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[pilgrimboy]

I'm really looking for a 4x space game with a twist on the exterminate part. I don't want to have to just focus on exploring, expanding, and exploiting for the sake of building ships and fighting another race. I want to explore, expand, and exploit, without the traditional take on exterminate. I want a different take. Anyone know of one?

[nenjin]

Gal Civ, I'm pretty sure, has options for diplomatic and technology victories. Generate a large enough universe and get the right placement and you probably can play most of the game without having to exterminate the other races.

Sword of the Stars 1 might? also fit this description.

[Frumple]

Fairly sure distant worlds has some pretty non-standard victory conditions. Not sure what else off the top of my head, other than there's more than a few that have tech victory conditions of some sort of another. S'just usually not something you can realistically get before you blow everyone else up.

[pilgrimboy]

Haven't played Distant Worlds yet, but Galactic Civilizations always devolves into fighting for me even when I want to play it differently. Like Frumple said, these different victory paths usually rest on the other side of blowing everyone up or fighting a lot. I'm not looking to fight a lot. I'm looking to explore, exploit, and expand. Encountering foreign cultures along the way.

[Frumple]

Yeah... DW can have a lot of fighting involved, but it depends on a buncha' stuff, from what I've seen. You can go largely peaceful and/or defensive and still pull out a victory, at least for some of the species.

More than that, one of the gimmicks, so to speak, of DW is that you can automate pretty much everything. If you don't want to bother with the military aspect and want to focus on everything else, well... you can just let the computer handle that part. Not so sure how impressive the diplomacy is, though... I haven't actually played the game much. Just a little bit a long ways back and recently read through a let's play, and the latter looked to have a lot of options (comparatively, anyway) for the player.

[Zangi]

Distant Worlds:
You can set how 'friendly' your own government/AI is overall.  But... the alien AI can still piss off your AI.

Setting tendency to go to war: Low
Your AI will almost never be the one to declare war.  Actually, they never have from my experience.  Its different for the alien AI though, they use default settings... but... you can spend credits and do stuff to placate them.
Also, if you have ships on automated... they may decide to attack outposts within your territory if your AI hates the trespassing outpost's owner enough... which will increasingly sour relations if left unchecked for years...  You also take a big hit to reputation. (The Guardians... damn em...)
Mind you, friendly treaties like giving mining rights, refueling rights, rare resource trade and free trade that you ggrant, it can be nullified by your AI, due to your AI not liking the alien AI. 
Though, you can set the tendency/willingness to break treaties to low... but hate is still a strong factor.
EDIT: For clarification, this is if you have both Peace Diplomacy and War Diplomacy at fully automated.

Each race has a 'I naturally like you/I naturally hate you' factor with the other races.  For example, the Insectoids and Humanoids do not naturally get along. 
Some races are war-like by default and will probably pick a fight with you if they dislike you.  There are other factors which can cause war, like being near enough another kingdom that they would want your stuff or if you are massively bigger/superior(envy). 
And yea, each race has unique victory conditions too, so yea.

I've been playing on Legends, I'm pretty sure they added the automated options for the base game too, but meh, I'm not checking.

If you are turned off by the cartoonish race pictures, you could try the extended 38 races mod on the matrix forums, changes all the pictures.  And there are the individual ones that change the pictures too and what-not.

[jocan2003]

I would go with distant world too, you can manage the spy/agent network and work covertly while the bots take care of the miliary, expansion, defense, ship design etc. Thats just one thing out of many. Focus on exploration, or little strategic strike on enemy installation or... well... you have to try it to understand.

Be warned tho, there is a LOT LOT LOT LOT of tweaks/information/settings you will have to sift trough to set the perfect game for you.

[RedKing]

Play Aurora with all NPRs and spoiler races turned off. Then it's just you and a great big universe to explore and settle.

SotS 1 had a handful of scenarios that gave you clear win conditions that might involve combat along the way, but didn't require you to utterly crush your opponents.

Holy Lands: Each race has a series of five "sacred worlds" that they must settle as part of a grand pilgrimage. After you settle the first, you receive a vision telling you where the next one is. Establish colonies on all five and maintain them for X turns, and you win.

