Discussion on 4X games.

Gavin · #1 October 15th, 2001, 06:43 PM

I'd like to start a discussion on 4X games, tell your opinions on the various 4X games you have played. My summary:

Master of Orion
Master of Orion II - Battle for Antares
VGA Planets
Star Control
Star Control 2 & 3
Space Empires III
Star Wars: Rebellion (Yech!)
Space Empires IV

I'd say that MOO2 was overall the best, if your a Bab5 fan or a Star Trek fan you just have to love this game.

SA 4 offers the ability to 'build your own' though, which is great fun for those closet game designers out there.

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'If there are gods, they do not care, and justice always goes to the strong. But know this - all that is done before the naked stars is remembered' - Klingon proverb, the Final Reflection.

Aub · #2 October 15th, 2001, 06:57 PM

I spent many many happy hours playing Stars!2 with a bunch of friends. At some point we were so good that one who spent more time micro-managing his empire would always win... this killed the fun

This and knowing the best strategies throughout, like if one gets Jihad missle Battleships ahead of the others, the game is pretty much over.

Anyone looking forward to Stars! Supernova? (if it ever gets released...)

chewy027 · #3 October 15th, 2001, 07:27 PM

yeah i've been waiting for it for some time now but it seems that they are having problems finding a publisher or something like that it looks like it's gonna be good though. Lots of ideas in there that i think that SE5 could "borrow" and use.

anyway on topic i never played any of the moo games but SE3 and 4 have been totally awesome. You won't get any better for your money's worth. Especially with the great support MM has given and the awesome fan base it has. The game keeps getting better and better. I also played sw rebellion a lot before se4 but that got old real quick although the battles were cool. And of course i've always played the civ games. They pretty much have the 4x mentallity. Can't wait for civ3 to come out at the end of the month. Again looks like lots of cool ideas that can be implemented for SE5 especially the diplomacy model.

Baron Munchausen · #4 October 15th, 2001, 10:52 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Gavin:
I'd like to start a discussion on 4X games, tell your opinions on the various 4X games you have played. My summary:

Master of Orion
Master of Orion II - Battle for Antares
VGA Planets
Star Control
Star Control 2 & 3
Space Empires III
Star Wars: Rebellion (Yech!)
Space Empires IV

I'd say that MOO2 was overall the best, if your a Bab5 fan or a Star Trek fan you just have to love this game.

SA 4 offers the ability to 'build your own' though, which is great fun for those closet game designers out there.

Original MOO is a pretty good game for it's time. The limited repertoire of diplomatic Messages is noticable after you've played for a while, and the limitations of ships -- all ships of a given clas move as a single stack in combat -- can get annoying, but considering when it was programmed it's a good effort. MOO II is just great in some areas but worse in others. The individual ships with shield facings and weapon arcs are a huge improvement over original MOO, and the highly detailed control in tactical combat is fantastic. The new technologies are pretty good but the absolutely rigid tech tree is not so great. The "little people" approach to managing planetary work forces is awful. It was lifted from Master of Magic, which is a good game but played on the scale of individual cities not planets. Why they thought that a feature from a fantasy game played on the scale of cities and even individual characters was a good thing to wedge into a 4X game I've never been able to even guess.

I hope the "sliders" from original MOO come back in MOO III.

I tried to play VGA planets once or twice. It's too clunky to be played effectively from my experience.

I played Star Control II a bit. It's cute, but it's more of an 'adventure' game than a strategic game. The ship combat and technologies associated with ships are very limited. I have no experience with either SC I or III.

I've not played ANY "Star Wars" space game. And don't expect to in the future. SW games are generally arcade games, anyway. But the SW universe just doesn't excite me so I'd probably not be very interested even in a "genuine" SW 4X game.

SE II was interesting but I never quite got excited enough to register it. I discovered SE III just as the beta development for SE IV was beginning.

