Space 4X Games: because a planetary-scale e-peen just isn't enough

Sorenson

There's something I just love about space 4X games. Maybe it's that great ambitious feeling of looking across an entire galaxy and knowing that some day every single little speck of light that I see is going to be mine and mine alone or will be vengefully blown up as I try, or the wonderful high I get as my vast empire unravels and puts to use more and more of the galaxy's mysteries in fantastic and efficient displays of technology, or the awe-inspiring beauty of watching two massive fleets duking it out with beams and missiles going every which way (or tearing into the surface of a planet as I wipe the hideous affront to all good things (ME) that pass for life off its surface) or perhaps it's just the sheer feeling of infinate possibility that comes with these games. Only thing is, I haven't really heard of many new games to give me a fewsh dose of these feelings, so I'm casting out a net and seeing what I reel in.

Stuff I've already played and loved:
Space Empires IV and V
Ascendency
Master of Orion I and II
Galactic Civilizations II vanilla
X3 (OK, TECHNICALLY not 4x, but pretty god damn close for a flight sim)

Stuff I've already played and didn't care for:
Sins of a Solar Empire (Loved the music, didn't care much for the gameplay)
Pax Galactica or somesuch (slow game is SLOOOOOOOOOOOW)

Stuff I HAVEN'T PLAYED but might be interested in:
The GalCiv expansions (depends on just how much they add to the base game)

Stuff I HAVEN'T PLAYED and probably have no interest in playing unless you really give me some:
Sword of the Stars (I'm pretty sure this god knocked a fair bit, plus I don't really care much for Homeworldian stuff

So what should a galactic god-wannabe be looking out for in this situation, G&T?

Dr Snofeld

The GalCiv2 expansions add quite a fair bit. Granted I haven't actually played it without Dark Avatar, but Twilight of the Arnor added unique tech trees for each of the 12 races, which I don't believe has been done before. Also, Death Stars (well Terror Stars but we all damn well know what they're meant to be). For whatever reason, though, TotA needs Dark Avatar to be installed, so you may as well get both.

Pancake

Sorenson wrote: »

Stuff I HAVEN'T PLAYED and probably have no interest in playing unless you really give me some:
Sword of the Stars (I'm pretty sure this god knocked a fair bit, plus I don't really care much for Homeworldian stuff

You should really give it a try, and probably with at least the first expansion.

It's not really like Homeworld in any sense of the word, but it's not like most other 4X games either. It's heavily combat focused, as it's happy to tell you, but everything is turn based except for the combat, which you can auto-resolve if you want, but even if you don't, it's really, really not like Homeworld at all.

But the best thing about Sword of the Stars is that every single race is unique. I don't mean they get different techs or different ship types or whatever. I mean they all play fundamentally differently and require vastly variable strategies to succeed with. The way they travel around the map is different, the way you need to move your fleet in combat is different, their varying weapons configurations and the distribution of their armor requiring you to position your ships against enemy ships in different orientations.

Everything about each race, in and out of combat, screams "I'm different." It's one of the very, very few 4X games that doesn't just say "this race likes fighting more" and "this race likes science more" and they eventually bleed together. The differences start at the beginning and never relent.

With the expansion (and even patches to the original game), they've fixed many of the problems the game had, like its awkward interface and the lack of variety in tech.

Smurph

I think I'm the only person on the planet that actually had a good time with MOO3. There were problems but they nailed the "Epic" part. I thought the way the AIs would interact with each other and you was the most realistic I've ever seen in a game.

You should try the GalCiv expansions though, they are pretty fun.

greeble

I freaking loved Master of Orion II and a big part of this was the custom race creator where you could pick and choose + or -. You could even not use all of your points if you wanted a score boost/ bigger challenge. Any games out there that are as awesome as Moo2?

I haven't played any on others on this list (except for Moo1), but did play a bit of homeworld and liked it ok, but never finished it. I also played a bit of Gal Civ 1 when it was first released on OS/2. I thought it was a allright, but it was missing something.

