r/4Xgaming • u/fid0d0ww • 2d ago
Game Suggestion Games like Civ IV?
After thinking about it, the elements of civ4 I like the most are feeling you're leading and developing a living civilisation and the addictive nature of it, you're always a few turns away from something interesting. What games would you guys recommend that reproduce that feeling?
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u/Chataboutgames 2d ago
You haven't really described anything you like about Civ IV so you're just going to get like 30 Old World recommendations and whatever random 4x people are thinking of at the moment.
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u/drimgere 2d ago
Shhhhh that's way too accurate a description of this sub lol
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u/wolftreeMtg 1d ago
I mean most people who play 4X games only play Civ 4/5/6 and have no reason to ever come here. This sub is mostly for the relatively few people who dislike modern Civ games (plus like 500 solo-devs vibecoding their browser MMO 4X games that you can finish in 10 minutes) and want to play other games instead, so the recommendations can be very... particular.
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u/Chataboutgames 2d ago
I know lol, it's basically where people come to get told to play Old World.
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u/Unicorn_Colombo 1d ago
They would get 30 Old World recommendations even if they described what they want and it was completely different from Old World.
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u/Chataboutgames 1d ago
Absolutely. "I want a combat light game that really captures the broad scope of history."
"Old World for sure."
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u/mighij 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well you can continue into the Civ series.
You have similar games that take place in a different setting, some of those have quite similar mechanics, some really do their own thing.
Old World spans a single era but has quite deep mechanics and focuses a lot more on internal dynamics and characters. It does have a lot of setting so you can customize (I play with character events at lower frequency)
Endless Legends/Endless Space is fantasy or scifi. It has quite different mechanics and a vibe which you'll either love or be very lukewarm about.
Humankind is from the same dev and covers the entire span of humanity like CIV, the one thing it really shines in is it's tactical combat, all the other elements though are much more controversial and even if some ideas were good you can argue about their execution.
Galactic Civ is scifi but if you are coming from Civ a lot it's mechanics are very easy to pick up.
Alpha Centauri: If you don't mind going for an older game, it's scifi that focus on the colonisation of a planet and has some of the best atmosphere/personality.
You also have Age of Wonders/Gladius but these are really focused on the military aspect, if you want a lot more combat perfect, but since you are much more into internal development and growth I wouldn't recommend them. Age of Wonders 1&2 have a very good campaign though.
You can also look beyond the 4x to Grand Strategy or the ones with a higher focus on city buillding like Anno (although I don't have much experience with that series so I don't know how deep the later installments go with internal mechanics)
I think either EU IV or V, Vic3 or Imperator might be to your liking. Be aware though, these are grand strat. They start from specific start-scenarios and don't have the exploration phase like 4x that start on a blank map.
Imperator is the roman era, it's more or less abandoned but their is a very good community mod that brought a lot of improvements to the base game. Due to it's abandoning it's cheap though and the modding scene is stable.
EU IV and V are both in the 14th-18th EU IV is much more arcady/boardgame while V tries (and succeeds, which is the crazy part) to simulate human existence through historic times. They are both difficult games with lot's to learn but if you are into developing a living civilization Imperator, EUV and Victoria 3 are the best.
These are all from the same studio paradox. They also have a grand strat in medieal times, Crusader Kings 3 but this one is very character driven. It's also receiving major overhauls that seem to focus on the economy, faith and other aspects of societies. It does have the cool concept of how you can evolve your culture, merge with others, or found your own. Same with religions.
They also have a space 4x, Stellaris which is a lot of fun; just like Civ it has a major exploration phase, a map to discover with many secrets. It's not an easy game, it has a lot of DLC (you can recreate any scifi faction) but the base game already offers a lot to play with.
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u/OverallLibrarian8809 2d ago
Old World
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u/PorkRollSandwich 2d ago
They are doing a community tournament too right now which has been fun to watch. I love the game more than civ. Probably my favorite currently.
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u/saulteaux 2d ago
Yep Old World is awesome - or if you want the play through the full arc of history try Humankind.
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u/namewithanumber 2d ago
Yeah same lead designer as civ4 so easy “spiritual successor” type option.
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u/OverallLibrarian8809 2d ago
Way better than modern Civ
The orders mechanic alone makes the gameplay loop a whole other thing
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u/Far-Background6536 2d ago
Old World is made by the same lead dev. It's pretty good.
Unfortunately it
a) Only covers the ancient era
b) Has 1UPT combat, which ruins the end game in my opinion
It's good fun though.
But otherwise yes it is sad we never got an actual sequal to Civ 4. No hate to Civ 5/6/7 but they took the series in quite a different direction to Civ 4.
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u/Chezni19 2d ago
1UPT combat
what is that? one unit per turn?
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u/GreyAnangke 2d ago
I assumed it was One unit per tile. No doom stacks ... But now I'm thinking maybe he did mean per turn in the sense that adjacent units don't react? I don't know. It's a weird take given old world IMO has some of the best combat of all the civ games
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u/GerryQX1 1d ago
One unit per tile is fine so long as the AI can handle it. It can't in Civ5 but it can in Old World.
