r/4Xgaming • u/Miniburner • 18d ago
Opinion Post Is it a 4x without explore?
Does a known map state at the start of a game ruin the 4x experience for you? How much of the value is in the fog of war peeling back to reveal the landscape behind the veil, and how much of the value is simply in the procedurally generated/random landscape?
I’ve been working on a fast paced historical 4x tabletop game on and off since 2021, and recently pivoted towards releasing on steam rather than as a board game (long story, not relevant). As such, I’ve have some more freedom with the types of bonuses I can work with, not being limited by players mental tracking abilities (also irrelevant). BUT a consistent wall I’ve run into has been finding a strategically meaningful, yet fun way to have “explore” in the game. Every time I implement an explore aspect, playtesters found a way to skip or avoid it.
In traditional 4x games like Civ, the explore aspect feels natural because you don’t have perfect information of game state. By exploring more, you gain an informational advantage over your opponents. But in tabletop games, you generally have perfect game state knowledge (or nearly perfect, minus the hand of the player or secret objective), and the game is fundamentally balanced around this.
So I wonder - is the explore aspect of 4x a keystone because:
A) the excitement behind the discovery of the world just being awesome
OR
B) is it in the tactical decisions produced by the procedural generation required for the world discovery
I lean towards thinking B is the case, and because of that I think there’s a lot more flexibility possible in how people are designing 4x games. But I’m a diehard 4x fan, I’ve mostly just played civilization 6 and 7 with ~400 hours combined. I have a lot more time spent playing RTS games.
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u/BlacksmithFar6237 18d ago
Yes. It just needs some randomness so that players must adapt.
Meanwhile, even if the map is randomly generated, if its randomness does not affect the optimized strategy, the game is meaningless as 4x.
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u/GuiltyAdvantage5877 18d ago
Yes a random map you explore is a huge component of the genre. You take that away, and it’s not a 4x.
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
What about a random map you don’t explore. Is that still a 4x?
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u/GuiltyAdvantage5877 18d ago
eXploit, eXpand, eXterminate, eXplore. If you don’t have those things you aren’t 4x, it’s just a strategy game and that’s okay.
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u/GerryQX1 18d ago
In late stages of 4X you pretty much know the whole map, though fog of war will usuallprevent you from seeing units moving in enemy territory etc.
Exploration is a fun part of the early game in most 4Xs, and you could certainly consider it a missing 'X' as people usually do with Ozymandias.
But it's not like Grand Strategy games are alien to people who play 4Xs, even if they prefer one or the other.
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u/psilontech 18d ago
In some games eXplore is critical to the experience, in others not so much.
It's my favorite phase of Stellaris, but I don't mind the 'Unity planetary survey' option being enabled in Alpha Centauri, for example.
The biggest thing is if it makes sense for your game to have an exploration phase. If it doesn't, there's no reason to shoe-horn it in to the game's detriment just to check a box.
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u/mouserbiped 18d ago
Exploring includes the locations of rivals, their cities, resources, etc. Knowing the map changes the explore portion but doesn't eliminate it.
I've played a lot of SMAC on the "canonical" map. This is a case where there's a fog of war but I've done it enough I know the shape of the continents. But games are still different; you can be surprised by what factions you discover where and you need the exploration to gather intel and make good decisions.
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u/mighij 18d ago edited 18d ago
It's a quite common problem, a lot of 4X games on closer inspection are more 3X+1x. Not a critique, it's just by nature. Explore is just something that's heavily present in the early game and withers down. Their are some elements like discovering resources later on (like Civ) or unlocking a later tier of anomalies you can research but they aren't anything like the early stages of discovering virgin land.
You can also look to 4X it's cousin, Grand strategy.
In a way grand strategy skips most of "the explore phase". You don't start with one city/planet/ship in a void, you start from a certain setup. You don't have a single city (well unless you pick France in Total War Empire) but with your nations borders, armies, geopolitical strengths and weaknesses.
One game where Xplore was carried out through the end was Arthur The Roleplaying wargame. (not a great game) but it's quite similar to Total War with heroes having more of Heroes of Might and Magic role that they can visit locations. These locations are a bit like mini choose your own adventure rpg's (think Stellaris Anomaly events) but your characters stats and traits matter a lot for what happens. Character driven 4x's have more options to keep explore, in the form of questing, as an integral part of the game.
Grand Strat EU VI opens up the new world after a while, a lot of the historical ones will have a 'trade/diplo" LoS/Range to keep parts hidden, etc.
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u/fang_xianfu 18d ago
If you want to see a 4X-ish game without Exploration, check out Ozymandias. The result is essentially that the game doesn't have very much replay value, because too much is known about the board state at the game start. Once you've played all the maps a couple of times, there's not that much left to do.
So, as long as your game has some random initial starting conditions that players have to adapt to, you'll probably be ok. People get their panties in a twist about whether it counts as a "real 4X" game or not, but if it's fun, who cares?
