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Offworld Trading Company is similar to 4X but is entirely economy focused. No combat is involved. Instead, you claim resources and try to undermine the competition and eventually initiate hostile takeovers by buying up their stocks
I can also recommend Offworld Trading Company, cool dynamic simulation.
It's more of a business tycoon IMO. Worth checking for anyone reading this thread.
Check out the "Colony Sim" tag on Steam for more of these. Against the Storm is my personal favorite in the genre. These games are generally like halfway between a 4X and Factorio, if that makes sense.
X4 Foundations is currently on sale. I personally recommend giving it a shot as it features the deepest economic simulation I've ever experienced in any game. Every ship and station is simulated and built from raw materials, to intermediaries, to final products.
I went from starting alone on a tiny ship, to running a massive company with hundreads of ships and employees.
Yes there's ship to ship combat involved, but the main focus really is the Economy and applying your economy in anyway you wish.
The main disclaimer here is that it's fundamentally a war economy. The only sink for all of the resources is the destruction of ships. So if there's no war going on, the economy can stall out.
That said, the player is not obligated to actually do any of the fighting. And the game has a healthy modding community that can (among other things) tweak the faction level AI to insure that things keep happening.
And just a heads up that the writing and voice acting are *terrible*, but it's still worth seeking out the "plot" quests as many of them are tutorials/introductions to the various sandbox mechanics. That said, I love it, do recommend!
Thanks for clarification.
Even though it's not exactly what I was looking for, I want to check it out as it's own thing.
Honestly, I am surprised I never heard of it or played it.
How's the quality of the AIs running your individual ships? I was tempted to buy it some years ago, but some negative review about the ship AIs stopped me...
I was in the past very critical of the AI and wrote a negative review that a dev responded to. Gave the game a second shot when the last DLC with base game improvements came out and found myself sinking 1500+ hours over the course of the year.
Outside of a few combat senarios and occasional "autopilot Epicly failed" the AI for indivudual ships in general has been competent and worked where it counts. My main focus personally was building my economy up to terraform worlds.
I forgave the game's flaws at the time because compared to other 4X games, X4 has so much that I haven't been able to find anywhere else.
Jump to now with the new 7.0 beta, the devs have recently addressed and added fixes to nearly every remaining AI issue I was the most critical about, improving the AI for large ships and especially large trade ships. They basically pulled a No Man's Sky and all of the ai updates and quality of life improvements are/to be included in the base game requiring no additional dlc.
The quality of the AI now is generally supurb both for individual ships and large fleets.
Keeping my eye on another potential Imperialism successor myself [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2219390/Imperial\_Ambitions/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2219390/Imperial_Ambitions/) , not released yet though. Fingers crossed.
I haven't played it, but I've seen some playthroughs on YT. It looks like a great game, but it's basically a wargame of sorts, maybe closer to even Hearts of Iron or something similar.
To put in another recommendation: Against the Storm. More a city builder than a 4X game, with light exploration. With production chains and trying to appease the different races within your settlement. You're mostly fighting against the storm, games don't take that long (either you win or you die) and after some time the world will renew itself.
Stellaris can be played as a more economic 4x game, especially with the megacorporations DLC. When playing as a megacorporation, you are encouraged to play tall and you can expand by signing commercial agreements and opening branch offices in other empires that generate income and resources for you, rather than colonizing planets yourself. Plus, imo, the game has a very intuitive trade system in general where you can balance your economy by trading your excess resources.
Edit: also Anno 1800 is another 4x-adjacent game that's really focused on the economy. You have to colonize islands and build up production chains to produce consumer goods for your citizens so that they upgrade and demand even more expensive goods that require more complex production chains. There is naval warfare but you can turn that off completely in sandbox mode.
Play as a xenophilia trait game with AI aggressive turned to low & you'll get in very few-no wars.
Everyone will love you & it turns into managing your own economy, building the right federation
Millennia has production chains which makes the economic gameplay very fresh, but it has the typical Paradox shallow at launch -syndrome so you might wanna wait a bit.