Space Pickle

I still really like Star Wars: Rebellion. The interface sucks but it's got an interesting take on 4X that a lot of other games don't have (the way it deals with planetary populations, diplomacy, spying, etc.). The space battles are lame but I just press 'auto-resolve' all the time.

Also the AI is kind of boned. Uh, I guess I'm not really selling you the game here.

ACSIS

Sorenson wrote: »

Stuff I've already played and didn't care for:
Sins of a Solar Empire (Loved the music, didn't care much for the gameplay)

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-NSNhgydY


Your loss.

RiemannLives

My favorite in the genre is still Master of Orion II but I can highly recommend Imperium Galactica II.

It's scale is comparable to MOO2. Everything is pausable real-time (including actual RTS-lite like ground battles). Also has a very cool story driven campaign.


BTW: Sins of a Solar empire is an incredibly weak game from a 4x standpoint. I would say even Star Wars: Empire at War (decidedly a second-tier title compared to MOO2 etc...) does it better.

Wembley

Imperium Galactica II anyone? It's old, but fantastic. I want an Imperium Galactica III.

Kate of Lokys

I used to love me some Stars! back in the day. I only started playing it at first because it looked enough like productivity software that I could play it right under my parents' noses, but there's a ton of depth to it once you get past the spartan surface.

ACSIS

Does what better? I can't come up with a single mechanic thats not better handled by it, except its realtime. Not a turnbased game. Thats the only thing you can hold against it, but of course for most this makes the game incredibly better because you do not have to switch turns, and it greatly speeds up gameplay. 4x games take time and this is no exception turning the crowd of usual RTS players aside, but compared to a turnbased game its lightening fast for mutliplayer sessions. A game may still take a couple of hours unless you pick te smallest maps wich are somewhat comparable to traditional RTS scope, of course this excludes large proportions of the tech trees wich you will never see in such short games.

Smurph

All the ships in Sins stuck me as very similar. They all had shields, hull life bars, and weapons that went pew pew. The small ships just felt like baby versions of the big ships, and there was nothing in between. In Empire at War you had your capital ships to take out their capital ships and stations, bombers to take out their capital and station hard points, fighters to take out their bombers, and frigates to take out the swarms of fighters. Plus the occasional hero ships to act as a super fighter / target.

Wembley

I only ever played the demo of sins but I didn't like it because the computer would always run away. Everytime I'd send my fleet into a system to attack or defend, the computer would run unless it had nowhere else to go. I don't feel like spending half my game chasing after a wussy AI fleet.

lowlylowlycook

Space Pickle wrote: »

I still really like Star Wars: Rebellion. The interface sucks but it's got an interesting take on 4X that a lot of other games don't have (the way it deals with planetary populations, diplomacy, spying, etc.). The space battles are lame but I just press 'auto-resolve' all the time.

Also the AI is kind of boned. Uh, I guess I'm not really selling you the game here.

This is one of those games that I'm inexplicably in love with. So many things are broken, from the AI to the "Oh god they just explained modal and non-modal windows in the manual" interface.

Still sunk many hours into it.

It seems like the kind of game where there should be a fan remake or open source redo that fixes some of the issues.

Anyway, I bought Empire at war, can't really think of any way that it isn't better than Rebellion but put it away after just a few play-throughs.

tbloxham

Smurph wrote: »

All the ships in Sins stuck me as very similar. They all had shields, hull life bars, and weapons that went pew pew. The small ships just felt like baby versions of the big ships, and there was nothing in between. In Empire at War you had your capital ships to take out their capital ships and stations, bombers to take out their capital and station hard points, fighters to take out their bombers, and frigates to take out the swarms of fighters. Plus the occasional hero ships to act as a super fighter / target.

Sins also had crippling failures from design choices, and it's tech tree was primitive and uninteresting at best. The attacker had such an overwhelming advantage that you really had no choice but to surge forward ASAP unless you were enormously lucky with placement.

Even if you were, damage output compared to hull strength was so puny that if you had your whole fleet in a system ready to fight, and the eneamy jumped in then you would often only kill 1 or 2 ships before it crossed the entire system and jumped into your inner systems.

