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What are the best 4X games on Steam?

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Apr 5, 2021

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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.

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21 Games Considered

Best 4X games on Steam	Price	Steam Rating	Genre
88 Endless Legend	$29.99	Very Positive	4X
-- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion	$39.99	-	RTS
86 Civilization V	$29.99	Very Positive	4X
-- Distant Worlds: Universe	$59.99	Mostly Positive	4X
-- Crusader Kings 2	-	Very Positive	Grand Strategy

Endless Legend

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Top 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 points wisely. It might win or lose you the game. See More

Top Con

Multiplayer is glitchy and sometimes unplayable

Playing with friends can be difficult. Desyncing means you have to reload the game (it autosaves every turn so that's good). For a time it would desync after ever turn, so you had to play the game 1 turn at a time. See More

TranquilKhepri's Experience

An refreshing fantasy take on X4 without bloating RPG elements, only the significant ones like simple questing and skill progression. I would say that it's new gameplay elements even inspired Civilization 6 newer mechanics. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top 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 experience. See More

Top Con

Very few multiplayer games

The most games you'll play of Endless Legend will be by yourself or with friends; it's highly unlikely you'll find an open lobby at all times. The overall online life of the game is low. When and If you find rooms, they are mostly private games and no one can join without an invite. Overall the community as a whole is small. See More

commissar's Experience

I tried to like it and tried multiple times but it just felt too abstract. See More

Top Pro

Engrossing fantasy setting

If you've played Civ V, you know how much history they put into it. With Endless Legend, there's as much fantasy as Civ's history. Faction quest-lines give you a feel for the people you're leading, and the minor factions are all interesting enough to read the flavor text for. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Even for a 4X game, Endless Legend consists of lots and lots of deep systems that can make approaching it difficult. Though it's worth noting that there are mods that remove or tone down the complexity of the game making it more accessible. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful art style

Endless Legend represents a unique art style in the 4x genre, and it stands up graphically even after a few years. The game looks and feels very pretty, and the official art for the game is nothing short of stunning. See More

Top Con

Confusing tutorial

This is a game that takes experience to learn rather than reading or learning in a similar fashion. Although the tutorial has you doing things, it does not explain the various ways you can do things, nor ensure you actually understand what it is you're actually doing. It is better to have someone you know explain the game to you. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Weak technology interaction

When researching a powerful technology, the game does not give any feedback to your growth in power other than statistics. For example, Dust Alchemy is a very good mid-game tech that drastically increases your currency gained per turn, but all you get from it is a higher number on your screen. The same can be said for virtually all technologies. The tech tree is simply very bland to progress through. See More

Top Pro

Region-based territory system shakes up the expansion game

The map is divided into pre-generated regions. Settling a region claims all of it (even if it's not explored). That city can't have districts outside its region, and only one city can be settled per region. This curtails city-spamming and aggressive city placement, and creates interesting decisions about resource access. See More

Top Con

Race concepts are difficult to latch onto/have specific roads to victory

It does not make use of standard fantasy races such as elves and dwarves but creates an entirely new set. On the one hand, this is great since they are fresh ideas, but on the other, it comes off feeling alien and difficult to connect to. Additionally, each race has more or less one path to victory which makes you feel pigeon-holed. See More

Top Pro

Amazing soundtrack

The music for the game is very well composed and is great to listen to. Not to mention, it's also free. See More

Top Pro

Approachable without sacrificing depth

It's pretty easy to learn and get into as turn based strategy but still complex enough to give those looking for depth their fix. See More

Top Pro

Interesting races, leaders and character design

Top Pro

Combat system is more skill based than RNG based

Top Pro

Nearly all of the races are viable

Top Pro

DLC is great and isn't a ripoff

Unlike other games that have pieces of the game completely removed to be used as a bargaining chip for DLC, the game feels complete without DLC. Although the offered DLC is fun and adds many more aspects to the game, such as espionage and control of the seasons. You don't feel like you're missing out by not buying the DLC, however, it is recommended if you want to grasp the true experience. See More

Top Pro

Art is masterful

Top Pro

Good diplomacy system

Top Pro

Feeling of power

When you arrive in the late-game, you, along with other empires have become very powerful and will be able to amass many resources in a much shorter amount of time. Although this doesn't give you an advantage over anyone else, it is still pleasurable to have a feeling of such power. See More

Top Pro

Everything is described in the lore

From how Dust (the in-game currency) can buyout construction to the biological functions that provide an advantage (or even disadvantage), the game is careful to fully explain gameplay mechanics with lore aspects, leaving few to no plotholes. See More

