In the gaming world “4X” stands for: “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate”. The ‘4X’ concept is well covered in the wikipedia here. Essentially the games that are catalogued as ‘4X’ must, at least, possess the following characteristics (or provide the following phases):

1. “eXplore”: means is the early phase of the game where the players scout across a map to reveal the surrounding territories.
2. “eXpand”: stands for the phase where the player already knows the surrounding territory enough and is ready to start claiming that new territory by creating settlements, outposts or simply by increasing its influence over that territory like for example by increasing its population, by increasing trade range or map reach.
3. “eXploit”: In this phase the player is ready to start gathering resources from the areas under his control. The idea is to be as quick and efficient as possible to control these resources since they normally are limited and as more you have less your enemies will have left.
4. “eXterminate”: When the territory is almost but claimed and the available resources controlled, the only way to expand is … to get more terrain and more resources and normally this means the need to make war with an opponent in order to subdue him (by turning it into a protectorate or vassal) or to destroy him completely.

Sounds familiar?

Other fundamental characteristics of a ‘4X’ game

The player usually plays the role of a Ruler of some sort normally with absolute power, like a King, Emperor or a Bureaucrat. This ruler stands by a race, country, species, civilization or some nation and his objective is to grow and develop it. The society normally has a humble beginning and part of the excitement of ‘4X’ games is to be able to transform this humble beginning in an ultimate power, where the level of knowledge, technology and expansion becomes so great that the player finally achieves victory.

Victory may come through many ways: By complete annihilation of all opponents; by diplomatic achievement via peaceful agreements with all opponents (through alliances with all other players subdued to a single alliance); by some degree of domination (like 2/3 of a galaxy, map, and planet, whatever the scope, is conquered). Other means to victory may include special achievements like “building the spaceship” in Civilization, or to unlock ultimate technologies (in Galactic Civilizations II) or being elected supreme leader by the majority of the other players due to a very powerful influence.

Research and technology are key concepts in 4X games. Deeply intertwined with the player’s hope to succeed is its unavoidable need to evolve, and normally this means the need to acquire more knowledge and more technology. By allocating resources to research the player can unlock new technologies which will translate in more comfort for its citizens, more resource management efficiency, more speed, more shields, more weapons, units, etc.

Diplomacy is another key aspect of ‘4X’ games. By the time the player is well advanced in its ‘eXpansion’ it will unavoidably bump into a neighbor and after a while into some more neighbors. The ability to make diplomacy with adjacent factions may determine the player’s race future. By “playing the cards right” the player may gain access to more resources by peaceful means which normally is much less expensive. Diplomatic relations like non-aggression pacts, trade, economic or research pacts can normally be established to achieve this. Alternatively the player may decide it’s more profitable to forge alliances with other players and go to war with others to exploit and exterminate them in order to secure their resources and their territory.

Combat is also an important aspect of ‘4X’ games for where it is in combat that normally all is decided. The ability for the player to win battles may decide wars and the survival of the society all together. To be able to wage well in war the player must do well in many areas. Must have a strong economy to support its units, must keep up in technologies not to become obsolete and it needs not only to be an effective attacker but it also needs to be able to defend its settlements well from other aggressive players. Battles can be decided automatically (like in Galactic Civilizations) or be highly tactical that require more strategic decision from the player (like in Master of Orion that puts the player in full command of all units).

What is ’4X’ and what’s not

Although almost ‘4X’ games are of the space strategy kind (like Master of Orion, Space Empires, Imperium Galactica, Galactic Civilizations, and so many others), there are other non-space strategy games that, debatably, are considered ‘4X’. Some of these games are Sid Meier’s Civilization series – undeniably ‘4X’, the Colonization series, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Command & Conquer or the TotalWar Series (among others). These last four are examples of games that are debatably ‘4X’. Some players think they should be considered ‘4X’ because they provide the 4 stages, others tend to criticize that they miss other key aspects (like the ones I introduced before) which leads them to “weak” ‘4X’ or definitely ‘non-4X’. You will find in many places some of these games catalogued as ’4X’ and in another places as non-’4X’.  You will ultimately need to judge for yourself where to draw the line (now you know why I said previously that it could get confusing :) )

‘4X’ Games Lists

You can find good lists of ‘4X’ games in moby games here and in a freeorion forum thread here.

