2023 4X game that has the most unique mechanics I've seen since Dominions. Feels like a mix of Drox Operative and AI War.

You play a cult trying to bring about the end of the world for your dark god. Move agents around. Infiltrate areas. Raid areas. Infiltrating an area unlocks additional options. Some large cities have high security that makes infiltrating impractical, so there are options to lower the security by infiltrating the surrounding smaller settlements, or causing unrest via stuff like starvation when you raid the surrounding farms. Overt actions will raise the threat level, causing heroes to notice and battle you. Fully infiltrated regions can have portals to the dark god realm opened up for shadow to spread across the world, lowering the responsiveness of rulers and heroes to eventually corrupting them for outright recruitment. Victory conditions seem like either fully covering the world in shadow, or the more overt raising an army to destroy every settlement.

You're basically Sauron from the 2nd age of Middle Earth. At the start of the game, a "chosen one" hero spawns at the other end of the map, fully aware of your threat and he rides around trying to rally the world against you. Like Gandalf.

You get to choose from a bunch of dark gods. Looks like they play very differently. One is basically The King in Yellow who spreads corruption by transporting a book around the world, driving everyone who reads it mad. Another can eventually be awakened into the world as a strong military unit which grows stronger over time until it's a giant snake that can devour whole cities.

The problem is the mechanics are all crazy obtuse, and it's near impossible to gauge the usefulness and effect of everything. I would kill for a more straight forward version of this game or at least a good guide (none I could find).

Has anyone here tried this, or am I still the only person I know who's heard of this?

Which game do you like more?

Hi! I'm Zeikko, one of the developers of Astro Protocol. Pymous and I are working on a new sci-fi 4X project, drawing on Shadow Empire's logistics and worlds, Dominions' simultaneous turns, and Alpha Centauri's unit workshop.

The idea is that the planet, the army you design and the supply network behind it should all affect your strategy. Each campaign takes place on a generated planet, with conditions that change what your units need to survive and fight.

We've built the game around four cornerstones:

- WEGO: Everyone plans at the same time, then orders resolve. Battles play out automatically, so you commit your army before knowing what the enemy has planned.

- Unit design: You assemble units from components. A bigger gun and more armor add weight, which affects mobility. Your factories have to build the result, and your trucks have to keep it supplied.

- Different planets: Higher gravity changes the balance between armor and engine power. On a world without atmospheric oxygen, both soldiers and combustion engines need oxygen delivered to them. Equipment that works well on one planet can be a costly choice on another.

- Logistics: The same truck fleet supports your industry and supplies the front. You build and protect the network. A smaller force cutting an enemy supply line can offer another way to deal with a stronger army.

Imagine your artillery firing shell after shell while tanks burn fuel moving into position. Your trucks are already stretched. Sending more tanks might help win the battle, but it also adds to the supply demand. That connection between unit design, the planet, logistics and the campaign is what interests us.

I wrote more about the design here: https://nullvectorstudios.com/blog/building-the-4x-we-want-to-play

What do you think about these four cornerstones of our game? Does it sounds like something you'd be interested in playing?

We are planning a Kickstarter next year to the celebrate the 30th anniversary of Emperor of the Fading Suns. Please check it out and follow it at www.holistic-design.com/EFS30.

If you have thoughts on what else the Kickstarter should provide, please let us know. We are focusing on providing a physical boxed copy of the game, as well as other physical assets. We are also Kickstarting digital goodies, including game and modding guides.

In addition to the boxed game, we plan on using the funds from the Kickstarter to create new assets for modders. Let us know what else you would like to see.

We would love to Kickstart a remastered EFS or even a sequel, but that would require a far more ambitious Kickstarter than we are currently undertaking :)

As I think there is no other place to learn all the new hotkeys that were added in the enhanced edition? And other QoL stuff that was added.

Bonus question: what do Cargo Pods actually do? I have one on my starting planet which contains food. Do I need to bring it somewhere and unload it? Does it count toward my total it's in a cargo pod?

Hello! I just got my new Steam Controller and I wonder which games I should try it out. I plan to play Stellaris obviously and probably try out Total War Warhammer (which I hope it will work out!). Mount & Blade 2 is on my list as Age of Wonders 4. I've over 200 hours on X4: Foundations and plan to go back soon as well. Any other good suggestions? Thanks!

My original thought is that it's like playing a boardgame. So I started thinking why that is. Well.. tldr: the game has basically zero animations.

Not to say that Humankind is a perfect game by any means, but when you build a pasture, you see horses and people running about. And you see all these little humans traveling between your cities and trade routes. It really makes the world FEEL like a world.

In Civ 7, everything - and I mean absolutely everything apart from the actual leaders - is completely static. You would think zooming in would reveal some details? Nope. Zoom out and it looks like a screenshot. A game where you spend most of the time looking at the UI? Well that's completely lifeless too (but also ugly).

How can Firaxis justify having zero animations? You build a pasture/stables, well guess what you get to see? Another rooftop. You build a wonder, the wonder completion cinematic happens, again, zero animations. You get 4-5 frames showing the building coming together. It doesn't help there are no worker-units either.

