If you're willing to trade turn-based for real-time, I would recommend Rise of Nations.
There isn't as much economic/civic control as you might want, but you can tweak the game quite a bit, and for me it always hit a nice sweet spot between empire building and war.
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Try out Warlock: Master of the Arcane
http://store.steampowered.com/app/203630/Warlock__Master_of_the_Arcane/
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I wish there was. This is one of the reasons I almost always go OCC in Civ :x
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Venice was like, the main reason I got Brave New World for Civ V :D I absolutely loved that civ and how they made OCC an actual gameplay mechanic and no longer a simple "challenge".
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I forget the exact mods I used (and I can't find any of them through Google anymore), but I did OCC in Civ 4 with no maximum city borders and culture-converted cities automatically turning into vassal states. It was pretty excellent, and definitely the most memorable Civ experience I've had (having to carefully manage culture flow and maintenance costs while keeping an eye on what your vassals are getting up to definitely feels very different from the usual power-play dynamic).
Combining it with FFH2 and a buncha different barbarian mods made for a similarly interesting 'slowly spread civilization across the savage fantasy lands' dynamic. 'course, by its nature, such modding makes for very defensive, culture-based playthroughs, so it's not for everyone- but from an RP/sim perspective, it definitely had its appeal.
Unfortunately, they hard-capped city borders in Civ 5, so I couldn't reproduce a similar experience there. :/
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I loved the "no settlers" + "barbarian world" options in FFH2 (playing with these settings on an archipelago map with the Lanun was hilarious). Finally something to stop that ridiculous settler spam to nab any tile that's not currently owned by an opponent. It's way more fun to have untamed wilds and a few powerful cities. Why no other fantasy 4x had similar options (even Fallen Enchantress, which was made by FFH's dev) is beyond me.
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What an interesting question. I'm going to check back from time to time to see what people suggest.
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I'd say that Stellaris is the closest match to your wishes. Not that it really is what you are looking for, but it's closer than the rest.
It also has the benefit that it allows a small start, introducing you to the game on a limited scale, unlike other Paradox titles, where you are in full control straight away.
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In short: I second that! :)
In full: To start off: Stellaris is a great game in and of itself in my humble opinion, so if you like 4x games you really have to try it just for being what it is. That aside the map to explore is an actual galaxy (you can set parameters just like in civ) and you start on one planet at the moment you develop proper interstellar travel with a civilization with set perks and whatnot. And you can either manage the planets by yourself or let a governor controlled by an ai figure things out (you can set parameters there, too) but in any case you can't have 3 or 4 (at the start - you can research more up to a limit of 7 i believe) planets under direct control, which means you can't take forever each turn... ...just look it up and give it a try, you won't regret it! :)
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I like Stellaris but it is not without significant issues.
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I'm going to throw my recommendation on Distant Worlds: http://store.steampowered.com/app/261470/Distant_Worlds_Universe/
It doesn't necessarily meet your criteria but it does allow you to automate pretty much any section of the game you don't feel like dealing with.
Others have mentioned Stellaris and that's a good option too. I think Distant Worlds: Universe is more complex while Stellaris is more polished. I know Stellaris has some automation options too but I don't think there were as many or as granular as DW:U.
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Great game, but I can't stand playing it with anything less than full manual control. The automation is just so frustratingly incompetent that using it is a form of handicap. Well, actually, NOT using automation means giving yourself an unfair advantage over the AI, which is limited to the same incompetent automation. The devs really should have made various parts of the game simpler and with AI design in mind, so both the AI empires and the player's automation would be properly functional. Ship design is an especially egregious example.
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Distant Worlds is simplier to play because of still better ui (in compare to Stellaris) and i wouldn't want other parts of gameplay to become simpler.
And i agree, it is hard to play without manual space exploring for instance..
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Sadly, I don't know of any.
I've had the same thought for some time. It seems like the natural next step in strategy game design. But it's taking way too long to arrive.
Side note, I've recently been thinking about how to make a WH40K galaxy-scale strategy game without unmanageable micromanagement. I'm not sure it's even possible. Best I can think of is to split the galaxy into a manageable number of sectors and display stats for the sectors instead of individual planets or star systems. But then either the sector data has to be so detailed that micromanagement is still excessive, or the gameplay has to be shallow.
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Take a look at Pandora: First Contact. It's an Alpha Centauri clone and a fairly streamlined one too. It's also very combat oriented.
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4X game developers have been struggling with this for 25 years.
It’s an inherent problem in the genre.
If you haven’t tried it, colonization switches from 4X to strategy / war game. If you like the switch, it’s a good change, but other people stop playing after declaring independence and skip that part.
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Looks like you played the "wrong" Civs with removed unit stacking since #5. That makes late-game hugely time consuming.
Try Civ 4, quite a bit better there. Smaller maps obviously help too.
I can recommend Galactic Civilizations II, it has quite a few queue, waypoint and automatics mechanics that improve high unit count handling.
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Also the AI for GalCiv II is the best out there. Sadly the game felt quite old overall when I tried it out...
EDIT : as to not give the wrong impression, I'm the kinda guy who still plays Civ II from time to time. Guess I'll have to give GalCiv II a second try somewhere in the future
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I played Civ 4, would not want to go back to stacked units. Civ 5 and 6's tactical combat is significantly better. It's not moving units that I find tedious, it's constantly viewing production queues.