One thing seems undeniable for ‘4X’; being them real time or turn based in terms of gameplay, ‘4X’ games are all of the strategy type. And above all else almost all of them are space strategy games.

In the past many games tried many variants of “tech trees”, as they are vulgarly called. A tech tree is a collection of technologies that can be researched and all the possible investigation paths that lead to the next discoveries and so forth. You can see this in space strategy games as you can see this also in many other types of strategy games (like Civilization IV for example).

Predictability and lack of Re-playability

Some games offer simpler and smaller technology trees, others present more complex and diverse research paths. As this is satisfying in the beginning unfortunately soon enough the games start to lose their re-playability since the possible technologies to research are already known from the start and the technology investigation looses its interest. Normally all races have at their disposal the same tech tree to research for and players tend to beeline (focus) on specific technologies that they already know the path to reach for which turns the games very predictable and ultimately boring to replay.

In the recent past GalCiv2 tried to give its technology trees a little more salt and pepper by providing specialized tech trees for each race which means that every race supposedly has its own tech tree with special and unique technologies. As very interesting that this may sound at first soon enough it looses its full potential since in most cases the “specialized” just means a different tech tree shuffle, re-ordering, subset or superset. This is a good start but not in my opinion what we are ultimately looking for technology research.

Dynamic and Specialized Research: an Innovative and Realistic approach

It is fine that tech trees can be customized for specific races however I think we did not hit the mark yet. To increase the re-playability and realistic factors a better idea would be to have complete or at least some degree of uncertainty regarding what technologies could be researched next. Think about it, there are areas to research as always but the exact technologies are still not available to choose from in the beginning. Instead of researching, for example, the “Universal Translator” the player would be researching in the field of “Communications” and a possible breakthrough could be the “Universal Translator” but could also be “Subspace communications” or “Xeno Diplomacy Relations”. All of these possibilities could be available to unlock in a particular game but not available in the next. The exact technologies to be unlocked would depend on certain factors. In spite Sword of the Stars has already did some work in this area I think much still needs to be addressed.

An example:

A certain Race “R” is very creative by nature but their members lack personality or charisma. This would make them prone to discover some kinds of technologies in favor of others. When researching in the field of “Diplomacy” Race “R” would be more keen to discover high technological gadgets to increase diplomacy (like the “Universal Translator” for example) but would be less keen on making breakthroughs on social aspects of the “Diplomacy” technology and so it would be more difficult to breakthrough “Alliances” (or Advanced Intergalactic Governments) or “Trade” (or Advanced Trade). The innovation behind this is that it would not be impossible for the race to discover “Advanced Trade”, it would just mean that would be less likely to happen. Certain perks, bonuses, events or player decisions throughout the game would influence the ability to make breakthroughs more in one area than another.

An example list of “factors” that could contribute to a certain player prowess to certain technologies would be:

• An ancestor ruin is discovered
• Special artifacts were found on planets
• Unexpected contact with alien races that shares knowledge (with the “correct” approach/answer)
• Luck
• Race characteristics
• Decisions made on certain actions like colonizing, government decisions
• Previous breakthroughs
• Planet events
• Special people (specialists) born in the planets

Conclusion on Dynamic and Specialized Research

The uncertainty factor in research is very realistic and the possibility for a player to specialize in a specific technological field due to in-game events and decisions is also very attractive. These aspects of technology research would most definitely increase game re-playability and not only that it would give the player more sense of being in command of its empire with its own gameplay style. Some players would be more prone to research in the field of “Diplomacy” others more specialized in the field of “Weapons” others in the field of “Spaceship hulls”, others still were a bit luckier and discovered a very difficult or unreachable by normal means technology. This would be very interesting since then alliances would have a new meaning. Each race could be specialized in certain types of technologies, the kind that the player is interested or destined by fate to have.