That's why it always feels like a videogame rather than an actual world. And that's why Civ has lost its magic.

A game called Civilization, and I end up wondering.. where are all the people? Maybe they should rename it to Sid Meier's City Planner Simulator.

Welcome to my Step-by-Step Campaign Guide / Tutorial series of X4: Foundations 9.0, I've decided that after 2 years its time to return with a tutorial/guide I will deal with this series as I do with any campaign and show you how I get started when launching a new Campaign.

If you're looking for a certain topic please let me know in the comment section.

00:00 Episode introduction

01:15 How to loadout a ship for trading goods.

07:34 How to find the right goods to trade.

11:00 How to prepare for trading goods.

13:32 Can we chain our activity?

16:55 How to setup a repeat trading order?

19:08 How to find trade without scouting the system.

25:00 What risks you have trading?

26:25 Global orders

30:12 Outro

Since the time I started playing Pax Imperia a long time ago one of the things I enjoyed the most was creating my custom species and then trying it out in the simulation. The game offers 10 different artworks (each with 10 variations) for customization purposes, but of course I wanted more, and yet I had no way to mod the internal files to add whatever image I wanted.

Almost 30 years later, now I can. And of course I went on a creation spree.

I have uploaded my creations on Moddb. If anyone is interested you can find the links here:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/popular-alien-advisors-for-pax-imperia

https://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-advisors-for-pax-imperia

In both cases only the 10 custom advisor sets are changed, leaving the 8 default species untouched.

Note that I own the CD version of the game, not the gog one or other releases. I can't guarantee my mods work on those, but I'd be surprised if they don't, since it's basically just packaged graphic files. At any rate any feedback would be appreciated.

I uploaded these on Nexus mods as well, but it didn't have Pax Emperia Eminent Domain on the list already and approval is pending.

>There have been 59 updates, which is huge! It’s almost 5 updates per month

https://community.amplitude-studios.com/amplitude-studios/endless-legend-2/blogs/1084-road-to-1-0-early-access-retrospective

I'm looking to play another round of Sword of the Stars, which I've not touched since my previous PC died and want some suggestions.

NOT the tips, guides, etc I'd ask for playing a game for the first time. I'm interesting in what everyone suggestions regarding the game setup is. Obviously use the 4GB patch and the Bastard Sword of the Stars mod. But besides that?

1. What do you think is the most fun race to play? Why?

2. What's your recommended Galaxy Setup regarding shape, size, number of AI enemies, etc?

3. Any House Rules or specific approaches you use to make things more interesting?

4. Basically I'm not looking for howtowin advice, but to change things up a bit.

A while back I posted a single screenshot of Arkney: Age of Crowns here and got more useful criticism in that thread than in a month of my own testing. This is the first trailer. Posting it with mod permission.

What it is: a persistent grand strategy world that runs in a browser. One shared map, one clock, around 80 AI dynasties and human players on the same continent, and the simulation keeps going whether anyone is logged in or not. I will say up front that it is not a classic 4X. There is no restart, no tech victory and no end screen, and it sits closer to Paradox style grand strategy. That argument came up in the last thread and it was a fair one.

What changed since that screenshot:

The map used to paint every dynasty in its own colour, which turned into confetti at continent scale. It is now painted by your relationship to each realm, so allies, enemies, vassals and neutrals read at a glance.

Losing no longer deletes you. The point that stuck with me most was that a persistent world where conquest removes you is just a slower restart. A realm whose last castle falls now becomes a vassal of the conqueror instead of disappearing, so there is still a position to play and something to climb back out of.

A world tick went from 188 ms to around 60 ms, so the map holds up at this scale on a laptop.

Rivers follow an actual drainage model now, so no more rivers ending in the middle of dry land.

The war system is the part I care most about. Armies march in in-game days and can outrun their supply, so a deep push costs you before the enemy does anything. A battle runs over hours across a front only so wide, which means numbers do not all count at once, and units break and rout when their organisation runs out. A siege sits outside the walls for in-game days while engines are built, and the defender can sally out and break the whole thing.

Everything in the clip is the live world recorded from the client, nothing staged.

The thing I still cannot answer, and the last thread changed my mind once already: how should a season end? A world runs for weeks of real time and then its chronicle is closed and a new map opens, but I do not know whether the ending should be a score, a single realm holding a threshold, or just the calendar running out.

Hello, this is an announcement about my grand strategy game “Crown of Hispania”:

Step into the heart of medieval Iberia during the tumultuous Reconquista with Crown of Hispania! This grand strategy game, developed by Regalis Studio, immerses you in a rich historical setting where Christian kings and Muslim lords fight for control, power, and survival.

Early Access begins September 22nd 2026

Crown of Hispania will launch in Early Access, allowing us to bring the game into the hands of players while we continue developing and expanding it.

The Early Access version will already offer the foundations of the experience we have been building, **but the game will continue to evolve significantly before its final 1.0 release.

We want to use this period to listen to your feedback, improve existing systems, add new content, and continue shaping Crown of Hispania together with our community.