Top Pro

Autosaves every turn

Although the game is prone to errors, some that crash the game albeit rarely, the game autosaves at the beginning of every turn, so that should the game crash, a recent instance of the game may be loaded and strategies replicated, or entirely new strategies to be used if one wishes. See More

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Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

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Top Pro

Many ways to play and win the game

Top Con

Very long games

A game can last upwards of 4 hours for the medium/larger games. This can be a detriment for those that do not have the time to sit down and play a four hour game. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Great modding scene

While it doesn't support Steam Workshop, Sins specializes in having many great large total conversion mods, focused on major Sci-fi IPs. There's also a decent variety of smaller mods from font to planets to gameplay redesigns. See More

Top Pro

Leisurely real time combat

The large scale of the game controlling fleets in may solar systems allows for a leisurely pace to play, which makes for worthwhile way of controlling ones ships across multiple places. This makes for less stress in the game due to how intuitive and evenly paced this 4X game is. See More

Top Pro

Very distinct races

The game has three main races - Vasari, Advent and TEC and they offer completely different playstyles. TEC have the best economy, Advent's strength lies in their abilities and how they can be synergised and Vasari focuses on their tech - the incredible Orkulus starbase and Warp Stabilization. See More

Top Pro

Huge, gorgeous battles

Cranked all the way up, the graphics are simply divine. See More

Top 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 who to help and who to possibly make angry. See More

Top 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 production rolling, and development and research all at once (with some practice of course). See More

Top Pro

5v5 PvP team games are great

The games are suspenseful. Over the course of a couple of hours your teams choice of strategy, ability to coordinate and maneuver the battlefield are tested in an intense environment. See More

Civilization V

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Top Pro

Large assortment of win conditions that allow the player to experiment

The included win states of the game are diplomatic, scientific, cultural and time. Diplomatic allows the user is done through cooperating with other city states, forming trade routes for caravans. This allows the player to amass a large amount of money through cooperation, which tends to be an easier method to win the game. Scientific places challenges on the player depending on what nation they choose to use. Mainly though, you can build out large population cities with science as their main research technology. This way beating others in science, thus most likely being the first to launch a spaceship (the win condition for a science victory). Cultural wins are often a bit tricky, especially in the vanilla game, where they were often left vague, but basically, the beginning of the game you want to build as many wonders as possible, in order to get a lot of tourism late game. Often a cultural win is a late game win that may require the timed win state to be turned off. Lastly, timed wins are won by having the highest score at the end of a timed game. All of these different win conditions allow for the user to experiment greatly whit the mechanics of the game, making for a deep game that can change throughout play depending on what the player would like to focus on. See More

Top Con

Late game becomes a slog of ordering each unit individually

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Co-Op:2 to 21 Player Online / LAN

Controller Support:Steam Controller Officallly supported

Top 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. It can be a great gateway 4X game. See More

Top Con

Not a lot of depth for a 4X game

As everything in the game is very streamlined it may leave 4X veterans wanting for more aspects of the game that can be controlled, influenced and managed and in more ways. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

One unit per tile

Civ 5 restricts you to having one unit per tile, but has an AI unable to handle that restriction well, and doesn't even have decent pathing for units. Late game becomes a slog of ordering each unit individually due to poor pathing. See More

Top Pro

Customization through policies

Policies are used as a tool to gain a variety of customizations that benefit ones society. There is a branching tree of policies that will allow the user to pick certain aspects that will suit them best such as adding law or religion to ones society which will give gains in certain aspects. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful graphics

From the players cities and armies to the lush landscape, Civilization is quite a beautiful game for those with systems powerful enough to push the graphics to the limit. Even when on lower graphical settings the game looks lush and well animated. See More

Top Con

Most victories won by timed or military victory

It can be pretty difficult to win by diplomacy or culture which does add some challenge to the game but it can get tiresome if one keeps winning by only military or timed victories. See More

Top Pro

Fantastic tactical combat

Civilization V has a great combat system that feels very tactical over previous versions as there is no stacking of troops, but with the new hexagonal grid players can surround enemies as well as allow for better tactics when planning attacks. See More

Distant Worlds: Universe

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Top 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 out on their own, making for a very immersive way to solve issues. See More

Top Con

Requires a time commitment

This is not a game that one can jump into with no prior knowledge, there is a high learning curve that will take many trial sessions in order to get the hang of the full aspects of the game. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