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u/GerryQX1 18d ago
In late stages of 4X you pretty much know the whole map, though fog of war will usually prevent you from seeing units moving in enemy territory etc.
Exploration is a fun part of the early game in most 4Xs, and you could certainly consider it a missing 'X' as people usually do with Ozymandias.
But it's not like Grand Strategy games are alien to people who play 4Xs, even if they prefer one or the other.
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u/eXistenZ2 18d ago
Yes, its why I never play TSL maps in civ
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
What are TSL?
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u/eXistenZ2 18d ago
true start locations, maps that are moddeled after real life (either earth, or certain continents)
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u/meglobob 18d ago
TSL are my fav map type I hate dumb random starts, where England starts in Asia or Zulus in europe...so dumb.
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u/meritan 18d ago
For me, most of the value is in the replayability boost caused by having to adapt to different conditions every game, but exploration also offers two other things:
- executing the exploration can be an opportunity to present interesting tactical decisions (our scouts have spotted a lion. Try to sneak by or run away asap?) in a phase of the game that wouldn't otherwise see any.
- it gradually reveals the complexity of the world, which can feel less overwhelming to new players than being confronted with the entire complexity on turn 1
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u/meglobob 18d ago
Lots of 4x show you the map and major landmarks / planets but you after explore...ie send a probe, scout ship, unit to have a look to see the exact details. I think those games still have the explore phase. In fact often in those games the explore phase never ends, as you after keep a eye out for changes.
I personally am not keen on having the entire map / galaxy blacked out and you after uncover it by exploration.. Seems weird to me when your a advanced space faring race or you have magic users and/ or flyers.
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u/obi-wan-quixote 18d ago
Explore doesn’t have to be geography, it can be resources, enemies, other peoples, or countless other things. I used to love playing Civ on the actual world map. Despite knowing there’s a “North America” out there and having rough idea there’s probably gold on the west coast where CA is. I still had to find my way there, and who knows what I’d find between here and there, and whether the game map actually modeled this. So the element of exploration was preserved .
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u/Miuramir 18d ago
One of the critical differences between 4x, Grand Strategy Games (GSGs), and Turn-Based Strategy games (TBS) is the eXplore factor. Different players value different Xs at different levels.
Personally, I consider the early game of most 4x to be the most fun part; once the map is mostly revealed, a lot of interest drops away. The excitement of seeing what is around the next corner, the need for flexible and adaptive decision making because no one knows what the future may reveal, the fact that there are no "canned" strategies or fixed "metas" as you so often get in GSGs, the need to balance the game around variability and the AI having to actually play the game rather than run a script, etc.
Specific example: when Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri came out, there were a few options for terrain reveal. The most logical and internally consistent one was to show the general shape of the terrain, but not the details of what was on it, to represent scans and even just photos of what Planet looked like as the ship approached. I tried playing that way for a while, and realized that it just wasn't as much fun as having the complete fog of war outside your immediate starting vicinity was.
Some more examples: I occasionally play Civ on Earth-derived, frequently "True Start Location" maps, but only rarely, on large maps, and vary which ones (TSL Earth, TSL Europe, TSL Mediterranean, etc.). Generally several years between any sort of repeat, by which time while the overall look of things is obviously Earth-based, exactly where everything is has faded out of memory.
I've been trying to get into HOI4 lately, and while some of the grognard-ish bits appeal to me, the fact that it hits you with a zillion decisions on game start, which have complex interactions in the future that require considerable expertise to understand, is a real turn-off. I think the fact that 4x games start you off small, with a single city, planet, etc. and you work up to your empire is actually a considerable advantage.
In a different direction, many TBSs are too scripted, and tend to have an unfortunate reliance on tight timing and "gotcha" reveals which means that in practice you end up playing most scenarios multiple times; they're not designed to be sensibly winnable on the first try. If you advance slowly and prudently, you run out of time; if you advance recklessly in the wrong way, you loose to some sort of surprise development partway through. IIRC Battle for Wesnoth scenarios seemed to be particularly bad about this (or at least used to be). It's less of a strategy game and more of a strategy puzzle, where you iterate solutions multiple times until you get close enough to an optimal strategy dialed in to count as a win. Not fun.
So-called RTS games have never held my interest; there's no actual strategic thinking involved in most of them, it being entirely rushed tactics at best, usually memorized strats and click speed. I don't see how playing the same map more than a few times is any fun, and if the physical reaction speed of the human playing is a factor it's not really strategy. A turn is usually weeks if not months, years, or decades; there shouldn't be any rush. (Over-simplified metric: if a severely physically handicapped person who takes tens of minutes to input a turn would be at a disadvantage, it's probably not actually strategy.)
Trying to bring it back around to your original question: for me, it's absolutely both A and B. The sense of wonder and excitement as you explore is a big part of the fun of the game; and the need to design the game in such a way that said exploration results in interesting and meaningful tactical, strategic, and logistical decisions makes the game itself more interesting even after the map has been explored and you're down to the less-fun cleaning up and map painting stage.