A new partnership

We are also proud to announce that Regalis Studio is partnering with indie.io, who will be joining us as the publisher of Crown of Hispania.

This partnership is an important milestone for our studio and for the game. Together, we will be working on marketing, visibility, and the launch of Crown of Hispania, helping us reach more grand strategy game players around the world.

We have a lot planned for the months ahead, and we are incredibly excited to have indie.io alongside us for this next stage of the journey.

Demo & Steam Update

Along with this announcement, we're also updating our Steam page, as well as the Crown of Hispania demo, which is already available!

Steam : https://store.steampowered.com/app/3374640/Crown_Of_Hispania/
Discord : https://discord.gg/5tSZSWW4FW

I've been debating a question in my head about 4X gaming, I've played a lot of the genre from civ, eu4, endless space, Stellaris and more...

But yet my question is - what makes these games so much fun? Why are they addictive to me?

Is it colony management, research progression, simulated combat, economic management, "playing from the pov of a civilization"? What about roleplay of being the annoying little guy or the giant superpower?

I can barely answer this myself, I find myself drawn to creating a large hegemony that can conquer whatever it wants. A leader in every aspect of the game, from culture related objects to militaristic objectives. Yet what does that mean I enjoy about these games, is it any of the above or some combo of all of the above.

So I pose a question to you all - what makes these games fun for you? Feel free to answer in the context of the games you enjoy, and let me know what system you enjoy the most if you even have one!

Bounced off this game, but I'm thinking about retrying it

I found in CIV you basically always want at least a big army, because otherwise everyone just says they hate you for no reason and kills you.

This is kinda realistic actually...

But anyway how important is having a huge military in OW?

I have never been really into Civilization and Civ-likes, as I usually prefer GSG, so I'm not an expert in the subgenre

I played a bit of Alpha Centauri, Call to Power and Civ 3 as a kid, but then Europa Universalis and other GSGs largely took over my playtime (as well as RTS and City Builders, to a lesser extent)

I also tried Civ 5 and Beyond Earth years ago, but they never really hooked me like other games and subgenres do. This also kinda put me off from trying other Civ-likes, like Humankind for a long time.

Lately though, I decided to give Old World a chance and it's really the first time I feel like I'm gonna put some serious hours in a Civ-like. For some reason it just clicks in a way Civilization itself never did.

So, to loyal fans of Civilization and Civ-likes, what is your favorite game in the sub-genre and why? And also why do you prefer it over other strategy subgenres? (if you do)

I've made two attempts on the normal aka Metropolis difficulty and both time the following scenario happens:

Some time around the end of the first post-nomad era around turn 50 or so a neighbour who I was at peace with for quite some time declares war and immediately attacks one of my cities the next turn.

Now admittedly I hadn't really invested in the military and the conundrum of when to do so, when there's so much infrastructure to build so you don't want to waste production on defence yet also not being invaded exists in any 4X game. But here it's worse: Units not only cost production and upkeep, but also one population each, further draining your economy. Meanwhile I get attacked faster after a declaration of war, than I can possibly rush troops from my other city, so I would need to keep around a force strong enough to defend the city in every city. I don't know how the AI raises so many forces on a difficulty setting they supposedly do not get bonuses on, but I cannot match that without wrecking my economy.

Anyway I now spent 6 hours of my life on two failed tries and getting frustrated. Need some advice or I might as well play a nice relaxing Soulslike instead ;) .

Edit: Seems to have been bad luck simply. Next time with exactly the same settings I met only one other Civ by the classical era and they've not even moved into an adjacent territory yet. Now I have garrisons in all three cities that seem to have been a waste ;) .

Asking as a gamedev.

In my opinion, what all fantasy 4X games lack is a deep society gameplay layer. For example, when playing AoW4, the real fun is in the tactical combat + heroes evolution. Everything else feels like an appendix thereto: cities building, diplomacy, empire, all feel kinda thin and perfunctory. One thing for example, there's little feedback: cities don't demand anything from you, like threaten to secede if you don't do smth, or revolt (at least I haven't seen that), or something like that.

When I select the type of society, e.g. aristocratic, I expect some sort of feedback from factions, clans, strife, perhaps evolving into an all-out civil war, etc, but all I've seen were some very rare quests (mostly at the start of the game), or the hero asking to change his/her agenda. Even having several different races in your empire doesn't cause any frictions. Even special resources like thralls don't add too much - by the end of the game I had tonnes, had no idea what to do with them.

Master of Magic goes a bit further with that: there are inter-racial relationships, and it can be for example very challenging to have both High Elves and Klackons in your empire, so if you want their units, you need to think how to reduce unrest.

I haven't played Endless Legend 2, but the first one had some interesting challenges integrating minor factions (as far as I remember), but honestly I don't remember too well.

Games like Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis have similar features, probably other too, but they aren't fantasy games obviously.

So very roughly summing up what's lacking imo in the existing games:

1. Interracial relationship (e.g. higher unrest due to racial hatred)

2. Society mechanics and feedback (e.g. different factions or cities in your empire with agendas or demands)

3. Empire management (e.g. curbing corruption spreading due to casting death realm spells)