Quoted from the wikipedia page regarding 4X games: Planetary Annihilation has all of this. Though some parts work slightly differently. "Eliminating a rival's presence", for example, is less "Take your land" and more "Turn your land into chunks of rock as I smash my asteroids into it". Exploiting lasts until planets run dry, I guess. Just found this quite funny.
Pretty much every (good) competitive game have these factors in some respect, but I get your point. I do not however agree, PA does not have much to do with games like Civilization in my opinion (aside from the obvious similarities in genre). the reason why i think this way is the pace. Going from turn based to a game where you have to make every last second count to win changes everything, EVERYTHING. I can't emphesize that enough Now you could say that not all 4x games have to be slow or turn based, but that is what I think when I hear it, and that is what I think most people think. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though
Almost every RTS will meet those specifications, but I consider 4x games to be turn based. There might be a few that are real time but I don't know of them.
Stardrive Too bad it isn't multiplayer though. Either way Turn based ones hold the top spots as far as awesomeness in that genre currently, and not many companies are making them these days. I see 4X come up a bunch in the forums for this game and I can see why for sure. This game has a lot of potential to fill that gap too. It's missing space combat, Diplomacy and research (research might not be necessary) but if a total conversion mod came out with those I don't think i'd ever play vanilla. If anyone is interested in attempting to mod this game into a 4x, hit me up and I'll help any way I can.
If Stardrive was multiplayer, 2013 would be the year I never leave the house. PA, StarDrive and StarBound? Hell yes. On a plus note, Stardrive does have mod support. Maybe multiplayer could be built in. Personally I don't think it's as appealing as PA though.
One does not simply mod in multiplayer. The game has to be designed for it from the ground up. Sure, you can hack in some network connectivity and duplication, but it'll be a subpar experience that feels just like it is - hacky.
It's also an RPG as we roleplay as a commander. Genre names are far too vague IMO. <rant> It's this kind of logic that makes Steams greenlight useless, far too many games are tagged as practically every genre. No your Team deathmatch game is not strategy, even though you need to use some tactics to win. And no your not roleplaying as a soldier either. Also persistant player stats and rank don't make your game an MMO. </rant>