Jewels of the Crown: Hivers lose their jewels. Their goal is to find them and bring them back home (and they're AI). The Humans have to find them and research them. The Tarkas have to find and hold them for 10 years. The Liir have to find them and give them back to the Hivers (who will be a hostile AI).

The Gathering: As the Morrigi, you must gather a certain number of civilians of all the other races under your banner. This doesn't have to be done by force (could be done by using propaganda ships and trade to lower a colony's loyalty rating until they declare independence, then getting them to join your side, for instance). Also, if any one enemy empire is utterly wiped out, you lose. This discourages using overwhelming force to grab colonies, and also forces you to act as a grand arbiter, maintaining a balance of power.


Frankly, I love games with multiple (and often competing) victory conditions especially when more than a few don't involve overt conflict.

[pilgrimboy]

Thanks guys. Feel free to keep talking. I'm enjoying it.

I was looking at Distant Worlds on Christmas Eve. Maybe I'll pick it up today.

[pilgrimboy]

With Distant Worlds, are both of the expansions good?

[Zangi]

With Distant Worlds, are both of the expansions good?

I don't even remember what the original one looks like... without the expansions.  I barely even remember Shakturi without the Legends expansion either, come to think of it.
A lot of what I said in my previous post is a result of having both the expansions actually...

There is a 3rd expansion coming too.  Pirates and boarding action... and playing as a pirate/mercenary band instead of a kingdom.  I'm so buying that.

Spoiler: Shakturi (click to show/hide)

New backstory
Two new alien races with exciting storyline events!
Next chapter of the storyline where a possible intergalactic menace returns!
Fighters and Carriers
Build fighter bay components into ships and bases
Fighters launch from carriers to intercept enemies: standard fighters that attack other fighters, bombers that attack ships and bases. Several fighter and bomber variants available with research.
Completely new Research system with comprehensive tech trees
Greatly expanded technology options with customizable research costs allow you to tailor your game to your liking!
Queue multiple research projects in each tree, crash research to obtain new tech faster
Some research projects improve existing components, minimizing the need to retrofit ships and bases to obtain new tech advantages
New tech for your ships and bases
Missiles faster and longer range than torpedoes
Ion Weapons fire ion bolts that disable weapons and engines of enemy ships
Ion Defense protects ships and bases from the effects of ion weapons
Point Defense Cannons attack enemy fighters and bombers
Fleet Targeting Uplink improve weapons targeting of all nearby ships
Fleet Area ECM improve countermeasures of all nearby ships
Area Shield Restore quickly recharge shields of your nearby ships when in battle
HyperBlock Components provide safe zone around space ports, pulling enemy ships out of hyperspace before they reach a target
Trace Scanners reveal internal details of enemy ships and bases
Planetary Facilities built at colonies
Troop Academy trains elite troops with high strength
Robotic Troop Foundry manufactures robotic troops
Troop Cloning Facility clones the best troops in your empire
Giant Ion Cannon fires disabling ion bolts at invading enemy ships
Planetary Shield defends the colony against enemy bombardment
Regional Capital provides additional capitals in your empire, reducing corruption in nearby colonies
User Interface Improvements
Action Buttons - One-click access to common tasks, enabling you to easily manage most of your empire directly from the main screen
Colonize planets, build mining stations and other bases
Construct new ships and bases at space ports and colonies
Select enemy targets to attack
Empire Navigation Tool - Set of scrollable lists that provide quick access to everything in your empire: colonies, space ports, fleets, potential colonies, potential mining stations, etc.
Hover over an item in the list to ping its location in the main view
Click an item in the list to select it, double-click an item to move to it
Enemy Targets List - Shows all known enemy targets
Click a target to assign the nearest available fleet to attack it
Or cycle your fleets to attack with the selected fleet
Build Orders - Mass-produce many new ships in one simple step
Fleet enhancements
Automated Fleet formation generates both large and small sized fleets to more effectively handle both offense and defense
Automated Fleets automatically respond to intercept nearby enemies without additional player management
Other
Empire Policies: More detailed control over the automation of your empire set policy options that your advisers will enact for you, allowing you to focus on the strategic level.
New galaxy shapes in game setup
Extended modding support
Access to tech descriptions during Diplomacy
Many other minor improvements
Play Distant Worlds in windowed mode minimize the window while your game plays in the background

