Here at eXplorminate, 4X strategy games are our specialty. We love nothing more than to eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate, and then argue with one another incessantly over which ones qualify for the genre, which don’t, and which are the best! Whilst it can be difficult to pin down exactly what constitutes a 4X game today, it is an easier task by far to decide which are the very best that the genre has to offer. And so, dear reader, we present to you the Top Ten 4X games of all time!
After a slight deviation into the fantasy genre, Steve Barcia’s Simtex returned to their Space 4X roots in a well-anticipated sequel, Master of Orion 2, an incredibly well-polished PC strategy game that aimed to capitalise on the success of their original breakout hit title. Taking on mechanics from Master of Magic, MoO2 attempted to increase the scope of the original, adding hero characters, increased detail in colony management by allowing the player to build planetary facilities, multiple colonisable planets per system, more customisable races, more technology and more… well more of everything!
Unfortunately, more does not necessarily mean better, and the increased detail meant longer games with more busywork for the player. Master of Orion 2 sacrificed the incredibly tight design of the first game in order to cram in more features, resulting in a wonderfully engaging experience for the first part of a campaign that gradually shifted into a micromanagement hell towards the end. The planetary management system taken from Master of Magic also imported that game’s main problem, where the player inevitably had to “build everything everywhere” which added little to strategic planning and eventually became a real chore.
Despite all its problems, this is still an incredibly good game with a huge scope, superb graphics, sound and animation, and is widely considered to be one of the best 4X games ever made. Part of the reason for its lasting success, perhaps, is that its sequel, the infamous Master of Orion 3, was a massive flop. Fans considered MoO2 to be the last “real” Master of Orion game and the last good game in the series. The 4X community has long argued over whether this, or its prequel, is the better game but Master of Orion 2 is one of the most copied games in the genre and you can see its influence in nearly every space 4X game released since. It truly deserves its well earned place on this list as one of the very finest 4X games ever made.
Stardock took the long, hard road to reach Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, but after two previous iterations, they had finally produced a classic, if not a little underrated one, in the Elemental series. Between its strong 4X elements, its unique research trees, its deeper-than-average diplomacy system, and its fantastic Player-Vs-Environment element, Legendary Heroes really managed to capture our imaginations.
Its Player-vs-Environment (PvE) element is second to none, as Legendary Heroes allowed your war parties to find and battle dozens upon dozens of enemy types, embark on a plethora of different quest types, obtain over a 100 different types of items, including weapons and armor that can only be found via various quests, and much more. Hell, the PvE elements of Legendary Heroes make it feel like an RPG set in a 4X world in many ways.
Beyond that, the tactical combat in Legendary Heroes is fast and furious, making both the unit composition and use of spells very important, all the while keeping it short and sweet, ensuring the player is not away from the strategic side for too long. Thus, the balance of its tactical combat with the empire-building portions is well done. They both feel important, but as you’d expect, most of your combat victories come from your strategic decisions.
Legendary Heroes also found a diplomatic system that worked well, adding depth through its use of a research currency, basically the ability to barter away your research progress in the various tech trees, and managed to have a set of factions that were just asymmetric enough to please the diehards.
Furthermore, it was one of the first 4X games that managed to tackle the often-criticized city spam problem by limiting the players to certain colonizable areas that required a threshold of magic and food to be met.
It was clunky; the UI wasn’t great, and the graphics felt a bit washed out even when it was released, but those issues didn’t stop the game from being genuinely fun and a great example of practice makes (almost, sorta) perfect, as Stardock refused to give up on this title and we’re glad that they didn’t.
Stardock’s best Galactic Civilizations game is still the second one, but only by a hair. While both the second and third iterations are about equally polished and fun, it’s Galactic Civilizations 2 (GalCiv 2) that felt like much more of a step forward for its time. Not only had it vastly improved upon its predecessor, but it had also managed to combine many of the existing elements of 4X in a manner that was cohesive and stable while adding mechanics and interweaving its lore in a way that very few games had done previously to GalCiv 2.
Not only that, but its AI was superbly designed, leading to a decent challenge even at its easier difficulties, with balanced diplomacy, an unmatched (for the time) ship builder, multiple victory paths, which allowed players to chase after victory conditions that they saw fit, and many other now-standard mechanics of 4X games.
Furthermore, the expansions only made the game better, with Twilight of the Arnor bringing on many backstory and lore elements through its faction-unique tech trees. It also introduced “immense” galactic maps, which for the time, were absolutely gigantic and were a much-requested feature.
Beyond that, Twilight also took a pass at the graphics, making the game look more modern for its time.
In short, Galactic Civilizations 2 felt like a complete package and when coupled with the expansions, was not only a deep, satisfying game, but it pushed the genre forward with its extensive shipbuilder, forward-thinking racially asymmetric tech tree, multiple victory conditions, and much more.
