I have been investigating various games like that recently myself. My all-time favorite games are:
- Imperium Galactica 2 (very story driven)
- Pax Imperium
They are old, and hard to find, but hold a special memory in my mind. Also, the best:
- Space Empires III and IV
Those got me onto the internet, and made me the person I am today. No kidding. The community that those games spawned was amazing, and I had an incredible time playing with the amazing folks. Made some good friends, too. The sequel, Space Empires V, is not nearly as bad as people here suggest - but it doesn't capture my imagination the same way. Perhaps because I couldn't mod my personal race due to my render files being unavailable.
From recent times, here are a few:
- Sword Of The Stars I and II - a recent discovery, I'm still learning. Very different, I like what I see. Kind of arbitrary in interesting ways.
- StarDrive... I want this game to be good. I love how it looks and plays, and hope it gets proper development. It's in a still-in-development-release right now, but the developer is promising big things
- Endless Space is a game that went through similar, but much higher class, development. It's simpler than many other games, but I highly recommend it.
I also am aware of Aurora. It apparently makes DF learning curve look really easy, but lets you customize EVERYTHING. That said, it's hard to install, hard to run, and hard to play. I don't know how good it is as I got frustrated with it's lack of DLL's, and gave up for the next while (am busy
). Be aware to NOT let this game install its DLL's over your system or system32 folder.
That's it for now, I'm curious about the other titles mentioned here
EDIT: I also have played Galactic Empires I and II, and Sins of the Solar Empire: Rebellion. Those games failed to capture my interest