4X What's your top 5 4x games of all time?

[Nutmeg]

What would you guys recommend someone that liked MoO precisely because the planets were heavily abstracted and you didn't have to babysit production lines of individual buildings? Did anything new come out that innovated in that direction?

On my backlog are Armageddon Empires and Solium Infernum (the old one), which are basically board games. That said, I don't know if they should qualify as 4X. The latter especially lacks exploration, and I'm not sure about the former.

 

[Axioms]

I feel like the 4X genre is a solved problem, people are going to mention one of the Civilization games, the first or second Master of Orion, Alpha Centauri and one or two games that are either in the same mould but more obscure or one of the more recent mass simulation efforts that just ups the scale like Distant Worlds, to which I guess garbage like Stellaris sort of counts.

Birth of the Federation is a very cool game that's more or less just Master of Orion in a Star Trek suit. That'd be the one quirk of my list.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but as much as I love Civilization, Alpha Centauri and Master of Orion, are there any innovative games in the genre that don't feel like inferior copies of the originals from the 90's and also don't just ramp up the scale? I always wanted a move more towards a board game experience and less a progression to more detailed and finnicky systems and a larger scope.

What would you guys recommend someone that liked MoO precisely because the planets were heavily abstracted and you didn't have to babysit production lines of individual buildings? Did anything new come out that innovated in that direction?

Ozymandias for Civ stuff. And there's another one I forgot. Not sure as far as space. I know there are some.

Star Dynasties maybe? Has some character stuff but it is very simplified in planet management and combat.

 

[Nutmeg]

Abstracted != simplified.

 

[minakami]

Ozymandias and Slipways are good for a sudoku-like puzzle experience. I like my fast-paced puzzle solitaire over simulationist games these days.

 

[Great Deceiver]

What would you guys recommend someone that liked MoO precisely because the planets were heavily abstracted and you didn't have to babysit production lines of individual buildings? Did anything new come out that innovated in that direction?

On my backlog are Armageddon Empires and Solium Infernum (the old one), which are basically board games. That said, I don't know if they should qualify as 4X. The latter especially lacks exploration, and I'm not sure about the former.

They're not 4x at all, although I really like both of them. The first is a tactical card-driven game and the second is very reminiscent of a boardgame called Republic of Rome; I suspect it was never meant to be played vs. an AI as there's a very human element to it.

 

[Sarathiour]

Republic of Rome

Eh I know about this one, my uncle got it back when he was young, though we never had the luxury of playing it, because it's quite high on the autisme chain. There is an obvious human element to this game, given that one of the central point is the senate debate, and you can't really simulate thus with a computer AI.

 

[v1c70r14]

That said, I don't know if they should qualify as 4X.

I did play Armageddon Empires already and I don't think it does, AE is a great game though and I recommend it enthusiastically. Shame the developer quit the video games industry.

Ozymandias and Slipways are good for a sudoku-like puzzle experience. I like my fast-paced puzzle solitaire over simulationist games these days.

Thank you very much, I'm in the same boat and Ozymandias looks like it could be just what I was hoping for.

 

[Nutmeg]

Random thing came to my mind.

JarlFrank mentioned in one of his posts (either in this thread or some other 4X thread) the 4X-RTS equivalence. i.e. if you take the 4X genre to mean what it says on the tin (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) then almost all RTS games are 4X games. Another thing mentioned by him (and a few others) is the example of Age of Empires in particular as an (early) attempt at a real-time 4X. As another data point, a few years later, actual 4X game designer Brian Reynolds (responsible for Colonization, Civilization 2, and codex favorite Alpha Centauri) would again attempt a real-time 4X and the result was the very Age of Empires-like Rise of Nations.

Well anyway, there was a Nintendo DS game (confusingly) called Age of Empires: Mythologies, which was an attempt to make a turn based Age of Mythology i.e. a turn based take on a real time take on Civilization, completing the circle.

I've not played it, but a quick look on youtube shows that while it probably does qualify as a 4X in the literal sense, the scale is more tactical. That said, the smaller *sense* of scale is really a psychological thing, not a mathematical thing. Mathematically, the scale is no different from maps in MoO. The only place where there might be a measurable difference in mathematical scale is the tech tree (probably not even present in this game), which again lends to my theory that tech tree is an important factor in determining whether a game is a 4X or not.

Anyway thought it might be an intersting game to consider in the discussion, and to play, as it looks quite cool.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

1. Alpha Centauri
2. Master of Magic
3. Civ 2
That's it for me.

 

[JarlFrank]

Ozymandias looks like it could be just what I was hoping for.

I played it - got 62 hours in it, all achievements, have all the DLC maps too.

It's missing one of the most imporant parts of a 4X, that is the first X - there is no exploration, the entire map is revealed at the start and there is no fog of war you can always see what the enemy is doing.
In that way, it is closer to a board game than a regular strategy game, especially with its simplified rules.