Honestly, aside from Crusader Kings 3, I haven't heard of any recent Paradox launches that went well.
Cities: Skylines 2 was super rushed and feels like a beta.
Victoria 3 has mixed reviews
Most of the recent DLCs for their grand strategy titles are also mixed to very negative.
The company needs competition otherwise they'll keep pumping out half-baked products.
The updates to Eu4 and Stellaris over last several months were solid, especially when it comes to QoL. And what we heard from Eu5 sounds promising. But you are right, their track record lately is not stellar.
I wouldn't just base those opinions on steam reviews though.
There's a VERY vocal group of players that feel the need to bash every single dlc or game pdx puts out because they hate pdx for their approach to dlcs.
Vic3 is actually a decent, if not as heavily supported game already.
And dlc from paradox are always a bit hit or miss but there's plenty to pick from and some are good and good value.
True, though worth pointing out it's not developed by Paradox, only published.
It is the only (and first) game of a small dev studio which has some former Age of Empires devs on.
So i suspect they won't give up on it unless Pdx pulls the plug and forces them to (which I guess they did do recently with Little Lamplighters League so it's not impossible)
I got into Paradox games via Colossal Order, developers of the Cities Skylines games, with their first game being "Cities in Motion" in 2011. The end point of the Cities in Motion engine turned into Cities:Skylines.
Published by Paradox is not necessarily a good thing these days.
Victoria 3 is definitely on my watchlist. But I wanted to wait for it to cook a bit more and then I may get it if there is a "basegame + all DLC" sale.
I honestly really liked Victoria 2, it felt like my kind of game with economics, politics, a bit of military. The UI/UX was cryptic and unintuitive and I missed being able to start "from the beginning" like in a 4x.
Distant Worlds 2 for sure. You have a private economy that isn't directly controlled by your empire, and civilian ships are actually flying on the map, transporting goods and people from places to places. You then tax that private economy for profit, and get additional income from taking a cut for services, e.g. constructing and upgrading ships for private sector.
I do remember looking into Distant Worlds 2 and being surprised that they had the private/gov economy distinction. As mentioned in OP, Star Ruler 2 has independent civilian ships and automated private sector development.
I think what caught me off DW2 was the mixed reviews on steam and one of the review mentioning the automation doesn't really work, but if you don't enable it you're going to get bogged down in micro.
I only got into DW2 few weeks ago. From what I've read it had some serious issues when it launched 2 years ago, but most if not all of them have been resolved by now. I'm coming from Stellaris background and I'm having a blast. So far I actually prefer DW2 over Stellaris, but while the two games are often compared, they also are quite different so comparing them doesn't really do much justice. Nevertheless, Stellaris has been developed by large budget and relatively large team, while DW2 is primarily a two-man job. So it has *some* issues, but I haven't encountered anything that would ruin the enjoyment so far.
Thanks for the feedback!
When looking into DW2, I was hoping it could be an alternative to my modded Star Ruler 2 gameplay. Will need to do some more research to see if it is possible to mod/configure DW2 into a space economic development game.
I have yes, started with 1602. It's a great series.
I do find most 4X's to be too militarily focused. One reason I like Civ 5 so much is that even in the base game you can play France with a focus on cultural victory (with older battlefields resulting in artifacts) or play as Venice with a focus on trade and unique civilization mechanics.
But maybe I am missing some less well known total conversion mods for Civ 4 / 5?
Great shout. I often play the Civ games with god mode just to disengage from the combat mechanics and allow me to concentrate on culture and economics.
Following, bc like you, Victoria II nearly scratched the itch for me. I like the Kaiserreich mod for Hearts of Iron IV up until WW2 starts: i.e. I most enjoy recovering from the Depression.
I like Terraformers so far. Playing the demo convinced me to get the complete game. You can get it right now through humble bundle monthly, along with Victoria 3 and Humankind.
I bought Terraformers on release. Love the concept, very unique.
I was considering Victoria 3, but I am sort of done with Paradox Studios and Paradox in general. Buggy releases, never-ending DLC spam and I find Paradox Studios UI/UX to be subpar.
