Visit us on Discord or Discourse to give us some feedback or chat.
4X is a type of strategy game where you control an empire and "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate".
This question is limited to 4X games that are available on Steam.
Pro Highly customizable
Some specific traits are unique to each faction. Most, however, can be traded for when customizing a faction, with a point-buy limitation to balance it. The world generation options are all knobs to turn one way or another as you like. Very fun option to fiddle with that can make every game a new...
Pro Choice of faction meaningfully impacts gameplay
Each faction has strengths and weaknesses, but the best part is swapping out traits before the game starts. You have 80 points to spend, and traits are more or less expensive depending on how powerful they are. Each trait gives you something other factions probably won't have, so spend those p...
Pro Excellent depth
If you like exploring a game's mechanics, this one will give you a lot to chew on. The battle mechanics in particular are a serious improvement compared to Civ V's take on war, with units able to stack together into armies instead of spreading out over one tile each.
Pro Among the most beginner friendly 4X games
Civ V is among the most beginner friendly 4X games. It doesn't overwhelm you with options right from the get go, but slowly eases you in. The tech tree, resource and production management, movement, policy decisions, diplomacy and all the UIs for them are pretty easy to wrap your head around....
Pro Endless scenarios and replayability
Civilization V has a large assortment of nation leaders to choose from that have an even bigger assortment of scenarios that are able to play out for said leaders. Each game can be quite unique in this way as each leader allows for a different nation to be controlled.
Con Poor pathing
Civ 5 restricts you to having one unit per tile, but has an AI unable to handle that restriction well due to poor pathing for units. Also due to poor pathing late game becomes a slog of ordering each unit individually.
Pro Efficent Interface
The Interface is quite good looking for a space 4X game and works well.
Pro Diverse playable factions creating a lot of variety
The playable empires are really varied and often have quite different gameplay (though not as much as the factions in Endless Legends).
Pro Dynamic tax system
Endless Space's unique tax system allows you to strategically decide between Income and Approval.
Endless Space is a turn-based Space 4X game with an open techweb that is dividied into 4 unconnected trees and semi-real time combat. Included are player-designed ships that use a system where players choose cards to simulate fleet actions. The map keeps players isolated early game, until they research a technology allowing them to traverse worm holes. The economy is based on 4 resources, Food, Industry, Dust(Money) and Science, with the first two being system-based and for population and production while the other two are empire-based. The expansion, Disharmony, improves the game a lot and should be seen as essential when buying the game.
Pro Radically different factions taking inspiration from multiple sources
Most of the factions draw their inspiration from historical empires or from mythological factions and creatures from different cultures. For example, Ermor is based on the Roman Empire, Ulm is a nation of barbarians which is heavily inspired from the Conan stories, Rlyeh is filled with abominatio...
Pro Amazing scale and diversity
The game starts out small. Your troops are people with weapons. Or monkeys with weapons or bats with weapons or whatever (the nations are pretty different from each other, inspired by the mythologies of different nations). By the end of the game, you could have armies of made of units that could...
Pro Excellent depth through in game lore and faction selections
There are over 80 factions available in the game that can be played. Each has their own lore and story behind them, which will change as the ages (of which there are 3, early, middle, and late) progress through time spent in game. This depth in lore and story telling gives a sense of involvement t...
Pro In-depth problem solving
Unlike games like Civ where solving a problem is a few clicks away, Distant Worlds has many layers of abstraction that will make problem solving a lot more difficult and more like a real living world. There may be many elements needed in order to solve a problem that the player will have to figure...
Pro Makes you feel like the empire you're managing is alive
Because the game has a private sector that the player can't control, that independently responds to situations and opportunities, it makes you feel like you're managing a living organism instead of giving instructions to a set of systems. A resort you've built might prompt the entrepre...
Pro In-depth economy and resource management
The game keeps details that are often abstracted away. For example, when you want to build something you have to make sure that the resources are actually within reach of that structure. Because eXploit can be so much more than planting your flag over a single unit of iron or satramene gas.
Pro Emergent stories
Oftentimes, if you play the game without min-maxing everything, you will find yourself with interesting stories to tell. While the coded events themselves may lose their touch after a while, the interactions with the various races nearby will often be different. You might find yourself in situatio...
Con Imbalanced gameplay systems
As the game is right now, without mods, the weapons and other ship modules are sorely in need of a rebalancing. Currently, when you hit the end-game, the best way to go is to stack shields, health, and as many Tachyon Lances as you can fit onto as many Battleships as you can muster, then send them...
Pro Great early game exploration
The exploration, and the early game in general, is very interesting, with a plethora of events, not limited to Anomalies surveying player and AI science ships can encounter.
