I'm a big fan of Civ 6, and recently played Humankind a bit. My favorite 'X' of the 4Xs is Exploitation; I love finding a resource on the map and building the right building to extract it. I'm less interested in combat or "winning" against other players.

I've enjoyed games like Terrascape, Islandtiles, even Drop Duchy, but I feel like they get old pretty fast. I also really enjoy the little narrative bits that games like Humankind, the ENDLESS games, and CK3 provide. Like the little choices you make that affect different outputs or whatever. I also think having some kind of population happiness/stability meter would be a plus too.

The Corsair Cove demo actually hit these very well - resources to exploit, narrative choices, and a cohesion meter. But I'm waiting for the full game to sink too much time into it.

I'm not opposed to some combat, I just don't want the main goal if the game to be focused on beating someone else.

Two months ago, Cloudflare laid off 20% of us. A year ago, I started this game, so now it's taking all my time, lol! Launching demo next month and get feedback from you all!

I spent over a year on it and I honestly really think it's got something to it's mechanics to standout in the genre as "4X-lite".

Sooo... here it is...
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4593190/Elemental_Lands/

Elemental Lands is a blend of "4X-lite" meets turn-based tactical card battler with roguelite upgrades.

Territory Conquest:

• Siege overworld. 3 elemental factions expand on siege timers across a game map. Strategically pick your battles (ie. not just a linear level to level progression).
• Build up your outpost. Each map lets you build up a classic set of structures to help manage expanding enemies and upgrade your hero party.

Card Combat:

• Reposition Heroes. Move any unit between front row (extended range) and back row (protection). Tactical like X-com or Baldur's Gate.
• Capturable battlefield objectives. Kill the guardian, claim the Watchtower / Shrine / Arcane Node — gain battle buffs to turn a loss to a win!
• 2 ways to fight. Battle the enemies with a spell deck that you pair with the party of heroes (each with their own abilities) for battlefield combos.

p.s. I really appreciate the support and you taking a look!

Civ VI went bright and friendly, its own fans roasted it for looking like a mobile game, and it still became the most played Civ of all. Paradox does the opposite, dense screens full of numbers and that is probably the most common thing you hear from people who tried and quit 🙈. The cartoonish styles clearly bring way more people through the door. But the dense games seem to keep their players for thousands of hours.......

So I'm curious whats your opinion.. Does the look really decide who tries a 4X? Do you think that casual players be pulled into deep games at all, and what would be the driver, the art style, the first hour, something else? Or is there no middle ground and you just have to pick one side?

I'm asking because I'm right in the middle of this myself. I'm building my own space 4X, Galaxy Online (r/GalaxyOnline), and I went with the dense side, dark sci-fi modern look, but with one hard rule: no wiki required. Tooltips explain where every number comes from and you see the consequences beforehand...

The image shows just one of those iterations... Left is the colony screen how it looks from pre-alpha today, right is a redesign from the current alpha build (not fully clean yet), same depth but as cards with live data on them. And since I'm honestly too deep into my own UI to still judge it *haha*: I wonder now if the right side is really more approachable or just prettier?

In general, has a game's look ever stopped you from trying something you probably would have loved?

Also if you see anything on there you would just cut completely because it's noise at that level, tell me — better change now than later...

I for one think the UI will be one of the most important stuff as it decides about who feels right at home... and who not :) - but maybe I am wrong here - and its much more about 4X mechanics than presentation...

Hi everyone, Valentin here from Nebule Games (two-person studio, six years in). We just published a dev log that I think this community specifically might enjoy picking apart, and I'd genuinely like your take on the design questions underneath it.

For those who don't know the project: Beyond Astra is a real-time sci-fi 4X with active pause, built on a custom engine so you can zoom from a city street to the galactic map with zero loading screens. The core bet is anchoring grand-strategy depth in a physical galaxy: cities grow on actual planetary surfaces, resources sit in a specific valley on a specific world and get hauled by cargo ships, and combat runs on ballistics.

The new dev log walks through the four X's in the order you actually live them:

• eXplore: we made exploration the literal fuel of science, analyses produce Exploration Points, which become the Knowledge that technologies cost. In space, movement is free (lanes are things you build for trade, your ships can ride them for speed or leave them at will).
• eXpand: A planet only holds a few cities (three to five depending on the world), so you decide what each one is for, and when the time comes, whether to found a new one or grow an existing one denser. And settling a hostile world doesn't condemn anyone to live there: workers can commute by shuttle from a neighboring world while the forges burn under the ash.
• eXploit: our economy is physical, extractors link to cities, ore travels, over extraction pollutes. Micromanagement doesn't vanish, it lands: on tangible things on the map, and the game shoulders the routine with templates, auto assignment jobs and a filterable Manager.
• eXterminate: starts on your first planet: local fauna gives the opening hours teeth, then pirates, megafauna, and rivals scale up; a PvE with unique module rewards no research can unlock.