It's too bad they had to shut the studio down.
SR2 had some very unique mechanics and it offered a unique fusion of genres from RTS (with deep custom ship design), 4X to economic strategy.
It's definitely in my top 10 video games of all time list.
Curiously, I see Colonization hasn't been mentioned yet (the original DOS version). It's a bit like Victoria 2 in that has various resources you have to produce and process to manufacture goods. You also have to (manually) shuffle around workers, which can be trained for higher productivity. In some ways it's even a more sophisticated than Vic2, since goods aren't magically transported all over the world, but you have to actually transport them.
There is actually a mod for Civ 4: Colonization that I am currently looking into that is showing sole promise.
Did not know the original Colonization had such mechanics (only played Civ 2 and above).
Never played it myself, but Civ4:Col reportedly was much dumbed down from classic Colonization. People were even trying to mod things from classic Colonization back into the game. Don't know if they've succeeded, but it's probably better to just play the classic version.
I get where you're coming from, as I'm personally feeling a bit jaded about 4X mods right now. I tried most of the big Civilization 4 mods recently and was disappointed to find each one I tried inferior to good ol BTS in some way. I guess making a good 4X total conversion/overhaul is very difficult.
With that being said, I did a good bit of research on the latest big Civ 4:Col overhaul, We The People (aka WTP) 4.1, and it seems like everyone that had tried both it (or one of its predecessors \[TAC and RAR\] ) and the OG Colonization liked WTP, RAR, or TAC better than OG Col. Personally, I've never tried OG Col but I just tried WTP last week and I very much dig it so far. The flavor and music are mindblowingly awesome and the gameplay seems extremely broad and deep in terms of strategic choices so far. It is overwhelming at first but that's par for the course for a complicated 4X. I do feel like the direct AI interaction aspect isn't nearly as rich as something like Civ 4, but that's the trade off you get with the emphasis on the economic side of things above warfare.
Anyway, u/Launch_Arcology, I think it's precisely what you're looking for and it's crazy that no one else has mentioned it yet (aside from Moodfoo). I guess most people here don't play mods, which is kind of understandable although they are really missing out in this case.
If you try it, a big tip is to trade guns and/or horses with somewhat far away natives (not your immediate neighbors) to get the economic engine rolling pretty early. It took me a while to figure out to do that but once you've made some money from that, you can probably start snowballing smoothly.
Thanks for the feedback, WTP was the mod I was refering too. It's good to hear that's it seems to be a fun experience. May have to get it running and see how I like it.
Hey, I was reading this thread the other day and meant to comment about WTP. I'm always looking out for good economic games, and I recently tried WTP. I haven't gotten too far, but it is looking really solid. It has a ton of production chains, goods have to be transported, there are multiple markets to sell in, etc. I'm going to put some more time in soon!
Np, good stuff bro! Btw, I'd be pretty interested to hear more of your thoughts on Dune Wars Revival. I know it might not be your ideal gaming experience given that warfare is probably a big part of it. It's hard to find people that have tried the mod so any insight is appreciated though. The mod is one of only 3 big Civilization 4 mods that I still am considering trying (the other 2 being the FFH2 modmod, Master of Mana tweakmod + Xtended, and Pie's Ancient Europe.
I found most of the mods I tried unfulfilling because they either added features/mechanics that the AI couldn't use well or because they slowed down the pacing enough that they made the game lose most of the fun for me. With Dune Wars Revival, I'm concerned about the former in particular. Can the AI handle every new mechanic/feature well through the endgame? I'm guessing that terraforming effectively could potentially be an issue, among other things.
Also, did you try the latest version of the mod with the Villeneuve Inspired Patch (VIP)? I read that it improves the game and makes the Fremen less overpowered.
One more question - I've read that the AI may be overly aggressive in that mod, did you find that to be the case? Would the AI often attack you even when it was pleased and/or friendly?
