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

[Modron]

It's too close to a CRPG, and with too detailed tactical combat, for me to consider it 4X.

Do you disqualify Master of Magic as well?

 

[Nutmeg]

4x is a pretty badly defined genre. JarlFrank came up with a decent heuristic when he said that in a 4x the cities, forts, colonies or whatever are built by the player, as opposed to being predefined provinces like in a grand strategy game. But then what do you do about MoO, where you can think of stars as provinces?

 

[Igge]

4x is a pretty badly defined genre. JarlFrank came up with a decent heuristic when he said that in a 4x the cities, forts, colonies or whatever are built by the player, as opposed to being predefined provinces like in a grand strategy game. But then what do you do about MoO, where you can think of stars as provinces?

Wonder if Warcraft 3 was turn based, would it fit in the 4X genre. All the X components are there.

 

[Gostak]

Open Realms of Stars
Sweet Open Source game, fun as is (has so much possibilities) but you'll quickly want to see the "bot smarts" improving
To me it's a much more enjoyable MOO1/Civ sorta-like
https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/open-realm-of-stars

Emperor of the Fading Suns
Granted have not really played a game of it yet

Remnants of the Precursors
I actually dislike quite some things about this one:
- The few ways (just two) to victory
- The kinda lame: Just-radius-around-your-planets-venturing mostly
- The AI _does_ cheat cf. https://radiopublic.com/explorminate-WJxOeK/s1!1958e (well and if you choose a difficulty that favors 'em)
- The strength of the monsters/ guardian
- Quite limited possibilities in ship design and the limitation on the number of designs (well latter can be excused because streamlining/ less micro-managey is sort of an OK reason)
- prolly a bit more
But at least decent diplomacy and "bot smarts" in that regard.



Things I should check because they got mentioned for 4x with good diplomacy:
"Horizon: depending on your relation, you get more or less options. There's a lot of options once your are very friendly with a race.

Dawn of Andromeda: a very transparent system with lots of options. You clearly see everything that affects your relations.

Master of Orion CtS: similar to the original game but the diplomatic options aren't that good (treaties have to be repeated, they are too expensive). I like the attitudes and discussions of the AI empires though (one of the best).

Armada 2526 for all the reasons that Martok already mentionned ["diplomacy systems where the AI actually behaves somewhat sensibly"] [sic!]"

and Stars in Shadow

 

[Shaki]

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
Alpha Centauri
Stellaris
AOW: Planetfall
Civ IV

 

[Silva]

1. Alpha Centauri
2. Alpha Centauri
3. Alpha Centauri
4. Alpha Centauri
5. Alpha Centauri

Honorable mention: Alpha Centauri

 

[Nutmeg]

Controversial opinion. Alpha Centauri doesn't play very well. It's kind of the Planescape Torment of 4X. People just like it for the lore and atmosphere, and that it has some bells and whistles on top of the Civ2 formula that they don't mind breaks the game because the whole point is that it's a comfy low challenge sandbox in which to soak in the atmosphere.

 

[Shaki]

Controversial opinion. Alpha Centauri doesn't play very well. It's kind of the Planescape Torment of 4X. People just like it for the lore and atmosphere, and that it has some bells and whistles on top of the Civ2 formula that they don't mind breaks the game because the whole point is that it's a comfy low challenge sandbox in which to soak in the atmosphere.

I don't think it's a controversial opinion, SMAC is obviously a storyfag game, but it is a VERY good storyfag game, while still being a decent 4X.

Ultimately, pretty much all 4X's I've ever played are low challenge, with braindead AI. Usually what matters is a good atmosphere/lore to provide motivation for building up your empire, and making factions interesting and different enough that each new playthrough is stimulating your brain, and can provide illusion of challenge for a few hours, while you're figuring out how to abuse your new tools.

 

[Silva]

Someone nerve staple Nutmeg please.


P.S: you clearly never played Thinker mod.

 

[Nutmeg]

Ultimately, pretty much all 4X's I've ever played are low challenge, with braindead AI.