It’s easy to see why many considered the third iteration a bit of a letdown, as the shoes it had to fill were immense.
Sword of the Stars (SotS) took the basic gameplay loop from the original Master of Orion and added real-time tactical combat and asymmetric race-related ship drives. And it worked. Really well.
SotS stood out for quite a few reasons. Its use of randomly generated research that, while guaranteeing certain core technologies, rolled the dice for which of the remaining two-thirds of the tech-tree you would have access to. Each playthrough was that much more exciting for it and the system tested the player’s adaptability, as technologies you might have relied on in previous games wouldn’t necessary show up in your next
SotS also featured faction-unique faster-than-light (FTL) travel that still hasn’t been duplicated to this day and it added unique strategy considerations. These FTL engines ranged from different variations of the typical free flight and star-lanes to Teleportation Gates. Not only did these various FTL methods make each race play differently, but it made the player consider how to counter the other races’ versions as well.
SotS was home to an innovative ship design system, dividing the ship into three parts, each with specific uses and varying weapon ports. This allowed the player to quickly incorporate new technology in their quest to overcome difficult opponents.
Sword of the Stars’ turn-based strategic map, mixed with its pausable real-time tactical combat was also unique for its time. Combat was conducted in rounds lasting a configurable set of minutes, depending on your initial choice, thus allowing your fleet formations to engage in back-and-forth combat, with reinforcements playing a large role in the outcome.
Unfortunately, SotS was set back by an outdated user interface and its singular focus of war left much of the rest of the game a bit lacking.
That didn’t stop it from being a game that many 4X players still recommend to this day and from making its way to this holiest of lists.
Perhaps the most beautiful terrestrial 4X game of all time, Endless Legend is the blissful sophom*oric effort from now-veteran 4X developers, Amplitude Studios. It’s surprisingly polarizing in the 4X community, however. Rob would argue vehemently that it deserves a higher place on this list, while many might argue that it doesn’t deserve any place on this list.
However, Endless Legend managed to revolutionize the genre with its wildly different factions, with each of them being given very powerful focuses and strengths, thus pushing them a bit towards their preferred playstyle and creating a very asymmetric design.
While one faction, the Broken Lords, were so obsessed with the universe’s currency, called Dust, to the point that they were consumed by it and required it for life and healing: another faction, the Necrophage, were basically a living virus comprised of scavengers, hell bent on consuming everything to bolster their numbers.
Beyond that, the strategic map was primarily focused on a wide variety of resources, as you’d explore it well to unlock the best spots to maximize your FIDSI, that is your Food, Industry, Dust, Science, and Influence. Each of those resources played a vital part in your game, thus requiring you to seek out the best map features in order to exploit them.
Endless Legend also introduced expansions, city improvements that were built in hexes surrounding your cities, thus giving them a wider, more sprawling look. Its influence is clear in the more recent Civilization VI, where the civ series borrowed heavily from this mechanic in its very own district mechanic.
In addition, Endless Legend brought back lore to the forefront of a 4X game, the first time really since Alpha Centauri, and it was all the better for it. Each of the factions had detailed and well-conceived backstories that fleshed out the Endless Universe and made a profound impact on gameplay.
Its combat was divisive and some people believe that it’s more style over substance, but neither of those complaints, legitimate or not, deserve to knock Endless Legend off of this list.
Sid Meier developed some remarkable strategy games, and Civilization was no exception, spawning a long list of sequels and spin-offs and widely regarded as a fine video game franchise. And whilst we must examine the very best of this series a little further down our list, there is one other that deserves a special mention.
It’s not uncommon for strategy games to attempt to tell a story, usually through extended campaigns tied together with cinematic cutscenes and walls of text, but Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri not only weaves an engaging yarn but it manages to do so potentially throughout the course of a single game. Avoiding the mistake made by so many other story-rich games in overloading the player with heavy lore exposition, Alpha Centauri feeds a hungry player in piecemeal fashion through their interaction with the gameplay mechanics themselves.
With Earth succumbing to an increasingly deadly series of wars fought over dwindling resources, mankind’s last-ditch attempt to save itself by colonising a planet in the Alpha Centauri system is jeopardised in the opening moments of the game. The fractured nature of humanity’s obsession with seemingly incompatible ideologies is perfectly symbolised in the frantic exodus of the crew from the compromised colony ship and sets the stage for a Tower of Babel-like parable the likes of which we’d never seen before, nor seen since in a strategy game.
