In all the discussions on this forum, when someone compares ES to another game it's usually MOO2 or GalCiv2. Am I the only one who played Space Empires IV?



For those who haven't, SE4 is a space-based 4X game released in 2000. It's totally turn-based, even in combat. The UI is entirely 2D and the graphics are... adequate. It's got a small footprint, only 300mb, and doesn't really need "installing" per se, once you've installed it on your computer you can just copy the directory to a thumbdrive and take it to a friend's house and play it right off the thumbdrive.



That's the basics.



Where the game shines is its staggering depth. There are so many options and technologies in the game it'll blow your mind, there's nothing you can think of that you can't do in this game.



You can:

• Create any damn race you want, complete with exclusive tech trees. Methane-breathing telepathic silicon race with a talent for subterfuge? Go for it.
• Mine wormholes (or drop armed satellites if you prefer) to weed out invading forces.
• Place robot miners in an asteroid field for resource collection (at least until you've tapped out the field).
• Discover armor that recharges your shield when hit with energy weapons, or biological armor that regenerates, or stealth armor.
• Use fighter craft in combat, or board ships for capture.
• Target ship components. Did your ship's bridge just get destroyed? Good thing you added an auxiliary bridge.
• Change the size of ship weapons. Want 6 normal kinetic guns with 4 more of them on large mounts for extra range and power but less accuracy and slower firing? Your call.
• Colonize planets in systems held by other races.
• Build starbases and put them anywhere.
• Hide a fleet in a nebula in an enemy's system until you're ready to attack. Or, if it's a nebula that disables shields and you haven't discovered shields yet, lure an enemy in to even the playing field (yes I know the movie).
• Learn to close wormholes or open new ones. Enemy only have one path to their empire? Open a back door. Enemy only have one path to YOUR empire? Close the door so they have to take the long way around.
• Set a star to go nova, or turn it into a black hole, whether there are inhabited planets in the system or not. Discover countermeasures to keep them from doing that to YOU.
• Build a Ringworld or even a Dyson Sphere and watch your empire population soar.
  
  

Seriously, with this much stuff you CAN'T research everything or you'll get nowhere. You could research shield drainers, fighter craft and telepathic attacks and have mediocre versions of each by the time you go to war, or you could focus on telepathic attacks and have the enemy fleets switch to your side during each engagement.



This game isn't for everybody. If you like 3D and pretty pictures, it's not for you. If a "long game" to you means done by the end of the week, it's not for you. On the other hand, if you ever thought to yourself, "if only I could capture a ship to reverse-engineer their ship-bypassing weaponry" then you might like it.



I like Endless Space a lot for what it's doing, especially the way the developers engage with the fan community, and it's great for when I'm in the mood to take over the galaxy in a hurry. But I keep thinking "oh, I wish I could do *this* and *that*" and end up thinking back to SE4.

I am a player of SE5.......now that game is insanely big.



AI isn't soo great, but the entire thing was made by like 1 guy I believe, but there are mods still out there for both of these games.

I haven't played SE5, but my understanding is that it's got more than a few bugs, not nearly as deep, and as you say, the AI is lousy. From what I can gather in the SE community, if you can tolerate the lower graphics then SE4 is the superior game. But as I said, I haven't played it. Maybe if it goes on sale for $5 on Steam.



And only Space Empires II was made by one guy. Aaron Hall went on to form the company Malfador Machinations which proceeded to develop the other games. I don't know how big it was, but I imagine it was a small group.

converting your worlds to a ringworld or a dyson sphere would be pretty cool in Endless Space, but I think the game would end before you got there most of the time.

Norlion wrote:
converting your worlds to a ringworld or a dyson sphere would be pretty cool in Endless Space, but I think the game would end before you got there most of the time.

There is a mod for ES in which you can build Dyson Sphere's as a system improvement.



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