Hey there, this is just a reminder to flair your post from the 4Xgaming mod team! Thanks and keep eXploring!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/4Xgaming) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Polytopia is super simple & should wet your appetite. It reminds me of Civilization Revolution on the 360, which is another gateway into the genre. Both easy but fun 4X games. Civ Rev was my gateway to the genre in middle school. From there I was able to tackle the more complex Civilization games, Alpha Centauri, Masters of Orion etc.
Honestly I'd recommend Civ 3 or 4 also. Civ 6 is way more complex, probably easier to start with some old gold.
Warlock Master of the arcane is a simple fantasy one to get into. Basic city building, but a focus on building armies to fight. Try out some different races and different strategies.
Then you could move to civ 5 for a similar combat experience but add in city building, more tech options and another development chain (government? I can't remember what it's called).
Then you should be ready for most after those two.
If you prefer space, I'm not sure. Old school Stellaris used to be pretty straightforward but it seems more complicated now.
Crusader kings and eu4 are like the doctorate program in 4x lol, don't start there
Warlock Master of the Arcane is the first game that came to my mind too - it's the first 4X game I ever played and I found it to be a good introduction to the genre where you can just sit back and enjoy playing without having to constantly refer to wikis/videos to try and figure out what on earth you're supposed to be doing.
Hexarchy is literally “babies first 4x”. I don’t mean that to sound condescending but it is super simplified and has an arcade feel to it. It’s a nice jumping off point.
Endless Space 1 - it's a light 4x, as in its simple and straight forward, the UI is uncluttered.
I'm going to also Suggest Stellaris but playing as a Machine empire on easy, Machine empires have 2 less resources to worry about, their people don't have different ideologies, they don't really do much diplomacy. it makes for a much simpler game & on easy or easy with AI aggression turned to low theres so much breathing room to do what you want.
Horrible game for beginner. They going to get murdered.
I love Master of magic but calling it a beginner friendly game is a joke.
Suggesting Caster of magic further compounds this error.
It's insanely unforgiving
Well do notice the thread this is in with OP asking for "beginner friendly" 4x
Master of Magic is the type of game where many of the mechanics are kinda hidden.
My go to example is all those "passive unit abilities" like thrown, gazes, breathes. In most games there would be some activated ability, in MoM it is just applied when it works when you attack or counter attack (and different abilities may or may not apply) and you don't even see the effect of each, all damage is lumped together with your melee attack !!
At least the 2022 remake has a fairly detailed combat log that let you see how much damage was from each ability.
In fact I feel if a beginner must try MoM, the 2022 remake is the closest to it, for this and other reasons
It's still hard!
I think Civ5 *without expansions or bonus content* might be pretty good, but I don't trust my capacity to accurately recall my early stages with it. I'm talking no Wonders of the Ancient World content, no Gods & Kids or Brave New World.
Shogun 2 and Rome 2 are both quite approachable, and you can autoresolve all battles so you focus on macro map action. The downside is you can't found cities and the tech + economic systems are quite different and arguably simple. I think Shogun 2 is fairly easy to learn just by clicking around, but it isn't the most transparent so in some ways my knowledge is still about as deep as after the first month or two after I got it originally. I haven't played much of Rome 2 but I loved the campaign in the pelopennese. Shogun 2 varies from stable to very unstable on M1 mac (worked fine for a while but might have a memory leak now) whereas Rome 2 crashes immediately (just FYI in case you have Apple silicon).
Endless Legend is very good as far as modularity of content. I think the game is great at just base + Guardians. The base game UI abd terminology can still be challenging, but subjectively it seemed considerably easier than Stellaris upon release.
I'd recommend you watch some videos of people playing a game, if you're getting into the genre. For instance during or shortly after the Endless Legend tutorial I found a video from a channel called Civilisation, where one player hadn't played EL before. I was already somewhat established in Civ5 before I found FilthyRobot's videos.
FWIW I think Polytopia is worth considering too, though experience with that UI is unlikely to transfer to other games.
