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As it says in the tin, what are some of your favorite 4X games out there and why?

Oh my there are just too many.

I really like Civ 5 because it's really well refined and I think that the 1 unit per tile system gives it a nice tactical feel with the combat.

I like the total war series (shogun 2) because is has a real micro feel where you can know the traits and quirks of your generals (and other units too).

galactic civ 2 is one of the best space 4x games. It's very well refined and not overly complex like a lot of 4x games are. The only problem I have with it is that the custom ships are kind of lacking in mechanical options.

There are a few contenders, such as the aforementioned Civ V, but in the end I always come back to the same legend.



The relaxing music, suitable imagery, the intuitive interface (not too shallow, not too bloated), and last but not least the customisation options (designing empires and their militaries = fun) simply combine for a perfect mixture that is rightfully still widely regarded as a gold standard, at the very least as far as space is concerned.

What was the old Star Wars one, circa 98ish?
Used to adore that.

 Ratius wrote:
What was the old Star Wars one, circa 98ish?
Used to adore that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Rebellion ?

Yes spot on, Supremacy it was called on UK/Ire release. Top notch!

 Lynata wrote:
There are a few contenders, such as the aforementioned Civ V, but in the end I always come back to the same legend.


The relaxing music, suitable imagery, the intuitive interface (not too shallow, not too bloated), and last but not least the customisation options (designing empires and their militaries = fun) simply combine for a perfect mixture that is rightfully still widely regarded as a gold standard, at the very least as far as space is concerned.

Oddly, I didn't care much for that one. I loved the original, though, and it's still quite possibly my favorite 4X game.

I don't like moo. I ended up playing that one basically last after playing all it's copycats and I just didn't find it too fun. I didn't like how the tech tree made you pick between techs and I didn't like the space map.

nomotog wrote:
I don't like moo. I ended up playing that one basically last after playing all it's copycats and I just didn't find it too fun. I didn't like how the tech tree made you pick between techs and I didn't like the space map.

When you talk about picking techs, are you talking about the ability to pick which branch of the tech tree to go down? That's standard across most 4X games, and MOO followed that pattern.

Or are you talking about MOO2's "pick one of three technologies, and you can't go back and develop the others later on" implementation of technological advancement?

Probably Galcivs and Civ:BE. IF you're looking for old classics, Civ2 was the best civ game until Civ5's expansions and Civ:BE.

Europa Universalis.

Love those games.

I tried to like it, but I dont' know, could never get in to EU.

Eumerin wrote:

nomotog wrote:
I don't like moo. I ended up playing that one basically last after playing all it's copycats and I just didn't find it too fun. I didn't like how the tech tree made you pick between techs and I didn't like the space map.

When you talk about picking techs, are you talking about the ability to pick which branch of the tech tree to go down? That's standard across most 4X games, and MOO followed that pattern.

Or are you talking about MOO2's "pick one of three technologies, and you can't go back and develop the others later on" implementation of technological advancement?

About moo2's pick one and only one deal. It bugged me and also the way it was shown made it a little hard to plot out a tech tree path.

'Endless Space' is pretty good. It's a good game to play on the wait for Gal Civ 3 when the game is more than half baked being in early access like it is.

galactic civ 3 should be fun. I kind of wish they were doing more with some places, like starbases. I really have to see how they handle combat though. That was one of the big problems I have with GC2. It's also one of the big bonuses too.

 Soladrin wrote:
Europa Universalis.

Love those games.

Europa Universalis is a game that I love that I have never, ever been able to complete. And I've been playing since the first one. I kind of wish they would have kept the Fantasia scenario in the more recent ones.

For me, the Age of Wonders games have been my favorites for a long while. I'm still sad they don't have playable Frostlings in 3, though.

Sins of a Solar Empire.

Civ 3. Spent days upon days on that game. Still play it today.

Master of Orion 2. Again, spent heaps of time playing it and still play it today.

I find those two games are a challenge that modern games simply cannot compare to. Choices have to be made and battles are long, costly and brutal. In Master of Orion 2 taking 8 full star systems is very hard as the enemy are likely to try fight you at every step. Or in CIV 3 when you have 48 cities to invade war is not a fast or realistic option a lot of the time. You end up fighting for set territory or resources.

Endless space is pretty cool. Play that every so often. I find it a bit easy but I havent played it heaps yet.

No other one I have played can compare to those 3.

I cant remember... but Galactic Civilizations is pretty cool too. The ship designing was awesome. But I haven't played that in a long time.

Sins Armada 3, no other contest

Master of orion and Master of Orion 2. Probably my biggest timewasters ever

Then Civ 2 and Civ 4. Civ 4 only because the resources are fun, and denying them to enemies etc.

then GC 2, only because I haven't gotten into the micro-design of ships.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

You will all be nerve stapled for answering poorly.

