Are you ready for the machine uprising? The Yor have arrived in 4X game Galactic Civilizations IV, and they take a dim view of all organic, squishy life. Originally created by an ancient race, they were given sentience by one of the universe’s most notorious bad guys – the Dread Lords – and turned against their former masters. Now they want to purge the galaxy of other forms of life, and you can help them with this noble endeavor by taking them for a spin in the alpha build.
The Yor have a number of primary strengths. As sentient machines, their population doesn’t need food. On the downside, this also means there’s no natural population growth through reproduction – the Yor instead manufacture more citizens, although not until they’ve researched the right technology.
They also have some handy traits when it comes to the colonization game. They can settle a wider range of planets due to not caring as much about habitability (their starting world is barren), and they have the ‘Adaptable’ racial trait, which lets them colonize worlds that would normally require the ‘extreme colonization’ tech. But this doesn’t mean that the Yor can inhabit every world in the game – certain planets, such as Ocean worlds, will still require the right tech. Machines and water don’t really mix, after all.
Between the wider range of colonization options and the potential to use executive orders to tide you over until you can create Yor more freely, you can spread your mechanical reach faster than many other empires.
You’ll need to find decent colonies early, because one drawback of the Yor is that their capital world – the desolate, ruined homeworld of their former masters – lacks specialized hexes for getting those crucial yield boosts. There’s a research spot and a couple of wealth spots, but the rest is barren. You’ll need to make the most of adjacency bonuses, as well as boost yields by finding the richest colonies. Beyond that, founding a second, more bountiful core world should also be a priority.
The Yor are on a noble quest to save the galaxy from the burden of living
There’s more to the Yor that’s worth keeping in mind. Their other racial trait is ‘Unwavering’, which makes Yor planets harder to ‘culture flip’ via influence, so you shouldn’t have to worry as much about settling closer to other empires. Machines have no need for blue jeans or pop music, after all. This trait also allows access to the ‘unbroken spirit’ line of technologies.
Being sentient machines hell bent on eradicating all organic life is a lonely existence – for some reason, it doesn’t tend to make you many friends. You can treat with other races, but much like the Festron, you’ll have to work that much harder for a favourable outcome.
You can accept foreign citizens into your empire, and given the range of early events and survey objects you’ll come across, you may find yourself with free colonists from time to time. Just remember that these (un)willing converts will actually need food, so neglecting food production outright isn’t a long-term strategy – not until you’re ready to enact the Permanent Life Adjustment initiative. We’ll leave you to imagine what that might entail.
To assist the Yor in their noble quest to save the galaxy from the burden that is life, they have their own array of seven unique command ships:
- Endless Zeros: Boosts a fleet’s hit points
- Echoing Void: Boosts a fleet’s movement points
- Suffering Within: Boosts the beam attack of a fleet
- Before Creation: Boosts the missile attack of a fleet
- After Death: Boosts the fleet’s defenses
- Infinite Resolve: Boosts the kinetic attack of a fleet
- The Nameless: Dramatically boosts the repair rate of a fleet
Generally speaking, none of these ships are particularly strong in isolation. However, given the Yor’s potential for high production yields, they will act as excellent support vessels for the vast armadas you’ll be able to build. You’ll just need to make sure they’re in the right fleet at the right time.
A final word on the Yor themselves. Individually, Yor citizens tend to have weaker stats than the denizens of other empires, but over the long term the Yor can get access to special technologies that allow them to upgrade or otherwise augment their citizens, greatly enhancing their abilities.
Galactic Civilizations IV Galactic Civilizations IV £30.99 Pre-order Network N earns affiliate commission from qualifying sales.
The Yor are back in town, and there’s plenty of life out there that needs liberating (from existence). Pre-order Galactic Civilizations IV today and you’ll be given access to the alpha build so you can try them for yourself.
{“schema”:{“page”:{“content”:{“headline”:”‘We are the Yor(g)’ – Galactic Civilizations IVu2019s menacing machines have arrived”,”type”:”promoted”,”category”:”galactic-civilizations-4″},”user”:{“loginstatus”:false},”game”:{“publisher”:”Stardock Entertainment”,”genre”:”Strategy Gamer”,”title”:”Galactic Civilizations IV”,”genres”:[“Strategy Gamer”,”Simulation”,”Early Access”]}}}}