Spoiler: Legends (click to show/hide)

New character system, including Leaders, Admirals, Generals, Ambassadors, Governors, Agents and Scientists, all with defined skills and traits and the opportunity to advance and improve
New modelling of borders and spheres of influence
New expanded gameplay with race-specific events and victory conditions, as well as a new hidden faction!
Expanded technology tree, including dedicated carriers, cutting lasers, rail guns, new planetary facilities and wonders
Improved AI and an updated Diplomacy system with refuelling and mining rights as well as immigration policies
Improved fleet management and automation, including fleet postures
Improved modding support, including full race and character modding

[gimlet]

Even in good old Space Empires IV you have multiple options - massive espionage can dismember enemies planet by planet.  Or just mega-grow and they'll surrender to you when you're big enough.  Or you can subjugate a few races instead of absorbing/exterminating them and let them do all the actual fighting to win a coalition victory, just concentrating on building your economy and feeding them ships, tech and resources...

[Girlinhat]

Aurora?  If you turn NPR off you can expand as much as you want!  And if you know how to use the "Star Master" commands you can add AIs later on to spice things up.  So long as you can deal with the incredible learning curve...

Aurora does have fairly nice ideas for new colonies though.  Any that are beyond your race's tolerance for gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, and oxygen level, you have to provide Infrastructure for them to survive.  You can terraform planets to suit certain bits of temperature and modify ALL of the atmosphere, and then you can also genetically engineer whole new races, as derived from original races (ie, no 3rd-generation-mutations).  So if, for instance, you find a very cold, small world, that you cannot inhabit, then you can modify portions of your species to handle lower gravity and lower temperature.  Still not enough?  Modify them to handle higher atmospheric pressure, then pump more greenhouse gasses to make it hotter.  Still bad?  Go conquer that race of yeti, and then modify THEM for lower temperature!  Once you exploit different races and the extremes of engineering, you can populate most everything.

[RedKing]

Aurora?  If you turn NPR off you can expand as much as you want!  And if you know how to use the "Star Master" commands you can add AIs later on to spice things up.  So long as you can deal with the incredible learning curve...

Aurora does have fairly nice ideas for new colonies though.  Any that are beyond your race's tolerance for gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, and oxygen level, you have to provide Infrastructure for them to survive.  You can terraform planets to suit certain bits of temperature and modify ALL of the atmosphere, and then you can also genetically engineer whole new races, as derived from original races (ie, no 3rd-generation-mutations).  So if, for instance, you find a very cold, small world, that you cannot inhabit, then you can modify portions of your species to handle lower gravity and lower temperature.  Still not enough?  Modify them to handle higher atmospheric pressure, then pump more greenhouse gasses to make it hotter.  Still bad?  Go conquer that race of yeti, and then modify THEM for lower temperature!  Once you exploit different races and the extremes of engineering, you can populate most everything.

*cough*

Play Aurora with all NPRs and spoiler races turned off. Then it's just you and a great big universe to explore and settle.

Point of order: infrastructure doesn't help with gravity tolerances. But yeah, the mix of terraforming and genetic engineering means potentially TONS of possible habitats. Taken to the nth level when you experiment on those subjugated space yetis. I still hope Steve puts in a research to switch Oxygen breathers to Methane or vice versa. And it'd be nice if different races had different inherent ground unit strengths (I want to see Bulrathi, dammit!)

And generally, the simplified diplomacy model in Aurora means that as long as you can communicate with them and don't try anything too blatantly expansionist (like colonizing a planet/moon in their home system), you can eventually have peaceful co-existence and trade. Only the spoiler races (or races too alien to communicate with) are irretrievably hostile.

[Ringmaster]

Aurora?  If you turn NPR off you can expand as much as you want!  And if you know how to use the "Star Master" commands you can add AIs later on to spice things up.  So long as you can deal with the incredible learning curve...

Probably worth mentioning that in the current version, I think there's a bug related to being unable to spawn any NPR (Or spawn a player race that isn't situated on Earth) as the SM, but older versions do have this capability.