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What are the best 4X space games on PC?

31

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Considered

428

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Jan 26, 2024

Last
Updated

28 Games Considered

Best 4X space games on PC	Price	Steam Rating	Genre
84 Distant Worlds: Universe	$28.99	Mostly Positive	4X
76 Stellaris	$39.99	Very Positive	Hybrid: 4X / Grand Strategy
-- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion	$39.99	-	RTS
72 Master of Orion 2	Free / 6 Euro	Very Positive	-
-- Endless Space	$29.99	Mostly Positive	4X

Distant Worlds: Universe

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

DiplomaticAngelia's Experience

Amazing classic 4X game that only lacks modern features introduced in newer game like Stellaris, GalCiv 3, etc. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

The universe is huge

With the possibility to simulate thousands of stars and tens of thousands of planets in real-time, the universe in Distant Worlds is truly vast. See More

Top Pro

Good balance between control and hands-off management

The automation is actually decent, helps out enough and gives you the chance to play the pars you enjoy and leave the boring bits to the AI governors and admirals. Inclusion of the 'civilian' AI in one's empire is an interesting desig choice. See More

Stellaris

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

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

HealthyKuu's Experience

I've logged 1,400 hours into this game for a reason--more than any other game, it allows you to construct whatever kind of society in space you could ever want. Wish to devour half the people you conquer and then make the rest indentured servants? Want to introduce post-scarcity luxury space communism? Have a species of psionic space slugs or cyborg eagles? Construct death stars, raise space monsters, form half a dozen types of federations, regulate or deregulate galactic trade however you want... It is the ultimate game of social engineering where you can play out your utopian or dystopian fantasies however you want. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Hybrid: 4X / Grand Strategy

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

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

RickZeeland's Experience

Now on offer on Steam for only 9,99€ See More

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

Boring

You might find yourself most of the time just watching the boring view of the universe and waiting till you can do something. See More

FlexibleMetis's Experience

Stellaris has continued to improve across years. is easy to learn while giving enough complexity to satisfy experienced players well into the end game. I have logged over a thousand hours playing this game, and feel like I've barely played it. 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

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

DevotedIshtar's Experience

Great game for those who love space and want to fulfuill their fantasy of being a galactic overlord. See More

Top Pro

Unprecedented social engineering

Design whatever kind of society you want. See More

Top Con

Repetitive

Only repetitive gameplay. See More

CromulentBanebdjedet's Experience

Ai gets dumber with every update and late game lag starts earlier and earlier. The launcher is a joke that now randomly scrambles mod load order and then crashes due to resulting incompatibilities. Devs keep adding half-baked and untested systems through expensive dlc while completely ignoring any bugs or problems previous ones introduced. Paradox Forums are hostile to any criticism, while the devs ignore feedback n any other site. Game balance is a joke with the AI being handed massive boosts s it can crush the player in the first 30 years on the highest setting but is afterwards a pathetic joke that will never get any better, or on lower settings or with the "scaling" option starts pathetic and gets no better. This being due to the devs not bothering to teach it to use the economy once they changed it as they only test by playing each other in multiplayer. Entire systems missing or ripped out after launch and left instead with #TODO as the total code. I could go on but this is already more effort to write than has been put in to fix any of the issues raised. I mean seriously a guy on reddit knocked up a better mod sorter that came with such advanced features as "alphabetical sorting" and "showing more than 6 items at a time", as well as "shove mod to top/bottom of list buttons" in a hour or so. Functions still not implemented in the launcher months after it was changed to this new version. See More

Top Pro

Gorgeous aesthetics

Beautiful art and a riveting soundtrack make for a consistently luscious aesthetic experience. See More

Top Con

Weak sector AI

In the game, you can create "sectors" to manage the planets that you cannot manage yourself due to the "core worlds" limit. However, these sectors are managed by the game's AI, and the AI often times makes foolish choices with how they develop the planets under its care, even if the "respect tile resources" option is checked. What the option should do is ensure that the AI builds a building on a tile that has bonuses for that type of building. It will instead build whatever it feels like, from what many in the community have seen. See More

DeliberateRheda's Experience

Economic and population have been overcomplicated to the point where they do nothing useful and simply spoil the game 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

Top 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 in as a blob to murderize every enemy you come across. Compared to other games of this genre, this makes the rest of the research you did before hand seem quite meaningless. You might find yourself asking, "Why did I bother researching Kinetic Weapons when I'll never use them in the end?" Similarly, Ethos and Traits are highly imbalanced as they are. Materialists can get huge research bonuses that nobody else could dream of. Spiritualists can get other races with other ethos to bend to their will ridiculously quickly. Militarists are incredibly good at making war, which is currently the only feasible way to meet the win conditions of the game. As for traits, there are many traits that you may find yourself never picking. Intellectual is always good, Very Strong is always good, Repugnant doesn't matter if you don't integrate other species and Sedentary's malus hardly matters. Hopefully we will see these balanced in the future. 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