Morkath

RiemannLives wrote: »

BTW: Sins of a Solar empire is an incredibly weak game from a 4x standpoint. I would say even Star Wars: Empire at War (decidedly a second-tier title compared to MOO2 etc...) does it better.

Sins is not a 4X game, it is a large scale space RTS.

• Research is just the normal unit upgrades akin to an RTS(lasers +5%, shields +10%!). There are no subsystems to research, you research a blueprint for a ship and suddenly you have knowledge of all of the parts to use it.
• "Expanding" is just base building in a normal RTS.
• "Exploring" is just removing fog of war.
• "Exploiting" is just building mineral and crystal mines like you would in an RTS, there is no resource management akin to more classic 4X games. I don't have to worry about one planet running out of food, or construction materials. Even though it takes a huge amount of time for your ships to cross between systems, apparently we can move materials instantaneously.
• "Exterminating", well I guess that could be 4X style, but it lacks a lot of the diplomacy of the real 4X games. Every "mission" the other empires gives you, is either give them money, or kill units. Where is the research trades, the map swapping, ect ect. I may have just missed this aspect, but also, is it not possible to send demands back to the other races?

I'm not saying sins is a bad game, its a pretty good RTS. But it is not a 4X game.

Morkath

tbloxham wrote: »

Smurph wrote: »

All the ships in Sins stuck me as very similar. They all had shields, hull life bars, and weapons that went pew pew. The small ships just felt like baby versions of the big ships, and there was nothing in between. In Empire at War you had your capital ships to take out their capital ships and stations, bombers to take out their capital and station hard points, fighters to take out their bombers, and frigates to take out the swarms of fighters. Plus the occasional hero ships to act as a super fighter / target.

Sins also had crippling failures from design choices, and it's tech tree was primitive and uninteresting at best. The attacker had such an overwhelming advantage that you really had no choice but to surge forward ASAP unless you were enormously lucky with placement.

Even if you were, damage output compared to hull strength was so puny that if you had your whole fleet in a system ready to fight, and the eneamy jumped in then you would often only kill 1 or 2 ships before it crossed the entire system and jumped into your inner systems.

Ugg this sooo much.

It annoys me to no end when I send my combat cap ship against a single scout frigate....and then watch it shoot at the damn thing for 3 minutes.

It's a frigate! It would be like a tank lobbing shells at volkswagon bug for several minutes to blow it up.

Smurph

Morkath wrote: »

RiemannLives wrote: »

BTW: Sins of a Solar empire is an incredibly weak game from a 4x standpoint. I would say even Star Wars: Empire at War (decidedly a second-tier title compared to MOO2 etc...) does it better.

Sins is not a 4X game, it is a large scale space RTS.

• Research is just the normal unit upgrades akin to an RTS(lasers +5%, shields +10%!). There are no subsystems to research, you research a blueprint for a ship and suddenly you have knowledge of all of the parts to use it.
• "Expanding" is just base building in a normal RTS.
• "Exploring" is just removing fog of war.
• "Exploiting" is just building mineral and crystal mines like you would in an RTS, there is no resource management akin to more classic 4X games. I don't have to worry about one planet running out of food, or construction materials. Even though it takes a huge amount of time for your ships to cross between systems, apparently we can move materials instantaneously.
• "Exterminating", well I guess that could be 4X style, but it lacks a lot of the diplomacy of the real 4X games. Every "mission" the other empires gives you, is either give them money, or kill units. Where is the research trades, the map swapping, ect ect. I may have just missed this aspect, but also, is it not possible to send demands back to the other races?

I'm not saying sins is a bad game, its a pretty good RTS. But it is not a 4X game.

I would say it misses a fair amount of RTS points too though. I mean your ships just hang there, trading shots, until they die. Usually in an RTS, if you are about to loose a battle, you bring in more units to try and turn the tide or run to an area where you have an advantage like your base with canons. In Sins either of those options just takes too long. There are no real tactics, it the other guy has more ships he wins.