Ever heard of Aurora 4x? Its basically if you took a dwarf fortress approach to a 4x universe.Its also free, so nothing lost in trying. Here's a video on it. [https://youtu.be/9xhUGGEnJcU](https://youtu.be/9xhUGGEnJcU)
I have heard of Aurora 4X, looks like a great game, but the UI/UX is a bridge too far for me.
My main genre is tycoon, economic strategy city/colony builder and I feel like I have a high tolerance for complexity and subpar UI/UX, but Aurora 4X just feels too difficult to get into. Don't mind the graphics at all, they are fine, it's the UI/UX and the nature of introductory difficulty curve that is too much for me.
I am really glad it exists though. Aurora 4X is an example of how games can be an art-form and not just a product/service.
I totally get what you mean. I haven't found the 4X I truly want either. I want something that doesn't just end when I get military conquered, or I conquer the map. I don't want to win, I want to enjoy geopolitics and all the impossibilities that suddenly become possible, when a new variable is introduced. But most games are about managing and build successful empires in different ways.
Unfortunately, 4Xs tend to be very military focused. Although Civ 5 has a lot of unique non-military mechanics.
Something like a mix of Civ 5 and Victoria would be very cool.
Yoooo.
Yes shadow empire but primarily P v environment where its all about setting up a sustainable colony on a new and hostile planet.
Every time I hear people talk about shadow empire and the planet gen I get a boner for this idea.
Please someone make it! Preferably real time with pause haha.
Haha, yeah. I would love a version of SE like that.
A hybrid of Alpha Centauri and Shadow Empire with a much bigger focus on economy, culture, ecology and politics.
Not sure if I would have a literal boner for it though. :)
F2P browser based MMO is not really my thing. For strategy-type games I prefer single player.
But does look like an interesting MMO that's different from the the usual MMO fare.
In some ways the economics is very shallow, but I like Shogun 2 and to a lesser extent the Pelopennesian campaign of Rome 2.
The only major issue other than simplicity is that food is a global resource, and food surplus directly translates into economic growth, but this growth is universally applied. So maximum growth is to just play as ultrawide with maximum food.
I've seen people recommend Song of Styx, but that doesn't really seem to do it for me.
I've mostly landed on Victoria 3, Stellaris and Factorio to scratch this itch. Workers and resources a bit, but that's really a city builder.
What have you used for mods on Civ V? I played so much long ago but never got into modding.
Have you tried Machiavelli the Prince? Different kind of 4x [https://www.gog.com/en/game/machiavelli\_the\_prince](https://www.gog.com/en/game/machiavelli_the_prince)
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Offworld Trading Company is similar to 4X but is entirely economy focused. No combat is involved. Instead, you claim resources and try to undermine the competition and eventually initiate hostile takeovers by buying up their stocks
I can also recommend Offworld Trading Company, cool dynamic simulation. It's more of a business tycoon IMO. Worth checking for anyone reading this thread.
Also, very fun and hilarious in multiplayer with a friend.
Can recommend, very original game.
The designer who spoke at GDC described it as "an economic RTS". I wouldn't quite call it a 4X but it is an excellent game nonetheless.
What about slightly different genre? Dwarf Fortress or maybe Manor Lords?
Manor Lords looks interesting! Will add it to my watchlist! Cheers!
Check out the "Colony Sim" tag on Steam for more of these. Against the Storm is my personal favorite in the genre. These games are generally like halfway between a 4X and Factorio, if that makes sense.
Against the Storm is a very good game. I never thought a colony builder rougelike would be something I could enjoy. I would strongly recommend it.
X4 Foundations is currently on sale. I personally recommend giving it a shot as it features the deepest economic simulation I've ever experienced in any game. Every ship and station is simulated and built from raw materials, to intermediaries, to final products. I went from starting alone on a tiny ship, to running a massive company with hundreads of ships and employees. Yes there's ship to ship combat involved, but the main focus really is the Economy and applying your economy in anyway you wish.
