Favorite aspect of 4x games

[aegisx]

What is your favorite aspect of 4x games? For me, it is the planning, politics and general epic'ness.

Lately I have been thinking about the old days of playing pbm/pbem games that were all text based but had GM involvement. Sure you had to use your imagination, but the flexibility more than made up for it.

[Captain Kwok]

I like the spaceships.

[aegisx]

Captain Kwok said:
I like the spaceships.

Of course, add that to mine

[Ironmanbc]

I like storylines
or a bit of role playing and quests

ya know like ruins that add to your race as well as ships tech

or like making a fleet of 30 ships that give a plus to your race happyness (oh wait thats SE4) or make the fleet blockade a warp point that no other ship can pass with out paying some kind of payment (like ships or ship tech) (or board them and take it anyways)

[bearclaw]

eXploring. Love entering a new system and even have to explore individual systems now.

[Suicide Junkie]

Top on my list would be the plotting and planning, and squeezing a victory out of your inferior forces.

[Ed Kolis]

I'd have to agree with Bearclaw, but extend the exploration aspect to the research tree - "ooh, what cool goodies can I get NOW? " That's part of the reason I like the Zelda and Metroid games, too - every so often you get a new weapon that does twice the damage of your old one and makes you say "I AM GOD! Nothing can stop me!" - and then pretty soon you find an enemy with ten times as many hitpoints!

[Baron Munchausen]

The logistics of Empire building. Figuring how to settle and develop systems is great fun. Which is why I am constantly pestering MM to add more 'simulation' features for greater detail and realism in the economic side of the game.

Getting to manage battles is also fun, of course. If you're strong enough to win, at least... it gets much less fun if the enemy is wiping you out.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Baron, stop reading my mind!

[PvK]

First, I loathe the "4X" label, and games that really are limited to the simple explore, expand, exploit, exterminate model.

Expand & exploit are often done in simplistic fake-o ways.
Exterminate is just wrong. Agro-civilized humans' 4X attitude is liable to kill ourselves off before we even get to the explore stage.

I like games that create an interesting game universe where many different things are going on and interrelating, that you can interact with in creative and interesting ways.

I also like interesting tactical situations and the opportunity they create to use cleverness to effect (even if I can only guide the tactical AI in advance). At the very least, I want a "4X" game to provide context for interesting tactical engagements.