And the part I most want your opinion on: the ending. Victories in Beyond Astra are about undisputed leadership, rivals can contest yours while you hold it. Then the victory screen asks a question: leave triumphant, or stay and attempt an Ascension, destinies that carry a civilization further than victory. The whole galaxy grows stronger, and the hardest act begins right where a 4X usually ends.

Full dev log here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2669060/view/684133750874834318

Ok, so I finished my first full playtrough of Humankind, I got it cheap with the DLC and a massive discount a while ago and it was sitting in my Steam library so I thought of giving it a chance.

And it isn't bad, I don't regret getting it being cheap as it was, but I can't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right or perhaps I did something wrong.

Ok, so the early game went great, discovering the world and everything, making choices about where to settle and how do develop my cities, interacting with the other rising nations and the neutrals, everything fine.

But it seems like something broke around mid-game. The AI appeared to become apathetic, letting me gain a foothold in the "new world" and grab wonders well ahead of them. From there I just cruised until I sent the mission to Mars and that was it, no challenge, no competition, nothing.

Overall, it felt less like a history of the world and more like a race for points where the other runners stumbled half way and never picked themselves up. Most of my time ended up being spend managing cities and picking stuff to research. I just didn't had any reason to engage with the other nations and they never bothered me except to ask for treaties. Compared to Old World, for example, the rest of the world felt passive and unconcerned about what I was doing, and no, I wasn't playing in the easiest difficulty nor with the easiest AIs.

Overall a good looking game but also kind of limp and lifeless. I can't stop wondering if I did something wrong or if I am missing something here for things to click for me.

Hi everyone!

After 9 Months of development finally announce my game demo has been publicly released on steam.

link here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4632210/Heroes_Warlords_and_Ruin/

Heroes, Warlords and Ruin is a 4x fantasy turn-based strategy game where you create and customize your faction and faction leader and lead it in your campaign across the world. The world is torn by endless war. Fight evil, form alliances, and establish a new realm in the ruins or take advantage of the chaos to maraud across the world.

The demo features

• Save system but limited save slots
• 1 playable faction with about 10 recruitable units
• 144 by 96 campaign map with around 20 settlements and 50 interactable structures
• Two customizable lord options
• Banner customizable
• Over 20 resources to manage and obtain
• Around 20 constructable buildings
• Tactical battles
• No time limit

The demo will overtime be updated to feature:

• Expand the AI factions
• Include more battle types
• Add war ships
• Add more weapons and Items
• A more unit abilities
• Expand on hero leveling
• Add more structure types
• Add more units

You can also follow me on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/autware700.bsky.social

And join our discord: discord.gg/YMvFzcRDxV

Hey! Working on Empires Edge — a real-time 4X inspired by Mega Lo Mania (1991).

You start as a chief on a floating island and lead your people through eras — Stone Age onward. My favorite part: the whole settlement visually reborn each era. Straw huts become fortresses, then factories, then sci-fi labs. Clubs turn into mechs.

It's real-time but not frantic — pause anytime to plan, or speed up to skip ahead. Rival factions on neighboring islands each play differently: some rush aggression, some rush tech. Been putting a lot of work into AI personality specifically.

Ran a test recently letting 3 AI factions grow with zero player input — mined, farmed, expanded, then started massing armies against each other.

In closed playtest right now, shipping updates based on feedback almost daily. Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4199140/Empires_Edge/

I've been building a space 4X solo for a few months. It runs in the browser, it's free, and there's no monetisation of any kind — no timers, no purchases, nothing for sale. Influences are Outscape, Master of Orion 2 for ship design, Aurora and Distant Worlds for logistics, and Stellaris for how worlds and populations shape where you want to be.

Here's what you can actually do in it:

Explore. Scout a shared procedural galaxy of thousands of systems. Survey worlds to reveal their habitability, ore deposits, and whether anyone already lives there. Invest in scanners and Deep Space Arrays to push your vision outward, and hunt for the rare motherlode worlds — a big, lucky planet can be sitting on millions of units of ore.

