Non-RPG General News - The 4X and 4X-Like Games of 2021

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Don't lie to the poor guy, Couch. It means XXX, but even sexier.

Beer goggles everytime ;-)

I'd love to see someone remake Emperor of the Fading Suns - which had it all imho. But needed an AI lol. To have a closed system, deep lore, and planet/space conquest was amazing.

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Age of empires 4 is also out this year…not sure it still fits the bill as 4x.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Age of empires 4 is also out this year…not sure it still fits the bill as 4x.

I don't think so. At least, the Steam pages for AoE II and AoE III don't tag them as "4X" games. But again, such genre definitions have become increasingly fluid…

Nah Age of Empires falls into the category of Real-time strategy.

It's missing a few key elements to make it a 4X game.

What I dislike of 4X games is their focus on economic or political power. That only invokes extreme boredom in me, as just producing more gold or influence per minute/round is not incentivising to me. As is the open-ended, goal-less feeling that I get while playing those games.

I do enjoy a lot games like HoMM or King's Bounty, where the focus is more on combat, gear and exploration, and you have definite quests and goals. Though I don't know if those count as 4X, feels they probably miss some elements to be considered such.

Simple google search will list the genre so here you go.

1. King's Bounty = Turn-based Strategy & RPG
2. HoMM = Turn-based Strategy

The most obvious trend of 4X games is there are usually set in space.

Then again you could label many other non-space games 4X-Like.

Oh yeah. I've been trying forever to get into Stellaris, everyone at work praises how great and wonderful it is, new wave of hype came as I think an expansion/DLC were released recently, but I always struggle, so it feels like it's just not a game for me. That's fine, not everyone has to like the same things.

Combine the battles and units of HoMM 3 with the empire-building of Civilization 4 and you have the perfect 4X game. Eador: Genesis came the closest.

Originally Posted by Hastar
Combine the battles and units of HoMM 3 with the empire-building of Civilization 4 and you have the perfect 4X game. Eador: Genesis came the closest.

Never tried Eador: Genesis, but I did give Eador: Masters of the Broken World a go, and I literally almost fell asleep playing it. That game develops at a snail's pace. Maybe I should have tried Genesis instead.

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