4X

I think as gamers, you know, you know, we're all creative and, and able to kind of figure out not only play the game in the ways that they were intended, but the ways that they were not intended, including not finishing the game in the ways that developers intended them to be finished.

And I think, you know, I think a good example, you know, again, is going back to like games like Civilization, you know, the 4X strategy games where for some players, they, they, it just feels like a slog once you get to the modern age and like, okay, I'm not going to finish the game because I don't care about the victory because the victory is kind of all but certain at this point.

I'm not going to waste 50 more turns getting to a science victory.

Let me just start a new game.

Back to board games, I would say that like on my top list I have, uh, first of all, Sid Meier's Civilization from 2010.

I'm a huge 4X fan.

4X is my favorite genre, and this is my top 4X game, uh, that, that, that I ever played.

Uh, then of course, The War of the Ring.

If we're already, you know, spending-

Like, you just everything together." And like you said, it took me some time to find like, you know, the game and the expansions because they're really, uh, I'll break glass like a mother lover.

[laughs]

Uh, but when I got this, uh, it's just, it's just the truest to the video game, you know? Um, so, so in terms of if someone is looking for a 4X Civilization game that is oriented like around the Civilization, this is the one.

I call them in my book, the Star Wars moments.

And what do I mean by that? When you look at a movie and what makes it amazing and imaginative and kind of draws you in is that the movie takes today's premise, the context of what you are able to understand and just stretches it stretches it to the extent that makes it fantastic and engaging so when you're looking at Star Wars or Star Trek or any other science fiction movie it's like science but then there's the fiction part which is kind of the stretching so when you look at Star Wars you see the lightsaber You understand laser, and all of a sudden the lightsaber is, wow, what a cool sword, right? You see the 4X, the wing airplanes.

You know airplanes, but these are like special airplanes, right? So it makes sense that George Lucas could write such a script.

But if you ask George Lucas to write a script about the Star Wars of 5,000 years from now, You cannot imagine it.

... what would have to happen is we would need, we would need, um, we would...

You know what? We'd need, we'd have to, we'd have to have, like, a, a, a Titans legend smack a Dolphins player over the head with the 4X trophy in an a- in a, in a final act of defiance.

Okay.

Well, which Titans legend is most likely to pr- pr- uh, to commit this act of heinous violence?

Yeah, perhaps.

Yeah.

Maybe that can get them back on the road to 4X trophy glory.

Have we got Pat Rafter on hand for this one at all or?

Moo! It's not just the sound that a cow makes, it's also an acronym, as in M-O-O, shorthand used by fans online to refer to their favorite 4X sci-fi game, Master of Orion.

Before it was Moo, it was Star Lords, a name less suited for the barnyard and a prototype designed by Steve Barsia.

Barsia founded video game developer Simtex in 1988, and the Star Lords prototype was one of his first designs.

The Microprose boys helped make it sing and turned it into the Moo it was always meant to be.

Master of Orion thrust players into outer space, where they would choose a human or alien race to play as, then do their best to conquer the galaxy naturally.

Games journalist Alan Emrich, who also provided feedback after viewing the game's prototype, coined the term 4X to describe its gameplay.

Those four pillars of play, explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate, would become the defining aspects of turn-based PC strategy games for pretty much ever.

Today, we enter the future by looking to the past, as we do what we can to master Orion.

I am a Euro fan.

4X was sort of new, so it made a lot of sense.

I love Voidfall, one of my probably top 25 games of all time.

And I argue that it actually plays better solo.

Because the 4X, there's such a great kind of foe there for you to battle.

You don't even really need to go into other sectors against other players and you start on other sides of the map.

Is that at all an issue with Ascendancy?

It's a pretty different game.

visually like we on the quality bar that we are used to from ubisoft because ubisoft games look usually at least from a graphics point of view right fantastic um this one didn't look that visually impressive but it's a forex um strategy game right um yep and uh gameplay wise it looked very interesting to me Talking of...

Yeah, not my kind of game, but it's good to see them kind of branch into that because shooters often work very well with 4X tactic games.

I would love to see Rainbow Six, however, get back into the old-school traditional Siege and not this shitty 4v4 thing that they've been doing for years.

Traditional Siege with Terrorist Hunt and things like that, that used to be in it.

if you haven't played them for years, right... it's really hard to get into now if you haven't played Rainbow Six Siege now and you just go in there you're getting annihilated and it's just not fun and you will not be able to catch up on quality and skill set right it's just

yeah

by the way now I'm digressing but the Star Wars is out or the reviews are out yeah since we are talking about 4X strategy games.

Zero Company.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

But the problem is, [laughs] um, MCC has like enemy randomizers that are way more insane, and also my personal favorite, the 4X mods.

If Halo Campaign Evolved- Oh, hell yeah ... ever got a 4X mod, I would play it a lot probably.

I, I remember doing our first, our playthrough of Halo 3 4X.

Yeah.

And, uh- That was awesome ... th- it just, it just couldn't, the PCs and the connection just couldn't hang.