I went through a phase when I kept playing Civ4 on Deity. I was only able to win once out of maybe 5 or 6 games. Deity is very challenging, and it makes every turn, your overall strategy, and especially diplomacy, count. Some people find it restrictive, and it kind of is, but not entirely. I recently watched some spy economy Deity games and there you can see e.g. the player building the Great Wall and other wonders you don't usually see at that difficulty, and which I remember people saying were "unviable" back when I last was playing the game in 2014 or so. It's a very creative, challenging *strategy* game on that level where you really got to have a good plan and make good micro decisions to execute it well, and of course adapt as the whole game is very random.

Immortal is more comfortable and you have a bit more room to maneuver. More things are viable in more games so it can feel better to play, but it's also less challenging.

 

[Silva]

Ok I can see where you're coming from regarding SMAC. It really is on the easy side compared to Civ 4. Try Thinker mod someday though. Makes wonders with it's AI without resorting to cheating. I'm a SMAC vet and can't play higher than default level without getting raped.

But what really put me off the genre these days is the lategame micromanagement. Don't have the patience for intensely allocating production each turn like a drone when your empire is big. Someone cited Nobunaga Ambition above, and while I don't find that series as good as Civs/SMAC overall, one thing they really hit the jackpot is the automation features. Their "governors" are actually competent and liberate the player from the chore that most these games become.

 

[Zarniwoop]

What Max damage said but in reverse.

 

[Nutmeg]

Ok I can see where you're coming from regarding SMAC. It really is on the easy side compared to Civ 4. Try Thinker mod someday though. Makes wonders with it's AI without resorting to cheating. I'm a SMAC vet and can't play higher than default level without getting raped.

But what really put me off the genre these days is the lategame micromanagement. Don't have the patience for intensely allocating production each turn like a drone anymore. Someone cited Nobunaga Ambition above, and while I don't think that series is as good as Civs/SMAC, one thing they really hit the jackpot is it's automation features. Their "governors" are actually competent and liberate the player from the chore that most of these games become lategame.

I have extremely mixed feelings on micro automation after playing MoO3. You are right that the need for it arises from a very common problem in 4x.

Civ games have a hard obsolescence feature for wonders where discovering a tech removes the effects of a wonder for all players. Civ 4 also had soft obsolescence for the whipping mechanic with how another player picking emancipation affects happiness for all players. Furthermore, Civ 4 also did a reasonably good job at evolving the way players dsitribute their population and in the late game it really is a kind of macro choice where you go hammers or stick with commerce, and maybe run a few great people mills. There's very little room for optimization through microing tiles in the late game. But even so, I feel like they could have been more hamfisted and just obsoleted tile management and most buildings with some tech or another, perhaps tied with how many cities you have.

 

[octavius]

Controversial opinion. Alpha Centauri doesn't play very well. It's kind of the Planescape Torment of 4X. People just like it for the lore and atmosphere, and that it has some bells and whistles on top of the Civ2 formula that they don't mind breaks the game because the whole point is that it's a comfy low challenge sandbox in which to soak in the atmosphere.

I like it because the factions are more unbalanced and distinct than in the Civ games.
Still not as unpredictable as MoO, though.

 

[Silva]

Controversial opinion. Alpha Centauri doesn't play very well. It's kind of the Planescape Torment of 4X. People just like it for the lore and atmosphere, and that it has some bells and whistles on top of the Civ2 formula that they don't mind breaks the game because the whole point is that it's a comfy low challenge sandbox in which to soak in the atmosphere.

I like it because the factions are more unbalanced and distinct than in the Civ games.
Still not as unpredictable as MoO, though.

Also, unit workshop and social engineering kicks ass.

 

[Silva]

And can I assume you all play these games in Ironman / with no savescum?

Or you're all faggots that should be banned immediately?

 

[Galdred]

4x is a pretty badly defined genre. JarlFrank came up with a decent heuristic when he said that in a 4x the cities, forts, colonies or whatever are built by the player, as opposed to being predefined provinces like in a grand strategy game. But then what do you do about MoO, where you can think of stars as provinces?

In MOO, the vast majority of planets start empty, and need to be colonized, so it doesn't really go against this definition. Also, the term 4X was created for MOO in the first place, so it'd better qualify!

 

[Nutmeg]

4x is a pretty badly defined genre. JarlFrank came up with a decent heuristic when he said that in a 4x the cities, forts, colonies or whatever are built by the player, as opposed to being predefined provinces like in a grand strategy game. But then what do you do about MoO, where you can think of stars as provinces?

