Globalstrategiespiel

Vorlage:This 4X refers to a genre of strategy game, usually a computer game, with four primary goals: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. A 4x game can be turn-based or real-time. The best known example of this genre is Sid Meier's Civilization series.

Definition

The classic definition

"4X" is an abbreviation for "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate". These phases overlap quite a lot in most 4X games, and some are designed so that exploration and expansion continue almost to the end of the game, for example in Master of Orion and the Space Empires series one has to do quite a lot of research in order to colonise every type of planet.

Explore means the player starts out with limited knowledge of the playing area, and must move units into new areas to reveal more of the map. The map may be blacked out (as in the Civilization games), or the player may start with very limited information about most of the map (for example, only being able to see the stars in Master of Orion at the beginning, with no knowledge of the planets orbiting them).

Expand means players increase the territory under their control, usually by creating new settlements. Some 4X games also allow players to extend improving the political influence of existing settlements.

Exploit means players gather and use resources in areas they control.

Exterminate means attacking and eliminating rival players.

The term "4X" was first used by Alan Emrich in the September 1993 issue of Computer Gaming World, in the review of Master of Orion. Incidentally, Emrich was later involved in the design of Master of Orion 3. "4X" is now used quite frequently in reviews of games which follow a similar pattern.

Difficulties in definition

When Emrich first used the term "4X" in 1993 the vast majority of strategy games were turn-based - Dune II, the first real-time strategy game to achieve major success, was released in 1992. But many real-time strategy games also have a similar "explore, expand, exploit, exterminate" cycle.

Some players argue that "4X" games are distinguished by placing a much greater emphasis on managing an economy and researching new technologies. But some real-time games such as Age of Empires and Empire Earth simulate the growth of an empire over thousands of years and offer more technologies (both military and economic) to research than most of the games widely recognized as "4X".

Moby Games even adds a criterion that there must be victory conditions other than total conquest, in order to exclude games such as Age of Empires, WarCraft, Command and Conquer and Heroes of Might and Magic from the 4X genre.

By convention the term "4X" almost always refers to turn-based games. But not all turn-based strategy games are 4X games. Chess is the most obvious example, among other reasons because the board is completely visible from the start. The Heroes of Might and Magic series is a borderline case - players have to "explore, expand, exploit and exterminate", but: there is no real distinction between colonization and invasion; most of the economic management is really more like raiding; research is mainly a matter of buying higher-level spell-books; and most battles are decided by vast numbers of basic units.

So any attempt to define "4X" is tentative and subject to the approval of players of the relevant games. A game is likely to be widely accepted as "4X" if it has all of the following features:

• it is turn-based.
• it requires significant attention to economic management and research.
• the results of battles are influenced more by the technological level of the units than by battlefield tactics or weight of numbers.

Gameplay conventions

Victory

All "4X" games allow a player to win by exterminating all rival players.

But many offer alternative victory conditions either to reduce the tedium of "mopping up" or to enrich the game by offering a wider range of strategies. For example:

• In the Civilization series one can win by being the first to colonise another solar system.
• In the Master of Orion series one can win by being elected supreme ruler of the galaxy. Diplomacy is often an important contributor to this type of victory.
• In Galactic Civilizations one can win by researching a supreme technology.
• The Space Empires series offers a wide range of alternatives to total conquest, including: having the highest score after a specified number of turns; exceeding the next highest player's score by a specified percentage; keeping the galaxy at peace for a specified number of turns.

Technology tree

In addition to allowing players to increase military and economic strength, many 4X games allow technological improvement, usually in the form of a technology tree, in which early technologies are prerequisites for more advanced ones, and players have to traverse many branches before they can reach the most powerful abilities at the end. Master of Orion has one of the simplest technology trees, in which one can research all the way to the top of one technology area and neglect the rest (seldom advisable); Civilization has one of the most complex, since most technologies have two prerequisites and hence one cannot research any top-level technology without having researched almost all the lower-level technologies.

Setting

The most common settings are Earth or an Earth-like planet (as in Civilization), a fantasy realm (as in Master of Magic) or a galactic empire (numerous examples listed below).

