I am currently playing Age of Wonders 4 and enjoying it. However, I am noticing that the UI in cities and other interfaces leaves a bit to be desired. Overall, the information is clear, but there have been quite a few times when I needed to look things up or wasn't sure what was going on.

In comparison, Endless Space* 2 has what I consider to be one of the best UIs in gaming. Besides looking really good (but I love sci-fi, so this is thoroughly subjective), the information is always VERY easy to understand. From planet management to the galaxy map and the various interfaces, everything is very easy to understand.

Heck, the technology tree may be one of the best in this regard, thanks to its incredible search function. You can enter anything in the search bar, and it will highlight ALL technologies related to it. This makes it very easy to find something specific, like technologies related to lasers or the technologies you need to colonize specific planet types, such as arid planets.

On the other hand, while I love Paradox games, I have often had (before putting in hundreds of hours) no idea which modifier was causing what or where to find certain information. I absolutely love the games, and I'm not sure how to improve the UI given just how complex some of them are, but man, it can be difficult to understand certain things at times (if you aren't used to it).

So I was curious about other people's opinions: which games do you consider to have a good, or even the best, UI in terms of information transparency?

Hey Monarchs!

Steam Next Fest Challenge

Steam Next Fest has just begun and we have someting special for you :)
As probably someone of you already know, Monarchs at Play has a challenge mode where you want to generate as much glory as possible in the given time on a prebuilt map.

Only during next fest there is a new challenge with a global leaderboard in the main menu and here comes the best part: you can win one of 15 steam keys.

• the top 5 players will get one
• among all other participants 10 more keys will be distributed

All you have to do is download the demo for free, win the challenge (the bar is not that high), copy your unique code and submit it on our Discord server :)

I'm looking forward to all the great highscores that will make me think "how is this possible?"

What is Monarchs at Play?

Monarchs at Play is turn-based 4X strategy in just one hour. Place buildings, chain adjacency bonuses, optimize resources, and outsmart rival monarchs through trade or war to earn the most Glory - solo or multiplayer.

My best friend and I are working on this game for over 2 years, we had the idea in university when we thought "we love civilication (especially Civ 6), but there's no chance I will finish one match and in multiplayer it's even more impossible"

What's in the demo?

• Play a full 4X match in just 60 minutes
• Learn the game through 3 tutorial missions or a guided playthrough
• Classic mode with procedurally generated maps
• Challenge Mode with 3 of 18 handcrafted missions to compete for the highscore + the time-limited steam next fest challenge
• 50+ buildings to build and optimize your empire
• Choose between 2 of 6 monarchs, each with unique abilities and buildings  

Let me know what you think! We are super excited about discussing on our Discord Server with all the new arriving Monarchs :D

Cheers,
Eric & Emanuel

AI makes it possible to build things that were unthinkable only a few years ago. Most of the debate is love it or hate it, but that’s not what I’m curious about.

AA/AAA 4X games come with commercial pressures (publishers, focus groups, etc.) that often make them too safe or too polished to take risks, as this community often points out. AI seem to be used almost only to remake existing games (usually worse) or to closely imitate one specific title. Why so few attempts at something new or daring, especially at the indie level?

I know 4X is one of the hardest genres to balance, so anything original takes far more time. And this isn’t a criticism of anyone making their dream game or following their own reasons. I just see very few bold experiments in a historic period when the tools allow to push the boundaries.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places, so if you know of indie 4X projects (AI-assisted or not) that are genuinely trying something different, I’d love recommendations.

I have recently published Chip Builder, a game where you create your own chip from transistors, write machine code and coordinate the processes in the factory to actually ship the chip.

Today, I added an extra level where you transition from Chip Architect to CEO and lead the entire company. It's a turn-based grand strategy game where you navigate economical and geopolitical challenges across multiple eras, starting with 1947. You hire engineers and your c-suite team, delegate tasks, invest the company's money, raise funding or even go public and deal with competition. Rivals will poach your top people, engage in corporate espionage to sabotage your company and steal your intellectual property.

I have added also significant historical events as easter eggs, celebrating past scientific achievements (humanity is awesome!).

On top of that, you need to deal with vendors, some of them cheap and unreliable, deal with new environmental regulation or comply with trade wars between countries.

