Different spin on 4X game

First, a definition: A 4X game is one of those 'start on your home planet, conqueor the universe' games.

X-plore
X-pand
X-ploit
X-terminate

Some game industry guy (reviewer?) coined the term Many Years ago. The MOO games are the classic example (though the most recent installment was a disapointment to me).

So, these games are generally turn-based (but there have been a couple attempts at RTS), universally science fiction.

There's really no third option in game progression... it's either real time or its turn based... though I suppose you could allow pausing in an RTS. Not much you can do there.

But you CAN change the 'sci-fi' part.

HuH!? How do you go from planet to planet without science?

Magic.

There was an old PC game called "Master[s?] of Magic" that exemplified this idea. It looked remarkably like the original Civilization (and I suspect it was built on the same code base), but everything was in a fantasy setting. You could cast spells to summon units, change terrain, provide bonuses to your cities (one or all) and so forth... plus all the city/army building stuff from Civ. You reasearched spells as well as technologies. Cool game. It also added a tactical element to the combats. No biggy now, but back then I thought it was Very Cool. Sadly, it didn't get much attention, and there was no sequal.


So give the 4X genre the same treatment. Instead of researching fusion and metalurgy, you're studying various realms of magic... earth/air/fire/water, teleportation, astral travel, summoning and constructing living beings, self-transformations (hard to live on the elemental plane of fire unless you ARE fire), etc.

You could have a vary similar race consturction system as one you might find in a typical 4X game.

In fact, there'd be quite a few parallels. You could even do a straight conversion changing 'nothing but' all the art, sounds and verbage. But where's the fun in that?

There were two dimensions in Master of Magic... you could have MANY in a magical 4X. In fact, you might even get away with a single world plus all the available dimensions (instead of worlds). Instead of travel time, you'd have 'casting time'... etc etc.

Instead of designing ships, you could design monsters/constructs... spells? Spell design could turn out something Really Impressive when you have the resources of a world to pump through it. All those wizards in a high-magic D&D setting working together on a single purpose.

Forge political alliances with Otherworldly Beings (trade magical resources, summon loyal units in return for... something those Beings want. Souls? Your own population, prisoners perhaps.)

Various wards could be very important to block scrying, travel (gateways, teleportation), and various attacks... bolts from the blue, plauges that turn your pease-loving citizens into the Walking Dead, monsters apearing within your city's walls (cheaper to summon because you don't have to control it, just drop it on their heads).

Race design: Affinities for various magic sources and applications, life span, % magically active (have one immortal being of vast power, or an entire species capable of relatively little individually), home dimension, plus a lot of the usual stuff (growth, production, etc).

Spells might have an upper limit based on how much power a given individual could channel... until they started researching ritual magic allowing more and more of them to work together, and ways for those individuals to use more power safely.


Oodles of possibilites.

--Mark