I want to play some civilization-like game but in space, discovering unknown worlds, star systems, galactic threats etc.
Quick research gives me this:
Master of Orion - but people say it's buggy and overall not happy about it for some reason also devs dropped developing it.
Stellaris - some say it's the best, but I am not sure about it. There is something that doesn't feel right.
Endless Space 2 - it seems like this one is the best, but I heard some DLC ruined it or something. Which you can turn off, but something is wrong about it.
Distant Worlds 2 - looks way too complicated, however I heard some space guy said this game is the best out there.
GalCiv 4 - for some reason people hate this game, why?
Interstellar Space: Genesis - this game has small audience, but the audience say it's pretty amazing and the true MoO2 successor.
There is also Sins of Solar Empire 2, but it's an RTS and Civ Beyond Earth, but it's a single planet.
Are there other civilizations in space games which worth playing? Which is the best? Help me decide.
 It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
 |
It's All Fucked Shirt $22.14 |
Have you tried this?
It's on my wishlist but I never got around to it.
Reviews look meh, also I don't like this cheap style.
>WMAF on cover
When all races disappear in 2 centuries the mutts will really find those ancient posters that depict the future funny.
The only people with healthy fertility rates in the entire world are the white amish and hasidim
I have it. I put it down after a few hours. I might revisit it but it was more like CK in space but with less depth.
>Master of Orion
If you mean the remake it's a bit dull. Has some nice visuals and a weirdly big VA budget on Sci-fi veterans. It's too basic for me though.
>Stellaris
Was great but now it's bloated. Hard to give a recommendation for a paradox game that's been out for this long because it's got endless DLC. Hard to gauge what coming into it now for the first time would be like.
>Endless Space 2
Probably the best if you just want a relaxing atmospheric entrance. Gameplay is hit and miss, but it's got a great sense of style and matches follow branching narratives for your faction which is really satisfying.
>Distant Worlds 2
Haven't played it. 1 was too complex for me to get into.
>GalvCiv 4
2 was great, 3 was average. I imagine 4 is probably more of the same. It's a space 4x series that plays by the book.
>Interstellar Space: Genesis
Haven't heard of it. I should check it out.
>SoaSE 2
Way too alpha for you to play it now. Play the first if you want a space 4x RTS game.
>Beyond Earth
Don't bother. Rare case of the writing killing the game.
And if you want my recommendation, play Sword of the Stars 1. Looks and sounds like ass, but has the best gameplay of any space 4x. Every faction has their own form of travel and tech trees a little bit randomised each time so games feel different enough. I love it. It's aged poorly though. Don't touch the sequel.
>Stellaris
To pick up on what that anon said, different versions of the game play like very different games, depending on when what mechanic was reworked.
Even not touching the DLC, the first few iterations of the game reworked shipbuilding, space travel, and pops, to the point that it's essentialy a different mechanics alltogether
(Funnily enough species designer remained mostly the same thorough the game long turbulent life, I'd call it the core aspect for the game, and reason people keep playing it in the first place)
Wdym Stellaris is bloated? Isn't expanded game mechanics better?
It's funny how people say that Vic3 is bare bones, but when Paradox work on a game it becomes bloated.
>Wdym Stellaris is bloated? Isn't expanded game mechanics better?
It's slight broadening of a very shallow pool
Unironically base game Stellaris is pretty comfy if all you want to do is create a species and engage in complete galactic conquest. The best thing about playing only the base game is that a lot of the cancer shit doesn't actually exist so you can expect a lot better performance. For example, habitats, famous for being the most cancerous piece of shit things to exist, don't exist if you don't own Utopia. Unfortunately, Utopia is a very good dlc for the most part, so it's a shame that's the dlc they come in, but not owning means no habitat cancer spam by the AI.
Vanilla Stellaris with no dlc, while definitely more barren, runs a lot better. If you're not that worried about some "lore" and just wanna rule and conquer, I'd get it if I were you.
>Sword of the Stars 1. Looks and sounds like ass, but has the best gameplay of any space 4x
seconded
sots is a great 4x, although it focuses mostly on the eXterminate part
>Wdym Stellaris is bloated?
they removed things that made empires more unique (ehem, FTL drives) and they added mechanics that can best be described as tedious garbage
and let's not even mention late game performance drops
>they removed things that made empires more unique (ehem, FTL drives)
/vst/ historically has a ton of whiners who can't play anything but star lanes in any game but this was the initial bad decision that ruined Stellaris in the long term
also seconding late game performance
>/vst/ gets filtered by warp drives
kek
>how can there be STELLAR GEOGRAPHY if there aren't STAR LANES???
