Looking for a space 4X game that delivers on the promise of the genre

[Please No]

I've been binging Zelda games since shoutbox told me to get into them for a bit now, but I wanted a change of pace and remembered how much fun the Master of Orion games were. Even when I got into them they were ancient boomer games by video game standards so I tried out Stellaris since I wanted not just to relive the experience of letting loose death spores on unsuspecting bugman colonies, but idk, also see where the genre was these days. That was a huge mistake, I couldn't believe fighting off space empires could be so boring. Some of the stuff in the game seems like it could be fun, but isn't.

What it could have done better than Master of Orion was to let you really live out that wacky galactic power fantasy you have. Instead of the Star Trek style species of MOO you can make your own undead horde, galactic hivemind, AI robot faction, among others, that's pretty cool. Except they all pretty much play and feel the same. That's why I'm making this thread. Is there any space 4X game that lets me not only reenact this scene:



But that you can also go hog wild with? I want to transform planets into biological horrors that makes games like Scorn look like a walk in the park. I want to create a galactic parasitical species that can turn the enemy ships and colonies against them. I want to breed sentient ships that grow by eating biomass while my enemies have to scour the galaxy for good mining planets. I want to send asteroids filled with bio-weapons towards enemy planets and kinetically bombard ones without measures against it. The systems of Stellaris don't allow for or mesh with any of that. There's the assumption that you want to put some guy into a slot for research, another into a slot to lead a fleet. Or that there should be some kind of economy. God forbid you actually want to play something more alien than that. The combat is the lamest thing I've ever seen and it doesn't make sense that getting close and going pew pew like naval ships is the only real form of space combat. Same with diplomacy. It shouldn't take up so much room in a game where you might want to view other species only as food, or a minor inconvenience, or where you might have telepathy and can mind-control others. It presumes you can even communicate meaningfully.

Is there a game that goes further in that direction and doesn't primarily work as a sleeping pill? That allows you to turn moons into mobile interstellar artillery bases, or where you can produce living planets that consume lesser ones to grow bigger and more powerful? Completely asymmetric games that allow for truly alien player factions and doesn't pack yawns into cosmic horrors and extinction tier events. Because that's what I want to play and most of us probably do. So if you know about a game like that, let us know.

TL;DR: Space 4X with genuinely alien and asymmetric factions and science fiction stuff that reaches at least the same level as that Farscape TV show with the muppets. Is there such a thing?

 

[DakaSha]

Developing a video game isn't as simple as telling the computer what to do with human language.

No, this doesn't exist.

edit: I'm also not really sure what you're even asking. "4x that goes so far into detail that it's no longer a 4x"

 

[Raghar]

Frankly If I'd first applied for my disability papers, then started development. I'd have nice freeware, and perhaps someone would create a foundation that would work on variant 2 of that game.

But it would be spreadsheet, and it would force player to handle each system manually... Most people are too much accustomed to cellphone culture and easy job, and they don't want to spend effort just to play a game.

I think armada 2526 was one of last games when developer spend effort to make something resembling a simulation.

Also Ascendancy had nice alien species that were different, but it's rather simple old game.
I think there was also a game where a player had ship that allowed him to guide evolution of multiple species each in different part of galaxy, but that's also old and crazy game. And there were only 4 species, and it was kinda puzzle game.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The problem with Stellaris is they canned whomever was responsible for the original design and decided to make everything "balanced". Which always makes games boring, since every tech becomes the same thing.

Galciv2 is a little better than this. It has more of a MOO feel to it, it's turn-based and the tech tree (there actually is one) is built more on rock paper scissors, where different empires are forced to specialize in different tech trees, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, instead of everyone progressing down the same tree and ending up with mostly the same techs in the end. Galciv3 is a lot like this, but watered down and with DLC needed to make it even nearly as good as Galciv2 was. Not sure if Galciv2 will run on modern systems though. Been a while.

The original design for Stellaris was more like this, where you had a choice of 3 different interstellar travel technologies, each with their own advantages and drawbacks. And it seems like they were starting to implement some kind of tech tree functionality, but I see little evidence of it now. Your lategame tech choices mainly depend on whether you decide to be a cyborg, a psychic or a eugenicist - which are all mutually exclusive somehow, and still don't feel that different in terms of gameplay.

