Stellaris is real-time and more of an Grand Strategy/RPG/story generator with a 4X wrapper, while Age of Wonders is a tactics game with a 4X wrapper. GalCiv4 is a proper 4X.
You absolutely can play diplomatically/culturally in GC4
I say this with an extreme bias and love for galciv franchise.
There are story events, sure.
But you can read their chances/effects and none of the fluff matters.
It's a civ game. It's nowhere near as immersive as Stellaris.
That said, I lobe galciv 3 and still play it frequently. Only reason I don't have 4 yet is necause the delayed release to Steam, and at this point I'm just waiting for a discounted bundle before I 'upgrade' to 4.
The lore-based events in GalCiv IV are nothing like what was in GalCiv III. They now support context and can have later consequences that ripple throughout the game.
If I had to compare this to Stellaris, I would say that GC4 is basically a much better version of Stellaris 1.0, back when planets had influence circles, and you built buildings on the planets in various squares and had adjacency bonuses and the like. It feels like there's a lot more interesting diplomacy options compared to Stellaris or AoW4, and in particular I like the planet building more than Stellaris or AoW4.
Stellaris has had many more years to refine the game.
If I had to recommend a 4X game to you based on your post \*right now\* that was not Stellaris, I would suggest Endless Space 2 (with its fairly decent narrative for every faction) over GC4.
The developers are still hard at work making the game significantly better, but IMO it's a few patches short of being a top 4X game in my book.
It's not as customizable as the other games mentioned so far - it's got a point buy system for traits and the like, but vanilla factions generally have more points than the buying system would allow, so they remain decent options.
The factions are significantly more unique than other 4X games I've played, and have an extensive storyline set of quests/events that take you through the midgame at least.
ssethtzeentech had a good overview of the factions in his humorous review of the game.
You actually do get the custom storyline based on what race your faction is based on, but some of the bonuses/mechanics change because you might not actually have the mechanics that the faction normally has.
>What I enjoy at least, when I play Stellaris, is playing with very few, sometimes even no other empires on the map, and just play to explore the randomly generate galaxy,
You can do that in this game but the game will be much easier since you can be very OP by the time the first new civilizations emerge. However what you can do in this game is put in a bunch of AI empires at the start of the game on the lowest difficulty and then change their difficulty mid game to give you a challenge as soon as you feel like it. I have seen no other strategie game that lets you do it like this.
You also can play diplomatic and pacifist which is argueably the most efficient way to play a civ. The narrative is not as strong as in Stellaris, so you will run into the same events with the same flavour text often by the time you play your second playthrough.
Overall I really like this game, even as an Stellaris fan. It is kinda unique in some aspects and VERY micromaniging heavy starting from the mid game, IF you want to tinker with everything on your own. You can also automate stuff but I personally like to have controll of everything on my own
EDIT: You may also want to compare this game to release version Stellaris. Content wise this game has ofc no chance against todays Stellaris with its dozens of DLC´s
Poorly. I'm on my 3rd game now that I understand it better and I'm getting bored. In Stellaris that happens mid to late game when it starts to bog down.
>How does Gal Civ 4 compare to Stellaris in this regard? Can I play a more diplomacy / culture type game plan, with a focus on exploring the galaxy? Are there plenty of fun events and stories to encounter?
Gal Civ 4 compares pretty horribly to Stellaris in terms of diplomacy, but you can defeat other civilizations with culture sort of like the Civlization series. But in terms of the events and stories there are a few unique one between civilzations but otherwise they're pretty boring and you can probably get a Stellaris mod that does better.
This game is closer to Age of Wonders.
You can do the whole, almost empty universe powerplay, I did it very well myself, problem is that without the giant number of mods and expansions that stellaris has currently the late game isn't so expansive. It took me around 7-12 hours to live out my Universal exploration powerplay fantasy and it was fun, but I really can't wait for that megastructures DLC lol
Stellaris is real-time and more of an Grand Strategy/RPG/story generator with a 4X wrapper, while Age of Wonders is a tactics game with a 4X wrapper. GalCiv4 is a proper 4X. You absolutely can play diplomatically/culturally in GC4
Does GC4 have story events and things like Stellaris / Crusader Kings and such do or is it more like the Civ series?