>let's reduce THE FRICKING UNIVERSE to a bunch of lines
>why is my game so bland reee
the minds of excel gamers are a terrifying thing
except they've convinced themselves their paradox mana map painter isn't bland because there's a new heckin $15 event pack that's plagiarized every conceivable sci-fi plot since Foundation was first published
>and it wouldn't be fair of you to warp to some place i didn't fortify reeeeeeee
I like star lanes, but stellaris wasn't designed with them being the main form of transport. The way they were implemented was just a lazy way to get around balancing. Basically there was no reason to use them compared to the other 2 options, so Paradox made it the only one you could use. SotS does it so much better where the game is designed around the idea that every faction gets from point A to B in a different way. Space lanes included, with one of the factions tearing their way into already existing lanes.
I loved the different starting ftl's, they made the game very unique, even if they were a nightmare from the game/ship design perspective. I just wish we've got modern sectors (Any sane person would mod out the old sectors immediately, the panaroic fear of micromanaging planets baked in the early stellaris design was way overblown, the planets were only sllightly more difficult to manage than Total war cities, I'd call them procedurally generated 100% solvable and easy puzzles) and leaders with old tech system.
>Hard to gauge what coming into it now for the first time would be like
it feels shit to play. every single game design decision is to keep players from having fun. in 4x players are constrained by resources (credits, minerals or whatever the frick the game uses), available colonies/pops, tech level and enemies.
in stellaris they add upkeep, leader slots, starbase slots, empire size nerfs, corruption and crime, fleet size slots and a shitton of other mechanics i'm forgetting to force the player to play how the developers want and not how you want.
fricking autists trying to 'balance' a single player game, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined
>Stellaris
Close to what you've described but they keep shitting out DLCs. You might think you'll just ignore the DLCs but they keep adding/changing some game mechanic in the DLCs and adding a dumbed down version of the mechanic to the base game, I guess to incentivize you to buy the DLC.
Result is you'll either have a game with a lot of limited mechanics or you fork out 300€+ for the "complete experience"
>Endless Space 2
You've heard about the Awakening DLC, you can turn it off or not get it to begin with. You'll miss out on a new faction but it's not a huge loss. There is an unofficial patch (Endless Space Gaming Discord Mod) that attempts to fix the DLC, among doing other things, and supposedly even an official fix is being made: (Re)Awakening Update
The game it self has some interesting factions both lore and gameplay wise.
Surprisingly for a 4X turn based empire builder the game also has several quests, some collaborative or competitive, some specific to factions with overall decent writing, some with multiple choices and long term gameplay effects.
Haven't played any of the others on your list.
If you're not averse to some oldies, maybe also check out
Imperium Galactica I & II and Haegemonia: Legions of Iron (which AFAIK started out as Imperium Galactica III but gameplay is different)
Also the precursor to Civ Beyond Earth: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with aged graphics but a lot better writing and atmosphere.
What's wrong with that DLC for ES2?
Also, is that true original devs resumed working on it?
There is a strictly npc faction (Academy) that existed before the Awakening DLC but the DLC expanded it.
Periodically all empires can pay the Academy and the biggest spenders get some temporary rewards, but this is not the issue.
The issue is the Academy also goes around colonizing systems even though it has no need for an economy because it just spawns ships, so it takes away territory from the empires that do actually need it. It also besieges systems and if you dare fight back, then you have to pay reparations. It's diplomatic state also resets periodically, so you can't even become permanently friendly with it to leave you alone.
TL.DR; They turned an NPC empire into an invulnerable butthole.
>Endless Space 2 - it seems like this one is the best, but I heard some DLC ruined it or something. Which you can turn off, but something is wrong about it.
It was the Academy DLC with the Nakalim that was really criticized (I never bought it because of this) but this was actually patched very recently. I haven't tried it yet. It's worth playing without that DLC regardless.
>I think Stellaris is a bad game for a lot of reasons and that it will never be a good game because of too many poor design choices already piled on top of each other, but if you're ultra-autistic and want to make wh40k larps for yourself so you can post about them on /vm/ for years with other weirdos who do the same shit maybe it's up your alley.
>Distant Worlds Universe (1) is great but singleplayer, I haven't played DW2 but it looked disappointing and incomplete at launch.
>I will always shill Space Empires IV and maybe even V despite V being a buggy unstable mess.
>Aurora 4x is *the* autistic space 4x par excellence. I haven't played this because it devolves into micro-hell.
>allegedly there is a patch that makes Master of Orion 3 into not only a playable but actually decent game.
Aurora C# duh
Aurora or Distant Worlds Universe (Not 2). DWU is just Aurora with a UI.
>but its to compl...
go get an IQ test then
I'm dying for a space exploration and colonization game with big terraforming elements. Aurora 4x kinda scratches that itch, but it's too much of an ugly spreadsheet chore to really work with.