But it's fun to play as the different civilizations on each map and attempting a win. Win conditions can be customized or you can just go for world conquest. Terrain types are very important in your strategy, the focus is heavily on the second and third X. It feels very much like "civ lite", nowhere near a proper 4X but a fun game that approximates and condenses the Civ experience. There is quite some strategic depth despite the simplicity.

 

[Anthedon]

Civ IV
Alpha Centauri
Master of Orion II

Places four and five are very debatable, so I'll leave them blank. Civ IV is still an absolute blast to this day, single- or multiplayer. It's unsurpassed in any aspect, by the whole genre, but especially by its successors.

 

[Galdred]

I feel like the 4X genre is a solved problem, people are going to mention one of the Civilization games, the first or second Master of Orion, Alpha Centauri and one or two games that are either in the same mould but more obscure or one of the more recent mass simulation efforts that just ups the scale like Distant Worlds, to which I guess garbage like Stellaris sort of counts.

Birth of the Federation is a very cool game that's more or less just Master of Orion in a Star Trek suit. That'd be the one quirk of my list.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but as much as I love Civilization, Alpha Centauri and Master of Orion, are there any innovative games in the genre that don't feel like inferior copies of the originals from the 90's and also don't just ramp up the scale? I always wanted a move more towards a board game experience and less a progression to more detailed and finnicky systems and a larger scope.

What would you guys recommend someone that liked MoO precisely because the planets were heavily abstracted and you didn't have to babysit production lines of individual buildings? Did anything new come out that innovated in that direction?

Sadly, there is not much. Armada 2526 was even more abstracted, and kind of playable for the AI. Stars in Shadow is a competent hommage, and there are a few remakes I haven't tried.

Random thing came to my mind.

JarlFrank mentioned in one of his posts (either in this thread or some other 4X thread) the 4X-RTS equivalence. i.e. if you take the 4X genre to mean what it says on the tin (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) then almost all RTS games are 4X games. Another thing mentioned by him (and a few others) is the example of Age of Empires in particular as an (early) attempt at a real-time 4X. As another data point, a few years later, actual 4X game designer Brian Reynolds (responsible for Colonization, Civilization 2, and codex favorite Alpha Centauri) would again attempt a real-time 4X and the result was the very Age of Empires-like Rise of Nations.

Well anyway, there was a Nintendo DS game (confusingly) called Age of Empires: Mythologies, which was an attempt to make a turn based Age of Mythology i.e. a turn based take on a real time take on Civilization, completing the circle.

I've not played it, but a quick look on youtube shows that while it probably does qualify as a 4X in the literal sense, the scale is more tactical. That said, the smaller *sense* of scale is really a psychological thing, not a mathematical thing. Mathematically, the scale is no different from maps in MoO. The only place where there might be a measurable difference in mathematical scale is the tech tree (probably not even present in this game), which again lends to my theory that tech tree is an important factor in determining whether a game is a 4X or not.

Anyway thought it might be an intersting game to consider in the discussion, and to play, as it looks quite cool.

RTS do feel closer to 4X than turn based grand strategy games. Actually, after we played the board game Space Empires 4X, which tries to streamlin all 4X elements to make them playable in a board game sessions (that is, a 8+ hours long), we felt like it had a lot in common with a RTS, because RTS too had to heavily streamline individual elements to keep things manageable.

After all, your bases are settlements you create from scratch, and many RTSes have some tech tree (or at least, building tree) that create a similar feeling of progression. Gladius, with its heavy emphasis on combat feels even closer from some RTS than other 4X, despite having all the 4X elements.

Actually, one major difference between most RTS and 4X is the lack of a diplomatic system in RTS (which are usually designed to work with fixed teams if you don't like turtling competitions), while 4X are mostly FFA (except for Gladius, once again, which works much better as a team game).
But even there, many civ tournaments do feature team games anyway (same for Dominions), so you can say that diplomacy is not necessarily a defining 4X element.

 

[JarlFrank]

A curious example is Sins of a Solar Empire, which advertised itself as a bled of RTS and 4X, and indeed has strong similarities to 4X like MoO2 while playing like an RTS.

I haven't played much of it so I can't comment in detail. I probably should.

 

[Catacombs]

With all the Alpha Centauri fans, will there be another play-by-email Codex game anytime soon?

 

[Silva]

I wonder where folks would put these games in a wider, all-strategy ranking. I suspect the 4x would still be on top. It's such a solid formula.

 

[Anthedon]

A curious example is Sins of a Solar Empire, which advertised itself as a bled of RTS and 4X, and indeed has strong similarities to 4X like MoO2 while playing like an RTS.

I haven't played much of it so I can't comment in detail. I probably should.

I remember giving Sins a shot a long while ago. And being very disappointed by the almost complete lack of all things 4X.

 

[Nutmeg]

Yeah my memory of it is as a bad RTS, but I want to give it another chance.