Space Empires 4x

What's the deal with Space Empires 4x? Anyone a big fan? Anyone hate it with all your heart and soul?

I'm interested in something like this or TI:3 or Eclipse...hell even Exodus looks pretty decent. Basically Barnes' review has pushed me towards getting into this sort of game. I'm leaning towards TI:3 or Eclipse. But Space Empires 4x looks like it's pretty cool as well (though with decidedly less flashy components).

I'm really looking for a sprawling space game. I want tech trees, explorations, space combat, different ships, alien races...

If you want sprawling, you want TI3 without doubt. But you're looking at an hour per player minimum, and a possible ceiling of twice that. Which, given that the game plays best with four to six, is quite a time investment.

I'm not really worried about the time investment. I'd anticipate wasting an entire day/evening playing.

Get Space Empires 4 for PC, way better than the board game.

But, if you want a 4X board game....

superflycircus.blogspot.com/2012/08/twil...utm_source=BP_recent

TI3 is an event game. You have to give it the gaming respect it demands.

I'm not saying it's flawless, but the epic feeling you get playing it is hard to find elsewhere. My favorite board game.

Go with Eclipse; it's a great game, the best of its class. If it should leave you cold nevertheless, you can make the choice of:
- Space Empires 4x, if you want a more tactical affair
- TI3, if you want the whole thing to last at least three times as long
and the game you pick should certainly fulfil your needs.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Get Space Empires 4 for PC, way better than the board game.

Why must you always be wrong?

Master of Orion II is obviously *the* 4X game for the PC. None is better.

Well I love TI:3 and Eclipse, both great and different games.

So with that in mind I'd like to hear more about Space Empires 4X or Exodus... which means you should buy and play those and then report back here.

Hop to it.

Space Empires 4X is very old school war game in feel and by that I mean:

1) Hex based board, movement points, chits and lots of em, combat while not terrible isn't exactly streamlined.

2) Accounting and book keeping can be a pain in the butt. You have to update your resources, keep track of your space money, the level and what type of tech you have AND what fleets have what level of tech on board. This is all done in a very 80's type way by using paper and pencil.

The game has far more in common with Throne World than it does with either Eclipse or TI3.

I am not a very big fan of the game. I found that if playing with more than two, it suffers from the same problem a lot of multiplayer war games have suffered from in the past. Two players fight and weaken themselves and then the third player pounces on a depleted foe and wins by having had more patience than the other two (or three).

In two player games I found that most games followed the route of several turns of exploration and build up followed by player one flinging his ships against the outer shell of defenses of player two. If he breaks through, he rushes in for the kill and wins. If he fails, player two takes his shot. If he fails to break through the outer defense, the game then devolves into a stalemate.

These are just my personal experiences. I have read others who say different things.

Eclipse I enjoyed the first three or four times I played waiting for the deeper subtleties and strategies to start to reveal themselves. As it turns out, it doesn't have much depth. Like a shallow but good looking girl, by the third date your ready to move on. I would take Clash of Cultures over Eclipse any day but it's a different theme.

TI3 has great things going on but I prefer Rune Wars, again a different theme, that feels similar to me but is tighter and smoother. Not many will agree with me here, I am sure.

As to computer space empire games Sins of a Solar Empire was very good.

i've only played eclipse and TI2, and of them i prefer TI2. Eclipse might be a mechanically smarter design, but there's something about plowing a load of plasticy dreadnaughts into the person who you just persuaded to vote with you in the previous phase that captures space epic. Eclipse is more of a management game.

I do have Imperium, but i'm yet to play it.

On PCs i play all the 4xes, but i'd recommend either Star Ruler, or Distant World, or possibly Endless Space. Gal Civ 2 isn't too bad, and whilst Sins is a neat game, its more of an RTS in its strategy, and i don't really like that the planets don't orbit the sun and are all exactly the same size.

Nah, sorry guys.

There is only one 4X PC game and that is Galactic Civilisations II, although I am quite enjoying Space Pirates and Zombies at the moment.

ThirstyMan wrote: Nah, sorry guys.

There is only one 4X PC game and that is Galactic Civilisations II [...]

Which is heavily influenced by MOO2.

I decided to check out some of these video games you're all talking about here, from reading I decided I'd like either Galactic Civilizations 2 or Space Empires 4, I went with SE4, the white text on black BG tutorial is killing me.

I didn't like it very much. It felt bland and generic and it took too long for anything exciting to happen since movement is so slow in the beginning. Maybe the expansion would turn it into a decent game, I don't know.

repoman wrote: Space Empires 4X is very old school war game in feel and by that I mean:

1) Hex based board, movement points, chits and lots of em, combat while not terrible isn't exactly streamlined.

2) Accounting and book keeping can be a pain in the butt. You have to update your resources, keep track of your space money, the level and what type of tech you have AND what fleets have what level of tech on board. This is all done in a very 80's type way by using paper and pencil.

The game has far more in common with Throne World than it does with either Eclipse or TI3.

I am not a very big fan of the game. I found that if playing with more than two, it suffers from the same problem a lot of multiplayer war games have suffered from in the past. Two players fight and weaken themselves and then the third player pounces on a depleted foe and wins by having had more patience than the other two (or three).

In two player games I found that most games followed the route of several turns of exploration and build up followed by player one flinging his ships against the outer shell of defenses of player two. If he breaks through, he rushes in for the kill and wins. If he fails, player two takes his shot. If he fails to break through the outer defense, the game then devolves into a stalemate.
...
As to computer space empire games Sins of a Solar Empire was very good.

Repo is spot-on on all this. Space Empries is actually a pretty good *solo* game [purpose-built solitaire, not just a lonely wargamer masturgaming in his basement], which none of the others can possibly claim. I haven't played it with another human [nor have I played with the expansion yet]; that said, I can't actually imagine wanting to play it with other people. For 1 it's challenging; for 2, I suspect Repo's right that it's kind of on rails; and with 3 or 4, the dynamic is different but then you're into territory covered by a goodly number of other games.

And, on the PC side, Sins of a Solar Empire is really good--as are Galactic Civ II and AI War [with all the small DLC expansions]. All of them, however, are on the "digitally fiddly" side (especially AI War--it's got a bit of a "SPI's Campaign for North Africa" feel to it in that you may need a cadre of staff officers to deal with all the various subelements. Masters of Orion II seems to have been the last 4x-type game that sought a modicum of simplicity in its design....

M A S T E R O F M A G I C

bar none...