>Master of Orion
2 is stable as a rock. Devs stopped working on it in the 1990s. 3 was terrible. Was there a new one?
Also, I enjoyed Space Empires 4. I had to mod it too make it harder, and I made all of the aliens factions 1 team, but the detailed shipbuilding and worlds were great
Master of Orion 2 and Space Empires IV are the pinnacle of the space 4X genre, at least insofar as TBS goes. I've not played Distant Worlds 1 or 2 though so I don't know if those are real-time-with-pause like Stellaris or properly turnbsed.
I'll just mention Remnants of the Precursors because it hasn't been mentioned yet.
>Remnants of the Precursors is a modernization of the 1993 strategy game "Master of Orion". You will play as one of 10 unique races and lead them to galactic domination or, if you fail, humiliation and defeat. Micromanagement is minimal and the gameplay smooth and streamlined.
It's a free game that you can just google to find and download.
I played some Stellaris and liked it before I accidently deleted it.
Never played Distant Worlds 2, but Distant Worlds 1 is pretty good. You can automate most things and kind of ease into it
moo remake has mods that make it fun
what mods
check steam workshop. it has that 5x overhaul mod, made it i think pretty close to moo2
Is this a good space game? I mean it has pretty meh reviews, but with mods is it going to be ok?
what's wrong with original MOO?
there is also Stars! if you want more details
not only it has FTL drives but it also has combat in space, not only near stars/planets
Endless Space 2 has the best discovery mechanics out of all of them in my opinion. The DLC that people liked the least was the academy but it’s still worth having. The “academy nerf” mod on steam fixes it. You should also get the “better AI empires” mod which makes the AI more aggressive.
I find it mindblowing the bar for space civilization games is so abysmally low that Stellaris is considered good and defining of the genre
Paradrones are dumb.
I got IV and V a while back but haven't played them yet. What's better about III?
>What's better about III?
I meant to ask this as well, I played the III demo when was really young and couldn't tell you
SE4 is the same game with extra bloat and less soul.
Its not. He's pretending it is to try and fit in by liking a game that looks ugly.
Distant Worlds 2 is finally getting really good especially with the new public beta patch. They are fleshing out the base game races similar to the DLC races. Humans and Mortalen are first
Is this game hard to learn? I want to play DS2 buuuuut...
Well, DW2 is kind of a simulation of a galaxy and so it doesn't guarantee that the start is fair. However it is great in that it gives you extensive options for automation. If you were to set everything on auto your empire would just essentially be like any AI empire in the galaxy. You can choose which aspects of the game you want to keep on manual, on advisor suggestion, or automate. Don't want to manually design your ships? Or choose research? leave it on auto. Want to design just your frigates for an example? You can do that too. There are so many options and you can change them on the fly from the empire policy screen. There are a lot of things you want the game to handle by itself even as an experienced player, like the tax rates for each colony. It really isn't that difficult of a game to get into if you have any prior experience with autism games. Might want to watch some videos first i guess. Just make sure they are recent ones since the game had evolved a lot in recent months. Like the Human and Mortalen beta patch came out like ten days ago
The problem is you start out with the automation - it isn't a reward like it is in Factorio, and it isn't intuitive or user friendly. Instead of going 3d for literally no reason, since everything happens on a 2d plane anyways, they should have just gussied up the look and feel of DWU to something that looks like starsector. Being able to colonise any planet, like starsector, would have been good too, with tech being used as a way to make, say, building cities on giant spheres of lava a bit cheaper because you've found a nifty widget to divert the lava instead of building expensive, cyclopean walls to keep it out
I'm still mad that they gimped the ship designer to railroad you into having certain designs rather than allowing you to strap whatever you want to a hull up to the max size. If I want a tissue paper gun brick hospital and mining ship, frick off and let me build one. Railroad the AI, and not me.
Also, still mad about the static planets.
All these suggestions suck. I already either have them, or they are painfully mid.
many such cases
Aw man, I can't believe we failed you, the main character of Ganker, like this. Tragedy.
Have you realized that's all there is available?
Maybe there just isn't more to offer right now then.
see this
>nobody recommends Star Ruler 2
To be fair OP does have pretty shit taste judging by the OP
But it's dead and abandoned.
Anything open-source can never truly die.
I got Endless Space 1 ultimate edition when they were doing that giveaway recently, is it considered good?
I'm thinking of reinstalling SEIV, does anyone here play?
Yes but I never played multiplayer and I never will. Aslo SEIII > SEIV
Before Stellaris released, I was hoping it would be kind of like Orion's Arm, spanning thousands of years with immortal AI overlords rather than focusing on squishy mayfly meatbags all miraculously inventing spaceflight across the galaxy simultaneously.
>immortal AI overlords
Worst meme. Tech can barely last 10 years let alone be immortal.
Yeah, consoomer tech that's designed to break and be replaced in a year or two.
Name some examples of computing tech that were built to last and have lasted for even 40-50 years without being updated or modernized. An AI that keeps upgrading is no different from a ruler that keeps getting replaced. A cyborg human with constantly replaced organs and artificial prosthetics would be the equal of any "immortal" AI with a continuous will even after having every part of itself upgraded.
Voyager probes still send at least some data.
Upgrade =/= replacement, you realize?
A newer version of a program is a new entity.
>psychic
>super strong
Why do you need muscles when you have telekinesis?
And get this, the Valdari pig-thing beat my chad Khell'Zen emperor in single combat! Can you believe that!
>scrolling through listings for space strategy games on steam
>30% of them are indie abandonware with negative reviews
>20% are space-skinned indie card games or pixel platformers
>10% are old classics that were good for their time but barely function on modern hardware
>and the remainder are just Stellaris DLCs
Paradox genuinely killed this genre.
I heard Endless Space 2 got an update that fixed all the remaining issues.
anyone every made a good write up on what would be the best 4x planetary development system?
Honestly, there's only really 2 options.
Either your game is about space ships and space stuff and you abstract colony management to the absolute extreme, Sword of the Stars-style. Let me set up a planet with a few sliders once and then never have to look at it again, so I can focus on the stuff I'm here for: space.
Or your game is ABOUT managing colonies and your gameplay systems are built from the ground up around that--and your game probably plays very differently from a 4x.
I don't think the latter has ever actually been tried, but you'd probably be looking more like a citybuilder sim or something like Frostpunk, just in a scifi setting.
Personally, I would prefer planet side stuff to be abstracted, or at most allow you to build a few specific structures like wonders or military bases, and the rest just grow organically. The meat of territory development should be building structures in space. The larger the scale, the more individual planets need to be abstracted. If it were limited to a single system and maybe a couple others, then you could focus on planets and space travel in detail without it becoming a mess and also deal with such things as multiple factions existing on a single planet.
>I don't think the latter has ever actually been tried, but
Honestly most space 4x are MOO derived to some degree. I'm not sure there is a true "Civ, but it's a space map" type game, but that's how I'd imagine the latter.
Space is best experienced as a "flight simulator" type game anyway, or something like EVE online. I feel the same way about mecha, wishing there was a mecha based 4x but I know small scale tactical and action games and the occasional RTS are all I'm gonna get while a 4x might just throw a bone of a mech unit or 2.
>Space is best experienced as a "flight simulator" type game anyway, or something like EVE online.
No, that's fricking boring. That's exactly why starfield and no man's sky were shit. Space is fricking boring and empty unless you're conquering it yourself.
>No, that's fricking boring. That's exactly why starfield and no man's sky were shit.
I meant a game like Colony Wars or something. I don't know what the proper name for games where you fly a spaceship and fight things is.
Those games suck because they suck.
Everything nowadays is poisoned by realism brain rot because the industry is allergic to art design. It's a game's job to make space interesting, to sell you on the concept of it, to make it strange, fantastical and sublime. Starfield and NMS just made it empty.
It's a problem for strategy games too. Half the reason that Stellaris was so success is that it hired a bunch of scifi authors who asked "what if space was teeming with cool shit to discover." A space game doesn't even need good gameplay as long as it sells you on a fantasy of space that's interesting and creative. But that's the part whereball the contenders fumble.
>game I want to play in my head probably wouldn't be fun for me to play
I hate it
There's nothing out there to sate my desires for a space civ game. Best I can do is mod the piss out of Stellaris to make it somewhat enjoyable.
try sword of the stars & star control 2
galciv 2 is the best in that series btw
I wish Sword of the Stars 2 was real and good.
Sadly even if the game could be fixed (it can't be, all the files that need editing are encrypted) it's an unfinished proprietary engine bound to 32bit, so even 'fixed' it would still run like shit on modern rigs.
What burns me is that in the decade+ since, nobody else has even tried to make anything else like it.
>in the decade+ since, nobody else has even tried to make anything else like it
first versions of stellaris had that kinda vibe
then they castrated it and impotently tried to vic/ck-ify it
I want a space game that focuses on designing rockets and spacecraft to colonize the solar system and nearby star systems without using FTL sci-fi shit.
There's a game in development that kinda, maybe, has something like that?
It's called Solar Expanse, on Steam.
You want a game whose gameplay would take 6 months real time at 10x speed to even get the basis of a colony laid down on mars? At least you have Kerbal and some other physicslop games to play already though.