In MOO, the vast majority of planets start empty, and need to be colonized, so it doesn't really go against this definition. Also, the term 4X was created for MOO in the first place, so it'd better qualify!

Certainly, IMO, MoO is a 4X. But, I mean, even in Total War most provinces start unowned by any actual player (human or computer) faction vying for victory. I am just saying it's an interesting heuristic JarlFrank proposed, and it makes sense in a fuzzy way, but falls apart if you try and make it a hard rule.

 

[JarlFrank]

4x is a pretty badly defined genre. JarlFrank came up with a decent heuristic when he said that in a 4x the cities, forts, colonies or whatever are built by the player, as opposed to being predefined provinces like in a grand strategy game. But then what do you do about MoO, where you can think of stars as provinces?

In MOO, the vast majority of planets start empty, and need to be colonized, so it doesn't really go against this definition. Also, the term 4X was created for MOO in the first place, so it'd better qualify!

Certainly, IMO, MoO is a 4X. But, I mean, even in Total War most provinces start unowned by any actual player (human or computer) faction vying for victory. I am just saying it's an interesting heuristic JarlFrank proposed, and it makes sense in a fuzzy way, but falls apart if you try and make it a hard rule.

The problem with a genre definition for 4X is that it's very fuzzy and highly based on "game feel" rather than concrete factors. The objective criteria are the 4X: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. But from a purely mechanical perspective, that would include 99.9% of all strategy games ever made.

Do you explore in Age of Empires? Yes, scout to uncover fog of war. Expand? Yes, build new buildings. Exploit? Yes, harvest resources. Exterminate? Yes, destroy the enemy base. But is it a 4X? Not really.
Although AoE is an interesting case because it was inspired by Civilization: the devs thought, what if we took Civ and turned it into an RTS? Yet by turning it into an RTS it no longer feels like a 4X despite having all the X!

Same with grand strategy: a lot of people lump Total War, Europa Universalis, and Heroes of Might and Magic in with the 4X genre. Even Wikipedia (a shit and useless site when it comes to genre definitions, Mobygames is much better for that) lists HoMM and Total War as 4X games.

But they aren't 4X. They don't feel like 4X. Total War is turn based grand strategy, and the rebel-owned provinces were just a consequence of engine limitations at the time. From Empire onward, every province is ruled by a minor faction rather than rebels, and mods for Rome Remastered do the same thing. Also, only very few provinces in Shogun 1 and Medieval 1 were rebel-owned, most were owned by playable factions!

That said, neutral cities also exist in Heroes of Might and Magic but that's not a 4X either, is it?

The genre is mostly defined by lineage. Most 4X games are directly influenced by Civilization, Master of Orion, and Master of Magic. Those are the three 4X games the majority of future 4X are based on, and they have several things in common.

- start small, usually all factions begin with the same empire size (one city/planet) and tech level
- you have to explore a completely black fog of war and slowly reveal the shape of the land; in space 4X, you have to visit star systems before knowing what planets they have
- you expand your empire by founding new cities or colonizing new planets
- the environment can be exploited to your advantage: different terrain tiles have different resource values (flood plains give more food, hills more production, different planet types have higher fertility or resource yield, etc)
- you can usually build some kind of infrastructure or exploit things outside of your cities (build farms and roads, or exploit asteroid fields)
- you create armies using the production capabilities of your cities, and can wage war against the enemy
- you research technologies to improve all 4X capabilities of your empire: exploration, expansion, exploitation, and extermination

Now, not all of these are necessary for a game to qualify as 4X, but if too many are missing, it's probably a different strategy subgenre.
For example, Aggressors: Ancient Rome and Imperiums: Greek Wars are historical strategy games that feel distinctly 4X despite having a fixed historical map and empires with different technological and territorial starting conditions.
Why do they feel 4X when Total War and Europa Universalis don't?
They have unknown fog of war to explore, empty land that can be settled, all tiles can be improved with farms/roads/mines, there's a tech tree to go through, population growth from food production is an important factor. They are very close to Civ, but with a historical scenario.

What grand strategy games usually lack is both the founding your own cities part, and the building up the surrounding lands part.