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

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

Top Pro

Leisurely real time combat

With the large scale of the game, you can control many fleets in several solar systems, which, on easier difficulties, allows for a leisurely pace to play. This makes the game a worthwhile, relaxing and semi-stress-free strategy title played on a grand scale. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve can deter casual players

While the game is one of the slower Real-Time Strategy titles, there is a huge learning curve that can wreak havoc on fledgling players. With some research required in order to colonize certain planets, researching use of larger fleet and capital ship sizes, to maintaining a thriving economic civilization, it will take many, many matches before players feel knowledgeable and skilled enough to play on larger maps or even against more difficult AI. With no true Single Player to speak of and little way of help in terms of tutorials, you must play in order to learn, sometimes using trial and error as a way of making progress. See More

PowerfulGatumdag's Experience

I've played this game for years and the pace is just amazing ; the game that can guard me from smoking for hours. AI is very challeging ! See More

Specs

Top Pro

Huge, gorgeous battles

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

Top Con

Very long games

Depending on the size of the map and how many players involved in it, matches can last for several hours, even days, as the host can save progress for the game locally. The amount of time that needs to be dedicated to any given match can be a deterrent for those that are only interested in playing quick multiplayer games with friends, online opponents, or AI. See More

Top Pro

Capital Ship Hero Characters

You can level them up with different attributes and control them directly and dynamically in battle. See More

Top Con

Slow-paced logistics and combat necessitates situational awareness

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is a strategy title on a massive scale, with players able to colonize multiple solar systems in any given match. Due in part to this scale, there is a perceived slowdown in gameplay; lengthy building construction, minutes-long research and slow unit movement. While the game, at its heart, does appear to be slow (and sometimes is), awareness of your surroundings is paramount. With fleets sometimes taking minutes to arrive at a destination, and defensive structures quickly falling to a massive fleet, it is easy for players to move out of position allowing key worlds to become targeted and lost in enemy incursions if they expand too quickly. However, not expanding quickly enough can halt the player from building up a fleet capable of taking on an enemy, or pirates head-on. In essence, you must learn to balance fleet needs, knowing the right time to expand, while keeping large groups of your ships scattered in key positions to await reinforcements should the need arise. See More

Top Pro

Diplomacy used in a smart way

Factions you play against can send you quests that may affect your relationship with others in the match. By taking on these quests, or even downright refusing them, your standing with the respective faction will change, causing a rippling effect that will increase or degrade your relations with others. Thus you must choose whom to aid and who to shun in an effort to create a strong alliance. This diplomatic depth of strategy can greatly change the outcome of a game depending on the strength of your alliance and military, as it is only as strong as your opponent is weak. And there is nothing stopping them from forming an alliance of their own. See More

Top Pro

Hard battles

You need a lot of power to win. See More

Master of Orion 2

Top Pro

Best Overall 4x composition.

Between the technology, the varying difficulty levels, the city building and diverse planets. This 4x seems to have the most balance between the 4X's weaving them into perfect harmony. See More

Top Con

Awful graphics

Normally I don't care much about graphics, but these are really appalling, better and more modern alternatives exist like FreeOrion. See More

Captain Tightpants's Experience

To this day M002 is still one of my favorite strategy games. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Windows version

Both a Windows and DOS version released in 1996 by MicroProse. See More

PerseveringCronus's Experience

boring See More

Endless Space

Top Pro

Still beautiful

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

Efficient interface

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

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

Prosperous Universe

Top Pro

Highly realistic space flight

Top Con

Currently missing mid & end game content

As the game is currently at its alpha stage, it's still missing content that makes it fun to play for a prolonged period of time. See More

Mjeno's Experience

Full disclosure: I am now on the team of the development studio myself, but I first followed this game as a fan for several months. I was initially drawn in by the realistic sci-fi setting and the promise of a grind-free experience. I loved Eve Online and Elite Dangerous, but dropped out of both because of the in-game waiting times for which I simply don't have the time anymore. I don't play (or even look at) other browser-based games, but this one really sticks out from the crowd. See More

Specs

Genre:Space economy sim

Controller Support:No

Top Pro

Opt-in to military conflict

You don't have to set your alarm to 4 in the morning because an enemy fleet is inbound and you never have to worry about your hard-earned property to be destroyed. See More

Top Pro

Runs in any browser

The game runs in any browser. There's no flying around in space, which would require a heavy 3D client without adding any actual depth in terms of gameplay. See More

Top Pro

Completely player-driven economy

Aurora 4X

Top Pro

Consider as "Dwarf Fortress of 4X space game"

if you already a fan of DF or has experienced with that game before then you probably able to sense the level of game mechanic detail and complexity including poor UI See More

Top Con

Not as accessible as more popular titles of the genre

The game is mainly text based, which may not be appealing to many. On top of this the game is incredibly detailed to the point that you could spend hours just tweaking one small aspect of the game such as design specs of a laser. With little hand holding or explanations on how to play, it will take a lot of forum reading to figure out much of the game, as well as tons of trial and error. See More

VivaciousRaetTawy's Experience

I played a lot of old school StarFire. This is the modern port See More

Top Pro

Detailed ship design

Most things in Aurora are very detailed, especially the ship design. Parts are individually designed and researched, and come with trade-offs and benefits. See More

Top Con

Poor UI

For some, this doesn't seem to be a problem but for the majority, this game UI is still using default Window 98 which doesn't look appear to most of the people See More

Endless Space 2

Top Pro

Diverse and intriguing playable factions

Endless Space 2 features 8 factions, each with its own interesting backstory and gameplay mechanics. For example, The Horatio is a faction lead by a bored trillionare who decided to clone himself billions of times to reshape the galaxy in his own image. This ties in with a gameplay mechanic where The Horatio can use the populace of other factions as genetic material to create new clones, allowing for a much quicker population growth. Another example, The Unfallen, is a race of tree-like beings that seek to bring peace and harmony to the galaxy through non-violent means. To achieve this, they extend cosmic vines from their homeworld to other planets, spreading their influence with symbiosis. As a result, each of the factions feels distinct and interesting, giving you enough incentives to try them all, considerably adding to the replayability. See More

Top Con

Limited control over space combat

After organizing a fleet and sending it into a battle you can only view a cinematic video of the combat or auto-resolve it, immediately giving you the result of the battle. You have no control over the ships during a battle, preventing the use of tactics, maneuvers, or any minute adjustments, which might be disappointing to players expecting more depth out of it. See More

Courtland Smith's Experience

Asymmetrical gameplay done right. Beautiful art direction. Clean, effective UI. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

Excellent visuals

Almost everything you see in the game looks spectacular. This includes very neat interface menus, detailed planet textures, intricate spaceship designs, and even gorgeous character models among many other aspects. All of these help to bring life to the space opera universe of ES2, making it a more cinematic and enjoyable experience as a whole. See More

Top Con

High learning curve

While Endless Space 2 might feel familiar to 4X veterans, it can take a while for new players to fully figure it out. This includes learning interface menus, grasping how mechanics such as colonization work, and even understanding how to counteract another faction's expansion. It might feel like an information overload for the first dozen hours, so unless you're willing to get past this high entry wall, you won't be able to fully enjoy this game. See More

SoLo 1988's Experience

Satisfying sequel to Endless Space. It is a strategic 4X game that adds depth to the previous Endless Space. See More

Top Pro

Deep turn-based strategy gameplay

As most turn-based 4X games set in space, ES2 is about expanding your galactic empire, allowing you to create spaceships, build colonies, research technologies while interacting with your rival factions via diplomacy, economy, or warfare. While it starts out simple, requiring you to only manage your homeworld and provide upkeep for a small fleet of spaceships, the gameplay gradually becomes more difficult as you expand your galactic empire. More colonized planets means more upkeep costs, more potential for civilian unrest, and more planets where an enemy faction can attack you. This means you have to carefully balance populace wellness, your income, and military might as you expand to prevent a collapse. Because of this, when you finally control a massive galactic empire, it truly feels like an accomplishment. There's enough complexity and nuances in the gameplay to satisfy most 4X veterans and even entice players new to the genre. See More

CaringLuna's Experience

After last update game is almost unplayable and crashes alot especially in later game. I have around 300 hrs in the game and have stopped playing it. Its fun and challenging in the early mid game but as I said crashes and hangups alot in later game. See More

Top Pro

Incredible soundtrack

CredibleSet's Experience

Some say this game has a steep learning curve, but once you learn what is going on with the UI and icons, it's extremely streamlined and displays more info at a glance or a mouse over than other games do with paragraphs of text. And the so-called learning curve is nowhere near as clunky as other top tier games such as some Paradox stategy games. The map is sleek and avoids the claustrophobic feel of some other 4x games. And while there have been some complaints about the lack of ability to control individual ships in tactical engagements, you are the supreme ruler of an empire, and when was the last time the President of a country stopped what he was doing to climb into a tank to tactically fight out a battle? So not only does playing tactics cards more accurately depict that you are a grand leader and not a grunt, it greatly facilitates speed of game play, especially in multiplayer. ...and multiplayer is hella fun! Finally, there are many nice touches such as quests, hidden (and unique) artifacts to discover, truly distinct empires, and heroes and leaders that can level up during game play that can give this game a smooth epic feel and fresh experience each time you play a new game. Worth mastering the learning curve. Highly recommend :) See More

Polaris Sector

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 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

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

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 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

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

Game is much better after adding user content.

Top Con

Ship combat not as good as MOO2, no ship captures. Also spying almost worthless compared to MOO2

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

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

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

Windows 10 problems

Problems reported by Windows 10 users. See More

Top Con

Star Lanes

That pretty much sums it up; yeeech! See More

Star Walk 2

X3: Terran Conflict

Top Pro

Deep, open-ended gameplay

You can fight, build, trade, pirate - so much to do! See More

Top Con

Daunting for new players

This series has a long pedigree. It has a lot of complexity that you get dropped into pretty quickly, and the plot has some quirks. If you don't mind sometimes checking out a wiki to wrap your head around something or to get unstuck, you'll be fine. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Space combat und trading

Top Pro

You can own an empire, not just a ship

You start in a small fighter or trade ship, but can own and control as many ships and stations as you care to build up, including some unique facilities tied to the story. See More

Galactic Civilizations III

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

Top Con

Poor planetary invasion system

The planetary invasion system is poor. And it is wildly inconsistent. You may win an invasion battle at 5-to-1 favorable odds, but then lose your entire invasion force attacking at something approaching 20-to-1 odds. This is the type of surprise result that can disrupt your entire campaign at a time that you are building momentum toward a game victory. It's an awkward system that mars an otherwise fine strategy game. See More

Specs

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 Con

No control over space combat

You have absolutely no control over space combat, which right from the get-go makes any advantages this game has null and void; this is a hold-over from the previous two iterations of the game. Interestingly, the CEO of Stardock, Brad Wardell, was quoted as saying that he did not want players to be able to control space combat, as he felt that it gave the human player an "unfair advantage" over the AI players; imagine that! 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 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 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

EVE Online

Top Con

Spreadsheets in space

At the very core, that's what it is. You'll be looking at tons of stats, calculating % resistances and DPS. It's a paradise for math savants and economics geeks, but not so much if you just want to blow things up quickly. The graphics are there, but combat takes place at a few kilometers at least, so you won't be ever seeing your ship and the enemys' at the same time (unless as tiny silhouettes). Which only enhances the feeling that combat is a set of dynamic spreadsheets rather than a real visceral thing. See More

Top Pro

Real freedom

You can do anything. Literally anything. You can become a massive entrepreneur and deal with billions of ISK, set up a pirate base in wormhole space, explore anomalies, build massive ships, become CEO of a player-run industrial corporation. There's tons and tons and tons of stuff. This is likely the most sandboxy of MMO sandboxes. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:SciFi MMO

Co-Op:Online Co-Op / PvP

Top Con

Requires lots of time invested

Because of the open market thing even going out on a quick mission may require you to gear up your ship first, which takes ages as you jump across multiple stations to get the two dozen different modules required to outfit your ship. EVE feels a lot like a second job sometimes. See More

Imperium Galactica 2

Top Pro

Epic story

Top Pro

Espionage

Top Pro

Interesting ground battles

Drop tanks and take over planets. Use the terrain to your advantage with hover tanks, or take the direct approach with heavy armor. Call in airstrikes from any starfighters that survived the space battle, or paint a target for your capital ships to bombard from orbit. See More

Top Pro

Design your own units

You can customize your ships with different loadouts. See More

Top Pro

Diplomacy

Top Pro

City building features

Plan colony cities on planets. Buy buildings and levy taxes. Make sure there's enough food and power. Plan defenses against ground forces. See More

Top Pro

Interesting space battles

FreeOrion

Top Pro

High replay value

Procedural generated galaxy with many options for fine-tuning the generation process to the personal taste. See More

Top Con

No flying around

Fleet battles are displayed as statistics, you can not fly a ship yourself. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Don't be fooled by the low version number, this game is perfectly playable. This is one of my favorite games and better than Master of Orion 2 in my opinion. See More

Specs

Genre:Turn based Strategy, 4X

Co-Op:yes (team)

Top Pro

Lack of micro-management

For some people that might be a con, but with a growing empire, the mid-to-end game feels less cumbersome than in other 4X-games. See More

Top Pro

Scalable resolution

As the graphics are vector based, you can zoom in and out on the galaxy. See More

Top Pro

Free

Remnants of the Precursors

Top Pro

Free

Top Con

Needs Java

(Doesn't require Java for Windows users.) See More

ReasonableAergia's Experience

incredible artwork and challenging AI See More

Specs

RickZeeland's Experience

Open source clone of the original Master of Orion game written in Java. See More

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