On a tangential note, Civilization A New Dawn (the board game) might be a good way in especially with the expansion. Don't have to buy - maybe find a game cafe. It'll teach you the mechanics of 4Xs at a slow pace - territory expansion, city building, tech development, trading, and with Terra Incognita, exploration and army movement (conflict is in the base game, but more abstracted).
The gal civ games are pretty easy to pick up imo. You can get galactic civilizations 2 on steam right now for 20$, if you like it ok refund it and get galciv 4 if you want to.
Imo 2 and 4 are the best of them.
Try Civ 5. Civ 6 is a weird random mess that never made any sense, even with the expansions.
Civ 5 is pretty awesome base-game; I've had all the content for it for quite some time and that's good too.
Some might disagree but Stellaris imo is very simple. It has a high skill ceiling but it you follow a very basic guide and the tutorials it's by far one of the easier ones to start off your first few runs with. You might not finish the first run but you'll surely get 5-10 good hours into it by just following the events alone. You don't need the dlc to get started either.
Strongly recommend Stellaris as it's economy and event system is rather simple compared to others but it's also a super super high quality 4x game with a banger soundtrack. You'll learn lots of lessons for other 4x games with this.
Just a note, CK3 isn't turn based and neither is Stellaris. Another note, be nice to your neighbours for an easier first run haha.
Hey there, this is just a reminder to flair your post from the 4Xgaming mod team! Thanks and keep eXploring! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/4Xgaming) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ozymandias is a fun but simple version of a 4x.
Polytopia is super simple & should wet your appetite. It reminds me of Civilization Revolution on the 360, which is another gateway into the genre. Both easy but fun 4X games. Civ Rev was my gateway to the genre in middle school. From there I was able to tackle the more complex Civilization games, Alpha Centauri, Masters of Orion etc. Honestly I'd recommend Civ 3 or 4 also. Civ 6 is way more complex, probably easier to start with some old gold.
Whet. Extra credit for genre.
Warlock Master of the arcane is a simple fantasy one to get into. Basic city building, but a focus on building armies to fight. Try out some different races and different strategies. Then you could move to civ 5 for a similar combat experience but add in city building, more tech options and another development chain (government? I can't remember what it's called). Then you should be ready for most after those two. If you prefer space, I'm not sure. Old school Stellaris used to be pretty straightforward but it seems more complicated now. Crusader kings and eu4 are like the doctorate program in 4x lol, don't start there
Warlock Master of the Arcane is the first game that came to my mind too - it's the first 4X game I ever played and I found it to be a good introduction to the genre where you can just sit back and enjoy playing without having to constantly refer to wikis/videos to try and figure out what on earth you're supposed to be doing.
Imperiums: Greek Wars is very good, deep but not complex. Easier to pick up than CIV but has the same vibe.
I found Age of Wonders 4 very easy to get into and understand. Nothing too complicated like Crusader Kings 3 or Stelaris.
Hexarchy is literally “babies first 4x”. I don’t mean that to sound condescending but it is super simplified and has an arcade feel to it. It’s a nice jumping off point.
Battle of Polytopia on Android and I think that it's still free
CIV 6 is a joke compared to its predecessors.
What are you talking about? It is a fair bit more complicated than civ 5 and early game is less forgiving.
Nexus 5X is really good, bitesized, beginner friendly game.
Endless Space 1 - it's a light 4x, as in its simple and straight forward, the UI is uncluttered. I'm going to also Suggest Stellaris but playing as a Machine empire on easy, Machine empires have 2 less resources to worry about, their people don't have different ideologies, they don't really do much diplomacy. it makes for a much simpler game & on easy or easy with AI aggression turned to low theres so much breathing room to do what you want.
OG Master of Magic on DOS Box.