Settle and reshape worlds. Colonise across five habitability tiers, from lush garden worlds to scorched rock. Then engineer them: thermal regulators and atmosphere heaters shift a planet's temperature in either direction, terraforming arrays raise it up the habitability ladder, and Settlement Biodomes let you seal a colony against a world that would otherwise kill everyone — so you can live on a hellworld and keep the rich ore that made it worth taking. Ship colonists out on colony ships to jump-start a struggling new world.

Build an economy with real supply lines. Mine korrum and selith, refine fuel, manufacture munitions, grow food. Lush worlds become breadbaskets and export; barren mining worlds need food shipped in, so freighters and trade routes between your own colonies genuinely matter. Balance housing against farms against mines, and watch power and workforce gate everything you build.

Live alongside native species. Around a quarter of worlds have an indigenous population — frost-mind researchers, reactor-tuning ember folk, desert ore-delvers, a vast taxable ocean people, far-seeing scanners. They live alongside your Terrans with their own happiness and their own tax rate, and each gives a real empire bonus. Keep them content and that bonus grows.

Run mining operations across open space. Asteroid belts and gas clouds are scattered through every system. Survey one to see how rich it is, send a Prospector to work it, and haul the ore home. Research automation and your prospectors run the whole loop unattended — mine, fly home, unload, refuel, return. Or commit properly: a Constructor deploys a permanent Extraction Outpost that pipes ore straight to your nearest colony with no ships involved at all. Gas nebulae double as refuelling stops for fleets ranging deep into the frontier.

Design your own ships. Pick a hull, fit small/medium/large modules — cargo, fuel, engines, scanners, batteries, ammo, weapons — then research the blueprint and build it. Weapons split into energy (draws ship power, hits shields first) and kinetic (burns munitions, punches through shields into hull), so power supply and magazine size are real design constraints. Shields stop energy and do nothing against kinetic, which makes fleet composition matter.

Fight. Warship tiers form a proper rock-paper-scissors: corvette swarms drown battleships, destroyers shred swarms, cruisers beat destroyers, battleships crush cruisers. Group ships into named fleets and command them as one, clear pirate dens, defend your colonies with orbital defence platforms, escort your mining ships when the pirates start hunting them, and read a round-by-round replay of every battle. Or take it to other empires — strike their fleets, assault their colonies.

Play with other people. Mail, friends, alliances with roles, diplomacy (non-aggression pacts, shared vision), and live chat with galaxy and alliance channels.

The whole simulation is server-side and runs whether you're logged in or not, so your mines keep producing and your research keeps ticking while you're away. Check in for five minutes or an hour.

It's still early and actively being built — I shipped asteroid mining and biodomes this week — so I'm looking for players who'll tell me where it drags or breaks. spaceciv.com, free, no download.

Happy to go deep on any of the systems if you're curious how they work.

Does a known map state at the start of a game ruin the 4x experience for you? How much of the value is in the fog of war peeling back to reveal the landscape behind the veil, and how much of the value is simply in the procedurally generated/random landscape?

I’ve been working on a fast paced historical 4x tabletop game on and off since 2021, and recently pivoted towards releasing on steam rather than as a board game (long story, not relevant). As such, I’ve have some more freedom with the types of bonuses I can work with, not being limited by players mental tracking abilities (also irrelevant). BUT a consistent wall I’ve run into has been finding a strategically meaningful, yet fun way to have “explore” in the game. Every time I implement an explore aspect, playtesters found a way to skip or avoid it.

In traditional 4x games like Civ, the explore aspect feels natural because you don’t have perfect information of game state. By exploring more, you gain an informational advantage over your opponents. But in tabletop games, you generally have perfect game state knowledge (or nearly perfect, minus the hand of the player or secret objective), and the game is fundamentally balanced around this.

So I wonder - is the explore aspect of 4x a keystone because:

A) the excitement behind the discovery of the world just being awesome

OR

B) is it in the tactical decisions produced by the procedural generation required for the world discovery

I lean towards thinking B is the case, and because of that I think there’s a lot more flexibility possible in how people are designing 4x games. But I’m a diehard 4x fan, I’ve mostly just played civilization 6 and 7 with ~400 hours combined. I have a lot more time spent playing RTS games.

Cardassians in Space

Loved playing Civilization 5. Then recently bought Stellaris but realized quickly the game is very plan vanilla compared to the large sum to get all the dlc. I'm on the fence about buying some them after i finished my 5th run of Stellaris. Im thinking maybe my money would be better well spent else where. Ive been looking at Humankind or Civ 6 or 7 but heard very mixed reviews on 7. Then there is Dune spice wars for $14.