Many aspects of the game can be automated

Top 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 entrepreneurs of the private sector to recognize an opportunity to make money, so they might build the infrastructure around that resort without the player's input. See More

Top Pro

The universe is huge

With the possibility to simulate thousands of stars and tens of thousands of planets in realtime, the universe in Distant Worlds is truely vast. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Detailed ship and base building

Crusader Kings 2

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Top Pro

Freedom to play how you like

The game allows for one to make their own choices with there being many "win" conditions in that you can choose to progress how you like. Want to take over all of Europe, that is possible, want to create a successful lineage of family that keeps to themselves, this is also possible. See More

Top Con

Extremely complicated

Crusader King II is a very complicated game that seems overly complex at first and may take a while to really learn as there are quite a lot of things to not only balance in the game but also figure out how to do either through in game tutorials or reading online. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Grand Strategy

Top Pro

Massive online multiplayer

Crusader Kings II has a whopping 32 player online multiplayer mode. Something not often found in games of this sort which can make for a very intense and strategic gameplay session. See More

Top Con

No naval battles

No naval battles, which reduces the advantages of being an Island nation. See More

Endless Space

Top Pro

Efficent Interface

The Interface is quite good looking for a space 4X game and works well. See More

Top Con

Harsh learning curve

The game has a bad tutorial and is therfore hard to learn; early on even the lowest difficulty can feel almost impossible to beat. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

Still Beautiful

Top 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). See More

Top Pro

Dynamic tax system

Endless Space's unique tax system allows you to strategically decide between Income and Approval. See More

Stellaris

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Top 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 situations where the whole galaxy is against you. You also might find a race of primitives who you uplift, who will become fast friends with you. It's possible that you might grow attached to them, only for them to suddenly and violently be taken over by that Xenophobic Militarist on your borders. The reason some stick with this game for so long is because they love these interactions, despite how shallow they may be sometimes. The fact that you can even be a Fanatic Militarist in the game and still have friends afterward is something that some may find particularly fun. See More

Top Con

The AI is inconsistent

While the AI in Stellaris works fine most of the time, it has its fair share of problems and oddities. One of the main problems is automation with the help of the AI. When your empire grows too large, you have to relegate some star systems to “sectors” that are controlled by the AI, automatically performing upkeep and advancement tasks with settings and rules assigned by you. In theory, this would reduce the amount of micromanagement you have to perform, but the AI has a tendency to ignore your inputs, and just randomly reassign resources. This creates a situation where 10 solar systems manually controlled by you have a higher output than 80 systems controlled by the AI. Another significant problem is the AI controlling the enemy empires. While these function well enough to give you a decent challenge, they sometimes get stuck into logic loops. For example, the AI can decide to endlessly rebuild a single structure, needlessly wasting resources, which causes that empire to stagnate and eventually collapse. Or it can “forget” to allocate food resources after a war while spending everything on just rebuilding, causing a collapse from starvation. It can feel really aggravating when enemy empires just start imploding for no apparent reason, leaving you with a massive fleet with nowhere to point it at. These two AI problems, among various others, can worsen the overall experience and sometimes take the enjoyment out of a playthrough. See More

Soloder's Experience

I have played this game many many hours. Very complicated at first, however as you play game after game you learn to enjoy its many different options, updates coming out make it more interesting all the time, has some of the most interesting strategic and empire building options. This game is not for someone looking to finish a game in a day (or even a week). See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Hybrid: 4X / Grand Strategy

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Basic economic system is unrealistic, illogical, unworkable and very badly explained

When the game had a simple 'tile' system it worked fine. Now the need for specialist workers creates a level of frustration which simply ruins the playability of the game. See More

commissar's Experience

Amazing game overall! See More

Top Pro

Constant updates

Stellaris is steadily receiving updates, tweaking game balance and fixing bugs alongside with quality of life improvements and new content. Though some of the bigger updates content is often sold as DLC. See More

Top Con

Lack of uniqueness ever since the 2.0 update

Ever since Paradox released the 2.0 update, the game has become trash. They simplified the game to the point of absurdity, so now it's pretty much just EU4 in space, except unlike EU4, it's just bad now. See More

AmbitiousAnahita's Experience

There are two glaring problems with Stellaris. The concept of 'Influence' is so restrictive as to make all other skills and factors almost meaningless. It is as if the producers wanted to put soemthing in the game just to make it not work. This is a longstanding fault. Recent updates have now so complicated the economic and population systems on the surface of the planets that the game truly has become nonesensical. What is wrong with these people? They are taking money from customers and yet deliberately making the game less enjoyable. See More