Morkath

Smurph wrote: »

I would say it misses a fair amount of RTS points too though. I mean your ships just hang there, trading shots, until they die. Usually in an RTS, if you are about to loose a battle, you bring in more units to try and turn the tide or run to an area where you have an advantage like your base with canons. In Sins either of those options just takes too long. There are no real tactics, it the other guy has more ships he wins.

Isn't that how most RTS's work too? Whoever has the most units tends to win. :P

Honestly I would probably consider that aspect more of a design choice in the RTS, not allowing reinforcements during the battle.

But I can understand your point.

ACSIS

WoW, obviously you have not played this game for very long.

1. There are subsystems to research. At least one for ANY ship, some have multiples, and i am not talking damage upgrades here, thats another line depending on your choices and there are at least three. You do NOT have all knowledge. You get a basic chassis and can improve on it the one or other way. I remember a suicide bomb ability for scouts, decoy ships for Illums, fleet shield for guardians, push for guardians, stun for subverters, sabotage reactors for cobalts... the list is very, very long.

You are simply mistaken. Or have just played a very old demo.

2. This game has very little base building. Some orbital stations, mainly ship yards and research facilities maybe some special structures like trade ports or phase stabs... or costura cannons... very late. Expanding is expanding your empire, found colonies and get more resources... as in any other 4x. There is absolutely no RTS basebuilding here. A nice gadget are the colony ship capitals, a favourite early choice on large maps.

3. Exploring is exploring the map, exploring the planets (finding artefacts?), but yeah MOO2 has definetly more surprises up its sleeve with the Guardian, Orion and Anterans. Well it has pirates, but its not the same as hunting some alien superrace. Or space monsters... i sugested that in the forums and it had a very positive echo. Maybe in the next expansion.

4. Even a MOO2 manages "supply vessels" just by numbers and not actually by tracking them. The interesting thing in Sins is you can track those vessels. They are just completely automated. You can hunt them and destroy them, but it will only result in an economic hit, not a food shortage as in MOO2 when blockading a planet since "food" is not a concept of SINS but an embargo is. The Federation carriers are a nasty early game weapon able to considerably cripple entire planet developments. I could continue about Vasari Marauder sabotage crews and telepatic ship captures but... you don't care, do you?

5. Diplomacy gave me a headache first. I turned it off. Then i considered i try it again and turned it on. Its a very thought out system actually. At first the other empires give "resource" missions. Means you can bribe them (at the cost of your starting expansion). If you come in contact you get kill missions. This confuses a lot of new players, because you get kill missions from everybody and that is obviously NOT going to work. Thats what got me to turn it off. But later i realized... there are NEARLY ALWAYS kill missions. SO if you focus on an enemy (wich will happen) the guys also having hostile shootouts become friends with you (the enemy of mey enemy is my friend i guess). The trick is simply not paying attention, it works out for itself for starters. And if you really understood it you can use the system to your advantage, making the one or other bribe and pit them against each other. Usually it leads to two or three alliances duking it out. Diplomacy in this game is not easy, but really good capable system. There is no research trade because there are exclusive tech trees (something MOO had not, it had only a few unique techs for beating the Guardian) And trade is there, sign a trade agreement and build trade ports ^^
And no, you cant make a demmand, thats just round starting mechanics for picking friends. And since there is no map - either you can see there because you got a unit or you don't - there are no map swaps. But there is ship&planet vision for allies.

This game has a very deep diplomacy. Its just not that obvious but it is there.

And of course there is that pirate bribing and black market (wich MOO2 totally lacks).

Still nothing beats the MOO2 diplomacy. The outraged emperors just are... charming.

And if your Cap is not killing a scout you are doing something very wrong... even if it qould be totally unarmed a level 3 cap would have most likely 1-2 interceptor fighter squadrons wich would kill the scout in notime.

I thing its a vastly underestimated underdog. And its no RTS or 4x, its a crossbreed. But a really good one. It comes REALLY close to MOO2. And for a realtime game that is... remarkable.

And a hint for all of you complaining about ships moving too slow: play Vasari, build some Marauders and phase warp whole fleets across the galaxy.

If you don't like this game that is fine. But do not tell people it lacks things that are very well working in this game. Thats not really fair.

