then let your borders and Culture do the job for you, but sometimes you don’t have time, or a War of Annihilation is declared on you.

Then, your Phalenoid Soldiers are going to have to get their hands dirty, and because their Resolve is generally low you’ll be aiming for Techs like Stellar Marines and Killbots to help their rather weedy abilities at planetary assault.

The Phalenoid Advance are a fun Civilization to play if you want to lean towards a more peaceful style of play but you like to have a mailed fist hidden inside that velvet glove, and depending on how you have set your game up, you’re going to get a lot of fun out of them as you decide who is on the receiving end of your friendship and who gets the nasty end of some of the most high tech weaponry the galaxy has ever seen!

If you’ve played these guys and have any hints or tips on how to get the most out of them, leave a comment below!

Cheers!