Planar Conquest

So lately I’ve been jonesing for a new 4X. SF, fantasy, historical, doesn’t matter. I just need to scratch an itch.

Perusing a “Best 4X” list (PC Gamer, I think), I see…Planar Conquest. WTF?

World of Magic was a pretty shitty attempt to update MoM and Planar Conquest an attempt to fix the flaws (ala Stardock) that still wasn’t particularly interesting at release. I own it, but never gave it more than a passing glance.

So has it really gotten that much better? And more to the point, is there a relatively new 4X of which I might be unaware worth playing?

(Note - please don’t recommend the classics or anything else relatively well known from the last 10 years. I can pretty much guarantee I own it and played it to death, whatever it is).

I think you may want to increase your research to include a mod that may make an old game better since it is more likely that a mod got past you more than a 4X game.

And just a shot in the dark but did you ever play Max or Max 2? But it is 20 years old now so not exactly your criteria.

Good point re mods.

I bought MAX and MAX 2 off GOG a while back and found they didn’t hold up that well.

I’m big on Pandora: First Contact nowadays. There were a couple late patches that really improved it.

The Caster of Magic mod is pretty fun to poke around with (for MoM obviously), and the same dude made a vanilla patch that includes a ton of fixes if you haven’t checked that out.

You might consider this to be well known, but I love it so much that I will try to recommend it anyway on the off chance that you’ve missed it. There’s a Civ4 mod, Fall from Heaven 2, which is really amazing. It has tons of neat and creative factions, each of which breaks the basic Civ4 model in a fundamental way. For example, the vanilla elves can move on and improve forests just like they were plains. Additionally, they have a global spell they can use twice per game which transforms every one of their forest tiles into a beefy Ent unit that can move and attack, and which at the end of 10 turns transforms back into a forest tile at its new location. It’s thematic, it’s cool, and it’s just one of the hundreds of neat mechanics that are part of the game. There’s a global armageddon meter that affects which mechanics can be used, there’s a mid-game incursion by playable demonic and angelic civilizations that rapidly scale in power, there’s an alignment system that ties into where unit’s “souls” go when they die and affects the heavenly balance of power, there’s global winter and frost dragons, there’s tons of overland spell abilities, etc. etc. Check it out if you haven’t already, the game’s a treat! Even the manual is good reading.

Oh man. I still hold out hope that Derek will make another FFH someday.

I know, I had such high hopes for the Fallen Enchantress series. I feel like there’s an alternate reality where Derek’s true potential was realized and with a giant, professional team behind him he just kicked the doors off the whole MoM/Civ model of game.

Fall From Heaven is an excellent suggestion. I remember Tom raving about it back in the day, but for some reason I never grabbed it. A couple of questions:

Does it play nice with the Steam version of Civ IV? Does IV even run on WIn 10?
If yes to the above, do I have to install the expansions, or will vanilla IV do?

In answer to your questions:
I have no idea.

:D

Civ IV on Steam plays perfectly well on win10, dunno why FFH wouldn’t.