I'm writing this review because of the lack of any objective or relevant review on the steam store(At the time of writing). This was my first time playing, so i have no nostalgia toward the game. I was pleasantly suprised by this two decades old gem of a game.

Its your classic 4x with a strong yet very campy narrative. It has space and ground combat (rts-mechanics), both are quite quirky and i would not recommend you buy it for that. Its strenght is the planetary management and immersion(compared to other 4x). By immersion i mean how you start of as a small time sector commander, en end up becomming the grand admiral of the human empire, all this with dialoges and lot of cinematics. I felt a lot more engaged with my planets/empire then I do in other 4x.

One big negative could be the punishing nature of the game, certain event happen at certain times and if you are not prepared you will lose, and the game will not hint at these events. So if you want to be prepared i would advice you to google for a walkthrough, those could also help with explaining some of the more "complex" mechanics.

A technical side note: This game is run with dosbox, and the default settings as they where for me are not recommended. My advice would be to set the cpu cycle at 35k, and not leave it on its default settings. That way you have a good speed during combat, but not to slow fade transitions between screens. (Alt + Enter > Cpu > Set Cycles) If these instruction confuse now, they will make sense when you play the game.

You can add about another 150hrs to that total from the early 2000s when I played a massive game conquering every single planet due to me not realising I was meant to unite all the races in an alliance against the Dargslan lol.

Imperium Galactica 1, the first amazing 3 in 1 game (Master of Orion, Sim City and C&C/Dune style gameplays) that started it all. Well okay, not quite for me as admittedly I didn’t play it until after playing its sequel IG2! However that didn’t make me love it any less, in fact there are parts of IG1 that I love even more than IG2.

For instance in IG1 you are located on the bridge of your command ship and the games various screens (galaxy view, planet view, research, production & diplomacy) are all accessed via different panels on your bridge. Even cooler is that you can get up out of your command chair and walk around your ship visiting your quarters or the local bar to talk to your crew (usually to further the games story) and as you’re promoted through the ranks you are given bigger and better battleships to command and explore. The only game to recreate this experience since that I can think of was the brilliant Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty campaign where I used to spend just as much time exploring the ship & talking to people in the bar as I did playing the actual missions lol, I just love that level of immersion.

Other highlights in IG1 are the cool unique alien buildings each race gets (they’re all human looking in IG2 sadly) and a nice day/night cycle for all your planets that make all your buildings & roads turn on lights in the dark. There are also many cool Star Wars & Babylon 5 inspired custscenes of huge fleet battles and impressive landing sequences (Scorpion 4 base is my favourite vid) during the games campaign story that up the immersion even further.

IG1 is set in a distant future where after years of civil war and alien aggression the human empire is falling apart and is vulnerable to a new suer powerful alien invader. You must expand the empire again, research new technologies and form alliances with other empires to defeat the Dargslan threat.

IG1 was quite popular when it came out however it was punished for some of its shortcomings such as its large cumbersome interface, no Master of Orion style sandbox/skirmish multiplayer mode outside of the main campaign spoiling replayability and finally like many RTS games of the time the spaceship and tank pathfinding was terrible with units tripping over each other endlessly!

Fortunately the game was still utterly brilliant and all of these issues have since been fixed in the brilliant fan made remake OpenIG. I strongly recommend you check it out!

I've created a Imperium Galactica Legacy Website[blakessanctum.x10.mx] that tributes IG and looks at the most similar games out there if that's of interest to anyone. But nothing really comes close to IG as it truly is a one of kind hybrid series.

If anyone is interested in the OpenIG Imperium Galactica 1 HD Remake I've made videos of it here:
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CZvTDW9bNI
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROE_td7mWQY

I've also made some videos showing off THQ Nordics updated HD release of IG2 here:
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGouCiy95_Y
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcfRSnE7jHM

I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoyed a simpler time in RTS gaming where the art style was great, the controls/mehanics easy to pick up and the gameplay fun. For the price it's a great buy that will give you hours of fun.

This is an all-time favorite of mine. I squealed like a happy pig when i saw it on steam. (so prepare for a biased review)

If you love space 4x games, i would say this is the ultimate game.

The pathfinding is not very good, and combat is almost more about battling the controls, more then the enemy. But winning a battle, not losing a single ship against a big enemy fleet still feels really good.

planning out, and bulding in the correct order, and developing your planets correctly, makes a huge difference, and makes all the micro-managing very rewarding.

A big minus is that in my (so far) 7 hours, i've had one crash. so remember to save from time to time.


Good story, awesome cutscenes, 4x perfection.

A classic RTS game from 90s. So old that is was DOS based. It had many great features that other games lacked.

Imperium Galactica has both the combat and resource management elements. Which grow in complexity as the in game campaign story develops.

As good as it is. I can't recommend the steam version. As there is a new fan based version that uses all the original game files. With developer approval. Save your money for Imperium Galactica II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CZvTDW9bNI

One of the better classics of its time brought to you by guys who made Reunion and later went to do Nexus: Jupiter Incident. This game combines 4X well, but might be slow to pick up pace at start. In a way its good because it introduces diffrent mechanics step by step.
Its kind of sad that Hegemony Legions of Iron did not have the same charm this one and 2nd game have.

The 4X space strategy in which you can actually build on the planets, in RTS/SimCity style. And even kinda visit your flagship bridge.
If only any modern game could do that. Every other 4x space game disappoints me when it comes to planetary development.

The story progression in the 4X game is quite an interesting experiment, but this is the element I don't miss in today's games because in this genre it's not really fitting - you want full freedom, without the strict order of objectives.

Picked this game up years ago in a grand union grocery store, didn't understand it all because it was quite in depth, years later i found it again on steam, and boy let me tell you, its leagues ahead of some of these 4x games nowadays, what an amazing game, so much to do, manage and alter. Fantastic game for anyone looking to sink hours and hours into campaigns.

This game is at least as good as you remember, quite possibly better. If you enjoyed playing it back in the late 90-ies, I'm sure you'll be eager to pour some more hours into it.

Note though that the game feels quite hard, even on normal difficulty. Not sure, if it's just me, but perhaps games in those days made a special emphasis on creating a challenge and not as much expanding the custumer base.

Don't get me wrong, the game is not without flaws. For example the interface is a bit wierd, as you have to go to equipment screen first in order to access production. That is, if your're using mouse. It took me a while to figure out the keyboard shortcuts F1 - F12. Or figuring out a wierd <<>> symbol on research screen is actually a button to increase or decrease research funding, not to mention you have to keep it pressed for about 2 minutes if you want to max out funding on the more expensive items. Also the script that controls tank movement is a bit clunky, as the vehicles reroute automatically if their path is blocked. This means they wont follow a path one behind the other, but wiggle left and right reaching destination in large gaps between them, leaving enemy fortifications able to snipe your tanks one by one.

Regardless of this, the game is awesome and it's not just the nostalgia talking. Or maybe it is, IDK. It certainly brought back good memories.

if you have any problems like freezing or choppy audio, use the following dosbox settings
ems=false
memsize=64
output=ddraw
core=dynamic
cycles=40000

works perfectly for me