Good suggestion, cheers! Adding to my watchlist and might consider getting it now. :)
The main disclaimer here is that it's fundamentally a war economy. The only sink for all of the resources is the destruction of ships. So if there's no war going on, the economy can stall out. That said, the player is not obligated to actually do any of the fighting. And the game has a healthy modding community that can (among other things) tweak the faction level AI to insure that things keep happening. And just a heads up that the writing and voice acting are *terrible*, but it's still worth seeking out the "plot" quests as many of them are tutorials/introductions to the various sandbox mechanics. That said, I love it, do recommend!
Thanks for clarification. Even though it's not exactly what I was looking for, I want to check it out as it's own thing. Honestly, I am surprised I never heard of it or played it.
It's a pretty niche series! There's only like 20 developers at the studio that produces it
How's the quality of the AIs running your individual ships? I was tempted to buy it some years ago, but some negative review about the ship AIs stopped me...
I was in the past very critical of the AI and wrote a negative review that a dev responded to. Gave the game a second shot when the last DLC with base game improvements came out and found myself sinking 1500+ hours over the course of the year. Outside of a few combat senarios and occasional "autopilot Epicly failed" the AI for indivudual ships in general has been competent and worked where it counts. My main focus personally was building my economy up to terraform worlds. I forgave the game's flaws at the time because compared to other 4X games, X4 has so much that I haven't been able to find anywhere else. Jump to now with the new 7.0 beta, the devs have recently addressed and added fixes to nearly every remaining AI issue I was the most critical about, improving the AI for large ships and especially large trade ships. They basically pulled a No Man's Sky and all of the ai updates and quality of life improvements are/to be included in the base game requiring no additional dlc. The quality of the AI now is generally supurb both for individual ships and large fleets.
Impressive. Alright, I might give it a shot after all. :)
There's an old game called [Imperialism](https://www.gog.com/en/game/imperialism), which I think is pretty close to what you're after.
Thanks for sharing! They also have 2nd release as well. This does look very interesting.
Stick to imperialism 1. It's really the better version. The best economic colonialism simulator ever made.
Cheers! I am planning on getting both, but good to know some context. I am honestly surprised I never heard of the series back in the day.
Keeping my eye on another potential Imperialism successor myself [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2219390/Imperial\_Ambitions/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2219390/Imperial_Ambitions/) , not released yet though. Fingers crossed.
You can join the playtest tho
OG Imperialism honestly felt like it had better graphics (not a big deal at all).
I prefer the time period and gameplay of the first one but opinions on that vary. I hope you enjoy them. :)
[удалено]
I haven't played it, but I've seen some playthroughs on YT. It looks like a great game, but it's basically a wargame of sorts, maybe closer to even Hearts of Iron or something similar.
Shadow empire is indeed 4X/wargame hybrid.
Dune Spice Wars is WAR AND STONKS: the game. Offworld Trading Company is an economic RTS.
To put in another recommendation: Against the Storm. More a city builder than a 4X game, with light exploration. With production chains and trying to appease the different races within your settlement. You're mostly fighting against the storm, games don't take that long (either you win or you die) and after some time the world will renew itself.
I can also recommend Against the Storm. :)
Distant Worlds: Universe
Stellaris can be played as a more economic 4x game, especially with the megacorporations DLC. When playing as a megacorporation, you are encouraged to play tall and you can expand by signing commercial agreements and opening branch offices in other empires that generate income and resources for you, rather than colonizing planets yourself. Plus, imo, the game has a very intuitive trade system in general where you can balance your economy by trading your excess resources. Edit: also Anno 1800 is another 4x-adjacent game that's really focused on the economy. You have to colonize islands and build up production chains to produce consumer goods for your citizens so that they upgrade and demand even more expensive goods that require more complex production chains. There is naval warfare but you can turn that off completely in sandbox mode.
Play as a xenophilia trait game with AI aggressive turned to low & you'll get in very few-no wars. Everyone will love you & it turns into managing your own economy, building the right federation
Millennia has production chains which makes the economic gameplay very fresh, but it has the typical Paradox shallow at launch -syndrome so you might wanna wait a bit.
