Master of Orion 2 takes the fight over ES for 3 reasons IMO - More character in it's (Admittedly worse) dipomacy, Orion (And the guardian) and the Antarans.



It gives the game just a little more direction, yet the Antarans at least can be disabled. It gives you a goal to aim for more than just standard vanilla conditions. Why no-one is thinking about modding this into ES ie beyond me...I'd pay em!

Wow Alpha Centauri is so low... My comp at the time could never handle MOO so I was never able to get into that series until the last one which was a bit of a mess. ES is a really nice and I've already put a lot of time into it but it needs a bit more to make it an all time great.

CaptainPsilon wrote:
Best game ever? Not even close. In the current state i would give it 5.5/10 . This game has good graphics every other aspect is a disappointment.



1. Research tree. Pretty bland and boring couple of basic technology then +level . Compare it to MOO2. So many different techs there not just +level to existing.

2. UI. Very clanky and laggy . Sometimes i need to click 2 or even 3 times to get my ships moving.

3. AI. Braindead. Absolutely. Provides challenge only because of insane bonuses even on normal. Remove them and he will not leave home system. Compare it to GC2 what a gem it was.

4. Diplomacy. Not existing because of #3.

5. Trading system. Something so primitive i even do not know how to describe it. Remember GC2 how important and fun there it was.

6. The economy is pretty straight forward. Just build +dust buildings everywhere.

7. Ship design. A huge step back. Remember SOTS or MOO2.

8. Pirates. The worst implementation i ever saw. Compare it to SINS.

9. Espionage not implemented.

10. Starbases not implemented.

11. Space combat. Manual mode takes too much time. I mean load/process/unload takes more time than actual gameplay time. Not bad idea but the implementation is terrible.

12. Universe wonders is not implemented. It is not necessary but i very appreciate wonders aspect in civ like games.

13. Influence zone. Something confusing and useless. Not possible to compete with AI due to insane bonus on higher difficulties.



Some good ideas:

1. Heroes. The implementation is satisfying.

2. Star system design. Just something different.

3. Space combat. It can be good if not so slow. So far i just use auto resolve. manual battles take to much time to load and process.

4. Faction design good enough.

5. Resources. The idea it is kinda good but i dont have feeling of importance to get them. Like i had in GC2 with starbases. Wars were started just because of certain resources.

6. Terraforming. Good one.

7. Special techs. Good idea bad design. it is just couple of them and they kinda meaningless.



Overall game lacks depth. It has every aspect of a 4x game but these are very stripped. Maybe with time it will become better but so far GC2, MOO2, SOTS, SMAC are much more superior.



I feel lack of strategy in this game. Like only one rational way to play this game is to secure as much as possible territory in the beginning than proceed steamroll opponents and every other victory type goes from conquest victory. If you fail with conquest you pretty much fail the game. You can say that is about every 4x game and will be right. But dont you want to see something new for a change, do you? Like CIV5 for example it is more about resources than territory and in civ5 you have real choice of different tactics to archive your kind of victory.

+1







Clearly! Master of Orion2.

Then there comes Stars!, Colonization, Imperium Galactica 2 and then theres a looooooong gap till Endless Space fills it. (Well the gap between Endless Space and all the other games is even longer..).



Endless Space is... too simple, to "one click everything is done" and with just a few ways to play..

Since i bought the game i played it around 24hours Endless Space... but in the same time i guess i played another 60 hours MoO2 ... it feels like Endless Space isnt nearly at a Stage where i would call it a "Full" Game.. its more a game that would fit on a site like ArmoredGames for example.. nice click click action without any reason to thing about it.... Fast Food Style.

All games in the poll are definitely outstanding games. And while one strategy gamer might like or dislike specific features more, I think each and every one of them should have a place on your harddrive.



However, the best 4X for me is Distant Worlds. I know it has some bugs (even in the latest beta), but it is just so good in simulating a vibrating universe. I have seen the most hilarious AARs and the best Let's Plays for this game!

Master of Orion 2 by far remains King of 4X. No matter how many times I play the game the 20 second ending movie always makes it feel worth while. Certainly more enjoyable then the pie-chart Endless space currently offers

Master of Orion 2 is very big game , but is have small amount of technology. Space Empires 5 is too good game, but is have very bad interface.



Master of Orion 3 is good?

Azazell wrote:


Master of Orion 3 is good?

No, no, no.

Azazell wrote:
Space Empires 5 is too good game, but is have very bad interface.

If I had a super computer till the end of time, this is what I would play.