Characters

Typically, the player takes on the guise of one of many tribes or leaders, battling other rival tribes or leaders. Each tribe/leader usually has a distinct personality, especially when they are controlled by an AI player. Often, these personalities are tied to actual bonuses experienced by the player, such as stronger soldiers for a war-like tribe/leader, or more effective research for a logical tribe/leader. Civilization and Master of Orion II implement these features in different ways.

4X games suggest that an empire's destiny is grounded in the values of its people, or at least the values of its leadership. "The state" becomes the main actor in shaping historical outcomes, and the state is only concerned with its state interests. This resembles the realist school of international relations, which contrasts with other schools that emphasize common goals between states, or the goals of non-state movements.

Other common features of 4X games

Complexity and scale

4X games tend to last longer than other strategy games, possibly taking days for a single player game while multiplayer matches are sometimes known to span weeks. This is part of the intended design. For example one Master of Orion II strategy guide makes it clear that in a large galaxy with a low-tech start one does not expect serious warfare before about turn 110.

To succeed in most 4X games you need 10 to 20 colonies on small maps and over 40 on large maps, in order to research and build a useful force of advanced units or to impress rivals enough to win by diplomatic means.

As a result many 4X games are assembled as multiple layers of gameplay, tied together to form a complex system. In this sense, each layer of gameplay becomes intricate enough to resemble a minigame of its own. For example, many 4X games have a separate screen for each settlement, and many have a special screen display for battles because the main map is on such a large scale that manouevres of individual combat units cannot be represented on it (e.g. Master of Magic, Space Empires).

Major 4X games like Civilization and Master of Orion have a much larger technology tree than most other strategy games (except for multi-epoch games like Age of Empires or Empire Earth). There are 86 nodes (technologies) on the technology tree in Civilization IV, while Warcraft III distributes its upgrades across 12 leaves (buildings). And in Warcraft 3 one can reach the highest level of one branch of the technology tree in five steps, while the Civilization 4 technology tree requires nearly 60 steps to reach the end.

Diplomacy and peace

While some strategy games offer shared victory and team play, "diplomacy" usually revolves around teaming up to destroy opposing players. But 4X games often allow multilateral, complex diplomatic relations like detailed peace and trade treaties between competitors who may not even be on the same team (e.g. Civilization and its offshoots, Master of Orion, Space Empires).

Some 4X games do not even require a player to exterminate opponents to win. It might be possible to win the game through non-violent victory conditions by waging only defensive wars, or sometimes, with no wars at all (e.g. Civilization, Space Empires, Ascendancy). In non-4X strategy games, the players have usually no choice but to destroy each other.

Internal obstacles

In most strategy games, the only obstacle between the player and victory are the opponents. Gameplay is simplified to allow players to focus on "what matters," which is usually the military aspect of the game. In some 4X games, however, there are internal obstacles as well:

• Expansion might be limited by maintenance costs and economic troubles that are more complex than a simple population limit, such as logistic concerns or corruption (as in Civilization. Players are usually forced to consolidate and strengthen their current holdings, or discover new technologies that make their economy powerful enough to support further expansion.
• Exploitation, i.e. maximising the use of resources at individual colonies, might be limited by pollution, disease, unhappiness, or civil unrest. The player often lacks the tools to overcome these limitations at the start of the game, requiring more advanced industrial or cultural developments.
• Extermination might be limited by war fatigue, morale or the activities of a peacefully-inclined political party, forcing players to make tradeoffs between finishing their war and keeping their people happy and productive.

Depth of gameplay

Traditionally depth of gameplay takes priority over polished graphics and sound.

The fifth X: eXperience

In 2002, with the pending release of Master of Orion 3, there were claims that this would be the first "5X game". Alan Emrich announced that the fifth X would be eXperience:

If experience refers to human limits on total control over your empire, then many 4X games have at least a small experience component. For example, many 4X games require players to deal with civil unrest. The Civilization series has included features like war weariness, or the senate, representing a lack of total control over your empire. This stands in contrast to many RTSes, where orders are always strictly obeyed.