Alpha Centauri delivers its story through fragments of text describing the various factions’ interactions both with Planet and one another, quotes from in-game characters, and descriptions of the various advances and technologies discovered during the course of gameplay. The intellectually stimulating science fiction writing is of the highest quality, yet it is the multi-dimensional characters acting as the focal point for the various ideologies that unite their followers, the tumultuous interactions between them, and the way they treat their new world that really sets this wonderful title apart from its peers. Brian Reynold’s background in philosophy lends the game’s lore and story a weight that far exceeded gamers’ expectations and took the world by storm on its release back in 1999.
Whilst superficially similar to the two games that bookend it in the series, Alpha Centauri added several innovative game mechanics such as meaningful terraforming, social engineering and modular unit design. Whilst it still suffers from some of the issues that plagued the early games, such as the reliance on city spam and relatively underwhelming faction asymmetry, it is still a solid game in the series and plays well even to this day. Firaxis gifted the gaming world a real treasure, one that bridges the void between strategy game and art, and is not to be missed!
Simtex followed on from the incredible success of Master of Orion by changing gears completely, switching out the epic spacefaring science fiction setting for a low fantasy world of dueling wizards, terrifying monsters, dark dungeons and parallel planes of existence. This second title turned out to be just as influential as their first: Master of Magic, released in 1994, was the blueprint for the Fantasy 4X sub-genre in much the same way that its predecessor was the foundation for all things Space 4X. Strongly influenced by Sid Meier’s Civilization, the player starts with a wizard’s tower and a city, then constructs buildings and expands outwards with settlers and recruitable military forces, bumping up against rival wizards and their own empires in the process. So far, so 4X.
Where Master of Magic deviates from Civ is in its extensive magic system, which bears more than a passing resemblance to card game Magic the Gathering and allows spells to be cast to affect both the strategic overland map and the excellent tactical combat layer. There are five schools of magic each boasting forty different spells for summoning fantastic beasts, blasting your opponents armies with fire and lightning, healing, buffing and debuffing troops, causing volcanic eruptions and more. Where Master of Magic truly excels though is in the sheer range of possibilities available in combining these many spells, heroes and combat units: creative players quickly discovered some rather unfair exploits: the legendary “Flying Invisible Warships” technique will go down in history as one of the most amusing examples of 4X-game meta-play.
As with all of Simtex’s games, Master of Magic is beautifully presented, with bright, colourful, and interesting character and creature design, a dynamic (and still bugged!) music system with some fantastic tunes, and high quality animations for many of the player actions such as spell casting, diplomacy and banishing rival wizards into the void.
Sadly, the game was riddled with bugs and balance issues on release, with many broken and unfinished features, redundant or useless units and spells, and an AI that couldn’t play it’s own game. Fortunately, years of fan patching have fixed the bugs, and Seravy’s incredible “Caster of Magic” mod has perfectly rebalanced everything to allow the AI to play at its full potential. Master of Magic stands up today as one of the very best that the 4X genre has to offer and is without a doubt the undisputed king of Fantasy 4X games. The user interface is solid and was one of the earliest games on this list to use tooltips, but the overland map graphics were dated even on release. Look past this though and you’ll find a game of incredible depth that belies its peeling paint-job. Furthermore, Seravy’s mod boasts one of the stronger AIs we’ve seen in a 4X game and is absolutely brutal on higher difficulty settings.
Master of Magic is a cornerstone of 4X gaming history and another masterpiece from Simtex!
Civilization 3 was a good game, but Civilization 4 is a great one, expanding the scope of its predecessor whilst trimming some of the fat to create a leaner, more elegant strategy gaming experience. Under the helm of game designer Soren Johnson, Firaxis developed a product with better graphics, an incredible soundtrack and, thanks to Soren’s background in Artificial Intelligence, a much improved game AI that not only proved challenging to play against, but was also fun and appeared to play fair. This was remarkable achievement in the 4X genre, where genuinely solid game AI was relatively rare. To this day, Civ 4’s game AI is lauded as a high point in the genre.
With the addition of world religions to the game, players could spread their faiths across the world and leverage this shared brotherhood in diplomatic efforts with rival nations. Multiplayer Civ was an altogether more enjoyable experience this time around, and did I mention that soundtrack? It is so good it’s worth stating twice.
Whilst the base game itself was fantastic on release, it was improved with expansions Warlords and Beyond the Sword, but it is the strength and versatility of the game engine itself that truly sets it apart from the other titles in this excellent series. Not only did Firaxis use the Civ 4 engine to recreate Sid Meier’s classic Colonization, but it was designed with modding in mind too, and Civ 4 boasts some truly staggering overhaul mods. Stardock’s Derek Paxton, developer of the wonderful fantasy 4X Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, got his start in the industry based on his incredible Fall From Heaven mod series for Civilization 4. This is still a firm favourite amongst Civ fans even today, many of whom rejected the direction that Civilization 5 steered the series towards: everything about Civilization 4 oozes quality and that is why we feel it is the best of the series and deserves such a high ranking on this list.