Moo2 was the highlight for me in this Genre. By my standards today it's pretty bleh, but it did a few things right that I see games these days still haven't learned. If there was hope for improvement in Moo2 that'd be great, but it's been dead for ages now and its only Sequel was far worse.



Endless Space is pretty good, I hope it gets better though as that's the main attractive thing about this game right now is this design philosophy.

Hakko wrote:
No, no, no.

This times 1000.



Although, with enough player based mods (I can run it at 1280x1024! woo!) it gets...kind of playable in a 7/10 sort of way.

CaptainPsilon wrote:
Best game ever? Not even close. In the current state i would give it 5.5/10 . This game has good graphics every other aspect is a disappointment.



1. Research tree. Pretty bland and boring couple of basic technology then +level . Compare it to MOO2. So many different techs there not just +level to existing.

2. UI. Very clanky and laggy . Sometimes i need to click 2 or even 3 times to get my ships moving.

3. AI. Braindead. Absolutely. Provides challenge only because of insane bonuses even on normal. Remove them and he will not leave home system. Compare it to GC2 what a gem it was.

4. Diplomacy. Not existing because of #3.

5. Trading system. Something so primitive i even do not know how to describe it. Remember GC2 how important and fun there it was.

6. The economy is pretty straight forward. Just build +dust buildings everywhere.

7. Ship design. A huge step back. Remember SOTS or MOO2.

8. Pirates. The worst implementation i ever saw. Compare it to SINS.

9. Espionage not implemented.

10. Starbases not implemented.

11. Space combat. Manual mode takes too much time. I mean load/process/unload takes more time than actual gameplay time. Not bad idea but the implementation is terrible.

12. Universe wonders is not implemented. It is not necessary but i very appreciate wonders aspect in civ like games.

13. Influence zone. Something confusing and useless. Not possible to compete with AI due to insane bonus on higher difficulties.

Absolutely agree on 1, 2,3,4,5,6,9,10 and 12.



However, I would say that Pirates have some worth, but need a little fine tuning - I'd like to see them more akin to the Antarans. I don't mind the ship design either. It's pretty straight forward but gives you plenty of options. Sure, it's nothing like SOTS but I do think in a lot of ways it's superior to Master of Orion 2 (Which had so so many modules that were only useful in combination with certain weapons or situations, or got patched out of the game - Gyro destabilisers). I also do enjoy #11, but that's a pretty personal taste a lá GC2. Won't be everyones cup of tea.

surprised birth of the federation scoring so low , guess not that many old timers like me around =p

im also surprised nobody mentioned lost empires 1 and 2 yet

endless is highly polished and very interesting but it lacks 1 think that makes a great game , minor races i just love helping out my lesser civalisations , i guess im a nice guy lol

Well since this game is a cross between my 2 favorite games i do indeed like it. Endless space is similar to 'Imperium Gallactica 2' due to the same starmap (stars with no planets etc.. http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/110095-imperium-galactica-ii-alliances-windows-screenshot-the-starmap.jpg ) and simulated/auto battles. Its just a shame this does not have the epic movies that 'Imperium galactica 2' has. Also its so much like 'Pax Imperia 2' as the races are identical to each other.



Although this is a nice game SoaSE beats it hands down as it is more diverse between races in research/ships/diplomacy/battles/economics/defenses... need i go on? Plus i know its a different genre as this is a TBS and SoaSE is a RTS.

PerplexedUK wrote:
Although this is a nice game SoaSE beats it hands down

The poll suggests otherwise but it is biased of course. Sins is not everyone's cup of tea. ES is not everyone's cup of tea either. Maybe someone should start the same poll on the Sins website and see what happens there.

I'm going to have to go with Distant Worlds, i really love how the universe feels alive in real time

Sorry, this is flawed. ES cannot win best 4x ever as it's only been out for under a year. Gal Civ 2 and MoO2 have kept us entertained for close to a decade. Add in SoTS with it's revolutionary and unreplicated drive system, sadorandomizer tech tree and incredibly gorgeous combat systems and claiming ES as "Teh best evars" this early is absurd. Give it a few years.

I haven't tried all of them but so far no 4X game really tingles all of my gaming pleasure points in this genre.



So far my favorite was Space Empires 5. It had so many good points like the tech tree and the beautiful technology graphics and did most other things right as well, but there are a few points which are so bad they borked the entire game:

-The turn processing takes incredibly long after the game has progressed enough, up to several minutes and my pc is already one of the stronger ones

-The micromanagement takes it too far in some places

-Some of the most fun things to mod and play with were hard-coded, this point was it which finally killed the game for me



Birth of the Federation was the first game like this I really played it had some good points but by now is totally outdated. It's lacking some good points to make up for the bad ones.

