4X and RTS games.

Any recommendations would really depend on what you liked about Sins?

because for example its not representative of 4X gaming, and if your listed games are the only strategy games you have played then many 4X games may seem overwhelming.

its not new, but homeworld is a 4x rts isnt it? great game if u havnt played it, just old now so dont expect a whole lot of pretty

Well, I liked the slow pace of it, and the teach tree was good, although it could be bigger. I'm happy for it to be set in space, or anywhere. I've heard that most 4X games are turn based, which I'm not a huge fan of. I would prefer the game to be real time.

NO it's not 4X at all.

It still kicks serious ass, but it's not even remotely 4X.

If you want 4X in real-time, keep looking. There really isn't any. Sins is as close as it comes, but it's not very close.

Imperium Galactica 2: While it's an older game (it was released in 2000), it's still a pretty solid 4x title, and (unlike most space strategy games), it's in real-time. If you can handle the graphics of an 8 year-old game, odds are good you'd enjoy it.

You could try Hegemonia Legions of Iron or Conquest Frontier Wars, both rather old but good games.

Ive got to second Imperium Galactica 2 in its day it truly was a stupidly good game. The only thing that will detract from it is the graphics, but in terms of what you can do and its features its a far superior game than sins.

IMO, 4X and RTS are almost mutually exclusive categories, and if there is no pause+save function, the game is definitely not 4X in my book.

If you like Warcraft, you might like Starcraft (or it might seem like the same game in new drag). That's the last RTS in space that I played much. I've poked around with a couple in the "Age of X" line, but I forget which ones b/c that was pretty much when I accepted that RTS is not for me.

With the combination of slow pace and a large tech tree, you are definitely into turn based 4x territory, if you haven't played a Turn-based 4X game before which is what it sounds like, then i can asure you they don't play like the turn-based tactical combat games. That said, they can be Time sinks expect to spend alot of time on them. My personal recommendations for Turn-based 4X games are Civilisation 4, Galactic Civilisations 2, and Sword of the Stars (all with all their respective expansions)

Most RTS games, perhaps obviously, lean towards fast pace, which usually limits the visible tech tree, if you can put up with the fast pace though the RTS with by far the best tech tree is Earth 2160 (few years old now but still a damn fine game), of real time games that incorporate 4X elements the best is probably Rise of Nations, again fairly old, but still very good (and better than Rise of Legends its spiritual sequel).

See the problem is because Sins is a borderline game between the two genres there are few examples like it, Imperium Galactica 2 is, as has been mentioned by others, probably the closest you are likely to find, it has a much more engrossing tech tree, as well as some additional gameplay elements (Ground Combat, on-planet base building, more economy micromanagement, customisable units etc), So if you can find a copy its well worth getting.

Apologies for the long post.

I have a long list (Not that long really) of RTS games. If you like them or not depends on your taste.

1. Company of Heroes - It is a very fast paced game, maybe too fast.

2. Supreme Commander

3. Medieval 2 Total War - It is turn based but the battles are RTS. Much slower than Company of heroes.

4. World in Conflict

5. Universe at War

6. Demigod - This game is in development.

7. Endwar - In development

You can try the demos out and see if they are to your liking.

Well your computer seems really good based on the games you have so I would recommend "Age of Empires III" and the expansions that come with it called "The Warchiefs" and "The Asian Dynasties" along with the expansion for C&C3. I would also recommend "Supreme Commander" and it's expansion "Forged Alliance". These are all great games but cost money so you might want to get the game itself for all of them and not get the expansions but the expansions are great, trust me. The graphics are amazing for all of the games too. Also you have got to get "StarCraft 2" once it is released which should be sometime this fall or winter is my guess.

Two words: "Alpha Centari"

If you want to check out a 4X-game (ie. not RTS), you should go get Civilization 4. You can find it packed with the two expansions (Warlords and Beyond the Sword) dirt cheap these days.

Just because you liked SoaSE doesn't mean you'll like 4x games. Try a demo first (especially of the Civ games which I couldn't stand. Found them boring)

I can recommend the Age of Wonders and HoMM series. There is Disciples and Warlords as well but those two are so limited and Warlords don't got any tactical combat like the other three series do.

Conquest Frontier Wars (mentioned above) has A LOT in common with Sins.

I really liked Nexus. It takes you through the game with only a handful of ships that you have to carefully upgrade and add new ones as you can afford them before each mission. Still looks good even though its a few years old.

The ultimate 4X/Sim game is X3: Reunion. The Fans made a 200pg manual to really teach you how to play. It has an extremely high learning curve and the story is completely uninteresting, but more like a tutorial on how to play. But for building up a trade or battle empire there is no better game. Plus the fans have added huge mods that completely change the game and to make it more difficult, give more options. Nothing is cooler though than ordering your battleships to destroy an enemy fleet, then jump in a fighter or corvette so you can assist, dodging capital ship weapons. Or just stay in your battleship and blast away. I recommend having a joystick to play. You can actually play the entire game through menus and mouse but its not great. One recommendation if you buy it, do not start the game until you update it to patch 2.0 or you will learn the joys of starforce anti-piracy software. It is the best and nearly guarantees that very few will pirate the software, but it all but illegal for what it does to your comp. Egosoft finally apologized and released the patch that removes it.

Lastly if you want mindless fun, try to hunt down a copy of Star Trek: Armada 2. It is one of the original 3D RTS games. Unfortunately it is not in distribution anymore.

That game was geat! Still have it but its so dated. I heard that Sins of meant to be a remake of it but I see some links but still its abit different. On Conquest you own entire systems rather than planets and must defend the wormholes from attack to defend the system and your planets which you can only build around in a big halo ring. The races are the same to sins, the Humans, the Insects and a robot race. Even the ship styles are very similar.

I've always considered all turnbased games to be 4x games since I thought 4x was a denominator for how turnbased games play out. But you're saying that turnbased games are divided based on if they have tactical combat or not? If so, Is tactical combat the only factor that divides turnbased games into 4x and tactical combat?

I think Supreme Commander is a fairly close game to sins. It focuses much more on macro than most RTSs just like Sins.

@Dragon Knight
Company of Heroes is an awesome RTS (the best ever made IMO) but it's on the total opposite of the spectrum to Sins RTS-wise.

It's kinda a question of what part of Sins you prefer - the RTS Fleet Battles or Empire building, you're not really going to get both in many games.

Im my opinion the levels of tactical/stratergy goes like this:

Skirmish or Contact
Battle
Theater or Zone


Skirmish is simply one thing fighting another the smallest scale you can go. Tactical.
A battle represents a C&C style leve of tactical command. Usualy a single objective.
A theater or zone represents a area that holds some objectives that can be fought over. Strategic
The top level is a selection of diffrent theaters to choose from. Strategic


For me SupCom is right on the edge of a theater because of the size of some maps, but mostly a battle. Sins is about many mini-theaters (planets) and proper theaters (star systems). See how they simplifed the battle aspect of the game to pretty small gravwells to control, otherwise you would get a massive sprawling gameplay type that would be difficult to manage.