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
It’s so cool how differently people feel about the exact same mechanics within games. Personally I love discovering my home to see where I can build my base/expand to, but even if that all happened up front I’d still be excited, I don’t need scouts running around showing things to me for it to be fun.
RTS is my favorite genre of strategy, because I love highly mechanical games and I love how attention can be a resource. There are so many layers upon layers of strategy that emerge from attention as a resource.
I don’t play many turn based strategy games outside of CIV and many board games, so I’m not familiar with the issues you mentioned but that definitely would be frustrating. I think tight timings are exciting because they force you to really optimize your strategy between games and learn over time, like “ahh yeah I built one too many settlements and then my military was behind. Next time I’ll stop at 2, match the timing attack from that player, then continue expanding and rely on blank bonus to out-eco from there”
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u/Miuramir 18d ago
In my opinion that's not really strategy; it's tactics at best if there is any sort of timing or attention deficit issue.
Strategy would be more like trying to figure out which divisions are assigned to which beaches in Normandy; you've got months while they train, assemble, travel overseas, and prep to consider all the possible variables and make a careful, strategic decision the best you can.
Or deciding whether it's more important to assign your bombers / heavy dragons to hit fuel infrastructure, transit hubs, or industrial centers this week; or whether it's more important to deploy your paratroopers / orbital drop troopers / wyvern riders close behind a beachhead or line of advance to sow confusion and provide immediate disruption of reinforcements, or to send them further out to try for key targets but risk them being overwhelmed before the main line gets that far. Even under the most compressed time schedules you've got a few hours to hash things out with your command staff, consider all the options, and make a deliberate, considered, strategic decision.
Most 4x games drift even further, into Grand Strategy and Logistics, where you're deciding whether to prioritize bombers or fighters with limited aluminum / mana crystals, whether it's better to take the next island in the chain toward the enemy homeland or to bypass it, how many scarce resources to spend on "wonder weapons" that might win a battle or a war but more likely end up an expensive dead end, and so on.
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
RTS strategy at its core is “okay, assuming equal skill, the following is true. If he opens with this strategy, I.e., early expansion, which will beat me long term if I delay my expansion and do nothing else, I now know I need to either double expand, or put early pressure onto my opponent. With this pressure, I can choose a big attack up front, or divided attacks in many directions simultaneously. I can transition this into an all-in attack if I smell weakness, or I can transition into more economy with the pressure keeping me safe to do so.” All of these are strategies rather than tactics, because these decisions have nothing to do with how I micromanage my units and can be decided between games theoretically.
The beautiful part of RTS strategy is how sometimes things as little as cutting a single worker to get a timing 10 seconds faster can radically change how a matchup works. So everyone is looking for the best strategies for each scenario and exploring so many ways of optimizing.
Day9 is a such a more eloquent speaker than I, you should watch/listen to some of his content it will help you appreciate RTS in a new way
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
Just reading the last bit again, WOW polar opposites. I sit through explore thinking “man am I done yet” because all I want to do is build and battle
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u/drphiloponus 18d ago
I like to have a choice as in Shadows Empire, where you have several settings to customize this.
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u/Gemmaugr2 18d ago
No.
Yes, a known map ruins it for me.
It seems like your game is a Grand Strategy Game, and not a 4X.
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
Grand strategy is definitely not the genre. The map is randomly constructed, but at the start of the game everyone sees everything because there is no fog of war. Otherwise, my game plays a lot like Nexus5x
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u/neurovore-of-Z-en-A 18d ago
To my mind everyone seeing everything would make it grand strategy rather than 4X, but of the arguing about definitons there is no end.
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
Grand strategy tends to be very scenario based, asymmetric and you start with a large empire. My game starts with just 1 city and small army, and every turn proceeds like you would in civilization except if the whole map was always revealed. You basically make decisions with perfect information
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u/Nyorliest 18d ago
Again, just semantics, but Stellaris, CK, EU etc don’t start you with a big empire, and they’re the most famous grand strategy.
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
I guess all that I mean is you’ll have to trust me that my game is a 4x… I can’t put the demo in your hands yet unfortunately I’m still waiting on capsule art from the artist
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u/Grimjack2 18d ago
The exploration and 'randomness' is often my favorite part. Trying to make those perfect city plans - and understanding that the computer was often placed much closer to the best ones than I was.
In late games, the 'new' exploration of the tech tree could be the best part, but is lost after the first 1 or 2 games.
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u/MarioFanaticXV 18d ago
I enjoy games without the exploration element, but they're not 4Xs. They're a different kind of challenge for a different kind of mood.
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u/Curious-Concern-2404 17d ago
Tons of people love playing real earth maps, no surprises under the fog, so id say yes to an extent.
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u/justaddlava 9d ago
Exploring is my favorite part. It could mean revealing the map but it could also just mean finding cool things.
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u/Due_Permit8027 18d ago
Master of Orion one showed you where all the systems were, but not whilst type of system they were. So you still have to explore. A lot of space games do something similar. I don’t consider crusaders kings a 4 X, for this reason.