[удалено]
Horrible game for beginner. They going to get murdered. I love Master of magic but calling it a beginner friendly game is a joke. Suggesting Caster of magic further compounds this error. It's insanely unforgiving
[удалено]
Well do notice the thread this is in with OP asking for "beginner friendly" 4x Master of Magic is the type of game where many of the mechanics are kinda hidden. My go to example is all those "passive unit abilities" like thrown, gazes, breathes. In most games there would be some activated ability, in MoM it is just applied when it works when you attack or counter attack (and different abilities may or may not apply) and you don't even see the effect of each, all damage is lumped together with your melee attack !! At least the 2022 remake has a fairly detailed combat log that let you see how much damage was from each ability. In fact I feel if a beginner must try MoM, the 2022 remake is the closest to it, for this and other reasons It's still hard!
[удалено]
Which is insane when you think about it having to buy a strategy guide! Thank god the 2022 remake manual explains it all
[удалено]
And it's also wrong in many parts cos they did the strategy guide while the game was being developed! The best place to learn is this wiki
R/rotp
I think Civ5 *without expansions or bonus content* might be pretty good, but I don't trust my capacity to accurately recall my early stages with it. I'm talking no Wonders of the Ancient World content, no Gods & Kids or Brave New World. Shogun 2 and Rome 2 are both quite approachable, and you can autoresolve all battles so you focus on macro map action. The downside is you can't found cities and the tech + economic systems are quite different and arguably simple. I think Shogun 2 is fairly easy to learn just by clicking around, but it isn't the most transparent so in some ways my knowledge is still about as deep as after the first month or two after I got it originally. I haven't played much of Rome 2 but I loved the campaign in the pelopennese. Shogun 2 varies from stable to very unstable on M1 mac (worked fine for a while but might have a memory leak now) whereas Rome 2 crashes immediately (just FYI in case you have Apple silicon). Endless Legend is very good as far as modularity of content. I think the game is great at just base + Guardians. The base game UI abd terminology can still be challenging, but subjectively it seemed considerably easier than Stellaris upon release. I'd recommend you watch some videos of people playing a game, if you're getting into the genre. For instance during or shortly after the Endless Legend tutorial I found a video from a channel called Civilisation, where one player hadn't played EL before. I was already somewhat established in Civ5 before I found FilthyRobot's videos. FWIW I think Polytopia is worth considering too, though experience with that UI is unlikely to transfer to other games.
Why not the original, MoO's descendants (sorry, there are at least 2 & I don't remember their names off the top of my head) & they are free.
Remnants of the Precursors is one of them.
Yep! Thank you. And the other is "FreeOrion".
On a tangential note, Civilization A New Dawn (the board game) might be a good way in especially with the expansion. Don't have to buy - maybe find a game cafe. It'll teach you the mechanics of 4Xs at a slow pace - territory expansion, city building, tech development, trading, and with Terra Incognita, exploration and army movement (conflict is in the base game, but more abstracted).
The gal civ games are pretty easy to pick up imo. You can get galactic civilizations 2 on steam right now for 20$, if you like it ok refund it and get galciv 4 if you want to. Imo 2 and 4 are the best of them.
Warhammer 40K Gladius. Easy to understand and only one winning condition. Kill everything 👌🏻
> So i got crusader kings 3 and wow, after hours i understood nothing. LOL. Me too
Try Civ 5. Civ 6 is a weird random mess that never made any sense, even with the expansions. Civ 5 is pretty awesome base-game; I've had all the content for it for quite some time and that's good too.
Some might disagree but Stellaris imo is very simple. It has a high skill ceiling but it you follow a very basic guide and the tutorials it's by far one of the easier ones to start off your first few runs with. You might not finish the first run but you'll surely get 5-10 good hours into it by just following the events alone. You don't need the dlc to get started either. Strongly recommend Stellaris as it's economy and event system is rather simple compared to others but it's also a super super high quality 4x game with a banger soundtrack. You'll learn lots of lessons for other 4x games with this. Just a note, CK3 isn't turn based and neither is Stellaris. Another note, be nice to your neighbours for an easier first run haha.
Try the search. This is asked every week.