Many people eventually realize they enjoy 4X games as a story-building engine.
Paradox games like Crusader Kings or even Stellaris are better at that. Those games are usually unbalanced, bugged, repetitive - but they don’t pretend to be just and balanced sports-like games. And Endless Space 2 does, even with all those asynchronous gimmicks. It says that the world is a zero-sum game and there’s a win screen in the end. Everything you do is to be at the top, otherwise you’re playing suboptimally. If you try to make lives of your citizens as best as it could be than you’re doing it wrong, you have to keep them just happy enough to be productive and don’t waste resources to keep them happier. If you don’t expand by war when you can then you’re doing it wrong even if you’re a hippie tree.
In CK2 and EU4 and Stellaris you can just roleplay.
The other problem is that 4X games are incredibly complex and never work properly. Even the best ones have false choices. You’ll never get elegant and complete gameplay from them, it’s mostly about learning the rules and realizing you’re the only one who knows how to play the game. Again, aimless grand strategy games don’t have this problem as AI is usually an open book and is there to roleplay, not to “win”. If you want to conquer the world in Europa Universalis then you’ll have hard time managing all those systems, you’ll perceive AI as one of the obstacles instead of a disappointing contender for world domination. And if you want to create Jewish Byzantium empire colony in America then you’ll have to manipulate systems to get an interesting result - and you won’t care about that play being suboptimal because you are not playing to win.
My personal choices would be Divinity Original Sin 2 and maaaybe West of Loathing (which is good but is hard to take seriously). It seems Tom didn’t play those. Sad!
I also quite liked Mass Effect Andromeda even though I was late to the party and played glitchless version of a game. It’s a first ME game with some actual gameplay.
I was disappointed by lack of choice in strategy games. Nowadays they’re all about being a hobby. No good campaign or tutorial or hand-crafted scenarios - you buy a game that requires commitment. Steel Division or Dawn of War are like that: if I want to play those games I have to persuade a couple of my friends to play it because they’re not really for single player. And all those space 4X games take dozens of hours to play just a single game realizing you’ve screwed up. Endless Space 2 is relatively short and forgiving but it shows another bane of strategy gaming: it’s always an early access. You know that features are gonna be patched in and when you talk about current glaring problems fans say it’s gonna be patched for free. Even though Endless Legend never was.
Same with Stellaris. It gets its big update soon… Around 2nd anniversary of the game. And I bet you’ll need another patch after that for the game to work properly.
If I buy another game it will be Divinity: Original Sin II. It’s on sale at Steam for $40.49, and those wanting a DRM-Free version can get it from GOG for $4.00 more.
My favorite games I played this year were Hollow Knight, Nier: Automata, and (2016’s) INSIDE. With them noted together, I see what Tom wrote for himself. They crafted a relationship to me with unexpected commonality in their stories, their portrayals of hope in dark places. Great mechanics anchored those games, but atmosphere and characters made them personally meaningful.
I was happy to see Sniper Elite 4 on the list. I’ve liked all of the Sniper Elite games, but this one struck more of a chord with me than usual, and I’m 132 hours in on it so far, and wasn’t really sure why. Tom’s analysis of how his life circumstances affected his choice in games really struck home on this one for me. I’m basically the only healthy person in my family. The idea that my wife or one of the kids could die at any moment haunts us all, and is frustratingly completely outside of my control. But in SE4, I am in control. I decide who dies, and when, or at all. I am the ghostly hand of Death that floats around the game spaces, sparing or snatching lives as I see fit. The polar opposite of my real life, and I didn’t realize that until reading the column. Really fantastic work, Tom.
Beautiful writing Tom. I almost never agree with you on movies or games, but I love reading about why you like the entertainment that you do. It also makes me wish I was a little more sophisticated about some things.
I hope your wife and kids improve from whatever condition is ailing them. That would be a tough thing to have to handle. Best wishes to you and your family.
I dunno, I still go back and play MoO 1 and Imperialism. I even enjoyed Endless Legend for a couple dozen hours.
Endless Space 2 just bounced off of me. It was the free weekend and I too just didn’t want to play it anymore even for free. I think it’s because all the mechanics are buried underneath multiple layers of obtuseness that it’s hard to lock down what’s an effective strategy. I didn’t have that problem with Endless Legend which was fairly straightforward. Plus I always got the feeling that if you stripped away all the obtuseness and everything was easy to understand, you would realize the game is really shallow. The asymmetry was the ONLY thing it had going for it, but you could just get that out of Endless Legend.