It is questionable whether Master of Orion 3 is the first true 5X game. But this definition of experience helps to distinguish many 4X games from other strategy games.

History

Early years

The lineage of 4x games can be traced back to board games, which had an influence on early DOS games like Reach for the Stars in the eighties. These games were turn-based, and had some of the basic elements of 4X games.

Most fans regard Sid Meier's Civilization in 1990 as the first true 4X game, with the level of detail that has become a staple of the genre. Steve Barcia's Master of Orion from 1993 is also an early landmark in the genre. Both had more developed technology trees and diplomatic AI.

The Golden Age

The success of both Civilization and Master of Orion sparked a golden age for the genre by the mid to late 1990s. Each company produced their own spinoffs in 1994, with Colonization as a spinoff of Civilization, and Master of Magic as a spinoff of Master of Orion. Sequels to each followed in 1996 which took advantage of the rapidly growing processing power of PCs. With the growing popularity of the genre, other 4X games such as Ascendancy emerged.

StarCraft in 1998 signalled a huge success for real-time strategy games, with many lauding the benefits of both multiplayer and the faster paced military action. Critics argued that the more complex turn-based gameplay was no longer what players wanted. This was coupled with a rushed release of Civilization III, and what many regard as an ambitious failure for Master of Orion 3.

Today

Garnering a significant buzz from a release only 3 years earlier, Stardock released Galactic Civilizations 2 in early 2006. This is coupled with the release of Civilization IV at the end of 2005, garnering numerous awards from game critics. Many fans of 4X games believe (or at least hope) this signals a renewed interest in the genre.

Also, games like Imperium Galactica had been quietly combining 4X elements with loved elements of RTS. This splicing of genres has arguably inspired "RT4X" gameplay, with Ironclad Games developing Sins of a Solar Empire with a similar concept.

Examples of 4X games

Popular 4X games in a science fiction setting include:

• Reach for the Stars (1983)
• Trade Wars 2002 (1986)
• Anacreon (1988)
• Empire (1990)
• Spaceward, Ho! (1990)
• VGA Planets (1992)
• Master of Orion (1993), Master of Orion II (1996), and Master of Orion III (2003)
• Space Empires I-V (1993-2006)
• Iron Seed (1994)
• Stars! (1995)
• Ascendancy (1995)
• Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain (1997)
• Warpath (1997)
• Star Wars: Rebellion (1998)
• Alpha Centauri (1999) with Alien Crossfire (1999) expansion pack
• Star Trek: Birth of the Federation (1999)
• Imperium Galactica I (1997) and Imperium Galactica II: Alliances (2000)
• Thousand Parsec (2001 onwards) (open source, under development)
• Haegemonia: Legions of Iron (2002) with Haegemonia: The Solon Heritage expansion pack
• Galactic Civilizations (2003) with Galactic Civilizations: Altarian Prophecy expansion pack
• FreeOrion (2006) (open source, under development)
• Galactic Civilizations II (2006) with Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar expansion pack (2006)
• Sword of the Stars (2006)
• Lost Empire (2007)
• Sins of a Solar Empire (2007) (Still Under Development)

Popular 4X games in a fantasy setting include:

• Master of Magic (1994)
• Lords of Magic (1998)
• Dominions II (2003)

Popular 4X games in a historical setting include:

• Civilization I-IV with multiple expansion packs (1991-2007)
• Colonization (1994)
• Knights of Honor (computer game) (2004)
• Freeciv (2006)
• C-evo (2006)

Spore and 3E

Will Wright's biological sim Spore features a "3E" gameplay, its motto being Emerge, Evolve, Explore. It could be argued that it could be a "4E" game with the inclusion of Exterminate, as conquest is a possible during part of the game.

References

• Apple.com feature on Civilization 4
• GameSpy.com's Master of Orion III Developer Chat
• RTSCs' Glossary of RTS Terms
• PC Strategic Games FAQ: 2.8) What is a 4X game?
• Moby Games 4x games Group Description
• Vorlage:Cite paper

See also

• Turn-based strategy
• Real-time strategy
• Technology Tree
• Build order
• Micromanagement
• Rush

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