Deadlock : Planetary Conquest, on MAC as demo if I remember correctly. I was too young to see the flaws in the game, and when I replayed it (full game) after having enjoyed hours upon hours of Civ2 and Alpha Centaury, I quickly mastered it. Fun to play, at least for a time. Deadlock 2 is a remake of the first, better but still... Now I'll see if ES can outlive my past 4X loves.

My first space 4x was either Master of Orion or Reunion on the Amiga, but I think it was Reunion. I played a *lot* of Imperium Galactica 2, quite a bit of Ascendency.

I think I set aside this genre for a few years but got bitten again with Gal Civ 2. The 4x I played the most in the recent years is Sword of the Stars 1 I think.



EDIT: how could I forget that, Brian Reyn... hem Sid Meier's: Alpha Centauri of course. But I'm not sure it's a space 4X technically. There is only one planet after all.

MOO2! Still vividly remember the end-game battles againts AI, with dozens upon dozens of death-star class ships duking it out in an epic and extremely time-consuming turn based manner .

Master of Orion the First, which I'm sure is not an uncommon answer. Since then very few have bit me, I enjoyed and played a fair bit of Sins' but that's more of a hybrid. GalCivII was fun but I can't say I spent a very long time with it and SotS complete is sitting in my steam library yet to be properly played(curse of the Steam sale).

Stars! was I think my first 4x scifi game. I bought it on a punt after the box interested me.



I loved the game mechanics the way you had to reserve fuel and take tankers with your fleet. I also loved the way you collected and transported resources using transports and the way you affected the planetary living conditions. I loved the way movement was completely freeform in space ie you could move anywhere and you werent constrained by hexes or any star routes. I loved the mine laying civilisation in that you could send your ships laying radial minefields in the middle of empty space around your planets. And I loved the packet throwing civ as well. It was all really well imagined and designed. Its the only game Ive played that has had a massive degree of variation between its races. There was also a stealthy race and probably a war mongering one although I cant remember them all now.



The graphics were quite lame but it didnt matter at all. Your ships were triangles but after a few hours you stopped seeing triangles and started imagining the fleets moving through space. Ive always liked my graphics but I think Stars! must be the only game which I have played in which I knowingly was playing with rubbish graphics and didnt care one bit.



But the game really shone when playing against other people via email. It sounds rubbish but it was great and I used to wait for my turn to come around with anticipation. Its such a shame that the sequel didnt get made. I have to say of all the 4x games Ive played since then Stars! had the best conceptual design of all of them. And Stars! is the only 4x scifi game I remember with any real degree of fondness (well, and SE4).



I have since played Imperium Galactica, Ascendency, Space Empires 4, Sword of the Stars, Galactic Civilisations 2 and now Endless Space. By far the worst for me were SOTS and GC2 which I couldnt get into at all, but I was mostly fed up with computer games around that time. ES is the first 4x game I've really felt interested in for ages - well since Ascendency in fact. Just goes to show how good it is!!

I guess it's a close draw between K240 (predecessor to Fragile Allegiance) and a freeware game called Colonial Conquest 2 on my Amiga. Must have sunk hours into the former, using the never-failing tactic of simply pushing empty asteroids into those of my opponents. Also, simpy buying blueprints rather than investing into research myself was a great mechanic which would fit an economically focused race in a modern 4X game. *hint*



I bought Ascendancy from my pocket money after seeing it at a friend's, even prior to switching to a PC - that's how much I loved it. Great to see some of its features making a comeback in Endless Space. As for Master Of Orion 2... yeah, I guess I was just a bit late to the party, but enjoyed it nevertheless, and even after so many years it hasn't lost any of its appeal.

nats wrote:
Stars! was I think my first 4x scifi game. I bought it on a punt after the box interested me.



I loved the game mechanics the way you had to reserve fuel and take tankers with your fleet. I also loved the way you collected and transported resources using transports and the way you affected the planetary living conditions. I loved the way movement was completely freeform in space ie you could move anywhere and you werent constrained by hexes or any star routes. I loved the mine laying civilisation in that you could send your ships laying radial minefields in the middle of empty space around your planets. And I loved the packet throwing civ as well. It was all really well imagined and designed. Its the only game Ive played that has had a massive degree of variation between its races. There was also a stealthy race and probably a war mongering one although I cant remember them all now.