But that you can also go hog wild with? I want to transform planets into biological horrors that makes games like Scorn look like a walk in the park. I want to create a galactic parasitical species that can turn the enemy ships and colonies against them.

Use mods, I guess?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2677439587&searchtext=parasite
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2866236967&searchtext=planet

Actually, some of that sounds like things Stellaris already lets you do. I like the way you put the second idea though. Sounds like mind worms from Alpha Centauri. If you're willing to limit yourself to one planet, Alpha Centauri has this feel.

But yeah, mods won't fix the fact that the gameplay in Stellaris is all basically the same and the only interesting part are the random events and quests.

TL;DR: Space 4X with genuinely alien and asymmetric factions and science fiction stuff that reaches at least the same level as that Farscape TV show with the muppets. Is there such a thing?

Endless Space 2 has a Farscape feel, but it can be a sleeping pill. I think most of the draw is multiplayer.

TLDR: The MOO series or the Galciv series is sort of like this, but Galciv is more Star Trek than Farscape.

IDK, I guess let us know if you find one, since it sounds like exactly the sort of game I've been looking for too.

 

[Zarniwoop]

That allows you to turn moons into mobile interstellar artillery bases

Pretty much just Stellaris with mods (like Gigastructural Engineering).

You don't want a 4x game, you want a space LARP. Which is exactly what Stellaris is. Check out reddit or any Stellaris forum really, full to the brim with LARPing faggots.

Endless Space 2 is pretty much the best 4X out there right now.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Pretty much just Stellaris with mods (like Gigastructural Engineering).

You don't want a 4x game, you want a space LARP. Which is exactly what Stellaris is. Check out reddit or any Stellaris forum really, full to the brim with LARPing faggots.

I think his point was that he he wants the larpy high-science fiction, but with more sophisticated gameplay than building doom stacks, or clicking through random events.

And you're talking about Endless Space 2, a game that lets you play as a talking tree or a giant chicken, and destroy solar systems. It's kind of larpy too, in its own way. Just with more actual strategy and a stronger multiplayer component.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Pretty much just Stellaris with mods (like Gigastructural Engineering).

You don't want a 4x game, you want a space LARP. Which is exactly what Stellaris is. Check out reddit or any Stellaris forum really, full to the brim with LARPing faggots.

I think his point was that he he wants the larpy high-science fiction, but with more sophisticated gameplay than building doom stacks, or clicking through random events.

And you're talking about Endless Space 2, a game that lets you play as a talking tree or a giant chicken, and destroy solar systems. It's kind of larpy too, in its own way. Just with more actual strategy and a stronger multiplayer component.

No, the Endless series has some random events sure but Stellaris is on another level.

The amount of turbo-cringe threads about that game is unreal. Ooh look at my planet full of slaves, look at my machine empire devouring this and that, look at my president named after shitty japanese pornographic cartoons etc.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The amount of turbo-cringe threads about that game is unreal. Ooh look at my planet full of slaves, look at my machine empire devouring this and that, look at my president named after shitty japanese pornographic cartoons etc.

And the worst part is that most of them are cosmetic. There's very little gameplay difference unless you play one of the annihilator types, where everyone has a free casus belli against you from the start and you basically have no diplomatic game.

The Endless series at least knows how to make different factions play differently. The original release of Stellaris was better at this, but the current one just has every faction feeling the same.

 

[Zarniwoop]

The amount of turbo-cringe threads about that game is unreal. Ooh look at my planet full of slaves, look at my machine empire devouring this and that, look at my president named after shitty japanese pornographic cartoons etc.

And the worst part is that most of them are cosmetic. There's very little gameplay difference unless you play one of the annihilator types, where everyone has a free casus belli against you from the start and you basically have no diplomatic game.

The Endless series at least knows how to make different factions play differently. The original release of Stellaris was better at this, but the current one just has every faction feeling the same.

Best game for making different factions play different would be Sword of the Stars (and 2).

The different races have different FTL technology etc, some require you to build jumpgates and so on. In Stellaris it's all the same, jump from system to system until you can eventually build gateways and every race is the same.

Balancefags need to die.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Space Empires 4 (and 5 if you can stomach its UI) I think check off some of these but not all. Its possible to attack planets with biological weapons for example.
It's also a lot more complex than MOO.