Morkath

The "subsystems" are still just in the vein of unlocking a special ability for that unit, the same way you would in an RTS.

I just played the full version yesterday, but no I haven't played it "that long". I can't really get into the game, just not what I was looking for. I don't regret the purchase though, just to fund developers making games without asinine DRM schemes.

As for the capships, they do kill the scout, it just takes way too long. All of he ships have too high of hitpoints or too low of damage, one of the too. If it is one capship versus a couple frigates, it should shred through them in no time. But if you mass frigates against a capship, it should go down pretty fast. Just my opinion.

Edit:
Also didn't they nerf the vasari marauder warp? I know it was really overpowered at first. Not sure what the nerf was.

durandal4532

One of my problems with Sword of the Stars is that it exists in that middle space between 2D and 3D where a game displays everything in 3D because well 2D is old only it looks like shit because it's early 3D.

Edit: Also Morkath Bertrand Russel said the quote in your sig I'm pretty sure.

ACSIS

The techs unlock... but then the techtree is considerably larger then in an RTS. Are you going to superful your economy or go for missile tech fighters, etc? And of course... even in a MOO2 you unlock technology. Thats how it works.

Of course a MOO2 lets you DESIGN your ships wich SINS wont. Still you can choose in wich way you develope your fleet. Its a little less creative but again... its realtime.

About Capships... depends on the ships. A level 5 Marzada gets "missile swarm" for an example, an ability known for destroying entire fleets on its own. A Halycon can launch a considerable force of attack craft, tearing smaller ships to shreds into seconds (or larger ones if you use bombers instead of fighters). Personally i am a big fan of the Rapture wich mirrors damage back on the enemy ^^

edit: antimatter i guess, so you have to wait a little longer for the warp. The Marauder is not a very strong combat ship but its an excellent ship for hit&run, featuring speed and sabotage abilities.

Smurph

As far as I remember the diplomacy system consisted of you doing missions for other empires in exchange for them not attacking you and perhaps defending you if it is convenient. So it's pretty one sided, since you cannot give them missions to do in order to help you out. It's not give and take, it's just give and please god don't attack me, which they will just do anyway if you don't keep up on your missions.

DeadOnArrival

Smurph wrote: »

Morkath wrote: »

RiemannLives wrote: »

BTW: Sins of a Solar empire is an incredibly weak game from a 4x standpoint. I would say even Star Wars: Empire at War (decidedly a second-tier title compared to MOO2 etc...) does it better.

Sins is not a 4X game, it is a large scale space RTS.

• Research is just the normal unit upgrades akin to an RTS(lasers +5%, shields +10%!). There are no subsystems to research, you research a blueprint for a ship and suddenly you have knowledge of all of the parts to use it.
• "Expanding" is just base building in a normal RTS.
• "Exploring" is just removing fog of war.
• "Exploiting" is just building mineral and crystal mines like you would in an RTS, there is no resource management akin to more classic 4X games. I don't have to worry about one planet running out of food, or construction materials. Even though it takes a huge amount of time for your ships to cross between systems, apparently we can move materials instantaneously.
• "Exterminating", well I guess that could be 4X style, but it lacks a lot of the diplomacy of the real 4X games. Every "mission" the other empires gives you, is either give them money, or kill units. Where is the research trades, the map swapping, ect ect. I may have just missed this aspect, but also, is it not possible to send demands back to the other races?

I'm not saying sins is a bad game, its a pretty good RTS. But it is not a 4X game.

I would say it misses a fair amount of RTS points too though. I mean your ships just hang there, trading shots, until they die. Usually in an RTS, if you are about to loose a battle, you bring in more units to try and turn the tide or run to an area where you have an advantage like your base with canons. In Sins either of those options just takes too long. There are no real tactics, it the other guy has more ships he wins.

Redded for you have no idea.

This game isn't a numbers game, if your fleet is the equivilent of a 'tank rush', ie, one unit massed up (note that tank rushing does not exist in this game - it simply takes too long to reach and destroy an enemy planet for this to be in any way effective except as a stalling move) then it will be torn apart without mercy by a smaller but more balanced fleet. There are no useless ships.

