4th Generation Warfare
This Is an update to the review 11/20/21
Single player Is not bad to play. There are quality of life things that needs to be Improved.
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Instead of checking the phone for each person or backing out the menu to re open to view messages from characters to have a simple list of all messages.
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When you tell your military to move somewhere they will move Into borders of countries and start a war If still there traveling In two or three days.
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More defence from cyber attacks. As a large country you cannot defend against this. Other actors can ruin your entire economy and cause mass shortages withing days.
– Real player with 106.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Diplomacy Wargame Games.
In the beginning it was confusing but the more I played the more I realized all of the hidden treasures that this game has behind its sleeve. Its not those games that tells you everything right off the bat and spoiling all the fun by doing so, this is a progressive type game that the longer you play the more you discover and develop a history as the leader of the nation. By far one of the most underestimated games with extremely high potential by far I have ever seen to date. If you don’t like this game cause its hard, tutorials aren’t good, or you don’t understand the game play, I would say that the game provides difficulty levels and different modes to play through, play the actual game and this is 4th generation warfare which you should have researched what that means if you don’t know. Great Game!
– Real player with 98.8 hrs in game
Stellar Monarch
If you are familiar with Eurogame style tabletop games, then the abstractions and economic focus (vice military control) will feel very familiar to you. The game’s pillars are not based on American-style wargames.
Many devs who make 4X games seem to have the souls of engineers; Aurora 4x being the archetype. In those games micromanagement focuses on design, production, and use of things like ships. Mastery of those concepts leads to victory.
This game requires micromanagement and is numerically obtuse as well, but it focuses on the qualitative values of game elements (i.e. cards) instead of design, production and use of things.
– Real player with 30.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Diplomacy Grand Strategy Games.
There’s a lot left to be desired in this game. The UI is clunky, the artwork is amateurish (think early D&D), and there are some strong biases (no female officers, everyone is Caucasian). Maybe there’s a button to change that - but if there is, I havent dug it out from the UI yet (oh, that tiny button on the map pulls up a list of worlds? Which cannot be ordered to tell me most populous, most rebellious, etc?).
For all that, however, the game does two things well. It lives up to what it says it is - you’re the Emperor, not a warehouse clerk. You dont deal with the minutae of the empire, you have People for that - who are, admittedly, often trying to kill you. Or skim off the top. Or are just idiots. But you’re the Emperor, you have People for those People too; people with sharp, pointy objects - my purges havent reached Stalinist levels, but every once in a while, I do feel the need to prune my court of the more corrupt or stupid couriers or officers (‘fire’ all corrupt governors except the loyal ones? Meh heh heh heh).
– Real player with 23.5 hrs in game
Conquicktory
Conquicktory is a minimalistic turn-based strategy focused on top-level decisions in your civilization’s development. You’ll control the diplomacy relations with neighboring countries, declare wars, plan the key strikes and distribute funds to the peaceful/military issues. Your subjects will do the rest of work - there is no need to deeply micromanage all the aspect of your glorious growing empire.
The game map has 3 views:
1. Military view. If you see a spear with a flag over one of your cities, it means that you can create an army in it. Simply touch and drag from it and you’ll see the army path. Army will capture cells around its path. The same dragging way is used to plan the movement of your existing armies. Also you can see the cells defense ratings on this view. Cells are defended by nearby armies, cities and forts.
2. Diplomacy view. Here you can select a country and see its current enemies (red) and allies (green). You can select a country and suggest a treaty to it, or declare war. Also here you can answer the treaties suggestions from other players
3. Economy view. You can see how much each of your cities brings to you, and set the funds spreading to war, peaceful growth and treasury. You can fund new cities and fortresses in this view.
Game features:
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easy control mode which lets you focus on the top-level questions of you empire
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simultaneous moves, which are performed once all the players have issued orders
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challenging AI, which does not cheat but can make clever moves
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spectator mode, where you can relax and spectate how the AI play (and try to guess the winner)
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prebuilt maps of the world, continents and countries, which you can conquer
Read More: Best Diplomacy Strategy Games.
Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition
In a word: Addictive. Yes, addictive in that terrifying, inescapable, “just-one-more-turn” way. Galactic Civilizations II is what you get if you take Master of Orion II, expand it so that the galaxy, tech tree and ship customisation are roughly a hundred times as huge without ever becoming boring, bump the graphics up to a standard still respectable today for a TBS, give each civilization some serious make-or-break differences (hint: the Drengin and the Yor almost always end up dominating most of the galaxy that ISN’T YOU), and shove it out there to give almost every other space-based TBS a serious poke in the eye.