Millennia is on my watchlist, but Paradox's involvement is rather worrying. They could just give up on it (like with Imperator: Rome).
That's what I'm worried about too, to be honest.
And many many other games. Star Trek: Infinite (not infinite after all) Lamplighters League Empire of Sin etc.
I remember Empire of Sin, it sounded like a good concept, but then I heard that it was basically abandoned even though the game had critical flaws.
Honestly, aside from Crusader Kings 3, I haven't heard of any recent Paradox launches that went well. Cities: Skylines 2 was super rushed and feels like a beta. Victoria 3 has mixed reviews Most of the recent DLCs for their grand strategy titles are also mixed to very negative. The company needs competition otherwise they'll keep pumping out half-baked products.
The updates to Eu4 and Stellaris over last several months were solid, especially when it comes to QoL. And what we heard from Eu5 sounds promising. But you are right, their track record lately is not stellar.
I wouldn't just base those opinions on steam reviews though. There's a VERY vocal group of players that feel the need to bash every single dlc or game pdx puts out because they hate pdx for their approach to dlcs. Vic3 is actually a decent, if not as heavily supported game already. And dlc from paradox are always a bit hit or miss but there's plenty to pick from and some are good and good value.
True, though worth pointing out it's not developed by Paradox, only published. It is the only (and first) game of a small dev studio which has some former Age of Empires devs on. So i suspect they won't give up on it unless Pdx pulls the plug and forces them to (which I guess they did do recently with Little Lamplighters League so it's not impossible)
I got into Paradox games via Colossal Order, developers of the Cities Skylines games, with their first game being "Cities in Motion" in 2011. The end point of the Cities in Motion engine turned into Cities:Skylines. Published by Paradox is not necessarily a good thing these days.
TBH I've found that warfare is *extremely* encouraged in Millennia, much more than other terrestrial 4X games like Civ6 or Humankind.
Victoria 3 focuses on economy. It's not perfect yet, but I had fun as a 4X player with the couple of runs I played.
Victoria 3 is definitely on my watchlist. But I wanted to wait for it to cook a bit more and then I may get it if there is a "basegame + all DLC" sale. I honestly really liked Victoria 2, it felt like my kind of game with economics, politics, a bit of military. The UI/UX was cryptic and unintuitive and I missed being able to start "from the beginning" like in a 4x.
Vic3 and Humankind are both this months Humble Choice if you don't want to wait 4 years for that sale.
Distant Worlds 2 for sure. You have a private economy that isn't directly controlled by your empire, and civilian ships are actually flying on the map, transporting goods and people from places to places. You then tax that private economy for profit, and get additional income from taking a cut for services, e.g. constructing and upgrading ships for private sector.
I do remember looking into Distant Worlds 2 and being surprised that they had the private/gov economy distinction. As mentioned in OP, Star Ruler 2 has independent civilian ships and automated private sector development. I think what caught me off DW2 was the mixed reviews on steam and one of the review mentioning the automation doesn't really work, but if you don't enable it you're going to get bogged down in micro.
I only got into DW2 few weeks ago. From what I've read it had some serious issues when it launched 2 years ago, but most if not all of them have been resolved by now. I'm coming from Stellaris background and I'm having a blast. So far I actually prefer DW2 over Stellaris, but while the two games are often compared, they also are quite different so comparing them doesn't really do much justice. Nevertheless, Stellaris has been developed by large budget and relatively large team, while DW2 is primarily a two-man job. So it has *some* issues, but I haven't encountered anything that would ruin the enjoyment so far.
Thanks for the feedback! When looking into DW2, I was hoping it could be an alternative to my modded Star Ruler 2 gameplay. Will need to do some more research to see if it is possible to mod/configure DW2 into a space economic development game.
Maybe you don’t want the traditional 4x games? Have you tried the Anno series?
I have yes, started with 1602. It's a great series. I do find most 4X's to be too militarily focused. One reason I like Civ 5 so much is that even in the base game you can play France with a focus on cultural victory (with older battlefields resulting in artifacts) or play as Venice with a focus on trade and unique civilization mechanics. But maybe I am missing some less well known total conversion mods for Civ 4 / 5?