The graphics were quite lame but it didnt matter at all. Your ships were triangles but after a few hours you stopped seeing triangles and started imagining the fleets moving through space. Ive always liked my graphics but I think Stars! must be the only game which I have played in which I knowingly was playing with rubbish graphics and didnt care one bit.



But the game really shone when playing against other people via email. It sounds rubbish but it was great and I used to wait for my turn to come around with anticipation. Its such a shame that the sequel didnt get made. I have to say of all the 4x games Ive played since then Stars! had the best conceptual design of all of them. And Stars! is the only 4x scifi game I remember with any real degree of fondness (well, and SE4).



I have since played Imperium Galactica, Ascendency, Space Empires 4, Sword of the Stars, Galactic Civilisations 2 and now Endless Space. By far the worst for me were SOTS and GC2 which I couldnt get into at all, but I was mostly fed up with computer games around that time. ES is the first 4x game I've really felt interested in for ages - well since Ascendency in fact. Just goes to show how good it is!!

Same for me. Nothing else I've seen has the complexity that stars did. This game is really good, but I still miss some of the features of stars that no other game has done since then.



I find the paths between stars and categories of planets to be especially strange. Planets had 1-100 ratings of temperature, radiation, and gravity for planets, and teraforming was gradual.

I think I already played another game 4x before ES , but it was many years ago and I can't remember the name... other than that ES is my first 4x game

Sylithrandir wrote:
I find the paths between stars and categories of planets to be especially strange. Planets had 1-100 ratings of temperature, radiation, and gravity for planets, and teraforming was gradual.

Yes Stars! is the only game I've ever played that allowed completely free 2d movement in space. All of the others have either been paths between stars like this game or hexes like Space Empires. Stars! was amazing. The basics are still well in advance of any other game around including this one. It would still make a superb game today with just the graphics upgrading. I would buy a new Stars! game in a flash.

My first 4x game is Endless Space

and I'm already extremely addicted.

My history with 4x and stratagy games in general is too long to list, or even remember at that . Thinking back,.......Imperium Galactica was a good one, one i loved alot, but definately not the first i played. i remember a star trek one that was in basic that i reprogrammed till i ran out of memory for it when i was a teen. added in all the stuff i thought i was lacking, but never finished it. but before that i cant remember any off the top of my head, they were all very scarce back then.

My very first was Master of Orion but i tried a lot 4X games. Ascendancy was a good one too. GalCiv2 was amazing but sucked in battles and i would love to see one day a sequel to Star Lord .



[edit] Forgot Master of Orion 2

My First 4X was "Master of Orion 2"

Master of Orion was my first 4X.

Master of Orion I. I liked MOO2 a bit better. MOO3 definitely not a worthy heir to that throne ... was excited to hear Brad Wardell (the Stardock CEO) tried to pick it up to make a worthy MOO4, but seems like the IP holder just wants to sit and let it die. :/



I liked Galactic Civilizations, which I tried later, but GC2 was better (but not as good as MOO2). I like GC2, still play it, but like some things better about ES. I wouldn't quite say ES is better than MOO2 though, but then ES is still "beta" for at least a few more days. :P



I also like "Sword of the Stars," has awesome eye candy space combat.



So far, I'd definitely rank Endless Space as one of the best ... sorry, MOO2 still holds the crown for me, but ES is definitely high up there. I'm definitely going to start recommending it to my fellow TBS addicts.

Sword of the stars for me. I wasn´t into strategy games until lately, but I played sots when it came out

Spaceward Ho 4.0 was my first. Loved that game. Next was MOO2.

Master of Orion II was possibly my first 4X.



I've played most any 4X game since then, both on land (Civ, Alpha Centauri) and space.

Probably Gal Civ but SMAC definitely had the most impact even if it's not technically 4xkl

Sins of a solar empire