So I got really into CIV 6 recently. And of course I built a huge army and started steam rolling everyone around me and made the ENTIRE WORLD furious, which apparently isnt the point of the game.
So is there a similar 4x game where I can be a warmonger and not be shunned?
Real life
CIV 5 is better than CIV 6. You can be a war monger but the effects are less than 6.
For pure carnage, CIV 4 Beyond The Sword.
There was an old computer game Warlords. It was turned based and you can even play it online nowadays.
You might like Age of Empires (2 or 4)
Age of empires 2
Maybe Hearts of Iron or Stellaris?
Stellaris Looks like a good call! But theres a million DLCs and the whole thing costs over £200 and I dont know which ones I need
You need none. They release free content together with every DLC too. Also you can get the subscription for a month and cancel immediately if you want to try all of them.
You say that as if it wasn’t true for civ 6 as well haha
Civ 6 has two DLCs.
2 expansions, 6 Frontier Pass Packs, 6 leader packs, scenario DLCs, leader DLCs. There’s a lot more than just Gathering Storm and Rise & Fall.
Honestly I didn’t even check because I sail the high seas but I had this mental image of the metric ton of dlcs civ v had
Start with the base game and take it from there. You don’t “need” any DLC
There is another comment that says this, but for clarity there is a franchise called “Total War” that has multiple editions which is exactly what you are looking for. They also have the ability to control the specific battles on the field like an RTS or you can play it with the battles operating like Civ. I personally really like the Total War Warhammer 3 edition (but I’m a Warhammer fan).
Agreed with this. Started in the CIV world with 5, then a buddy introduced me to Rome:Total War and it was like finding crack. I still like to take over all of Europe at some point once a year.
Just a heads up OP, the games are limited to regions of the world, it’s never the full globe.
I will throw in another vouch for this series. It is exactly what you’re looking for. I haven’t played any of the more recent entries but I’ve heard they’ve been received very well. Total War: Rome 2 is a classic, but for something more modern I’ve heard only good things about Three Kingdoms, though I haven’t played that one personally.
Op, this is it. The franchise has been around for decades and covers many historical eras. Recently they got into fantasy and did well with it, though personally I prefer the historical titles with the dynamic dueling.
Like Dr_Nik said, battles are either RTS style that you can choose to control, let ai take over and observe the battle instead, or you can autoresolve and skip a battle entirely. The overall gameplay is similar across each game, but the mechanics and ai behavior vary wildly across titles. If you don’t like one game, pick up another and you’ll probably love it
It works as in real life.
If you want a world where everyone welcome your power, that can only be achieved economically and with endocrinement as religion, media…
Crusader Kings 3 is my favourite game like this. I wouldn’t say the point is to go to war, but it’s a pretty big part of the experience. Has a lot of DLC but you can definitely have a ton of fun with the base game if you don’t want to commit to that.
The game “Humankind” plays very similar to civ 6, might be better to compare it to being inbetween civ 6 and 7. But it has a much more tactical combat system.
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.
I thought I would get a few minutes in before a meeting and I missed it completely. Gladius definitely scratches the itch!
Try Stellaris. It’s similar gameplay, but it’s realtime and the space battles you can get yourself into can be truly epic.
As someone who just spent the last 30 years in a huge galaxy spanning war to try and seize Terminal Egress from a 7 strong federation and then had a 10x Unbidden appear in Fen Habbanis that produced 85% of my alloys crippling my ability to fight them off for 20 years. I second this recommendation.
Total war is fantastic and fits the bill.
Hearts of Iron IV. It’s a grand strategy but War is the whole point.
Diplomacy Is Not An Option, maybe?