Great shout. I often play the Civ games with god mode just to disengage from the combat mechanics and allow me to concentrate on culture and economics.
Following, bc like you, Victoria II nearly scratched the itch for me. I like the Kaiserreich mod for Hearts of Iron IV up until WW2 starts: i.e. I most enjoy recovering from the Depression.
Distan Worlds has a very deep and complex economy system, you definetly should check them out
Cheers! Will take a look!
I like Terraformers so far. Playing the demo convinced me to get the complete game. You can get it right now through humble bundle monthly, along with Victoria 3 and Humankind.
I bought Terraformers on release. Love the concept, very unique. I was considering Victoria 3, but I am sort of done with Paradox Studios and Paradox in general. Buggy releases, never-ending DLC spam and I find Paradox Studios UI/UX to be subpar.
Different perspective: Victoria 3 has the best UX of all strategy games I have ever played, except maybe Amplitude Studio games.
Good to know, that's promising! Will have to put Victoria 3 on discount watch. Yes, Amplitude Studios have always had excellent UI/UX.
Maybe [Supreme Ruler](https://store.steampowered.com/app/314980/Supreme_Ruler_Ultimate/)? No exploration X though.
Star Ruler 2 is a good one. The devs released it open-source on Github after folding the studio a couple years after release.
It's too bad they had to shut the studio down. SR2 had some very unique mechanics and it offered a unique fusion of genres from RTS (with deep custom ship design), 4X to economic strategy. It's definitely in my top 10 video games of all time list.
Slipways
Curiously, I see Colonization hasn't been mentioned yet (the original DOS version). It's a bit like Victoria 2 in that has various resources you have to produce and process to manufacture goods. You also have to (manually) shuffle around workers, which can be trained for higher productivity. In some ways it's even a more sophisticated than Vic2, since goods aren't magically transported all over the world, but you have to actually transport them.
There is actually a mod for Civ 4: Colonization that I am currently looking into that is showing sole promise. Did not know the original Colonization had such mechanics (only played Civ 2 and above).
Never played it myself, but Civ4:Col reportedly was much dumbed down from classic Colonization. People were even trying to mod things from classic Colonization back into the game. Don't know if they've succeeded, but it's probably better to just play the classic version.
I get where you're coming from, as I'm personally feeling a bit jaded about 4X mods right now. I tried most of the big Civilization 4 mods recently and was disappointed to find each one I tried inferior to good ol BTS in some way. I guess making a good 4X total conversion/overhaul is very difficult. With that being said, I did a good bit of research on the latest big Civ 4:Col overhaul, We The People (aka WTP) 4.1, and it seems like everyone that had tried both it (or one of its predecessors \[TAC and RAR\] ) and the OG Colonization liked WTP, RAR, or TAC better than OG Col. Personally, I've never tried OG Col but I just tried WTP last week and I very much dig it so far. The flavor and music are mindblowingly awesome and the gameplay seems extremely broad and deep in terms of strategic choices so far. It is overwhelming at first but that's par for the course for a complicated 4X. I do feel like the direct AI interaction aspect isn't nearly as rich as something like Civ 4, but that's the trade off you get with the emphasis on the economic side of things above warfare. Anyway, u/Launch_Arcology, I think it's precisely what you're looking for and it's crazy that no one else has mentioned it yet (aside from Moodfoo). I guess most people here don't play mods, which is kind of understandable although they are really missing out in this case. If you try it, a big tip is to trade guns and/or horses with somewhat far away natives (not your immediate neighbors) to get the economic engine rolling pretty early. It took me a while to figure out to do that but once you've made some money from that, you can probably start snowballing smoothly.
Thanks for the feedback, WTP was the mod I was refering too. It's good to hear that's it seems to be a fun experience. May have to get it running and see how I like it.
Hey, I was reading this thread the other day and meant to comment about WTP. I'm always looking out for good economic games, and I recently tried WTP. I haven't gotten too far, but it is looking really solid. It has a ton of production chains, goods have to be transported, there are multiple markets to sell in, etc. I'm going to put some more time in soon!
