Infusing Galactic Civilizations III, its universe, and its people with character and atmosphere is absolutely necessary for it to be the landmark title we intend it to be. It's also much harder to do in a 4X game than in a scripted shooter or RPG; we don't have the luxury of a two-minute cutscene explaining motivations, backstories, or current events. Heck, we don't even have narration or dialogue as it exists in many games. Our task, instead, is to use little snippets of text here and there to augment the art and the music in building a skeleton that players can flesh out with their own stories.

The tools in our toolbox are limited. We have bits of dialogue within diplomacy (and on the main map screen, more on that later) and places like first contact. Each tech you research comes with a little lore blurb that can shed some light on a leader, an empire, or the way the Galactic Civilizations universe works. There are a few other places in the game that we can inject a little flavor, but we keep it minimal so that lore and dialogue and character-building never ever get in the way of playing the game.

For example, tech names can be a lot more interesting and immersive than "Laser 1" "Laser 2" "Laser 3" etc. -- but I did a whole pass on them that I had to scrap because while they were bursting with sci-fi awesomeness, they made the tech tree too hard to read and players had to mouse over everything and read tooltips (have we mentioned that pretty much everything has a tooltip? Because it's 2014, and everything needs a tooltip) to figure out what the heck "Decayed Particle Sensitivity" did.

(For the record, Decayed Particle Sensitivity increased the range of sensor arrays. Duh.)

And, of course, being Galactic Civilizations III means maintaining an overall light-hearted and fun spirit. Terrible things happen in our universe on a disturbingly regular basis (sorry Torians!), but we feel very strongly that our setting should be a fun place to spend your time. This isn't the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but neither is our future a grim darkness in which there is only war a la Warhammer 40,000.

We as developers don't have any authorial control over how a Galactic Civilizations III sandbox plays out. This gives us a mandate to create a framework for players to fill in rather than a traditional narrative like many other games do. Not only that, but we have to avoid being too explicit in our details and explanations of things, because filling in those gaps with your own imagination is where much of the magic of any novel, movie, or game comes from.

This is a challenge for all 4X developers. It's especially tough in sci-fi or fantasy, where you don't have the touchstone of real-world settings, history, or characters to lean on. That's not to say it can't be done -- the gold standard in my mind remains Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (A Brian Reynolds Game). SMAC told the story of a ragtag group of colonists' struggles to survive on an alien world and navigate their relationship with radically advancing technology and mysterious xenobiology. The geniuses behind SMAC accomplished this through strong characterization of the leaders of the various factions and Planet itself, while leaving players free to fill in the details themselves.

To square all these circles, the first step was to create personalities for each of our leaders so that we can develop their voices. This lets us speak through them rather than taking an authorial stance and handing down Truth through an all-knowing narrative voice. These backstories aren't presented in the game (though they may make their way into an in-game encyclopedia of some kind), but are tools for us as writers to hold these characters in our heads as we craft dialogue and other blurbs.

Today I'd like to share with you the backstory of our new faction's leader, High Arbiter Harondin Gaul of the Iridium Corporation. I hope you like it. If not, and should my last duty be to go to the tanks, so be it.

(I can spout SMAC aphorisms all day. But that won't get our alpha release any closer, though it is pretty close.)

(No, I'm not going to give you a date. Q1 2014, same as it ever was! But there's not that much Q1 left...)

* * *

The most successful leader in the ultra-capitalist Iridium Corporation’s history continues to cement his place in history through a surprising virtue: generosity. Far from being a miser or in any way jealous of his immense personal wealth, Harondin Gaul sees riches as another tool to be used in pursuit of one’s goals. The Iridium race believes in recognizing worth and rewarding it, but Gaul’s unusual predisposition toward seeing the value in others has served both Gaul and the Iridium he leads well. Where any Iridium is perfectly willing to pay well for a task well done, masterfully crafted art, or a useful object of any kind, Gaul is more inclined to see the value in the work or possessions of another and to pay generously for it.

Recently elected to his unprecedented third 33-year term as High Arbiter of the Iridium, Gaul’s word is law. He holds the most sacred power in Iridium culture: the ability to enter into binding contracts on behalf of his entire species. Though the Iridium align themselves more closely with their (often hereditary, both in ownership and employment) corporations, Gaul has earned more respect for the High Arbiter’s office through inspired leadership of the common Iridians and by earning the personal loyalty of Iridian elites. Secure in the knowledge that he can always make more money, Gaul’s eagerness to bestow gifts upon his allies has remained constant throughout his life – and earned him new friends every step of the way.

The advent of hyperdrive technology sparked a change in the otherwise almost-predictable Harondin Gaul. Faced with a new and unprecedented vector for expansion, Gaul immediately threw his weight behind a public-awareness campaign designed to whip the Iridium into a frenzy of outward growth. This surprised many, as Gaul had rarely pursued such a crude, overt course in his near-century of leadership.

At 167 years of age, Gaul is nearing the end of the typical Iridian lifespan. He has achieved every goal, conquered every challenge, and vanquished every rival in his long life. He is undoubtedly among the greatest Arbiters ever to rule the Iridium. And yet, might not such an accomplished soul seek to erase any doubts and define his place in history with a blaze of glory rather than a slow fade into irrelevance?

For all his zeal, Gaul suffers from a blindness regarding interstellar war. The Iridium as a whole have a largely peaceful history, and the total warfare that has shaped many other races’ worldviews has no analog in Iridium culture. Gaul is more likely to view an invention or treaty through the lens of peaceful cooperation than conquering or destroying by force – a fact used against him by the more ruthless factions within his advisors.

Harondin Gaul is generous to his friends, magnanimous to his enemies, and kind to all with whom he speaks. He is also unyielding in his zealous safeguarding of the Iridium right to expansion to the limits of their ability – though he may be apologetic in delivering bad news to another being, he feels no regret in making the decision he thinks is most beneficial to the Iridium Corporation’s long-term interests.