Favorite aspect of 4x games

[dmm]

I play solo against the AI, so good AI is important.

In the early stage, it's the risk. You have to expand as fast as you can, but if you don't put enough into military and then meet up with hostiles...goodbye colonizers ["Taps" plays].

Then in the middle stage, it's keeping other empires at bay while you build up enough to launch assaults. Swallow the weak empires, and weaken the strong. Where is their home system?!

Then the late stage, where suddenly you're MEE and all the remaining AIs unite against you. Individually, they were all doomed, but now you're in crisis mode again.

Finally, the mopping up. It's all over, and you don't want to lose any more of your fine military men and women, but the enemy won't admit defeat. The remaining empires were once powerful, and their planets are heavily fortified. Do you send in wave after wave of troops, or just glass them in frustration? Your restive citizens are in no mood for a war of attrition. They are demanding either peace or military victories. They give you hardly any credit for your new sphereworld. Philistines!!

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For SEIV, I would like to see some more mega-projects, ones that only a dominant empire could research, build, and finance. For instance: a Death Star that dwarfs even mother ships; lots more projects to keep people happy; super-cloning facilities to make your population sky-rocket; and miniaturization tech to increase facility space. Guess I need to start modding.