I know all three games and the best is Stellaris. TLDR at the very bottom
Stellaris is very grand, like you can do almost every thing you can think of in the sci fi genre. be a pirate faction, machine collective intelligence, hive mind space bugs, marauders, galactic peacekeepers, cultists, galactic religious faction, you name it. role playing as your own designed factions are a staple of the game. Mod support is a HUGE bonus. There are even mods that eclipse the official expansions in terms of features and new additions
The game is very expansive, there is a whole galaxy, with star systems and planets in orbit around it, you can construct starbases, mining stations, develop cities/planets, manage its populations, have different species for your empire and make them coexist together, put governors in planets, etc admirals in fleets etc. Different types of governments and personalities for species and empires. You can construct massive fleet and design ships. build huge megastructures ringworlds, dyson spheres, planet killers(like the death star).
You can play very tall(powerful with only small territory) or very wide(expand into every available space). You can create vassals, alliances, federations, etc. you can meet up primitive species on some planets and decide what to do with them, enslave them, help them, observe , experiment on them etc. You can even experiment on your species and evolve them or genetically change them. and there are end-game scenarios like a galaxy wide bug infestation or interdimensional invaders or an massive AI revolt. Early to end game theres lots of content.
AND its real time, you can pause and fast forward it, battles are in real time, things happening at the same time, your enemy might be invading one of your planets little did he know that youre on the way to his Capital planet to blow it up. Battles are more tactical and you have more impact on it. it seems more believable. If you have played Sins of a Solar Empire, the battles are similar to that.
Get the starter pack that contains the main game and 2 first expansions(there is a 3rd one buyable separately)
Galactic Civilizations III is probably the quintessential classic Turn-Based 4X space game right now. It plays similar to the Civilizations series and is probably my favorite space strategy game series before Stellaris came into fruition. Same setup, you have a galaxy, star systems, planets around it, hex tile systems. You can build starbases, design ships, manage colonies, and the like. The feel is much more gamey, there is no sense of scaling in the galaxy map, altho its just like what you would expect from a turn based game. depth wise, Factions are limited, you can't really make a faction to your liking, you can't even mix up different species into the same empire. It is a species vs species battle. You can't interact or see primitive species, there is no super late endgame content where you can basically be a immortal god tier space civilization that destroy planets at will and creates entire new species. The AI is nice though, very challenging
Endless Space 2 on the other hand is a much more streamlined but still complex, gorgeous looking turn based 4x game that is more of a middle ground between Stellaris and GalCiv III. It has a much more different tone than the two games above. While GalCiv III feels like playing a more advanced chess game and Stellaris feels like you are playing in a huge space sandbox. This feels like you are playing a table-top game. It is more of a space fantasy than sci-fi and there is a slight role playing feel in it with all the great narrative and lore put into it.
TLDR;
Stellaris has tons of things to do, and even more tons of things with Mods, but it can overwhelm you
GalCiv III is basically civilizations V/VI in space with a very challenging AI.
Endless Space 2 has a much more different
tone than the two games above, with narrative driven gameplay with rich lore and space fantasy like setting
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CorpsmanSaS 5 years ago#1 So I've been hunting for the perfect game to feed my space fix. Ive played a lot of spore in my time, spent 100s of hours in the space stage, but after awhile i wanted something more. I am now torn between these two games. Ive also been playing endless space, which i also enjoy, but still seems to be missing something. I love 4x games, spent a lot of time in endless legend and Civ, and i also love grand strategy games, spend a ton of time in crusader kings two. I hear Stellaris is CK2 but in space, which sounds awesome, but its seems a little graphic demanding. I do not mind playing on low setting, currently running with a geforce 940m and and I5 processor, so not sure how effective stellaris would be. I know Sins is quite dated but i still hear good things about it, but since i recently bought endless space, which is also a 4x game like Sins, i feel like i would have two similar games in my library, so one, which im sure would be endless space, would become obsolete. In conclusion, which of these 2 games do you think would help fill my space fix, while playing something different that I would sink hundreds of hours in? Thank you for your input and for taking your time to read this. I will be back shortly to check on the responses. Also do either of these games deal with advanced colonization and terraforming like spore space stage? or something close? thanks again. |