You should check out the Sins game on thread. They'll give you the 411.

ACSIS

Well, not really. Not completing missions will lower your relations. But the thing is if you tear into one opponent you get enough standing so the alliance will hold. The most common error is not signing a chease fire threaty, so you keep hitting your allies ships - and that REALLY lowers relations. Once you realized that, diplomacy is a breeze.Unfortunately the manual holds very little information about this, but its there and it works perfectly, i assure you. And they will come to defend you. The diplomacy looks one sided with the missions and resource demands but that are just bare bones you can forget about. I do not even look for missions. I just do it and it works. Just sign that chease fire agreement ^^

Well i guess i redeemed the game a little. Its main problem is its very simplified. Looks not like much but has really some surprises hidden. Its a good game and my personal 4x favourite. Its not everybodys taste being a hybrid and all, but its in no way a bad game.

DeadOnArrival

Smurph wrote: »

All the ships in Sins stuck me as very similar. They all had shields, hull life bars, and weapons that went pew pew. The small ships just felt like baby versions of the big ships, and there was nothing in between. In Empire at War you had your capital ships to take out their capital ships and stations, bombers to take out their capital and station hard points, fighters to take out their bombers, and frigates to take out the swarms of fighters. Plus the occasional hero ships to act as a super fighter / target.

Sins has all those you mentioned for Empire At War. It has capital ships, it has fighters, it has bombers, and anti-strike craft frigates, and carriers and more. All very focused in their role (or multi-purpose in the case of capital ships).

I'll admit even I don't think the ship design is incredible except for a couple I took a liking to, but you can't contest that the ships are all the same.

tbloxham

ACSIS wrote: »

The techs unlock... but then the techtree is considerably larger then in an RTS. Are you going to superful your economy or go for missile tech fighters, etc? And of course... even in a MOO2 you unlock technology. Thats how it works.

Of course a MOO2 lets you DESIGN your ships wich SINS wont. Still you can choose in wich way you develope your fleet. Its a little less creative but again... its realtime.

About Capships... depends on the ships. A level 5 Marzada gets "missile swarm" for an example, an ability known for destroying entire fleets on its own. A Halycon can launch a considerable force of attack craft, tearing smaller ships to shreds into seconds (or larger ones if you use bombers instead of fighters). Personally i am a big fan of the Rapture wich mirrors damage back on the enemy ^^

edit: antimatter i guess, so you have to wait a little longer for the warp. The Marauder is not a very strong combat ship but its an excellent ship for hit&run, featuring speed and sabotage abilities.

The problem wasn't that the cap ship didn't kill the scout ship, but that it was quite simply absurd that the scout ship wasn't just swatted like a fly. If I have you outnumbered 10 to 1, you simply should not be able to rush through my lines and whizz onwards to my home planet. I know they fixed it a little bit later on, but as soon as I saw the massive beam come out of my combat capitol ship, smash into the side of a tiny frigate and the beam didn't proceed to just blast clear out the other side immediately I knew this game wasn't for me.

Heck, and killing cap ships was even more annoying. One of those could just glide through an entire fleet by itself and be healed by the time your fleet could get to the next system if you didn't have a disabling capitol ship in system. Even if you did have one of those, you had to have it backed up with some pretty serious stuff to do anything useful.

ACSIS

Capital ships can take a beating. Of course if there is a serious fleet... there are people requesting a buff for them actually ^^

I think they are fine. And in the beginning weapons are weak, special abilities rare. Especially flak frigates wich are designed to be able to take a beating take quite a while. Still a ship like a Radiance, Kol or Khortul tears trough smaller ships quite quickly. It will not kill with the first shot of course...

Thats why i like the Rapture so much. If a fleet focuses on it... well you get the damage dealt back to them.

Amazing.

There are certain sorts of weapons and armor and not every weapon is suited to take on every kind of target. For an example fighters tear frigates to shreds (except flak of course) but won't scrape a cruiser or a capital. Bombers are great vs capitals but won't be much use vs frigates... and so on.

Early in the game you usually focus on fighters or LRF and that works very well. A Halycon backed up by some Illuminators or another nice combination.