 

[JarlFrank]

It was only in recent years that I noticed how overwhelmingly influential the three classics (Civ, MoO, MoM) are on the 4X genre.

Every historical 4X tries to be Civilization, or deliberately changes certain aspects to fix what they think is wrong with Civilization.
Every space 4X tries to be Master of Orion 2. This is the most noticeable of them all. So many space 4X are just MoO2 but slightly different.
Every fantasy 4X tries to be Master of Magic.

 

[Nutmeg]

Might tech tree length be a good heuristic? I know it sounds stupid, but are there any 4x games with short tech tree lengths, and any non-4x games with long tech tree lengths?

 

[JarlFrank]

4X games do, indeed, feature lengthy tech trees on average. I'm not going to add tech tree length to my definition as it's too vague a datapoint (at which point does a tech tree switch from short to long?), but the existence of a tech tree is a pretty hard 4X feature.
If your strategy game doesn't use tech trees at all, it isn't a 4X.

That automatically excludes games like Heroes of Might & Magic and pre-Empire Total War, which are often falsely categorized as 4X.
Paradox grand strategy games like Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings are also out, because while they have some form of tech research, it's just a linear path of +1 to Diplomacy/Warfare/Trade tech, there's no actual tree.

Choosing which technologies to research in which order is a major part of a 4X game's strategy.
Games that don't have that aren't 4X.

 

[JarlFrank]

4x is a pretty badly defined genre. JarlFrank came up with a decent heuristic when he said that in a 4x the cities, forts, colonies or whatever are built by the player, as opposed to being predefined provinces like in a grand strategy game. But then what do you do about MoO, where you can think of stars as provinces?

Also, to address the last point here in particular, stars (and planets) in MoO and other space 4X games are basically the game's "terrain".

The problem with space is that it's big and empty, and the only places of interest to colonize are stars and the planets that orbit them. Why would you place a space station into empty outer space? There are no resources to exploit there, a supply outpost between systems is better represented by something like buildable starlanes, and defensive outposts in outer space make no sense either because enemy fleets can just circumvent them.

The stars and planets in a space 4X are like the rivers, mountains, and coasts in a land 4X. In Civilization you want those river tiles for your food cities, those mountain tiles for your production cities, and the coastal tiles for maritime cities.
In MoO you want terran, gaia, ocean, tundra planets etc rather than toxic or volcanic planets. And different planet types have higher likelihoods to appear in certain solar systems, depending on star type.
So just like how you'd follow a river in Civ to see if it leads to a coast, you'll send exploration ships to a white star if you want abundant resources, or an orange star if you want fertile soil.

What land-based and space-based 4X have in common when dealing with terrain (I'm using "terrain" in the broadest sense here, meaning the overall playing field):

- You start out with a single settled city/planet (or a settler unit that can found a new city; the MoO2 clone Stars in Shadow has humans start out as a race who lost their home planet, giving you a nomad fleed who has to found a new city on the best planet you can find, just like how Civ has you seek out good terrain to build your first city in)
- You must explore terra incognita to find new areas of expansion: in land 4X you do that with scouts who walk across the land (and scout ships that sail the seas), while in space 4X you send scout ships to other stars; you don't know what planets orbit these stars until you visit
- Founding new cities starts you out at the basic level and you have to build up that city from scratch; this is the same in land-based and space-based 4X

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Age of Wonders is 4X???

I also find that strange; it wasn't considered to be a 4X game at its time of release. In German magazines it was typically compared to HoMM3 and usually in some broader turn-based strategy category. I think people are calling it 4X in a revisionist manner, due to the later titles, AoW3/4 and AoWlanetfall, which are indeed close(r) to the genre.

 

[Humanophage]

The most satisfying one I played was Civilization 4 - Fall from Heaven. It was very atmospheric and also reasonably challenging, like the original Civilization 4 on Immortal/Deity.

Otherwise something like this:
1. Civilization 4
- Thea 2
- Thea 1
2. Age of Wonders 2
3. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
4. Conquest of Elysium 5
5. Endless Space 2

One issue with 4X games is that they often have crap AI. Thea 1&2 circumvents it by not pretending that the AI is another player, and thus achieves a bit of challenge, although I guess this disqualifies it from being 4X despite its close proximity.