-5xad0w- 5 years ago#2 Well, you can get Sins Trinity for $1 USD. //www.humblebundle.com/ "There is no knowledge that is not power." |
kelemvor 5 years ago#3 You might want to check out Galactic Civilizations 2 (or 3?) if you like 4x games in space. I know the 3rd game came out recently but I haven't heard a lot of great feedback about it. My favorite 4x space game is Alpha Centauri. It's hard to explain that game to someone who isn't familiar with the series. It's like Civilization 2 on steroids but on an alien planet that has a 3d landscape. It's still the only "Civ" game with custom made units and advanced terraforming. It's very complex and has more things going on that the AI competition can handle, but it's great fun and pretty easy to learn if you have a basic understanding of the Civ games. |
-5xad0w- 5 years ago#4 kelemvor posted... You might want to check out Galactic Civilizations 2 (or 3?) Those are also in the higher tiers of the Humble Bundle I listed. Actually the whole bundle is space/strategy/tactics themed. "There is no knowledge that is not power." |
loki00_00 5 years ago#5 Interesting problem, well if you're talking about Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion then you can't go wrong either way. Sins is like a space RTS which plays like a 4X, it's really fun, has great mods, lots of good action, I thoroughly enjoyed my time. But out of the two of them I say go for Stellaris, with the DLC expansions if you can, it's basically the best 4X I've ever played. Maybe CK2 is better but I could never figure it out. Stellaris is a lot more noob friendly, it has decent tutorials and stuff, but it's really fun, with a lot of depth. The DLC makes it especially cool, you can genetically engineer other species to be delicious and then eat them. Also as amazing as it already is, by the time they're finished releasing expansions it will be an entirely different game, and they don't look to be abandoning it any time soon, it appears to be getting a lot of support. People complained about the mid-late game but that has been improved with the new expansions which let you become a master of engineering the biology of your species, or go down the psychic path, or become a robotic species. The Leviathan Story Pack also improves this further. It really makes you feel like you're in control of a galactic empire, you can choose from a variety of different political philosophies, and become anything from a xenophobic race of slavers, to a liberal democracy, or any number of other options. You can make alliances, form federations, make your enemies into vassal states. In one of my games I spent a considerable amount of time building up my little empire, but I was always annoyed by this empire to the south, eventually he got big enough to feel comfortable about attacking me and I got destroyed, after going back on my saves I managed to produce enough troops to bulldoze his armies, and after a protracted war he aggreed to become my vassal. I was extremely happy about this, but within 5 minutes the b****** had declared war on someone I never heard of, which meant I was at war with him, and I was promptly exterminated. It really is great at emergent storytelling, you come up with these bizarre war sagas. It's good, just buy it, you, probably, won't regret it. I think it's one of the best games on steam. Sins is amazing too but compared to Stellaris I think it's a little shallow. The official Oni of the Shin Megami Tensei IV board |
CorpsmanSaS (Topic Creator)5 years ago#6 Awesome thanks for all the responses guys. Since5xad0w mentioned that sins is $1 can't hurt to buy that and since I have $39.99 in my steam wallet due to returning arma 3 it works out perfectly and I will enjoy both games. I appreciate the feedback guys. And Loki, I understand how you feel about CK2, when I first started it I couldn't even get through the first 5 minutes of the tutorial, there was so much that it was overwhelming, so I decided not to play it and moved to something else. Over time I decided to give it another go, so I began to do some research, read up on some guide, found out that the tutorials are buggy and terrible, so doing some research on the game helped a lot, so I picked it up and started playing it, and I was hooked. I was mad at myself for not giving it he time the first time around because it is a really great game. I decided to just jump in and learn by error, which ended up perfectly and very enjoyable. On my main play through I am the king of Ireland, which I started out as just a duke with 1 piece of land to conquering the entire country, and now I've spread into Scotland and England. It's a really deep game and if you havnt out he time into it, I suggest you do, it's worth it. I'll take your work in stellaris cause it seems right up my alley and I appreciate your feedback. If you ever get into CK2 let me know how you like it. |
maybecalls 5 years ago#7 Yeah, you might as well get the $1 Humble offering (I did)........ Space Hulk Ascension |
solosnake 5 years ago#8 Distant Worlds Universe is by far the best space 4x ive ever played, but its probably tougher to learn than ck2 even, luckily you can have the cpu automate anything you want until you decide you want to take control yourself, so it eases you into it. Stellaris is pretty good, but is much simpler and is the easiest to get into out of all the paradox games. "We would have no NBA possibly if they got rid of all the flopping." ~ Dwyane Wade |
#9 (message deleted) |
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