4x means what?

Montana_Mike · #1 July 4th, 2001, 11:45 PM

I have played this type of game for years, but I do not know what the '4x' stands for when discribing '4x games'. Can anyone help me out?

Baal · #2 July 4th, 2001, 11:53 PM

Expand, explore, (something), exterminate. Or something similar to that. Basically it refers to games where you build and do all that stuff (planets, territory, relations, story) yourself.

Baron Munchausen · #3 July 4th, 2001, 11:54 PM

I think it's shorthand for the operations you have to carry out to play the game:

eXplore the universe
eXpand your empire
eXploit resources
eXterminate the enemy

Montana_Mike · #4 July 5th, 2001, 12:09 AM

Thanks. That make sense.

Hmm, it must be a "new" term to help refine game classifications. "New" being less than 1-2 years. Tsk, tsk, tsk. This younger generation is passing me by. ;>

Zanthor · #5 July 5th, 2001, 09:10 PM

I figured 4X meant that this is a 4th generation game. EI SE4

disabled · #6 July 5th, 2001, 10:08 PM

Did anyone hear about MOO3's new thing. they are saying they'll add 'eXperiance' to the 4x formula

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HADRIAN AVENTINE
pacea@solar-outpost.com
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capnq · #7 July 6th, 2001, 04:21 AM

quote:
Hmm, it must be a "new" term to help refine game classifications. "New" being less than 1-2 years.

According to

http://moo3.quicksilver.com/diary/index.html
Alan Emrich popularized the term in his Computer Gaming World columns after hearing it used by Tom Hughes. He doesn't mention when that was, though.

I first saw "4x" defined on the Website for the current Version of Reach for the Stars.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 06 July 2001).]

henk brouwer · #8 July 6th, 2001, 09:51 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
I think it's shorthand for the operations you have to carry out to play the game:

eXplore the universe
eXpand your empire
eXploit resources
eXterminate the enemy

in that case they should have named it 4e instead of 4x....

Puke · #9 July 6th, 2001, 12:07 PM

I think they used to be 4-R games before marketing discovered that they could do it with Xs and make it look cooler on a box.

I recall that 'Research' was one of them in the old formula, but I cant quite think of what the other were. or maybe it was with Ds, that would allow for Discover, Destroy, Develop... heck, i dont remember. I think that this X stuff seemed to start just after SMAC came out, since theirs were Explore Discover Build Conquer.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

JenMax · #10 July 7th, 2001, 05:03 PM

Perhaps the 4 "E... " might be more accurate, but look at it this way, with the 4 "X..." you are now playing a game with a rating that is one X beyond XXX. <smile> Seriously, all these 4 whatevers are marketing techniques. And se4 hasn't needed any of the madison evenue folks tp popularize it. Word of mouth has done it. Which speaks for the quality of the game.. and the community that plays the game. Se4, the best XXXX rated game in the world.