Top Pro

Highly moddable

The fact that Stellaris is so modifiable makes a huge difference to the game. There are so many ways to customize the game to your liking. If there's a design decision you dislike, you are always capable of changing it yourself (within certain limits), and you can make the game completely different. You can play as a race from your favorite books, anime, whatever, because so many talented people are making mods for the game. See More

Top Con

Lack of vanilla content, currently

Unfortunately, the game is lacking a bit in certain types of content. There is a great number of events in the game, but not enough as it is. With how many events there are, it is likely that you will see many of these events occur over multiple games. For instance, finding Sol or Sanctuary once may be interesting, but finding it every couple games makes it seem less special. See More

Top Con

High learning curve

There is a lot to learn in this game that isn't explained very well and is sometimes hard to find. Edicts, policies, and civil rights for example. See More

Top Con

Needs more traits/ethics/flavor

There are very few options to really make your species unique. There are mods that address this but they can break when patches are released. More added to vanilla would be great. See More

Age of Wonders III

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Top 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 of advancement in the game. See More

Top 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. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top 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 feels well made due to how the player can pick up the play. See More

Pandora: First Contact

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Top 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 what are worth upgrading. See More

Top 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. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Civilization 6

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Top Pro

Bonus from leaders and civs different

That permit to have several leaders for one civ. Vanilla game has India and Greece which can have two different leaders. DLC bring England and France who can have the same leader. See More

Top Con

Identity and style

The cartoony style is a bit weird. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Top Pro

District

Specialised districts can be constructed around the City to place specialty buildings. See More

Top Pro

Happiness points are gone

they are replaced by amenities and you can build any city you wants See More

Top Pro

Scouts units gain experience

Scouts units gain experience when they discover goody huts, natural wonders and city states. See More

Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Simplistic battle system

The battle system is one of the things that made a departure from previous titles in the series. It's not turn-based anymore and it feels like it takes a backseat to diplomacy and deterrence. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top 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, research, infrastructure) and the impact is palpable. See More

Top 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 advances that come in late game, all ships have unlimited range. This leads the player to rely on very tight borders and lucky system finds. Expanding isn't currently viable. So this all leads to the major problem: there's really only one way to play. To be successful you need to ignore your racial abilities and stick to the only strategy allowed. A lot of the ship tech was kept, but tactical combat is very different, and almost pointless. In MoO2 there were neat little tricks you could pull to take ships intact or out maneuver slow ships when you couldn't out gun them. Tactical combat in the new game isn't really working. It's now really just is whomever has the bigger gun wins. It plays out combat like a CIV combat clone. There are some tricks you can do with missiles and augmented engines, but that's about it. Spying is greatly improved, you have more control over what's going on with your spies - however currently it really feels overpowered. Diplomacy is a bit of a mess. In the open beta it doesn't really work and there are buggy problems with it too (like you can't declare war on someone unless they want to meet with you). See More

Top Pro

Great voice acting

While not directly related to gameplay, this is still one of the things that can push a game to new levels. The ensemble cast of voice actors for Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars is top notch, surpassing even most AAA games. Besides talent like Nolan North and Troy Baker, who are pretty popular in game-related voice acting nowadays, there are also actors of the caliber of Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn, John de Lancie and Alan Tudyk. See More

Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

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Top Con

Among the harshest learning curves in a 4X game

There's dozens of spells and ways to customize units through stats. It takes a lot of time to get comfortable with all the gameplay mechanics and with the UI itself. The in-game help is also lacking or not available at the right time, forcing players to look elsewhere for help. See More

Top 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 abominations not unlike those from H. P. Lovecraft's stories and many, many more factions that draw these kinds of parallels. All these factions have different flavors and different (sometimes radically different) styles of play. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Grand Strategy

Top Con

Shallow empire-building

As a pretender god, you're waging war and thus are fundamentally destructive. You can build forts, temples, and magic labs, and forts can be upgraded, but aside from magical things like global spells, or positive effects of your divine influence, you don't really affect positive change in your people's lives. Most infrastructural changes are abstracted to random events, and this level of the game is abstracted to a necessary back-end. See More