– Real player with 216.8 hrs in game
I decided to pick up a new 4x space game after pouring many hours into Endless Space. Endless Space lacked complexity and I searched for a more in depth game. Galactic Civilizations 2 fulfill that criteria. I started playing this in 2015 so I have no nostalgic feelings for it. The game is quite good and fun despite its age and limitations, in fact it is the best 4x space game I have played so far (other space 4x I’ve played are MOO2, Endless Space and Sword of the Stars). Take a good look at the pros and cons because some points might put you off.
– Real player with 196.7 hrs in game
Conquest of the New World
This is an old game I firt bought around 20 years ago. I enjoyed it a lot then and still enjoy it. The controls are very basic and the graphics are poor by today’s standards but it is still fun to play and does take strategy to conquer the new world. For $10 I’m very happy with my purchase, I’m only irritated that I had to purchase the game a second time because my current machines don’t support the old software.
– Real player with 1783.2 hrs in game
This game is an old favorite of mine from many years ago. Although its graphics are now very dated, and it is a turn-based game in an era when most people seem to prefer real time (at least, the people who sell games seem to think so!), I have always found it to be a very well conceived, highly playable, and unusually entertaining game. It might very well have become one of my all-time favorite games if not for one fatal flaw: It contains a number of bugs which, in extended play, render it literally unplayable! The most annoying of these is that, in battles between large armies, the game hangs in the middle of the battle, and is unrecoverable. The only solution to this I have ever been able to find is to save your game before the start of each turn so that you have a fall-back position if you hang. Note that you must save under a new name, exit your game, and restart under the original name each time you do this (in other words, there is no “Quick Save” option as in so many other games). This makes it such a nuisance that you are not likely to do it. But even if you do, what’s the point? In order to not hang, you must choose not to have the battle. But without large battles, this game holds little interest for me. So when I saw that Steam was offering Conquest on their platform, I was excited to think that they might be offering a playable version, and I immediately bought a copy (at full price). Unfortunately, once I got well into the game (about Turn 120), the same old problem occurred. When playing on my own computer I was sometimes able to resolve the hangup by force-closing the hung game and rebooting the computer. Obviously rebooting the Steam server which supports this game is not an option. So here I am, having invested about a week in playing Conquest (actually 24.1 hours of play time according to Steam), and my game can neither be continued nor reverted to an earlier position – not that going back would necessarily help, anyway. I’m sure you can imagine my frustration level, and my disappointment that Steam did nothing to fix this potentially classic game before offering it for sale.
– Real player with 838.7 hrs in game
Galactic Civilizations® I: Ultimate Edition
This was one of the few games I played over and over as a teen.
I’ll be honest, I never got into the sequel, because I didn’t like the way the planets were depicted (though it probably made influence more intuitive). So I don’t know how this one holds up to GalCiv II. But on its own merits, it’s a good game.
In Galactic Civilizations, you start out as ruler of united Earth. The various alien races, having gotten the secret of hyperdrive from the humans, have turned off their massive wormhole portals and scrapped them for hyper-capable colony ships. The real space race has begun, and it’s up to you to determine the path you want humanity to take.
– Real player with 194.6 hrs in game
In my ongoing and likely futile effort to write a Steam review for every game in my library (#291 out of 612)… it’s time for Galactic Civilizations I: Ultimate Edition.
You might know Galactic Civilizations by its other name: “Oh, yeah, there was a game before Galactic Civilizations III, wasn’t there?” Indeed there was! The obvious question here is: why should anyone play Galactic Civilizations 1 when the third game exists, and is so, so good? Historical context? Pure, unadulterated whimsy? A PC so old and out-of-date that it doesn’t even qualify as a toaster? Galactic Civilizations I has got fewer features, less polish, and less depth all-around. Furthermore, you’re in for one hell of an uphill battle if you’re even -thinking- of trying to get the game to run on a modern operating system. Galactic Civilizations does not play nice with anything more advanced than Windows XP!
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander (LIGHTSPEED EDITION)
Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition is a turn-based combat space simulation R.P.G. both developed and published by Massive Damage, Inc. After a devastating attack by a relentless unknown alien species decimates the New Terran Federation, you are immediately put in command of the starbase Halcyon 6. It’s up to you to rebuild the Federation, make lasting alliances with alien species, gather vital resources and prepare to stop the impending alien invasion that has it’s sights set on Earth. Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition includes a number of additional content, optimizations and new updates to the original award winning title, Halcyon 6: Starbase Commander, that vastly improves the overall gameplay experience of the first title. Prepare to take your seat in the commander’s chair for this thrilling spacefaring adventure.