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But as the game progresses (either by # of cities, or technological advancement, or social advancements... whatever) you have that micro-management taken away from you. And not optionally, like you can choose a city governor if you want. I want it fully taken away. As the leader of an empire I should not be personally approving the building of a library in a specific city. Instead it should pull you back to more empire-wide controls, where you set economic or military policies, etc.
Crusader Kings II, nuff said. You still have micro-management where you want/need it, but all your vassals are independent and they can pretty much conquer land on their own, improve their own holdings and so on.
Mind you this isn't exactly turn-based strategy, but it's very similar in general gameplay and it really doesn't get boring as the time goes on, since there is always something to do.
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This!
CK II is amazing whether you’re an Emperor or a lowly Count. Some of my favorite playthroughs have been games where I remained small and/or a vassal, just focusing on a little duchy.
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Echoing the Civ 4 suggestion Tristar made above, try the Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations mod for Civ 4 (the last Civ VI Expansion basically uplifted the name straight up, as well as the "loyalty" mechanic which is a less devastating "stability" from RFC). It introduces more "realism" and "historical fidelity" to the game. Pick a Civ, start on a TSL Earth, not in 4000 BC necessarily but at the exact year in history that your Civ started in (Example : If you picked Arabia you won't enter the game until around 620 AD. If you pick USA, you'll start in 1776 AD, and you'll start with more units, tech and cities to balance with any older Civ that might be around), and try to accomplish what your Civ tried and failed to do when it was around IRL to win a Historical victory (I.E you'll want to conquer the Historical Roman Empire, build lots of aqueducts and amphitheaters, and never lose a single city to the Barbarians as the Romans. I won't spoil much, but Have fun... Or go for the normal Civ victory conditions, but they tend to be harder as the more old your empire gets the more it will have debuffs and stronger new rising enemy empires until it might collapse entirely due to the "Instability" system). You won't have to slug through the typical end game to win a Historical victory with most of the Civs, (but you can still continue the game after you won it ofc). Even if it gets a bit of renown it's still criminally unknown and it gave me the most fun a strategy game ever had in a while ( Civ 5 doesn't have the mod, mods are more restrained and limited there than Civ 4, though you can still find separate smaller mods that copy separate RFC systems).
There are some Youtube videos out there if you can't be arsed to read all that...Then, once you fell that you exhausted the possibilities that RFC gives to you, stroll towards the rabbit hole that is the "RFC modmods", and play on more maps that the normal Earth TSL one (Shoutout to RFC: Dawn of Civilisations...).
Also you have to update your mods manually on CivFanatics. Have fun... Here are some PTSD inducing-images from me for later use....
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I gotta second Rhys and Fall for Civ 4 - the mod certainly makes the game a lot more challenging not just more difficult
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Yeah I might have exaggerated a bit for dramatic effect. It's a good chance to learn the intricacies of Civ 4 and learn to do stuff you didn't know it existed before.
EDIT: Also a warning: while you're not forced to go to the late game to win games, if and when you'll go to the late game it might still be the usual slug with huge wait times if not more. Your mileage may vary...
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Stellaris tries to help solve that problem by preventing you from keeping the same level of micromanagement control over all your planets. The game forces you to create sectors which are managed by AI governors as you gain more planets, or else your empire gets hit with a nasty debuff.
Also maybe Alpha Centauri, because late-game you get access to planet busters and you can just start throwing those around like a madman if you don't want to fight conventionally, and you think you can handle the rest of the world ganging up on you...
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You should watch a tutorial on youtube for crusader kings 2 or play witth friends It's really fun. It was free 2 days ago so there are a lot of new people (included me).
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You need a game like CK II, where the overarching end goal isn’t “conquer everything.”
Also I'd prefer it not be as insanely complicated as Crusader Kings 2. I don't have the mental energy to devote to learning that.
I used to think the same way. I liked Total War and just, "didn't have the time to devote toward something more complex." And now? I'm closing in on almost 2,000 hours of tracked gameplay. There is truly nothing else like the experience that CK II offers.
If you can play Civ, you can play Crusader Kings. Yes, the learning curve is steep, but navigating it is honestly half of the fun. Just fire it up and start failing-- it doesn't take long for it all to click.
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I love the early game of Civ. Exploring the map, planting your first few cities, going to war with swordsmen and catapults.
But the endgame is incredibly tedious. When you have a dozen or more cities each with their own building queues each turn becomes longer and more boring.
I've been thinking about my perfect 4X game. It should start like Civ, where you have direct control over a single city at the beginning, and you decide each of its building projects. You are the city's mayor.
But as the game progresses (either by # of cities, or technological advancement, or social advancements... whatever) you have that micro-management taken away from you. And not optionally, like you can choose a city governor if you want. I want it fully taken away. As the leader of an empire I should not be personally approving the building of a library in a specific city. Instead it should pull you back to more empire-wide controls, where you set economic or military policies, etc.
In my perfect game this would be gradual. For example: at a single city you are a mayor. At 3 cities you become a governor. At 6 you become a king. At 10 you become an emperor. At each level you lose some ability to micromanage but you gain some new nation-wide abilities.
Any suggestions for a game like this? Also I'd prefer it not be as insanely complicated as Crusader Kings 2. I don't have the mental energy to devote to learning that.
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