Top 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 single-handedly kill hundreds or thousands of early-game units. And that's just troops. Magic can make your whole army flying and intangible. Spells effect everything in the game, up to and including rewriting the rules of the magic system. There's nine different kinds of magic that your mages can know, each with different strengths and weaknesses, and you research different schools, which have various spells in each path. Holy magic is an exception to that, and Blood is a different kind of exception. But that magic, and the things you summon with it, are a big part of the game. And yet, just one big part. You've also got to manage your dominion – your worship, for you play as an aspiring god – which changes the bonuses you get from provinces where you're worshiped depending on what kind of god you are (there are scales, each of which goes from 3 to -3). That also determines how many sacred units you can recruit, and though the type depends on your nation, the blessing you give them depends on what kind of god you are. All those details are determined by you at the beginning of the game. And a game, incidentally, lasts a while. Three months is a typical multiplayer game, and some last years. See More

Top Con

Outdated graphics and UI

The UI and the graphics themselves are quite outdated. Which add to the overall complexity and high learning curve. See More

Top 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 that may be difficult to match in other less story driven games. See More

Galactic Civilizations III

Top Con

DLC's are expensive

As much as new content is appreciated they are consistently released at 5 USD a pop at minimum. Some of these DLC's contain very small amounts of content and definitely seem overpriced. With the game being expansive and bland without this DLC, the entry price point for this game is quite high compared with other titles. See More

Top 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 into and the order it is invested in. Pre-planning for war by checking how many ships the enemy has and what technologies are being used on their ships so you can counter this with your own ship designs. In the early game this is even more important to use the ship designed to maximize an early advantage in exploration, colonization and star base building. This is definitely one of the deeper titles out there in which you slowly uncover layer after layer of strategic depth as you become more familiar with the game. See More

PopularPolymatheia's Experience

I have 2100 hours playing Gal Civ III. It has a higher than average learning curve but the game's depth and the ludicrous map sizes keep me playing > forever. Best damn 4x space game on the market. Oh and this game is NOT on rails. No linked star systems. You can travel any direction without being 'train railed' by star lanes like some other games. See More

Specs

Top 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. See More

Top 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. Either strap 20 engines to a ship to make it faster, or 20 sensors to make it useful in detecting enemy spies. The only limit is the player's imagination. See More

Top Con

High system requirements for a 4X title

Unless you plan to play on large maps and under, playing on huge or insane sized maps can become cumbersome because of performance issues you may experience. In addition to this the system requirements are misleading and should be updated to reflect what you really should have, which is 8Gb RAM at a minimum to run this game properly. See More

Top Pro

Allows 3D printing ships built in the game

Galactic Civilizations 3 supports 3D printing. While most people don't own a 3D printer, you can at least prepare the print jobs and give them to someone that does to print your own space ships. See More

Top Con

Endgame can be repetitive

Once you are down to the last 200 or so turns and have your victory in sight, it can become a slog to power through turns to reach the end and this does mean it can become quite repetitive for some. It is at this stage that the game also loses a little strategic depth. See More

Top Pro

Constant updates and DLC's

The game was quite bland on release and subsequent DLC's and expansion have really breathed life into this game and brought on new features that have made the game in general more enjoyable. The free updates have also been well crafted and come regularly as does communication from the developers. See More

Top Pro

Interesting building-placement minigame

Buildings can provide certain bonuses to other adjacent buildings. For example, putting two factories together nets a +70% bonus, instead of a +60% bonus that they would grant if they were far from each other. This forces the players to think about how best to position their buildings. See More

Polaris Sector

Top Pro

Easy to efficiently colonize and manage planets

The player can explore the galaxy and leave behind orders to the AI to colonize planets left behind and build whatever the player told it to focus on. This removes the need to micro-manage everything and makes the gameplay efficient and not time-consuming at all. See More

Top Con

Diplomacy could use some work

While the diplomacy system is present in this game and provides you with multiple choices of dialog and outcomes, it's pretty hard to determine how much you are gaining from a particular choice. For example, when making an economic treaty there's no way to find out how much you are gaining from it or how it will affect your other resources. Another thing that's annoying related to diplomacy is that you can't see what causes other factions' attitudes to change toward you and it all feels quite arbitrary. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Top 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 gives the player the actual technologies that they can use. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Sword of the Stars

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Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Space 4X Wargame

Thea: The Awakening

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Top Pro

Detailed ways to manage your settlements and party members

Thea: The Awakening revolves around the fine details of building settlements in the world, collecting and managing resources, and keeping your party members well-stocked with what they need. Resource management is key, letting you build new pastures, and structures like defensive walls for your settlements. Each time you send your party members off on an expedition to earn experience points and collect valuables, you're responsible for making sure that their equipment is up-to-date and that they have plenty of food or firewood to survive the journey. You'll also want to make sure that you keep your citizens alive by protecting them from enemy encounters through battle and through side quest choices, or else you might lose potentially valuable party members for the future. Overall, there are a ton of elements and tools that you can experiment with to help your settlements and companions thrive. See More