SE III is a lot of fun. There is much more detail and flexibility than SE II or even most other "big name" 4X games like the MOO series. SE IV is an improvement in many ways, but many good features of SE III were not carried forward. The ability to retreat from combat, for example. Still, I have to agree that SE IV is over-all one of the best 4X games available. More detail in certain aspects of the game would help it a lot, though. "Conditions" on planets are too generic. There should be seperate weather/temperature, gravity, and radiation factors, like in MOO or Stars! And if only he could improve the tactical combat -- even a simple impulse system to control initiative and fire-order would be good. Shield facings, weapon arcs, and turn rates like MOO would be fantastic.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 October 2001).]

evader · #5 October 16th, 2001, 12:49 AM

SE is by far the best. I have tried various othergames like that(too many to mention) But Se(both III and IV) remains my favorite. Fot stratagy, depth and customizing there is just no comparison

Gavin · #6 October 16th, 2001, 01:20 AM

"I tried to play VGA planets once or twice. It's too clunky to be played effectively from my experience."

It was very easy to set up and play over the Internet, and played fast, and was the first game I know of that allowed custom races from popular sci-fi shows.

"I played Star Control II a bit. It's cute, but it's more of an 'adventure' game than a strategic game. The ship combat and technologies associated with ships are very limited. I have no experience with either SC I or III."

Star Control II had Xploration, one of the most realistic ever done in fact.

It didn't have any Xpansion, you had one homeworld and that was that. You had to do all the mining yourself, too, which was fun for the first 20 star systems, then you started yawning.

It did allow you to research new technology and build ships, only trick was they all had to go into your main command ship fleet.

"I've not played ANY "Star Wars" space game. And don't expect to in the future. SW games are generally arcade games, anyway. But the SW universe just doesn't excite me so I'd probably not be very interested even in a "genuine" SW 4X game."

Rebellion was horrible, the planet interface was archaic, and the only fun part, the starship combat in a 3D view with 3D rendered models, appeared thrown together and rushed into game release and lacked polish.

Dragonlord · #7 October 16th, 2001, 04:34 AM

Uhm, there's more to 4X games than just space-based ones...
The best strategy game ever made, for me, is still Civilization II. And in a few weeks, after 5 years of waiting, Civ III is coming out ! I can't wait...all we had is Civ clones and ripoffs in the mean time (Call to Power, etc).

From the real-time 4x games I'd say I enjoyed Age of Empires the most....looking forward to Empire Earth !

tesco samoa · #8 October 16th, 2001, 04:35 AM

Would battles of desteny make it any where on this list?

All time fav. 4x games

Stars, MOO, MOO2, SEIV, SEIII, Overlord, Lord of the Relms, MULE, Star Control (2).

There was another game I used to play. Cannot remember what it was called. Came out in 96. You basicaly designed your ships and sent them out on patrols etc... You could really control them. Very detailed. Mostly space combat. I will have to look in the old game boxes for the name. I have tech tree infront of me but it has no name on it.. ( remeber when games came with tech charts... what I would give to see game shiped with the manuals like from the aces series or early janes games.)

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Inter arma silent leges

Puke · #9 October 16th, 2001, 07:09 AM

i have said it before, i will say it again:

Imperialism I and II, by FrogCity and SSI. Games for the Thinking man. empire building and warfare, with unheard of things like solid (bordering upon god-like) diplomacy and economic modles. sharp AI (SSI meets a 4x game, you know the AI has to be good) both strategically and diplomatically. it knows all the tricks and you cant get away with dicking it about like the unfortuneate AI in space empires (and civ, and alpha centauri..)

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

chewy027 · #10 October 16th, 2001, 03:06 PM

well if we're going down that path what about Europa Universalis. That is another great game and the sequal is coming out soon to. Should be even better now. Diplomacy is awesome i especially like the way alliances are done. I think thats the way se5 should go it would make it so much more realistic and make treaties so much more important.