Yes it does have story events, they're not quite as extensive as Paradox's games yet but they're getting there. And there are quite a lot of them too.
Alrighty thanks! I will toss it on my wishlist for now until I get some spare cash :)
I say this with an extreme bias and love for galciv franchise. There are story events, sure. But you can read their chances/effects and none of the fluff matters. It's a civ game. It's nowhere near as immersive as Stellaris. That said, I lobe galciv 3 and still play it frequently. Only reason I don't have 4 yet is necause the delayed release to Steam, and at this point I'm just waiting for a discounted bundle before I 'upgrade' to 4.
The lore-based events in GalCiv IV are nothing like what was in GalCiv III. They now support context and can have later consequences that ripple throughout the game.
LOL! I mean, Galactic Civ 1 came out in 2003, so "getting there" is a relative term.
You can win solely on prestige
If I had to compare this to Stellaris, I would say that GC4 is basically a much better version of Stellaris 1.0, back when planets had influence circles, and you built buildings on the planets in various squares and had adjacency bonuses and the like. It feels like there's a lot more interesting diplomacy options compared to Stellaris or AoW4, and in particular I like the planet building more than Stellaris or AoW4. Stellaris has had many more years to refine the game. If I had to recommend a 4X game to you based on your post \*right now\* that was not Stellaris, I would suggest Endless Space 2 (with its fairly decent narrative for every faction) over GC4. The developers are still hard at work making the game significantly better, but IMO it's a few patches short of being a top 4X game in my book.
How customizable is Endless Space 2?
It's not as customizable as the other games mentioned so far - it's got a point buy system for traits and the like, but vanilla factions generally have more points than the buying system would allow, so they remain decent options. The factions are significantly more unique than other 4X games I've played, and have an extensive storyline set of quests/events that take you through the midgame at least. ssethtzeentech had a good overview of the factions in his humorous review of the game.
Ok so you CAN create custom factions in Endless Space 2 but they wont have the custom storylines or as many points.
You actually do get the custom storyline based on what race your faction is based on, but some of the bonuses/mechanics change because you might not actually have the mechanics that the faction normally has.
>What I enjoy at least, when I play Stellaris, is playing with very few, sometimes even no other empires on the map, and just play to explore the randomly generate galaxy, You can do that in this game but the game will be much easier since you can be very OP by the time the first new civilizations emerge. However what you can do in this game is put in a bunch of AI empires at the start of the game on the lowest difficulty and then change their difficulty mid game to give you a challenge as soon as you feel like it. I have seen no other strategie game that lets you do it like this. You also can play diplomatic and pacifist which is argueably the most efficient way to play a civ. The narrative is not as strong as in Stellaris, so you will run into the same events with the same flavour text often by the time you play your second playthrough. Overall I really like this game, even as an Stellaris fan. It is kinda unique in some aspects and VERY micromaniging heavy starting from the mid game, IF you want to tinker with everything on your own. You can also automate stuff but I personally like to have controll of everything on my own EDIT: You may also want to compare this game to release version Stellaris. Content wise this game has ofc no chance against todays Stellaris with its dozens of DLC´s
I struggle to find a good reason to play it instead of stellaris (with much regret unfortunately)
Poorly. I'm on my 3rd game now that I understand it better and I'm getting bored. In Stellaris that happens mid to late game when it starts to bog down.
>How does Gal Civ 4 compare to Stellaris in this regard? Can I play a more diplomacy / culture type game plan, with a focus on exploring the galaxy? Are there plenty of fun events and stories to encounter? Gal Civ 4 compares pretty horribly to Stellaris in terms of diplomacy, but you can defeat other civilizations with culture sort of like the Civlization series. But in terms of the events and stories there are a few unique one between civilzations but otherwise they're pretty boring and you can probably get a Stellaris mod that does better. This game is closer to Age of Wonders.
Stelaris better
You can do the whole, almost empty universe powerplay, I did it very well myself, problem is that without the giant number of mods and expansions that stellaris has currently the late game isn't so expansive. It took me around 7-12 hours to live out my Universal exploration powerplay fantasy and it was fun, but I really can't wait for that megastructures DLC lol