Top Con

Not for players who dislike micromanaging small details

If you're not a fan of keeping track of little details like how many resources you have, weapons for your party members, and how many turns you need to build an enclosure around a settlement, then Thea: The Awakening might not be for you. There's a lot to manage and tons of busywork, which might be a deal-breaker for some players. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Tactical Survival, Role-Playing

Top Pro

Your decisions matter for both side quests and combat

You have plenty of freedom to choose whether to fight enemies or avoid them, as well as how side quests impact the world around you. As you explore, you'll run into dynamic events that give you a mini-story to read about the lay of the land, such as how it's been invaded by orcs or other creatures. You'll then get to choose whether you want to engage the enemies in combat or use your diplomacy skills instead. Side quests also come about as you explore, offering choose your own adventure decisions such as saving a band of settlers, killing enemies who might later turn out to be benevolent, and plenty more. It's a unique system that really gives you the sense that your decisions have an impact on the game. See More

Top Con

Tedious inventory management

With so many resources and weapons to handle, you're unfortunately stuck with manually dragging and dropping required items through menus. There isn't a quicker, more efficient way to sort through what you need. It can get quickly get boring and ruin your time with the game. See More

Top Pro

Typical combat is replaced with a unique card game

Instead of fighting enemies in regular turn-based battles, you'll play a unique, numbers-based card game where you and your AI opponent take turns placing cards on the field. The idea is that you line up your attacker cards, like soldiers, with the goal of their attack power outnumbering the defensive number on the enemy's card. To supplement your attackers, you have defensive cards like spell users who can inflict ailments like confusion against enemy units. Once you're done setting your cards down on the field, you'll choose to pass your turn, and then the action happens automatically, with strong attackers taking out the cards with the weaker defense, and the defensive units coming in to help. It's a fresh alternative to the combat you'd expect from turn-based systems, and it's great for anyone looking for something new. See More

Top Con

Too many genres mixed into one game

This is quite a niche game, with role-playing elements, settlement building and survival tactics, and a card game all wrapped together in one package. It can get confusing for someone who likes one of these genres and not the others, possibly discouraging them from trying the game out. See More

Top Pro

Full voice acting

Every line in the game is voice acted by authentic actors who fit right in with the dark fantasy setting. Because there's so much text to read, it helps a lot to have such great voice acting to supplement all of the information, all with excellent pronunciation and believable accents. For anyone who might be turned off by so much text, you can definitely rely on the great voice acting to keep your interest. See More

Last Days of Old Earth

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Top Con

Late game is slow

Growing your colony in late game becomes a bit of a slog. See More

Top Pro

Great art direction

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Top 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 for a building, the freedom of the tech web ended constrained to certain paths due to goals set by the game, and artifacts ended up being unreliable due to their randomness. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Unique take on science fiction

While most science fiction games present one or two ways humanity could develop in the future, Beyond Earth presents six. Human-Alien Hybrids trying to adapt to their alien planet. Humans in Battlesuits and LEV weapons with a liking for terraforming. Societies filled with cyborgs and androids. Societies of people who want to create the perfect humans. Societies that are supported by a power base made entirely of machines. Societies that do almost everything by combining biology and technology to create bio-mechanical weapons. See More

Top Pro

You are not locked to a linear tech progression

Top Pro

Great music

Top Pro

Engrossing early game

The game starts by preparing your voyage through space by selecting crew, cargo, etc. Players have a lot of freedom in what to pick or whether to choose a certain strategy which will impact the rest of the game. How you respond to the environment during the early game may very well shape how the rest of your campaign will go. See More

Top Pro

Involved spy system

The player can send a spy to an enemy city in order to learn what that city is building, what they are using for defenses, etc. This will take a few turns in order to set up, but once it is done, having an inside informant on what competing cities are doing can be big leg up. Once a spy network is set up, a spy can carry out multiple operations with varying results. A few operations one can take part in is stealing credits, technology, or even research. These are all things that take time to do on ones own, but can speed things up by taking some from other cities while also developing or earning your own. Overall, this is an improvement over Civ V, where the spy system was a bit shallow, luckily it is quite fleshed out in Beyond Earth, which adds quite a deceptive layer to the gameplay. See More

Planar Conquest

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

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