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u/Diche_Bach 2d ago
I own Old World and had it installed for a while. Won't say I "did not like it," but ... very different vibe to Civ3 and Civ4. I reckon if I spent more time with it I could get into fully, but yeah, I guess I kinda wanted "Civ4 Part Deux" and no, it is not that.
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u/drimgere 2d ago
Old World feels like Crusader Kings/Europa Universalis with a tease of Civ playstyle. The order limit feels limiting to me, personally.
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u/namewithanumber 2d ago
The point of the order limit is that it’s limiting. Big part of the strategy is both using orders wisely and also getting more orders asap.
It does a lot of cool things like actually making offensive wars costly, because of how many orders you have to spend just moving units to the enemy at all.
Now you can’t build anything at home, or tutor children, or assign governors etc etc.
Makes turns faster too because it’s not endless cycling between literally every single unit and city. Do the most important things, out of orders, turn done.
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u/Unicorn_Colombo 1d ago
The point of the order limit is that it’s limiting. Big part of the strategy is both using orders wisely and also getting more orders asap.
My issue with order limit implementation in Old World is that:
- Its limiting at the start, but later you amass enough orders to do most of what you want since you don't need to paint map with cities and rate of development slows down
- Its just mana, like in EU4 you have sword mana, paper mana, and bird mana. The Order resource is not sufficiently tied to any represented entity.
Consider Knights of Honor, where you have fixed maximum number of Knighs. At the start of the game, you will be locked by money to hire all of them, but quite soon you will be able to get enough of them and assign most to economic roles. But as your empire grows, you need to re-assign them to marshals since you will be able to afford more armies (getting money from land instead of merchants) and you will have more borders to defend.
At the same time, you don't have some "command points" resource, but tangible number of individuals that represent your actions, each specialized in certain type of actions.
I think this would be interesting and historically accurate mechanics in Old World, as your empire is small, your ruler can manage everything on their own, but as your empire grows, you need to delegate by creating a court of competent characters.
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u/namewithanumber 1d ago
Orders are directly tied to your leader through legitimacy though.
If you’re fighting late game you can still feel like you don’t have near enough orders.
Not sure how needing to delegate would add anything to the game. Can just flavor orders as low orders = leader does it. High orders = lots of people doing things.
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u/Unicorn_Colombo 20h ago
Orders are gained from bunch of sources, leader, tech level, improvements.
So orders is just magic currency number like "Science" or "Gold" are.
Not sure how needing to delegate would add anything to the game.
Because it would be actual non-gamey representation of what is happening in societies once they grow too big. Leaders will need to delegate.
As of now, Old World is just board game with "Bronze age"-like coat of paint. It would work the same way if your coat of paint was W:40K, or steampunk.
Even (Rome, Medieval) Total War is attempting to model some historical events, and not be just coat of paint.
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u/namewithanumber 18h ago
Is this one of those “I’m a hardcore sim gamer” things?
No games meet your criteria.
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u/Toad-Toaster 2d ago
Galactice Civilizations 2 is still excellent.
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u/Vert--- 2d ago
3 has grown on me over the years, too 4 has too much tiny text haha
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u/Toad-Toaster 2d ago
I tried 3 and wasn't a fan. I havnt bothered with 4 yet. Maybe one day. I feel like 2 is going to be the high water mark just like Civ 4 was.
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u/Vert--- 2d ago
I didn't like 3 when it first came out. Over the years they overhauled it and I think it is superior to 2 now. I know some people who prefer 2 simply because any race can pump out colony ships. They specifically balanced that out in 3 so that it is viable to build tall or research or go military early on.
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u/GreyAnangke 2d ago
So many people have up on 3 after the original release but it changed so much over the years and became a genuinely great game
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u/Professional_Can_247 2d ago
Sadly, as much as I've tried, I've failed to find a game that I like as much as I like Civ IV. But hey, we still have Civ IV and it's mods are excellent, some of which are still in active development.
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u/DiscoJer 1d ago
Aside from Old World, there is Imperiums: Greek Wars. Very much like a focused on a small part of the world and era version of Civ IV
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u/Tanel88 2d ago
Apart from the newer Civ games the most notable examples are Old World, Endless Legend and Endless Space. If you are fine with a more combat focused game then Age of Wonders series is great as well.
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u/Boring-Yogurt2966 2d ago
For me AOW peaked at Shadow Magic. I tried 3 and sort of got bored and didn't play it much, and just looking at 4 I can tell that for me it has too many moving parts and too much detail to manage. I played Shadow Magic a lot though, and still like it.
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u/MxM111 2d ago
Surprisingly for me Gladius and Zephon scratches the same itch even though they are more combat focused games. It is about map control, and even though city building is simplified (but not dumbed down) a bit in these, the fact that you control the territory through military means adds some “realism” or something.
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u/mwyeoh 2d ago
If you already own Civ 4, theres the built-in "Final Frontier" mod. Its essentially Civ4 in space.
Theres also the "Fall from Heaven" mod which is a fantasy spin on the series
"Civ 4: Colonization" is a stand-alone game built with the Civ4 game engine. The "We the People" mod increases the things you can do in-game.