– Real player with 39.3 hrs in game
I was expecting some revival of MOO2.
I started my first game at “Commander level”, expecting to take a quick and severe defeat, but learn enough for an enjoyable second round.
For the first 8 hours, it was fun: build your ships, evolve your captains, oh! there is a tech tree, great! And those aliens, are they friendly or not? Pirates, space travellers, threats, offers.. Excellent!
After 8 hours, I started to realize that:
1/ I did not made any strategic decision, I just clicked randomly on the various “evolution trees”, I did not experience a single defeat.
– Real player with 24.4 hrs in game
Rise of Hegemony
Rise of Hegemony is a strategy game inspired by great games such as Civilization and Victoria. Triumph over your neighbours by successfully managing your country economically, diplomatically and militarily. The path to global hegemony is up to you.
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Subdue your enemies by pure military force.
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Forge alliances and diplomatic pacts to be part of an unstoppable coalition.
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Educate your people to eclipse your rivals technologically.
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Become an economic powerhouse and make other nations dependant on your resources.
In-depth economy
Rise of Hegemony features an in-depth economical system where every province contains a discrete number of people that all need resources to survive and thrive. Lacking access to sufficient amounts of critical goods such as food will cause your population to starve. Without access to weaponry your soldiers will be woefully unprepared to face enemies in battle. Trading with other countries is important, being dependant on them is perilous.
Build up your country
Starting as a fledgling country the way you want to conduct yourself on the world stage is up to you. Acting peacefully and benevolent has its benefits, but sometimes a more warlike approach is a quicker way to achieve your goals…
Randomly generated worlds
Even with the same strategy every game can take a vastly different course when the world looks different and countries will develop distinctively depending on their starting conditions.
Moddability
Rise of Hegemony leaves a lot of room for mods to expand on the game. Do you prefer to focus on a certain time period? Perhaps a fantasy setting is more to your liking? The possibilities for alternative scenarios are plenty!
ENDLESS™ Space - Definitive Edition
I fell in love with Master of Orion II when it came out first (1996) and since then I look for a worthy successor. Played several 4X games and they had their pros and cons. Endless Space is one of the better 4X games and absolutely worth buying, in my opinion. Wouldn’t have played 300+ hours else, heh. I am reviewing it including Disharmony expansion.
Galaxy: Endless Space offers some variety of galaxy shapes and sizes, some favoring defensive players, some favoring offensive ones. Additional finetuning of the galaxy is possible. I miss the opportunity of creating a REALLY huge galaxy, but maximum size with just one opponent works ok as a sandbox mode. During exploring you will find nice bonuses, a few pirates, wormholes (basically dividing the galaxy until you can travel through them) and finally different wonders, so exploring is actually fun.
– Real player with 352.8 hrs in game
Review: Endless Space
_“Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. . . .
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson_
The universe with it’s endless amounts of galaxies, stars and planets was born out of what we call “the big bang”. It took billions of years before the first life was given and further billions for the new rulers of space to conquer every star they could reach: The Endless. They traveled through wormholes, became masters of time and space, built outstanding monuments and structures and oppressed every lifeform that stood in their way, all with the help of a special gift called dust. The only ones who could make them fall were the Endless themselves with inner conflicts and arrogance. Millions of years later other empires arose from the stars. The Endless were gone but their technology, wisdom and Dust is still there, waiting for new conquerors. Which faction will dominate the others with science, war and dust? Hopefully yours.
– Real player with 196.1 hrs in game
Rising Constellation
Rising Constellation is an awesome game which is mixing strategy and role play at a perfect level.
It offers many distinct gameplay based on factions and its agents mechanics - however, remind it’s strongly depends on team play!
Indead, this game is part of those who are perfectly designed to work in cooperation with your mates, but definitely not alone.
Use Siderians and rule your teamates, just because you’ll get the economy power - or perhaps you’ll prefer bite everyone using large fleets lead by Navarques.
– Real player with 933.3 hrs in game
Rising Constellation is 4x RST game still in developpment.
Created from a small team of Swiss developper, I was a player of thier first MMO RTS 4x game: Asylamba.
I see RC (Rising Constellation) like an MMO RTS 4x game based on Agents (Navarques – Ereased – Sidérians).
I really enjoy the game for is background story (lore can be added by players participation) , B&W graphic style and is MMO possibility !
There is now 1 mod to play : fast flash 2H gamemode , this is quite small with 1 or to 2 games per week with a small cummunity.
– Real player with 837.1 hrs in game