Tldr: buy Stellaris dlc or put money towards Civ 7 for 50, or Humankind? Maybe Dune Spice Wars or something...

Follow up: I have a list of games to try now thanks for all the recommendations!

What 4x games in your opinion have the best campaign mechanics and AI. Especially in regard to AI and AI interaction. Interacting with different factions and even within your own faction in an immersive and meaningful manner that seems plausible.

With lots of depth, but not terribly tedious in terms of micromanagement as well.

Thinking about coming back to the game now that they improved the ai, alongside fleshed out mods like enfer ai, and other overhaul mods.

Can I make it an enjoyable experience right now with the right mods and game settings so its fun mid to late game, or do you think it suffers the same problems it always has and its worth moving onto something else?

Wondering which of these people prefer and why?

I myself have a preference towards deeper strategy mechanics, especially in regard to AI interaction and diplomacy. A campaign that you can really get immersed. Which of these is best in that regard as well?

Come and join our new multiplayer server starting this weekend! We have made lots of improvements since the last one after all the community feedback and testing.

• Steam Store
• itch (also includes a steam key)

Runs on both Linux and Windows (mac support coming soon) with an arm64x build available on itch too.

Riftborne is a classic terminal based (yes run fully in the terminal), real time, grand strategy game. Construct space ships. Take part in factional warfare. Hire galactic hit-men on your rivals. Raid neighbors for rare resources. Train spies to infiltrate enemy bases for key intel. Grow your empire to dominate the galaxy. You begin with a single colony ship. That grows into a network of colonies, asteroid outposts, fleets, supply lines, and defenses.

Emphasis on teamwork, strategy, and planning... you can't win alone. The game lives just as much on paper, in the chats, and in player relationships as it does on the screen. But if you'd prefer to go it alone, there is also the option to spawn as an independent (high risk!).

Multiplayer Experience:

• Three unique cultures to choose from each with a different strength (economy, power, or speed and intel)
• Server expected to last 3-4 weeks
• Runs on a real time clock
• Pre game lobbies so you and 2 other friends can ensure you are in the same team
• Faction Stronghold with team wide resource bonus sinks
• You can now choose your spawn location with a starting colony ship
• All cultures have a shard based point system to choose your own playstyle path
• Slow burn empire building, planning, logistics, and politics
• Coordinate trade, attacks, spying and defenses with your team

Other Features:

• Host your own local or Linux server to play with friends
• Custom map editor to use for single player or your own server
• Full single player game mode available to hone your skills against the bots

Server start time:

• Saturday, 18 July at 16:00 GMT
• 12:00 PM US Eastern / 6:00 PM Central Europe
• Pre-registration lobbies available 24 hours before

We also have an active discord community with over 800+ members.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Do you know good strategy games similar to civ, humankind, old world or whatever game like that with really good naval mechanics, not just warfare, but at the same time a game that is not 100% naval focused?

For reference I’ve played Civ 6 and AOW 4 and love them both. I love the maps and exploring all the different settings and finding different landmarks that help advance your empire’s development.

With that, I was wondering if there are any other games that have similar rewards for exploration, especially with unique maps or environments.

Let me know, ty!

Hi everyone, I'm researching what makes persistent strategy games successful. I'm interested in games where players build a kingdom/base, manage armies, grow over time, and compete in a shared world.

I'd love opinions from experienced strategy players:

1. What strategy games have you played for months or years, and what made you keep coming back?

2. What is the single biggest reason you eventually quit a strategy game?

3. Do you prefer: •Slow kingdom building over months/years? •Faster progression and constant action? •A mix of both?

4. What makes a world feel alive to you? Examples: •Player alliances •Territory control •Exploration •Events •Trading •Competition

5. What mechanics do you think create the strongest attachment to your account/kingdom?

6. What mechanics do you hate seeing in strategy games?

7. Do you prefer games where: •Everyone follows a similar progression path? •Players create their own unique play style?

8. How important are these to you: •PvP battles •PvE enemies/monsters •Building •Research •Diplomacy/social features

9. Do you enjoy games where players can specialise (for example: economy, military, monsters, defence), or do you prefer everyone having access to everything?

10. If you could redesign one thing about modern strategy games, what would you change?

For context, I'm interested in the design philosophy behind older games where players created their own stories rather than following a fixed campaign. I'm trying to understand what parts of those games people still value today.