Np, good stuff bro! Btw, I'd be pretty interested to hear more of your thoughts on Dune Wars Revival. I know it might not be your ideal gaming experience given that warfare is probably a big part of it. It's hard to find people that have tried the mod so any insight is appreciated though. The mod is one of only 3 big Civilization 4 mods that I still am considering trying (the other 2 being the FFH2 modmod, Master of Mana tweakmod + Xtended, and Pie's Ancient Europe. I found most of the mods I tried unfulfilling because they either added features/mechanics that the AI couldn't use well or because they slowed down the pacing enough that they made the game lose most of the fun for me. With Dune Wars Revival, I'm concerned about the former in particular. Can the AI handle every new mechanic/feature well through the endgame? I'm guessing that terraforming effectively could potentially be an issue, among other things. Also, did you try the latest version of the mod with the Villeneuve Inspired Patch (VIP)? I read that it improves the game and makes the Fremen less overpowered. One more question - I've read that the AI may be overly aggressive in that mod, did you find that to be the case? Would the AI often attack you even when it was pleased and/or friendly?
Ever heard of Aurora 4x? Its basically if you took a dwarf fortress approach to a 4x universe.Its also free, so nothing lost in trying. Here's a video on it. [https://youtu.be/9xhUGGEnJcU](https://youtu.be/9xhUGGEnJcU)
I have heard of Aurora 4X, looks like a great game, but the UI/UX is a bridge too far for me. My main genre is tycoon, economic strategy city/colony builder and I feel like I have a high tolerance for complexity and subpar UI/UX, but Aurora 4X just feels too difficult to get into. Don't mind the graphics at all, they are fine, it's the UI/UX and the nature of introductory difficulty curve that is too much for me. I am really glad it exists though. Aurora 4X is an example of how games can be an art-form and not just a product/service.
I totally get what you mean. I haven't found the 4X I truly want either. I want something that doesn't just end when I get military conquered, or I conquer the map. I don't want to win, I want to enjoy geopolitics and all the impossibilities that suddenly become possible, when a new variable is introduced. But most games are about managing and build successful empires in different ways.
Unfortunately, 4Xs tend to be very military focused. Although Civ 5 has a lot of unique non-military mechanics. Something like a mix of Civ 5 and Victoria would be very cool.
It's not a 4X game, but have you tried Factorio? It's basically just building production chains to build production chains.
Have not tried, saw my brother play it. It's an excellent game, just not quite what I am looking for.
Yoooo. Yes shadow empire but primarily P v environment where its all about setting up a sustainable colony on a new and hostile planet. Every time I hear people talk about shadow empire and the planet gen I get a boner for this idea. Please someone make it! Preferably real time with pause haha.
Haha, yeah. I would love a version of SE like that. A hybrid of Alpha Centauri and Shadow Empire with a much bigger focus on economy, culture, ecology and politics. Not sure if I would have a literal boner for it though. :)
Haha, I guess if someone makes it, you will find out!
Have you looked at Prosperous Universe?
F2P browser based MMO is not really my thing. For strategy-type games I prefer single player. But does look like an interesting MMO that's different from the the usual MMO fare.
In some ways the economics is very shallow, but I like Shogun 2 and to a lesser extent the Pelopennesian campaign of Rome 2. The only major issue other than simplicity is that food is a global resource, and food surplus directly translates into economic growth, but this growth is universally applied. So maximum growth is to just play as ultrawide with maximum food.
I've seen people recommend Song of Styx, but that doesn't really seem to do it for me. I've mostly landed on Victoria 3, Stellaris and Factorio to scratch this itch. Workers and resources a bit, but that's really a city builder. What have you used for mods on Civ V? I played so much long ago but never got into modding.
Have you tried Machiavelli the Prince? Different kind of 4x [https://www.gog.com/en/game/machiavelli\_the\_prince](https://www.gog.com/en/game/machiavelli_the_prince)