Kami

I've been bitten by the 'space strategy' bug lately, and I've never delved into the realm of 4x games.

After reading this thread, I'm very interested in GalCiv II. Would that be a decent place for a complete 4x noob to start, or is there an easier/better title to get my feet wet? I own Sins of a Solar Empire and really enjoy it, but I've always been curious about pure-bred 4x gameplay.

Sonar

Not really a 4x but I would personally hump all the employees of Luca Arts if they made StarWars:Rebellion 2.

Space Pickle

Yeah, the GalCiv II ultimate edition is really good. I didn't like the first one (well, the first new one), but they fixed a lot of the problems in the sequel.

I also forgot to mention you could check out Anacreon. It's a bit more out there, but hey, free!

greeble

Kami wrote: »

I've been bitten by the 'space strategy' bug lately, and I've never delved into the realm of 4x games.

After reading this thread, I'm very interested in GalCiv II. Would that be a decent place for a complete 4x noob to start, or is there an easier/better title to get my feet wet? I own Sins of a Solar Empire and really enjoy it, but I've always been curious about pure-bred 4x gameplay.

Get Master of Orion II, I think its on steam. In any case the game is freaking awesome.

ACSIS

It really is. Even after all those years its still the benchmark other games get compared to. True Masterpiece. Just get te 1.31 Patch. Its basically what CS is to the FPS genere. I really think it should be built in in any OS as integral part. Browsers? Pff...

Morkath

greeble wrote: »

Kami wrote: »

I've been bitten by the 'space strategy' bug lately, and I've never delved into the realm of 4x games.

After reading this thread, I'm very interested in GalCiv II. Would that be a decent place for a complete 4x noob to start, or is there an easier/better title to get my feet wet? I own Sins of a Solar Empire and really enjoy it, but I've always been curious about pure-bred 4x gameplay.

Get Master of Orion II, I think its on steam. In any case the game is freaking awesome.

It is not on steam.

Lodbrok

I would also recommend MOO2, it is an excellent game that I've spent way to much time on and for pure atmosphere nothing beats it in my opinion. However, at the risk of being flamed I also have to recommend MOO3.... please don't hurt me. In the state it was released it was a horrible mess and completely broken in many respects. There were a few official patches, but Infogrames/Atari-Quicksilver stopped supporting it way to soon. However, that was more than five years ago and the community really has done a terrific job of fixing the game to the state it should have been released in, and then some.

If you can get your hands on it, it is definitively worth it. No other strategy game have felt so large scale to me. It does not have the charm that MOO2 has, but as a strategy game it is superior in my opinion. It just takes a different mind-set to enjoy it. I thought about making a Let's Play Moo3 a while ago, but considering the very negative opinions about the game here I kinda changed my mind.

Anyway, if you decide to try it out make sure to install the community patches. There are a number of them, but I would recommend the Chocolate-patch that can be found here:
http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=538340

ACSIS

Moo3 is... either you love it or hate it. I personally hate it. There are many reasons why it is bad and just as many why it is good. But everybody is entitled to his own opinion, i wouldn't hold it against anyone.

Idoliside

Why has no one mention Birth Of The Federation...

Lanrutcon

ACSIS wrote: »

Moo3 is... either you love it or hate it. I personally hate it. There are many reasons why it is bad and just as many why it is good. But everybody is entitled to his own opinion, i wouldn't hold it against anyone.

In a world where MOO2 doesn't exist MOO3 might be considered decent.

ACSIS

To be honest i heard lots of interesting things about it but somehow i never manage to play it and got distracted by something else. Well a gap i guess i have to fill. Would you recommend BOTF or BOTF2? Wich one is better?

Idoliside

ACSIS wrote: »

To be honest i heard lots of interesting things about it but somehow i never manage to play it and got distracted by something else. Well a gap i guess i have to fill. Would you recommend BOTF or BOTF2? Wich one is better?

Theres no such thing as BOTF2, its a remake by fans in development that has been renamed something else now.
I fully recommend BOTF the original, it runs on my Vista system well and i sitll play it to this day.