Probably Space Empires IV. I played a ton of that back in the day. I'm not sure I'd call it the best, you have to do a ton of micromanagement with just about everything. Still if that's your kind of thing it was great fun.

I’ve got Civ V and Sins loaded on the PC now and still play them. Pretty much a fan of the whole Civ line. If Santa doesn’t get me a copy of C:BE, I’m grabbing it the day after Christmas.

I have fond memories of some older Mac titles, specifically Reach for the Stars and Spaceward Ho! (which has an ipad version these days). They did a newer (non-80’s) PC release of RFTS, but it lacked the charm of the original.

 Lynata wrote:

Spoiler:

The relaxing music, suitable imagery, the intuitive interface (not too shallow, not too bloated), and last but not least the customisation options (designing empires and their militaries = fun) simply combine for a perfect mixture that is rightfully still widely regarded as a gold standard, at the very least as far as space is concerned.

MoO2 might possibly be my most played 4x ever. Every time I see a spiritual successor come out, I find it falls short. To be fair, I much prefer TBS to RTS, so with things like Star Drive going RTS they are already down a peg. It is my top sci-fi 4x, bar none.

For me, trying to choose between Heroes of Might and Magic III and Masters of Magic is a Sophie's choice for fantasy 4x. Masters of Magic has that Microprose touch that sold so many of their games. Heroes of Might and Magic III remains, imo, the best iteration of that game series (and heck even its sisters series in King's Bounty).

 Chongara wrote:
Probably Space Empires IV. I played a ton of that back in the day. I'm not sure I'd call it the best, you have to do a ton of micromanagement with just about everything. Still if that's your kind of thing it was great fun.

I loved it too back in the day. You had just crazy amounts of ship customization. The only game I have seen with more customization is star drive. I just haven't played star drive myself.

 toasteroven wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Europa Universalis.

Love those games.

Europa Universalis is a game that I love that I have never, ever been able to complete. And I've been playing since the first one. I kind of wish they would have kept the Fantasia scenario in the more recent ones.

For me, the Age of Wonders games have been my favorites for a long while. I'm still sad they don't have playable Frostlings in 3, though.

Yeah, I hardly ever "finish" a game of EU, I just set out on some goal and will work towards that.

Like creating Germany in the year 1650 from The Hansa.

As for the civ games, they have certainly been getting more polished and refined over time. I've played 2-5 contemporaneously with their main time on the stage, and you can really see the extra thought and effort that goes into each successive game. The hex battle system of civ V is particularly superb...

... but. As they've gotten more refined, they've also gotten more bloated and more... sane? Which is another way to say that they've gotten, if I'm honest, less fun. Civ V especially often feels like I have to play the game for two hours before I can finally start playing the game. The beginning is just SO slow, and they make you jump through SO many hoops before your civilization is capable of supporting an army big enough to start seriously tromping around with. By the time you get to king difficulty, it's not really a 4x game, so much as an exercise in careful budgeting and accounting in which there is an occasional skirmish and someone gets declared winner almost by default.

Which is why, for the series, I'd pick Civ III. Most of the horrid wonkiness of II was thrown out, but it hadn't yet taken on IV's uber-complexity, which meant it was fast and lightweight. I also hate how the scope has decreased since III. III was all about huge global armies smashing into each other to capture dozens of cities in vast wars. Civ IV and especially V feel more like sumo matches where you spend most of your time posturing and then send a few units to try and take one city and then the war is over because conquering that city made your entire economy go to gak.

Fast, simple, and manic, Civ III was just more fun.

As for space games, I played Endless Space for awhile, and I was hugely impressed with it. Clever science, wonderful ship fighting cinematics. Very nice...

... but. It crashed half the time it loaded those cinematics, and occasionally when I was just tooling around on the map. Neurotically saving every 30 seconds completely killed what would otherwise have been a truly phenomenal game. In a way, it's the ETW of the 4x world. Something that's huge and wonderful, and you want to experience, if only you actually could, but shoddy software engineering swings in and ruins it at the last moment.

Which means for the space-themed ones, I guess I'd have to swim with the minnows with MoO2.

For my dark horse candidate, I'd put in Age of Empires III. Yes, yes, I know it's an RTS, but it's an RTS that plays like a 4x. A combination of slow pace (for an RTS), huge tech tree, and the way they handle resource generation through buildings and peasants is reminiscent of the genre.

 Ailaros wrote:
an exercise in careful budgeting and accounting in which there is an occasional skirmish

So a 4X game, then.

 Melissia wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
an exercise in careful budgeting and accounting in which there is an occasional skirmish

So a 4X game, then.

Does “occasional skirmish” qualify for the exterminate part of "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate” of 4X, or are we down to a 3X game if you aren’t crushing someone under you boot heel as a major part of the game?

Just because you have the option not to exterminate doesn't mean that it's not a major aspect of the game. War is a pretty big aspect of Civ5. Most people don't play total warmongers, but it's immanently possible to.