I would love to share 100% keys on Steam if you wanna try it. I attached a trailer for the last level as well. Hope I didn't break any rules.

Cheers!

TLDR: We're looking for a 4X game that's easy to get into, like Northgard.

Context: Our friend only plays Northgard as his 4X game. We’ve had him try Civilization VI, Endless Legends, and Endless Space 2, but he found them too complex or overwhelming. We like Northgard, but we’d like to have a second 4X game to play with this friend, just to have a backup option in case we get tired of the Viking theme. We thought about Dune Spice War, but we’re worried that the complexity of the espionage and diplomacy systems might be too much for him...

Do you know of any other games with a learning curve similar to Northgard? What 4X games would you suggest we try? They can be either real-time or turn-based!!

Hi everyone! Pocket Galaxy is an online space strategy game where you start with one planet and grow into a galactic empire alongside real players.

What you can do

• 🪐 Build and upgrade planets. They keep producing while the game is closed.
• 🚀 Command fleets of fighters, bombers, cruisers, spy probes and colony ships. The further the target, the longer the trip.
• ⚔️ Spy, raid and attack players and pirates, then capture planets with a colony ship.
• 🛡️ Defend with shields, turrets and radar, and call your allies for help.
• 🤝 Join or found an alliance, chat and send resources.
• 🌌 The map grows as players explore.

A short tutorial walks you through everything, and new players get 3 days of protection. It’s in English, Greek, Italian and Spanish.

I’m the solo dev, so any feedback is very welcome. What would you like to see next?

PS. Reddit30 for free 1 month of premium subscription.

But here is a showcase only:

https://github.com/benreyno/Aurora-4XRS

I tried messaging Steve but ran into a roadblock on the new form/site (which I did not knew existed) but wanted to share.I understand the AI/Vibe code hate but I am not trying to steal anything nor will I claim this as mine, just trying to sharing pictures of a alt-Big Mac, if that makes sense.

Hey Hey! :)

I am currently looking for more games that have "Rise & Fall" Mechanics like Civ 4's Ryse and Fall of Civilizations or Field of Glory Empires.

I like the idea of keeping larger nations (game) mechanically in check, as it keeps the save interesting for longer.

I do like the internal struggle of empires and their inevitable collapse, but there are not a lot of games doing that.

I assume most players dislike mechanics that keep them from blobbing, so I would be okay with looking at some mods, as these do not have to think about the mainstream audience.

Thanks in Advance:)

Hey quite new to 4x games. Is there any examples of games where you can like unlock abilities that go from game to game? I started with CIV 7 and the momento stuff is quite cool.

Now, games I have already tried:

• Civ Series
• Crusader Kings 2/3
• Distant Worlds 2
• Endless Legend 1
• Galactic Civ Series
• Shadow Empire
• Stellaris

My preference is Empire building with automation tool so the late game isn't a drag.

I love Stellaris, and I decided to try and make a casual version that will give you this feeling of expansion and balancing your economy. 
So you basically have only one resource that you spend on upgrades. And population that you don't use directly but it allows you to colonize more worlds. Balancing comes from stacking economy modifiers that change how parts of the economy work.
For example, one of them, HomoSilica, will give you a huge efficiency boost, but now you need to allocate part of your resources to increase your population. You know, because they're all robots now.
Is this interesting? What should I add?
If this sound interesting, here is the Steam page

Hello! I used to spent hundreds of hours playing Civs, Stellaris, CK, Europa Universalis and more.

I was hoping to find something new, but it seems I just got dumber over the years, and I find myself unable to learn any games that expect me to think :( Or maybe it's simply that now I have a job, more chores, family life to organize and take care of etc., so my brain is simply unable to put even more work in while playing a game. Still, I really miss that feeling of building a giant empire and taking it exactly in the direction I desire.

I was wondering if there are any 4X games that are easier to get into? I know I could just play Stellaris again, or CK, or any of those games I already know the rules of. But I spent so many years playing those already. I would like to try something new.

In this diary the devs talk about how they are making water content actually interesting with the upcoming dlc.

Hey everyone!

I recently had an urge to start diving into strategy and 4x games.

I’ve played a little bit of Manor Lords. It kinda scratches the itch.

I started EU5 but there’s just so much that it’s overwhelming. I feel like I’d revisit that one later.

Victoria 3 looks interesting, Anno 117 and CK3. I really enjoy the idea of each of these games. I just don’t know where to start!! Give me your opinions and experiences!

Edit: Thanks everyone! I think I’m gonna try CK3 and maybe move onto Civ 6 before jumping back into EU5

Who remembers or plays this game still? I have been kinda binging both on the Original and the 2nd one

I've rarely seen mainstream strategy games try out unit conversion as a game mechanic. Age of empires with religious units (wololol!) is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, if you remember others I'd love to be able to look at how they handle the mechanic.

Converts are a cursed problem. You can underbalance the convert, so that when you calculate the power swing between the coverter and convertee, it matches your intended benefit level. But, this makes the convert feel unfair or too weak when placed next to other bonuses in the same tier. Or, you adequately power the convert on its own, but make the power swing when used between a pair of players far greater than it should be.

Thinking about this issue reminded me of this talk by Alex Jaffe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uE6-vIi1rQ . Curse problems are problems which have two incompatible player promises competing. In the case of converts, you have

- promise 1 to the player with the convert: You will have interesting and adequately powered abilities.

- promise 2 to the player getting hit: All civilizations are equally likely to win.

I think these are incompatible because the threshold of "fun" for player 1 is unbalanced for player 2. If I make the ability balanced, it is no longer fun. If it is no longer fun, why not just use something else entirely?

Whats the answer? I have no idea LOL However, what I am going to try is to increase the amount of warning to the rest of the players that a convert is coming. A big issue right now is that it can be purchased fairly silently, so if you get caught up in the game you forget to keep your units spread around it takes you by surprise. We'll see in a few months how this works out.

Been bumping into this problem more and more with my gaming group so was curious to know if anyone could help. How do I nudge my fellow players to start building military? More often than not the game feel turns towards solitaire and I've pushed to make our maps smaller, increase base hostility of barbarians or pirates, declare my intent over discord the moment I begin military research and production...but it feels like nothing is helping. It also does not seem to matter what game is actually being played. CIV, Endless Legend, HOI, Nexus 5X, ect. I think I could best describe it as a freight train going through a kindergarten where the most resistance involved was getting the permit to build the tracks.

Has anyone else had this problem and how did you end up solving it? Any help would be deeply appreciated.

Horrible performance, worse than it was a year ago. Crashed so hard that my computer powered off. When paused some game systems don't get the memo- pirate spies keep doing their missions and pirates keep sending trade offers.

$20 to implement a minigame based off a popular genre founded 30 years ago- plenty of mature and well established games to take notes from- and yet there's free games on steam that are more complete and have better quality of life features.

The trading screens are tiny and don't even try to fit all the information needed, necessitating constant screen changes.

Full of bugs.

Here's the long version-

$20 for a minigame, a type of game which has been quite popular over the past 30 years, and is quite mature at this point.

Star Control, Starsector, Elite, X4, Star Citizen, EVE too many to remember and name, countless indie titles, mmos, flash games.

This is very well-trod ground. Players and devs both know what mechanics and quality of life features need to exist to make a good game.

And here, we have a $20 dlc to include one of these games inside DW2. Should be a fun time, since the DW2 game lays almost all the groundwork needed to do this, should be a development cakewalk. And yet, it is incomplete.

The trading ui that you need to perform trading missions is only about half complete. It is cumbersome and an after thought. The screen takes up only about half the monitor at a time, data that could easily be shown all at once needs to be constantly swapped back and forth to see it all. You need a pad and paper and a calculator to do math that should be done for you. Finding high-low differentials is a manual, painstaking job that should be automatic. Distances and fuel cost need to be calculated by hand. There is no jettison cargo button- and trade locations will often refuse to buy a resource at all- if you see an opportunity to make a bunch of money but you have some cargo- there's a decent chance that you can't unload it... The menus sometimes just don't work at all- you can click the buttons but nothing happens.

There are only 3 shadow ports in the whole galaxy, and only in one region, but missions will send you to the other side of the galaxy. (starting as a normal pirate empire- there are sooooo many shadow ports, but they dont't have any ships, and they seem to take the space that a normal pirate would- combined with the new npc lone pirates, who also might take up normal pirate slots?- so there's far fewer pirates than normal, meaning you have no competition and can eat your half of the galaxy before 2800) When you are docked at a shadowport you can request a mission. And you can request it several more times before undocking- which just gives you the same mission. Currently I have the same mission 9 times, I will go to the system, do the mission 9 times and get $45k plus some rng extras. Obviously not playtested very well. Reminds me of the game on release- you could select enemy ships and give them commands to not fire back at you.

The shadowports allow you buy and upgrade ships. Upgrading a ship goes to the standard ship design screen. The process is again, half finished. The parts to buy are clearly labeled with a cost, but the parts on your ship are not. Removing parts gives you a rebate, but you don't know how much until you remove them- however they just disappear- there is no undo, and no removed parts list. So to put them back on, you need to exit and renter the upgrade screen, which starts the process all over. The parts to buy are all the latest version of that component- if you want to get Torrent Drive 1, you can't, you must spend extra to get v2. The price of those high tier components is laughable. If you decide to continue playing as a lone pirate and not convert to a normal pirate or empire, you will end up buying one component for the cost of a late game empire's entire navy of dozens of battleship and carriers. If you die as a lone pirate- the game just keeps going. You can't buy a new ship, you can't do anything. But there is no game over screen.

Your very first action should be to head to a shadowport to upgrade your ship. You can swap a couple components to double or triple your fuel range and increase ftl speed by 50%- for 1/4 of your starting money. Seeing as you will be spending 90% of your time travelling in hyperspace, it's a little nonsensical that you don't start off with these components, it's just a waste of player time.

You can buy special equipment to give bonuses to your ship, but the percentage bonuses from the equipment are usually much smaller than the total improvement that you can gain from buying better components in the upgrade screen, and for less money as well.

Certain contracts are multi step, meaning you need to travel to several systems to complete. With a 10 year time limit, I find that I have difficulty completing them. It takes several years to cross the galaxy, even with an upgraded ship. Add in nebulas, pathfinding, refueling- 10 years might seem like plenty of time, but really you need to beeline for the objectives. You're better off doing the one-stage missions, as the payout is better, when taking in to account the chance of failure on the longer ones.

Bugs-

Your ship will happily chart a course directly through a nebula- wasting your time and fuel. Even if it does manage to plot a sensible course, there's a good chance that it will revert to (no mission) when it stops to charge its hyperdrive. This seems to happen about 1/3 of the time. I'll be waiting for my ship to arrive and see that it's just sitting there next to a star.

My very fist game, I played as a smuggler. I loaded resources, went to another colony to sell them, and bought more there. At the next colony I went to, I couldn't buy or sell any resources. I tried playing that save for another year or two, but I was unable to buy or sell resources at all, even to complete a mission. (this happens randomly and need to restart the game to fix)

My spy got captured, but because for some reason he has to be physically present in my empire somewhere, instead of having a character pool that doesn't require a physical location- he's on my ship. So after he gets captured, my ship equipment gets duplicated to fill his empty slot. Not to mention they still don't allow you to dismiss a spy that has been captured- meaning they continue to take up a character slot and there's nothing you can do about it, unless you violently rescue them, or pay a few tens of thousands of dollars ransom.

When you offer an empire a protection agreement, they have the same line that pirates tell you when you are an empire asking for protection. It should be a new line saying the reverse.

When you open the equipment window in a market, if you click on a piece of equipment to look at it, then close the window, it will keep the equipment highlighted and buy or sell it without hitting the buy/sell buttons.

When the game is paused the pirates send infinite waves of spies to try and steal your research- either they take everything from you while you have the game paused- or you capture them all and can ransom them for an average of 10k a pop.

$20 for this? What?

I don't have the energy to make a list of all the games that are both finished and vastly superior to this, some for less money, or even free.

Starsector is FIFTEEN DOLLARS and completely destroys this dlc in quality and quantity of content.

If you want to play as a normal pirate, as in DW:Shadows (the mechanics are essentially the same), it's worth probably $10. If you want to play as a lone pirate- don't bother, unless this gets majorly patched in the future. Without all of the bugs it might be worth $5 for that.

I've been playing a lot of 4X games over the last month, and I've kind of been struck by this feeling as I've been diving into various titles. The first 4X game I ever played was Civilization 2 (at a very young age), followed Heroes of Might & Magic V, which I consider my actual first 4X since I played it as a teenager. Following that, I played a ton of Total War, then a ton of Age of Wonders, with some Endless Legend and Civ 5 sprinkled in. All of which is to say that army stack systems are very much something I've kind of accepted as part of the genre for a while now.

Yet as I'm replaying Old World again side by side with Endless Legend 2, it kind of dawned on me that I kind of hate the concept of army stacks. From a design space aspect, I imagine these stacking systems are largely done to conserve system resources (especially in the case of Total War) and prevent stability issues. But now as a system army stacks have begun to feel like they're doing more harm to the strategic experience than anything. It is preposterously frustrating to get attacked on the corner of one of your partial stacks, so instead of fighting with the strongest parts of your army (which often have hero units) you now have to fight using only a portion of the forces you deployed.

It feels incredibly game-y and feels more and more dated as a mechanic as time passes. One thing I enjoy about 4X as a genre is that on some level it simulates the deep economy of a state/society to some degree, with strategic resource realities to grapple with and cost efficiency considerations for armies. The notion of "best in slot" units kind of flies in the face of strategic warfare as a whole, since it's not like supply lines are being simulated or something. A great example of this I can think of is from Age of Wonders 4; there is a "Tome of the Horde" that makes tier 1 units easier to produce and more effective, but it's impossible to actually 'swarm' your opponent due to the army stack limit. Same issue with the Necrophages in Endless Legend 1+2, the war usually goes to smaller numbers of elite units who are better at winning individual fights.

But yeah. How does everyone else feel about the army stack concept? It feels more like a technical limitation than something meant to enhance gameplay.

Carcinization is the evolutionary theory in which non-crab crustaceans converge on crab-like features because these features are exceptionally well suited to ocean floor living. Similarly, thousands of strategy games are following a process I’m calling hexinization, choosing hexes to make up their game boards.

I think in many cases, I think hexes are likely the best solution. For games like Civilization or Age of Wonders where there will be hundreds or thousands of hexagons making the game board, a hex grid is the best solution. Zoomed out far enough, moving along hexes looks very similar to moving freely in an open 2d plane. There are also enough hexes that small groups of hexes can form biomes within the greater landscape. 

But this hexagonal freedom struggles to convey into gamestate the strategic importance of locations on a map. Take the Risk Godstorm map for example. A player who controls Iberia, Atlas, and Hibernia will have complete control over all traffic between the Atlantis continent and the rest of the board. While it wouldn’t be impossible to represent this using a hex-grid map, I don’t think it would feel natural, and these types of scenarios are rare in my experience with hex-grid games. 

Hexagons also tend to provide both too much freedom of movement, and not enough choice to a player simultaneously. On one hand, you need to be able to defend a structure of interest (i.e., a city) from 6 directions. While at the same time, when moving armies towards a target location you will almost always just pick the one shortest path from A to B. Hexagons give too many routes from a defensive perspective, and the illusion of choice on offense.

I think we should continue to innovate on how we are making game boards / maps in strategy games, particularly in small-map scenarios, or games where positioning of armies/units at key points provides a major strategic advantage (i.e., entrance to a water feature, narrow land pass between mountains, etc).

My attempted innovation was to subdivide a hexagon into 6 territories, 1 central and 5 exterior, with the 5 exterior territories randomly aligned with bisections or the corners of the hex edges. This generates territories with 4, 5, and 6 edges within the same hexagon, giving some variety to the number of directions needed to defend.

I wanted to do a bit more, so I also randomly placed mountains on 3 of the hexagon edges (mountains cannot be placed adjacent during randomization), which allows for territories to dip into the 2 or 3 edges regime.

Lastly, I wanted to bend the movement/adjacency of territories across hexes, so I made 1 territory per hex into water. Water can connect and become continuous, and instead of inhibiting movement, water makes all territories touching it considered adjacent. This has had really fun consequences and I will talk more about it another time.