Stellaris is a 4X/Grand Strategy hybrid game made by Paradox Interactive. Its main features include racial customization, civilization customization, and space empire management. Expansion options include colonization, having other civilizations cede planets to you through war, and vassalizing other empires so that they can be integrated peacefully. The war system uses the Europa Universalis 4 Warscore system, which allows for only a certain amount of demands to be met in one war.
Pro Diplomacy used in a smart way
Different factions will send you quests that may effect your relationship with other factions meaning you will have to choose who best to make a friend or make an enemy when taking these missions. This bit of strategy can greatly change the outcome of a game depending on how well you have chosen w...
Pro Large scale space combat
Sins games range from 7-130+ planets and hundreds of ships per player, all in real time, giving the game a fairly unique scale. Battles can wage on multiple worlds simultaneously and thanks to Sins UI and unit AI you can successfully manage fighting major battles, keeping your economy and ship pro...
Pro Worthwhile leveling system
throughout the game players troops are leveling as long as they are being used. This adds to each's pool of abilities. There are also points one can earn in battle that can be used to unlock new abilities. Both of these systems add up to a competent way to always be leveling and give a feeling...
Pro Intuitive tactical battles
The tactical battles in the game play out in a way that feels different depending on what enemies are being fought , which makes for a good way to differentiate play compared to other 4X games. The battles also play out in a fast fashion that is easy to understand making for an experience that fee...
Con Some areas are too easy
At certain points of the game decision need to be made, which would normally mean something is lost when choosing, but sadly things like buildings are too easy to build meaning there is no loss when choosing what to do, which makes the choices meaningless.
Con Gameplay is too simple
Short of being a constant aggressor there is really no worthwhile way to win battles. While there are a few different victory conditions non of them really amount to anything as they will not be achieved unless dominating with ones military in the first place.
Pro Upgrading is done well
Upgrading ones units and operations is quite fun and intelligently done. As new equipment is developed the user has the choice to bring their units in, in order to equip them with the new equipment. Not only is this intuitive but it adds to the strategy of the game as the player must decide who and
Con Wasted potential
Beyond Earth had a variety of new interesting systems that, unfortunately, fell short of their potential. Units unlocked by the affinity system were only slightly different to what you would get otherwise so your decisions weren't as impactful, quests in reality worked as a choice of upgrade...
Con Late game is slow
Growing your colony in late game becomes a bit of a slog.
Pro Includes systems that add story and philosophical elements to the game
Through quest decisions, the affinity system and the victory condition you choose to pursue, the game asks what type of future would you build for humanity. The choices you make will impact both the gameplay and the outcome of the colony.
Pro Deep strategy
On top of building placements and star base placement and order of updates made to starbases, there is a lot of depth to this title. Everything from whom you butter up to keep from destroying you to whom you ally with. The types of ships you build and what technologies your research is invested i...
Pro Fully customizable ships
The game's ship designer is one of the most comprehensive and powerful ship designers in a 4X to date. Other than customizing the look of the ships you own, you can also customize the way they work. Functional customization allows players to customize their ships to suit their play style. Eit...
Con High learning curve
To become proficient at this game you will need to sink quite a few hours into it. Most 4X's have a learning curve but Galactic Civilizations 3 seems to be up there. Not as bad as Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis, but still high enough to require a good solid time investment.
Con A lot of stuff didn't convert well from previous games
Holdovers from previous installments of this game have become obsolete. A lot of the neat tech toys and racial abilities have been rendered useless or downright crippling with new game mechanics. Systems are very hard to hold as large empires are very hard to defend against without huge tech advan...
Pro Wonderful polish
The game is very well designed from a UI standpoint. The layout is far better than any other Master of Orion game. There was some transparency problems in beta, but the design is well thought out. Strangely the voice over work is very good. Rare to see outside of some AAA games.
Pro Feels like a living, breathing world
From the moment the player colonizes a planet, they can see people moving around that planet when managing resource production. While managing people is not as detailed as to micro-manage every person in a planet, the player can still put groups of them to work on a certain job (food production, r...
Pro Great AI
The Artificial Intelligence in this game is one of the best out of all 4X games. It handles playing against the human player in a way that makes you feel like you are playing against another human opponent.
Pro Interesting technology and research system
Instead of using a linear path for research, this game uses a different approach for research and technology. There are two paths: Applied and Fundamental. Fundamental allows you to gain access to more branches of science and to gain more "exotic" technologies (I.E. Antimatter). Applied
Pro Random events keep the game fresh and engaging
The random events in this game keep the game from becoming stale and boring. You can be extremely powerful and feel like nothing can threaten your empire, but an external threat caused by a random event outside of your control can come and change everything.
Comments
Welcome to the Slant Community
Discover the best games
Slant is powered by a community helping each other find the best stuff. Select the tags you're interested in to get an awesome personalized feed of games and other tech.