Any Civ fans enjoyed any of the modern "mini" 4X games? (Polytopia, Ozymandias, etc)

[bmaupin]

There seems to have been a recent trend of "mini" 4X games: 4X games designed to be completed in much shorter sessions, often no more than 1-2 hours.

While I love a long session of Civ that's not an option for me right now, so I think these games are appealing in principle.

• The Battle of Polytopia seems to be one of the first and most popular. I bought it but found it's so extremely simplified that it didn't scratch the Civ itch for me.
• Ozymandias dropped the eXploration from 4X altogether: no random maps, no fog of war, etc. I didn't even bother trying it.
• Hexarchy has an interesting twist: it uses cards and deck-building to constrain the available actions per turn. A lot of thought went into this game and I tried the demo a couple of times but once again, it just doesn't feel like it's scratching the Civ itch.

Now Yield! Fall of Rome just hit 1.0 a few days ago. Some of the reviews compare it favourably to Polytopia and Hexarchy, but there's no demo available, and I'm hesitant to give it a spin after bouncing off the other games. So I was curious if any Civ ... fanatics found any appeal in any of these games or other similar mini 4X games. Maybe my expectations for these games is too high?

In the meantime my solution has been to try to mod Civ itself to be able to play a full match in one sitting, with varied results

What I wish is that Firaxis would just release CivRev for PC (apparently they built it on PC according to Sid Meier) but I don't expect that will ever happen. Seems they've got their hands full with Civ 7.

 

[The_J]

I've played the demo of Ozymandias, and I quite liked it (also some others of the staff, but some others not).
I'm not anymore much of a gamer, so short time frames appeal to me, which can be squeezed in between. I actually had not thought that a short 4X game would work, but for me Ozymandias works quite well.
I think part of the basic 4X appeal is to optimize your empire over the map, depending on the terrain, and that it does well. Other parts are obviously simplified, and you should not expect to get 100s of hours of of them, but ... well, I think a 100 should still be possible.

Another game for this category is PocketCiv, https://store.steampowered.com/app/1532240/PocketCiv/ .

 

[Pedro P]

Well, my favorite civ related experience was hundred hour long campaign of Civ 4 Caveman 2 Cosmos. I am a lover of bloat and more content than I can swallow. So you can guess my opinion on mini 4x and other minimalist games like Old World.

Would be more neutral on it IF I also got my mega bloated games. But nope.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Haven't tried any of them, so can't help you, sorry.
I'm considering pulling the trigger on Ozymandias, though. The first "X" is the one I care the least about, but then again I'm apparently one of the rare people who'll replay the same Civ map again and again (first to beat it, then beat it better, then beat if differently).

Now, one thing I don't understand...

4X games designed to be played in short sessions

I know that it's the terminology employed on those games' pages... but it makes no sense to me.
They're games designed to be completed in short sessions.

A standard game of civ can most definitely be played in short sessions: just play a few turns at a time.
It might take a month to complete a game, but where's the problem ?

 

[The_J]

Haven't tried any of them, so can't help you, sorry.
I'm considering pulling the trigger on Ozymandias, though. The first "X" is the one I care the least about, but then again I'm apparently one of the rare people who'll replay the same Civ map again and again (first to beat it, then beat it better, then beat if differently).

I can't find it on Steam, but on GOG there is still the demo available https://www.gog.com/en/game/ozymandias_bronze_age_empire_sim_demo .

 

[bmaupin]

So you can guess my opinion on mini 4x and other minimalist games like Old World.

I've never heard of Old World described as minimalist. My understanding is it's just as complex as Civ and games last just as long. I wouldn't consider it a mini 4X at all and I'm not aware that it claims to be such.

I know that it's the terminology employed on those games' pages... but it makes no sense to me.
They're games designed to be completed in short sessions.

Good catch, I updated my post to fix the wording.