-The random occurring enemy ships were annoying, occasionally game breaking and couldn't be turned off

-Complete absence of terraforming



GalCiv2 was somewhat cool but had a lot of things I disliked, especially the in itself really good interaction system which on the other side couldn't be edited and occasionally made things complicated in an area I don’t always care as much about, making the game often uninteresting. Also the systems and planets felt static in every possible meaning of the word. I might think different if I would've tried some mods but I don't care as much about that game anymore.



As for Endless Space... I'm sure this game will become my favorite and it'll be the first 4X game I can really thoroughly like. But to reach that point it'll take some more months and a few mods.

Especially the population system is just plain ridiculous, and the devs already confirmed they're not changing it. But honestly how is it even possible to have as much or under the right circumstances even more population on a tiny planet/asteroid belt than on a large one? That's just so stupid it bugs the hell out of me and that's the first thing I'll mod and I already know how. It just bugs me the planets have different sizes when they are actually nearly irrelevant.

I even made a poll on this and out of 51 people only 10 didn't vote for a change, so some extra disappointment the devs still refused to change this.

On a different point, the tech tree is somewhat cool but just incomparable to some of the better games; it still needs a lot of improvements.

The number 3 that just has to be changed in endless space is the racial preference of planets; some species are just more content with other planet types than "the average space-faring species". That should be reflected in FIDS values as well.

Of course there are more issues but those 3 are the biggest ones for me, and only when they are addressed somehow I will truly love this game.



Still this game already has a lot of good points and I'll surely stick to it.

You have forgotten Distant Worlds. I think that is one of the best 4x games that has been released over the past years. (yeah its real time but still the functions you have in this game are awesome)



There is nothing more fun than to have a gigantic 1000 star game with colonizing madness because there are so many worlds. Good ship design and nice research tree. In addition the most fun I had is when you go diplomatic, be nice to every of your enemies. Collect a couple million ground troops. Put them into tropp carriers that have the shield strength to withstand a serious beating and start multi invasions on the ai's planets. once you take the planet over the defence sattelites and starbases shoot at their own ships :P

You forgot the best 4X game ever made. The X-Series





Nothing beats having a giant factory that pumps out weapons and destroyers, while feeding the galaxy.

Darthlawsuit wrote:
You forgot the best 4X game ever made. The X-Series

If the X-Series would count into this genre it would have a flawless 1st place for me, but I don't consider it to be a 4X game, you aren't commanding, you're fighting yourself (at least you should most of the time). It's more of an hyper-complex space simulation with various genre bits.

You forgot VGA planets! It's way better than Space Empires or Stars! and way more famous.



Anyway how could one answer to these? There is plenty of nostalgy or other emotions going on for posters. This is also Endless Space forum so it's biased nevertheless.



Nevertheless I try to explain why I did choose all but 2 of those games in that list:



Since I'm not sure if Star Control 2 is 4x game (as a rpg game it does containt loads of 4x elements, then again it's bit everything. Bit like Space Rangers 2 (another wonderful game) but in 3rd dimension) nor whether UFO:enemy unknown can be counted as a one (you did count alpha centauri) I have to skip first spot.



Second spot is either Alpha Centauri or Master of Orion but again, this is mostly because of golden memories. Back then I had just got massive upgrade to my computer which enabled me to play bit better games than civ 1 or angband (ok, it wasn't that bad but :P).



Then there is ofcourse Galactic Civilization, why I love it? Because I can for once build ship and planet improvement at the same time! After tens years of civilization this alone made me fall in love to that game. Of course it has way more content than civilizations.



Stars! and Space empires, of course I love those. Stars! opened my eyes to see what really is good game, it had about everything done correctly (still saying that that games ship builder has been one of best what there has been) and hey, in how many games you can fire planets against other players?



Now you forgot VGA planets. It would have been 2nd or 3rd of my list (1st if you don't let Ufo or SC2 be there :P). Althought it had pre generated races and it didn't have single player option (well actually it did had, it just was bit hassle) it's still probably one of the best done 4x games in game history. It has opened loads of new options for every other 4x game and thanks to it quite many things are now common in all 4x games.



Why I did like Alpha centauri so much? Hmmm, probably for same reason than Colonization. It was something done differently and better.







And last but not least, Endless Empire. I have this one minor problem with it, each game looks exactly similar than previous one, other wise it would probably be 4th or 5th in my list of: "space 4x games I have played and loved"