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So, recently I've been looking for to try out the 4X Turn-Based Strategy Genre of games. 4X stands for "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate". Most of these games are set in space, where you forge your space empire, and fight other races and stuff. I assume its similar to something like the Civilization series, which I have also enjoyed (but right now I'd rather have space ships that go pew pew at each other).
So I'm wondering what games would be worth checking out for this genre?
I've done some looking around, and it looks like the Master of Orion series, particularly MOO2, is the defining series for this genre. I've also seen the Galactic Civilizations genre, but I'm not sure what their quality is.
I figured TL has a good idea of what good Strategy games are, so I figured I'd ask for people's opinion here. Any suggestions for someone looking to get one of these games? Should I just get MOO2, or would it be worth it to pick up a newer title like MOO3, or Galactic Civilizations 1/2?
 
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MOO3 sucks, man. I remember playing that game and it's basically just MOO2 with a crappier storyline and useless bells-whistles that don't actually do anything...
For example, you get to have "space battles" where you control your ships against an enemy fleet. In reality, basically nothing you do matters unless both fleets have exactly the same cloak/detection upgrades, which never happened to me once. I either walked into undefended systems and just nuked the fuck out of their planets, or just died instantly without even seeing what I was fighting.
And the ability to "customize your fleet" is retarded... Certain upgrades, like expanding your nuke inventory, don't cost anything, yet the default is that they're not enabled...
Basically, nothing about that game made any sense to my weak mind.
I would definitely recommend the Civ series though. That stuff is awesome.
I personally haven't played galactic civs though, so I'm interested to hear what other people think about that.
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You should try out Sins of a Solar Empire. Its not turn based though so it requires a high APM, like StarCraft but the play is pretty deep and you need to have insane micro during battles. The single player is pretty good but, like SC, the real fun is getting a few friends hooked on it and playing multiplayer and having huge space battles while trying to control planets and mining out of asteroids.
I've also played Galactic Civilizations II and I remember it to be quite fun... but the only "4X" style game I still currently play is Sins.
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Try Neptune's Pride out. It's not turn-based, but everything happens so slowly that it might as well be. Plus, it's Diplomacy in space, what's not to like 
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MOO2 is great. I can still play that game today. It's pretty broken once you get into it, but I still enjoy it a lot.
MOO1 is also good, as is MOM (Master of Magic).
Now MOO3... that game is garbage. MOO3 feels like Microsoft Excel in terms of presentation.
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On December 08 2010 08:17 Sasquatch wrote:
You should try out Sins of a Solar Empire. Its not turn based though so it requires a high APM, like StarCraft but the play is pretty deep and you need to have insane micro during battles. The single player is pretty good but, like SC, the real fun is getting a few friends hooked on it and playing multiplayer and having huge space battles while trying to control planets and mining out of asteroids.
I've also played Galactic Civilizations II and I remember it to be quite fun... but the only "4X" style game I still currently play is Sins.
Sins of a Solar Empire sounds promising, I'll check that one out.
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Norway28517 Posts
moo2 is very cool. some racial customizations are way too powerful though, as are some ship equipments (just going pure plasma cannon is way better than spreading weapons out, and once you have the technology for achilles targeting unit and shield piercing phasors, you end up raping like 10 enemy ships for each ship you have. ) but on impossible the computer is pretty challenging until you really get to know the game anyway.
galactic civilizations is actually really cool I think, one of the best 4x games.
civilization series in general is highly recommended, well I haven't played all of them but civ 2 was great, civ 5 is currently pretty awesome.
one overlooked game which I think deserves mention is age of wonders. basically back in the day you had master of orion, and you had master of magic. I always liked master of magic more because I think magic is cooler than tech, and that is the chief difference between the two games. age of wonders (addon called shadow magic) is essentially master of magic 2. you have heroes that level up and get immensely powerful, spells that can wreak serious havoc, and some units that are thoroughly badass. it's kind of a hybrid between civilization games and HOMM series I guess, city building is of far more significance than in homm, but you also have the tactical combat and gearing/ leveling/ tweaking of spells that you find in HOMM.
