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[starscream]

4x space games are among my favorite genre, but they get tedious after a while.
are there any out there that have a really good top-end 'manager' ui?

[puke]

Distant Worlds has good automation of as much of the game as you want to automate. 

If you use some of the big Mod packs, MOO3 was a good "Macro Management" game.  I think it got panned a little unfairly.

[MrWiggles]

Well moo3 is pretty much broken.

[Delta Foxtrot]

But I hear the mods really fixed her up.

[puke]

Strawberry fixes it up fine, and adds UI improvements.  Tropical and Chocolate go above the graphics and UI improvements to actually change gameplay.

I liked Chocolate because it had this neat emigration / auto-colonization feature that I thought enhanced the macro scale feeling of the game, but I dont think that it has been maintained as much as Tropical has.

[Hanzoku]

The other problem with Moo3 is you need an old system to run it on. I couldn't get it running on any x64 OS I had, and it wouldn't play nice with a x86 virtual machine, either.

[xaritscin]

Star Ruler? Sins of a Solar Empire?

[Bouchart]

The other problem with Moo3 is you need an old system to run it on. I couldn't get it running on any x64 OS I had, and it wouldn't play nice with a x86 virtual machine, either.

GOG sells Master of Orion 3 so I'm assuming they've made it work for a modern computer.  The asking price of $10 is a bit much, though.

[puke]

Sins is closer to a RTS, and it still grinds as you get big.  Supreme Commander would be a better example if a good management UI, as you can mass produce and bulk select thousands of units at a time.

Does Star Ruler have much of a macro-management interface?  I never got very far with it.

There are tons of space 4X games now (after a bit of a drought) but not many do much to relieve late game micromanagement.

I could use repeating build orders, automatic waypoints, and auto-upgrade plans to mostly handle my large SE4 games - but it only worked against casual players or the AI.  In a competitive game against a veteran player, it was "go micro or die".

That said, there were plenty of guys good enough to beat me while they were playing "on autopilot" themselves.

[starscream]

Distant Worlds has good automation of as much of the game as you want to automate. 

If you use some of the big Mod packs, MOO3 was a good "Macro Management" game.  I think it got panned a little unfairly.

looks okay, but i'm hesitant to dish out $60 for yet another 4x space game that will probably disappoint me.

moo2 still remains my all time favorite, but i think i'm good and done with that franchise.

[Flare]

Star Ruler doesn't really have a macro interface at all, though most of the players just find a way around that with the automation features and preprogrammed civilian ships into the late game, that an be used to create systems that will more or less take care of themselves (though of course, not optimally as if a human being is watching and adjusting it constantly). The most useful things in it are the side tabs that you can create to go to important objects in the game itself like manufacturing planets, shipyards in engineered solar solar systems, and of course, fleets, or that one big ship.

[Majestic7]

Sword of the Stars is pretty macro. Ships are built manually etc, but the planet management is very similar to MoO1. SotSII continues in the same vein. It came out unplayable, but Kerberos fixed it up so it is very nice now. Unfortunately diplomacy and espionage were never properly added, so if you enjoy just researching, colonizing and fighting, then it is a good game. If it had a working diplomacy mode, it would be an excellent game.

[Parsely]

MOO2 is prolly my most favorite 4X because of how simple the management is in that game, though it can be hard to fully understand the formulas behind everything once you really start to dig.