Steve Barcia and his team only made four games, and three of them are on this list. A truly impressive achievement for Simtex, considering the pool of titles we have to pick from now numbers in the dozens and dozens. And it is no mere nostalgia trip that places Master of Orion, the game that the title “4X” was coined for, as the best of those three and in our number two slot: even by today’s standards this venerable DOS title stands proud as a paradigm of game design. Whilst relatively streamlined and with less features when compared to some of the bigger, flashier titles, the seemingly simple game mechanics hide a depth that does not immediately reveal itself, and are so tightly interwoven and carefully thought out in relation to one another that it blows nearly every other game that it sired out of the water.
With just a single victory condition, to win a galactic council vote, and a semi-randomised research system where key technologies might not be immediately available ensures diplomatic wheeling and dealing is always meaningful. Tactical combat is exciting and fast paced, and so doesn’t distract the player from the strategic layer. Empire management is wonderfully streamlined: a slider-based planetary management system allows relatively easy fine tuning of a large empire when compared to the drastically inferior, micro-heavy building-system that Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2 replaced it with.
The ten alien races all play very differently: Master of Orion was one of the earliest strategy games to really explore faction asymmetry in this way. Whilst the enemy AI was randomised with two varying components that allowed some variety in the challenge you faced, each race was weighted to behave a certain way, and added to the delightful graphics and animations of the various leaders and characters, the player really felt they were playing against a “real” opponent. Furthermore, whilst the AI did “cheat”, Simtex went to great pains to hide this fact from the player, even going so far as to ensure the AI sent out scout ships to give the appearance of exploration, despite it being omniscient and seeing everything on the map!
This is an old game, and today many balk at its ancient, RSI-inducing user interface and simplistic graphics. And so we present Remnants of the Precursors, a modern remake of Master of Orion by developer Ray Fowler, boasting an innovative and modern user interface, many quality of life enhancements and brand new text, artwork and music that mesh together as tightly as the game mechanics of the original do. This is without a doubt the best way to experience Master of Orion today, and so Remnants of the Precursors shares the number two slot with its magnificent forefather.
So Master of Orion is the first space 4X title, and is still the best one we’ve seen since.
But only one can be the best…
Are you surprised? If you’ve been following the community here, on Reddit, on our Steam forums, or on our Discord, you probably shouldn’t be. Distant Worlds captured our imagination like very few 4X games – or games of any genre, for that matter – ever do. Its sense of scale, mixed with its sense of discovery, alongside its deep and engaging economic system, propelled Distant Worlds: Universe into superstardom.
Very few games have managed to make large maps feel manageable, but Distant Worlds did so by providing the player with a wide array of automation options. The player could automate nearly every aspect of their empire, even choosing to focus solely on the movement and actions of a single, solitary ship, or turn all the automation off, choosing to manage every aspect of your empire. Alternatively, you could choose to find an in-between, managing aspects that you preferred to and enjoyed, while leaving the capable AI to work the more mundane tasks.
No other game prior to Distant Worlds had tried a system so complex and daring and surprisingly, no other game has tried it since (except, of course, the upcoming Distant Worlds 2). It’s a shame, too, because we believe many of the larger 4X games could benefit from more automation options.
Beyond that, the private sector of Distant Worlds in its automation and added sense of immersion, made the game feel even more alive. For the first time, we were seeing the civilian side of an empire, working all by itself and filling an important role in the sprawling empire as a whole. It was part simulation, part 4X, and all very engaging.
We can’t forget that the user interface left a lot to be desired and that the learning curve was more of a cliff, rather than an easier-to-navigate curve, but those of us that stuck with it, saw past its mediocre exterior, and dove in deep enough to understand what was going on were rewarded with one of the best strategy game experiences of all time and the best 4X game that we know of.
It’s Just a List
And that wraps up eXplorminate’s Top Ten 4X games of All Time list. Remember folks, this list is just our interpretation of what the best 4X games are, but that doesn’t mean yours is any less real or accurate.
Before we go, rest assured that we plan to offer an entirely separate article on our honorable mentions soon, but here they are, in no particular order:
- Colonization (1994)
- Stellaris
- Shadow Empire
- Dominions 5
We’ll talk more about those games very soon! In the meantime, which games do you think should be on this list? Are there games we’ve picked that you don’t think are worthy? Let us know in the comments below!
Oh wait, would you like to see this list in video form? Well, you’ve come to the right place, as we’ve spent (way too) many hours putting this compilation video together, for your viewing pleasure:
And if you prefer, we have this list in audio form, through our podcast, hosted on Anchor.FM. You can find it here:
