4X strategy games: i have no complaints but the genocide is too complicated

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > 4X strategy games: i have no complaints but the genocide is too complicated

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

So, my fiance convinced me to play SMAC and got me through the learning curve and I beat it on the 2nd easiest difficulty and :toot:

I like 4Xes but suck at them, and had written off the genre as a big timesink... but now I feel like I understand what I should be doing, and I'm succeeding and trying more SMAX (at harder difficulties!) and Civ4 and so on - or, effectively, hyperfixation has activated and I'm running around playing and researching the genre. Which leads me to this thread!

I'll take recs but I'm not looking for them as I've been busy digging into what I already own on and off steam, and here's a brief rundown of what I like and don't like:

What I like in a 4X: planet-based, rpg elements (leveling up your units is so much fun and why yes I did run around the map with a billion mind worm boils), researching (LOVE to read tech trees), tile improvements (the spells in Warlock 2 that let you terraform hexes are so cool) and interesting flavor.

I'm not into: space-based (little to no terrain!), historical settings, actually this is more nebulous a category. It's hard to say "I don't like micromanagement" when I do enjoy putting equipment on individual units, or terraforming tiles individually.

So, while I was digging through my 4X folder and deciding what to play, I remembered this ancient post:

victrix posted:

Tracked down an old post on Warlock 2, 90% of it still applies:

----

Warlock 2

Turn based strategy games set (very, very loosely) in the same fantasy world as the Majesty games. A flip sense of humor, tons of fantasy staples, mountains of spells and units, random maps, varied win conditions, brain dead ai, all the things you'd expect from a typical tbs.

Warlock got a really bad rap when it came out because it had the serious misfortune of being compared to Civ 5. The UI superficially looks like Civ 5, and it has hexes, so therefore it = Civ right?

No, not at all.

Warlock is a wargame, in the grand tradition of Fantasy General, or Battle for Wesnoth, or uhhh, Advance Wars? Whatever, take your pick.

It has cities, and you can (and should) build them everywhere, and it has multiple races and build trees, and it has an extensive spell research tree, but what it's really about is building up super units and heroes into unstoppable juggernauts of destruction, loading them to the gills with magic gear, and dousing them with enchantments until they're glowing with unstable power.

So if the strategic side is pretty basic, and the ai is pretty dumb, why am I recommending it?

Because it's fun. The graphics are colorful and charming, the worlds are fun to explore, building up your units is fun, the combat is fun (ignoring strategic level ai, the tactical combat is well done - it's actually descended from the devs other almost pure tactical games, Elven Legacy etc).

There are a bunch of races you can play as, all of which have their own sets of units, and then there are a bunch of different gods you can worship, all of which have both unique units and unique spells, and then there are a bunch of neutral units you can recruit, and then there are a ton of hostile neutral units out in the world.

Then on top of that there are all different kinds of worlds to explore in Warlock 2, linked together by gateways. There are fertile worlds, desert worlds, ice worlds, water worlds, elemental planes, shadow planes, death planes, life planes, disgusting organic nightmare creature planes, etcetcetc.

All of them have unique creatures, unique habitats, unique resources. Want to go conquer a demon plane, find a gold dragon nest, build a town there and recruit some gold dragons? Go for it. Want to create a fleet of flying sky fortresses and conquer the world? Go for it. Want to research spells of ludicrous power and nuke your enemies into oblivion? Sure! Change the entire landscape to water or snow or nice pretty grass? Sure!

Every different world has different resources you can harvest by building cities near them, and many resources give different structures to different races, some provide unit upgrades, some provide strategic benefits, some allow new unit creation, there's a mountain of them to discover.

It's basically beer and pretzels fantasy strategy. If you enjoy Age of Wonders 3 but thought all that silly 'tactical depth' was excessive, or you enjoy Endless Legend but think all that 'varied strategic gameplay' is overrated, Warlock is for you!

Warlock is not a Good Game, but I put over 100 hours into the first game and the sequel, and still pull it out occasionally to mess around with. So uh, either I have bad taste (very possible) or it's actually pretty fun! Or both. Whatever.

I'm also not the only nutjob who likes this game: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi...s/?id=493257789, this guy made a massive mod that adds tons of high quality content to the game and even improves the worst strategic ai flaws to make the cpu produce threatening units all game long. Get the base game, see if you like it, loop around to that later if you wind up playing for a few dozen hours, or don't bother if you play for two

----

As an addendum, that Renaissance mod has been continually updated, fixing as many bugs as possible in the base game and continuing to polish and refine the rest.

The bad part is you have to own all the dlc to use it, but it's worth it if that kind of game is your jam.

And if victrix sees this: thank you! Warlock 2 has been hitting a lovely vibe for me inbetween SMAX and MOO2 and other 4Xes. It's just boot it up and go and cast spells and it's a good time. I'm intimidated by Age of Wonders 3 and Planetfall and Total War Warhammer thanks to their extra battle modes, but this is just get up and go combat.

Also - I'm playing MOO2 also thanks to my fiancee, and this game really lives or dies based on its combat! The 4X stuff is strictly OK, but mashing ships into each other is really neat. It's like a turn based Starsector. I doubt I'll ever love MOO2 like he does, but I'm having a good time.

Finally, I've tried playing Civ4 again and man! Man! I do not know why I can't figure out how to play it well. I struggled with Civ5, and here with Civ4, and I'm playing on the easiest difficulty and still struggling... I suspect I need to sit and just read the tech tree instead of picking what sounds good, but... I don't know. I keep wandering off of it because the theming doesn't compel me like wizards or starships do. (I would say my first problem is that I get consumed by building home improvements and scouts, and then when combat comes up in Civ I lose and it feels bad, especially as Civ doesn't do what SMAX does and offer percentages and easy to read unit stats - 2-2-1 vs 1-2-1 for example, versus archer vs barbarian.)

Sorry for the rambling post!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 19:12

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 09:19

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

DaysBefore posted:

Endless Legends would probably work for you OP

Hell yeah. I put 27 hours into it back in 2017 and I think I'd love it even more now. If I recall right, the AI struggles to use all the systems, though.

victrix posted:

you're welcome, and if you enjoyed warlock 2 I'd highly recommend Spellforce Conquest of Eo, it leans real hard into the rpg and combat aspects, with the 4x mostly being exploring the world and extracting resources (go with Artificer or Necromancer first, with whatever spellbooks sound fun)

I think you *might* enjoy Master of Magic, there's a new remake of it that just came out, though I will caution it's a remake of a very old, very unbalanced game - but it's beloved because you can make ridiculous fantasy armies and conquer two worlds with them

On the wishlist they both go! Thank you!

Cynic Jester posted:

You might enjoy a few playthroughs of Beyond Earth based on your post. It has a few huge issues, but the main one is a lovely AI that becomes apparent as you clock hours, but the setting and other 3Xs are fun until the lack of challenge becomes an issue.

I probably would, but I want to get further from SMAX before I try it, as I understand it compares poorly to one of the best in genre.

Jazerus posted:

you need fall from heaven 2, which is a total conversion mod for civ 4 that adds wizards, hero units, an expansive magic system, tons of different civs that play much more differently from each other than the vanilla civ 4 factions, etc.. there are a bunch of different versions and additional mods built on top of it, i'd recommend the "extramodmod" version as being the best balanced and polished while still being similar to regular FfH2

vanilla civ 4 is fun but fall from heaven is still close to the top of the genre imo

That all sounds amazing and I'll check it out posthaste!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 20:06

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I feel like an idiot, but oh thank god: I have figured out Civ 4. Or at least, I figured out where the unit strength is written down on the UI. Which is awesome! I want to complete at least one game of it before I install mods.

Also, to forestall more recs, here's what I own on steam!

Off steam I have SMAX, Fallen Enchantress, and probably more stuff thanks to gog and itch.io. I need to get over my aversion to playing non-steam games, because I really, REALLY don't want to give Stardock more money.

e: There might also be other 4Xes in my steam library that I haven't filed properly, like the Total Wars or King's Bounty.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 22:33

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

victrix posted:

I just remembered the most beer and pretzels space 4x, it's more like a lunch break game, but since you seem to dig on stuff that isn't obnoxiously complex, you might like this:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/562230/Space_Tyrant/

You can easily figure out if you enjoy it in the refund window

I actually played through a game of that this morning before breakfast! It was fun - almost too simple, but great for a "I want 1 game please". Then it bugged out and gave me an achievement for winning 50 games, so uh, thanks game!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2023 22:36

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I want to try Eador but I think I'll watch the videos first - I'm midway through my Civ4 game and having a good time. I've also started the tutorial campaign of Age of Wonders 3, too, and this is neat! I don't know if I'm ready to commit to a full game of this - learning the 4X gameplay AND the tactical gameplay is going to be a lot of mental investment - but I know I want to eventually.

Speaking of, I haven't tried it yet. Why do people not like Fallen Enchantress, outside of bees?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 19:31

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

my dad posted:

Age of Wonders 3 is fun. Feel free to ask any questions you have about the campaign, my memory isn't perfect and it's been a while, but I've beaten most campaigns on hard and probably remember some useful stuff. I'd advise playing it over Eador, honestly, unless the videos convince you that Eador is 100% something you'd enjoy.

I'm currently in the install-play-decide phase of my hyperfixation, where I'm trying everything. Eador looks like advanced level jank, but I'm enjoying the first video of Lotaeri's playlist so :toot:

Dunno if I'll get to playing it anytime soon though!

As for age of wonders...

What I expected from Age of Wonders 3 lore: generic fantasy stuff
What I got: the elves are SUPER racist against the humans, and practice eugenics

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 19:49

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

my dad, that is an excellent post. I love this. I love reading 4X lore, it's always all the grandiose parts of tabletop rpgs but without the "and now the player characters enter the scene" because it has to stay at the scale of kingdoms and armies.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2023 21:08

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Civ4: beat up two empires, clearly in the lead in EVERYTHING thanks to low difficulty, and.... the only way to win the game is to wait out like 200 turns. Civ. Civ c'mon. There's like nothing to do and little to no automation. Civ. Even SMAX lets you automate everything.

(There are more empires but they're over the sea and I find naval mechanics to be extremely tedious.)

I'm told (by my fiance) this is the time to start a new game, especially since Civ4 doesn't have achievements or anything, and I think he's right.

/

I have successfully modded MOO2 so the psilons aren't broken, and I'm diving into a full game! And having fun! Even though one empire already told me to give them terraforming OR ELSE and well, now we're at war.

e: ah poo poo, I hired this leader for their bonuses but now I have their creepy face staring at me every time I open my home system :negative:

StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 23, 2023

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 03:25

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I generally see it as the PVP vs PVE divide. Do you want the game more heavily tilted towards fighting mind worms / barbarians / the invader guys from MOO2, or towards fighting other players/AI? I suspect I could turn off enemy wizards in Warlock 2 entirely and still have a good time exploring and beating up monster lairs, but if I turned off the other dudes in SMAX, fighting mind worms wouldn't be enough.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 16:11

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Jack Trades posted:

I just wish it had interface usable by a modern human being.

There doesn't have to have been any modding progress on that front maybe?

Huh?

I think the SMAX interface is quite good, especially since you can right-click on anything and get a menu of things to do. Numpad to move units, cities are easy to scroll through, unit designer is solid, I have no complaints with it. It's easy to understand what it's telling you, too!

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 19:18

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

I began to install Fall from Heaven 2 only to realize that I haven't played Civ4: Beyond the Sword yet, whoops. Vanilla was neat, but I need to try the final expansion and see the complete game!

Trying a start as the Zulu in the Earth2 map with a rocky climate and low oceans, and on the next difficulty up. Wish me luck!

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 19:38

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Urgh. I bumped up the difficulty once in Civ 4 and now it feels like I went from winning handily to losing badly. The enemies just keep pumping out war elephants and I've got horse archers. I'm not honestly sure what I could do to play better.

Or, oh, this is how it felt to play Civ 5. I was losing and didn't know why and I can either play on so easy it's boring or so hard I suffer.

I just - there's so many moving parts here I'm not even sure what I'm neglecting.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 21:33

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Okay, since I'm having a cranky day and don't want to unravel Civ4's mysteries, I went ahead and installed Fall from Heaven 2. I tried to install the extraextramod, but I can't make the installer work, and since I have limited time before I have to walk the dog, I just dove in. I'm playing on the second easiest difficulty, I'm playing as the Eloheim so I'm all about peace and magic, and apparently I have a panic button! Cast this spell once per game(!) to remove all non-me units from my borders for a while. Yes. Thank you. I need that in vanilla Civ.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 22:06

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Jazerus posted:

i learned to start playing civ 4 at a respectable level by reading sisiutil's all leader challenge games over on civfanatics, which feature both LP-like posts and strategy recommendations from posters who were following along at the time. they aren't presented as well as they used to be - photobucket put big watermarks on all of the images - but reading both the game report posts and the discussion around them taught me a lot about how the people who play on the middle (and later in the series, top) difficulties think about the game. you probably don't need to read the whole series to start getting a handle on the basic strategy lessons you need to advance in difficulty

Thank you! I'll dig in and read tonight.

Jazerus posted:

you don't really need emm at first, it just fixes balance problems that will start to become obvious the more you play. it is definitely a better experience with it, but only by like, 10%

Perfect, I can deal with that much later then!

I don't know if I'm clicking with Fall from Heaven yet, but I already like the flavor much more than Civ4: the world feels interesting to explore, the tech tree is a marvel, and I LOVE building structures to unlock units. It just makes sense!

I've got an archer roaming around rooting out the barbarians and their lairs (shot some big-nosed goblins) and the events happening are really interesting. Pirate maps! Dragons!

So - I'm happy I installed it and played it, and will continue to do so in the future. Another big 4X checked out - I get to pick between Warlock 2, Fallen Enchantress, Age of Wonders 3/Planetfall, Civ 4, Path to Heaven 2, AI War, SMAX, MOO2.... god it's like I tripped and fell into scrooge mcduck's gold room. I need time and a bigger brain, and for my hyperfixation to settle on one game so I can really dig in and learn everything about it.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2023 22:33

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

STAR WARS (TM) Empire At War: Gold Pack really feels like MOO2 to me - or at least an evolution of it.

Now... am I feeling that way because it is, or because it's a space-themed 4X that features planetary invasions?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2024 23:13

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Quixzlizx posted:

Thanks for the replies, it's currently a part of this bundle, and I thought Ozymandias/Barony/Doom Eternal might be a good combo for $15.

https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/diamond-collection-build-your-own-bundle

That bundle's great, it has the full Dread X collection.

Ozymandias sounds cool, like, it may not be a full 4X experience but I'm busy trying to learn AOW3 (and then Planetfall and 4) so I do not need another full 4X right now.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2024 17:02

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

SIGSEGV posted:

The one actual question is if we have to go through and log in to three dozen EA launchers or if we can just natively launch it from steam.

No launchers! It's just the game.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2024 23:59

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 09:19

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Beat Warhammer 40k Gladius on easy against imperial guard, orkz, and eldar. :toot:

My space marines might be generic but boy do they shoot good!

Now to step it up, try a higher difficulty...or play as someone else... hmmm...

# ¿ Mar 26, 2024 15:43

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