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Galactic Civilizations 2 is amazing, I played that game for over a year and loved it, probably the second best 4x game after MOO2. The AI in it for original game and the first expansion is the best I've ever seen, the second expansion was pretty disappointing however, as they broke the AI by trying to add in too much diversity in the races and not having the manpower to code an AI that effectively deals with the new changes. That said you should definitely install up to the first expansion pack if you haven't played it already.
Sins of a solar empire was a bit disappointing for me. Mainly because they had of one of the greatest RTSs ever made but fucked up by (1) not including any kind of campaign, (2) only the most basic of multiplayer clients (no auto matchmaking etc) and (3) forced you to play it at the most ridiculously slow pace. The idea behind it was that the game has the depth of a 4x game so the lack of a campaign doesn't matter and super slow speed is meant to give it a turn based feel, but in the end the game doesn't have any more or less depth than SC or any other RTS, which by itself isn't a bad thing but severely hurts the game combined with the other things I've mentioned.
MOO3 was absolute garbage on release, like literally one of the worst games I've ever played. The enemy AI was awful and did nothing, the tech was retardedly unbalanced, the interface was a mess and completely counter intuitive, the planet management was cumbersome and even the most basic tasks took a ridiculous amount of clicking. I don't think I ever played more than three or four games before getting the shits with it. That said, I heard that the modding community actually made this into a great game, and have heard really good things about what it turned into.
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If I was to choose between Galactic Civilizations 1 and 2, which would you guys recommend/pros and cons?
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Galactic Civilizations 1 was amazing.
I remember playing that when I was like 8 on an old OS/2 computer.
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O my Galactic Civilizations 2, it didn't look that great but I thought whatever ill just buy it. I then spent the next 20 hours playing that game and was addicted for about a month. One of the best games I have played. Haven't played galactic civilizations 1 but have played gal civ 2 for like 500 hours lol.
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On December 08 2010 08:38 Sentenal wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 08:17 Sasquatch wrote:
You should try out Sins of a Solar Empire. Its not turn based though so it requires a high APM, like StarCraft but the play is pretty deep and you need to have insane micro during battles. The single player is pretty good but, like SC, the real fun is getting a few friends hooked on it and playing multiplayer and having huge space battles while trying to control planets and mining out of asteroids.
I've also played Galactic Civilizations II and I remember it to be quite fun... but the only "4X" style game I still currently play is Sins. Sins of a Solar Empire sounds promising, I'll check that one out.
if your looking to play sins on a casual level (there really is no campaign) you could play it with a touch pad and have fun.
as for multilayer with friends, gl kinda hard finding other friends that have it and want to play it.
homm5 isn't that bad and homm3 is amazing if you have never played them
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Another vote for GalCiv2. Amazing game, with truly gigantic map sizes. But make sure you get both expansions (there's the original Dread Lords, first expansion Dark Avatar, and second expansion Twilight of the Arnor). You should be able to find an "ultimate edition" or something for cheap now.
Never played GalCiv1, but I don't see anything wrong with 2 so :\
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Another good recommendation is Space Empires (IV especially, but V is OK). 4X games have the tendency to be huge time vampires.
Space Empires IV has a lot of awesomely made player mods which enhance the game quite a bit, but the standard release is a solid title in itself.
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MoO2 is by far the best space based 4X. GalCiv2 (with all expansions) is okay, but it has some critical flaws, especially concerning ship design and combat.
MoO1 is also very good while MoO3 is probably one of the worst games that were ever designed (and I got it on launch day *grah*).
Sins is a good game, but not TBS and not really 4X. Still a very good space strategy game. AI War is also good, but even less TBS and 4X, but even more strategy.
With non-space based TBS you can't go wrong with Civ4 (+ all expansions, of course) or Civ5. Civ4 is far more polished and has some really good mods too (Fall from Heaven), while Civ5 removes the one big annoyance that Civ4 had (stacks) which makes it a far better game for me. A lot of opinions differ on that of course. 
Edit: I always forget about the Space Empires series somehow, even though I have 4 and 5 installed. 4 is far better though.
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EPT