Aurora 4x also I think checks some of these but can be sleep-inducing due to its complexity and downtime. I also don't really know its limitations on account of that I only got as far as colonizing Sol so I couldn't tell you the full extent of the game's features. But it is a fairly hard game to play though I do feel warm and fuzzy in its Windows 3.1/95-inspired UI.

 

[Jasede]

I think MoO 1/2 are unsurpassed. The others never really felt fun to me. I second Ascendancy - it is not very good but the alien species are so cool, so it is worth looking at. It is also fun for a good while with good depth - bit wasted because the AI is so dumb.

I think GalCiv 2 is okay but too sterile to be fun.
Stellaris seemed good initially but now it also lost much of its appeal due to many changes - it would need mods to be good.
Sword of the Stars is fun to try something else but its problem is that much of it seems to have been designed around good multiplayer.
Endless Space 2 is definitely worth a look, it has somewhat interesting aliens and factions.

 

[Please No]

edit: I'm also not really sure what you're even asking. "4x that goes so far into detail that it's no longer a 4x"

Do you know that episode in Star Trek where there's this crystalline entity consuming planets and Picard thinks that's a legit form of life? Or those death moons in Dead Space? Or like any speculative science fiction about alien life that doesn't put pointy ears or a weird forehead on some dude. I'm not asking for details but just Master of Orion with super asymmetric playstyles between factions would be nice, something that's not medieval/ancient Europe or 50's-70's American society but in space. Wouldn't it be cool?

You don't want a 4x game, you want a space LARP. Which is exactly what Stellaris is. Check out reddit or any Stellaris forum really, full to the brim with LARPing faggots.

No, you don't get it, I've played it and it was the most painful game I ever tried. There's little gameplay difference between an AI singularity and a Star Wars-esque space empire in that game. I want the opposite, a space 4X where you can do all that weird stuff that could only happen in this setting and that feels completely different from those terrestrial 4X games. It's also terrible because they took a page from the Civilization: Beyond Earth book by making you approve these tiny research events and samey questlines all the time, it's just busywork.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

What I really miss from Crusader Kings is the politics.

If you're going to have space monarchies, I want royal bloodlines, nobles, the need to research different levels of interspecies marriage in order to form a more permanent alliance with another monarch race.

If you're going to have space democracies, I want a real political minigame with factions, propaganda, blowback from failed military campaigns.

If you're going to have a hivemind, give me some real advantage to that beyond just not having to deal with minigames, along with weaknesses like other factions being able to target the hivemind core or something.

Space is about exploration, but the only exploring you're really doing in Stellaris is via CYOA events. Everything else is cosmetic. Every race you meet is basically the same.

 

[Please No]

Space is about exploration, but the only exploring you're really doing in Stellaris is via CYOA events. Everything else is cosmetic. Every race you meet is basically the same.

This so much, I was so disappointed with that I made this stupid thread.

 

[Galdred]

Space Empires 4 (and 5 if you can stomach its UI) I think check off some of these but not all. Its possible to attack planets with biological weapons for example.
It's also a lot more complex than MOO.

Aurora 4x also I think checks some of these but can be sleep-inducing due to its complexity and downtime. I also don't really know its limitations on account of that I only got as far as colonizing Sol so I couldn't tell you the full extent of the game's features. But it is a fairly hard game to play though I do feel warm and fuzzy in its Windows 3.1/95-inspired UI.

SE4 is very "open" indeed. You could make very different things, and customize a lot of other (you could design the large ships, but even the fighters and tanks too). You could also use whatever skin you wanted for the ships, so you could use bio horrors, and fit them with bilogical weapons.
It had a ton of micro management, though, so games could be quite long.
It's not as flexible as what you are looking for, but I don't think there is any game that comes closer.

 

[Please No]

You could also use whatever skin you wanted for the ships, so you could use bio horrors, and fit them with bilogical weapons.

Idk, everyone and everything in SE4 looks like bio-horror but if that's the price I have to pay for a decent space 4X I'm going to pay it and try it out.

 

[Galdred]

You could also use whatever skin you wanted for the ships, so you could use bio horrors, and fit them with bilogical weapons.

Idk, everyone and everything in SE4 looks like bio-horror but if that's the price I have to pay for a decent space 4X I'm going to pay it and try it out.

Beware the UI! It has aged a lot worse than in MOO2
There were packs to replace everything with Star Wars/Star Trek races/ship designs, but I don't know whether they are still hosted somewhere.