My Favorite Board Game In 2022: Space Empires 4x

My favorite board game in 2022 was a surprise to even myself. It doesn't look like much on the surface, but Space Empires 4x turned out to be the best game I discovered in 2022.

Check out the 5 reasons why I love this game and 1 reason I dislike it in today's video!
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
#spaceempires4x
@GMTGames

Space Empires is a game in the finest tradition of 4X space games - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Each player builds up a space empire and uses it to conquer the other players. Exploration on the mounted map is simple for players (and dangerous for their ships), revealing different space terrain that affects movement and combat.

Space Empires was developed to keep a rich theme without overcomplicated rules. The game includes carriers and fighters, mines, cloaking, a very large technology tree, fifteen ship classes, merchant shipping, colonization, mining, terraforming, bases, shipyards, black holes, warp points, and non-player aliens. Yet the rules are short and intuitive: The basic rules are 8 pages long and increase to 11 pages in length when the advanced rules are included.

[cetustau]

Love this game! This is a hidden gem. It is one of my favorite 4x games. It has minimal bling but the gameplay is superb. It had a retro feel, but once you get into it you quickly realize the innovations that place it at another level.

The "spread sheet" might not be elegant, but it sure does work. I have played this game with the requirement that all ships need to upgrade at a spaceyard and also with the experience level for individual ships and would not play it any other way.

Also as a bonus, this game shines at solo as well!

[-RTC-]

Love this game as well! 4 of us played 2v2 on a cabin trip to the mountains last summer, and the game took 7-8 hours because both sides kept stepping away from the table to plan our next steps. Some of the funnest gaming I’ve ever had. We play without the retrofitting rule also, and have never felt like we were missing out.

[bhekking]

Also love SE4X and totally agree about the bookkeeping. The BGA implementation has really helped make it more accessible.

[KabukiKid]

Best 4X game out there, if you ask me. :-) Have you ever considered playing it with Talon? I know you can technically mix the two games together, but I don't know anyone who ever actually tried the games that way yet.

[michaeljameskeating]

I've been eying this up on BGA, might give it a go

[RGBredgreenblue]

first: why game on the videos picked as Stellaris?
second: Space Empires VI (YES Computer game) doko?

[gregoryeverett]

This game is based on the Malfador Machinations Space Empires computer game series. I own Space Empires 3, 4, and 5. The ship and component graphics of this game are straight out of SE4. While 4 is my favorite, I still enjoy playing 3. 5 is really bad, the AI can't handle the updated game systems. While the upgraded graphics and the real time combat are nice, it seems to be beyond the AI's ability to comprehend.

[screamingslave]

I've had a copy of this game on my shelf forever but the book keeping puts everybody off. never played a round :(

[russsandbags]

Any advice on getting a hold of this title?? Would love to play it but can not find a copy

[elqord.]

If this were to relaunch with some quality of life improvements and new visuals...on Kickstarter it would absolutely KILL IT. Sadly, GMT will never ever allow for that to happen and therefore it will remain more niche than it should.

[gowensbach]

Did you make those graphics of the planets and asteroids etc, yourself? Or is that a third party creation? An expansion?! I love it. I have the game, but would love those larger graphics. Thanks in advance. Oh, you didnt mention that there is an actual Space Empires digital game...so to say it's like Stellaris is fine, but really, its a board game of the original digital game. I'm sure you knew that, probably because a lot of people still havnt heard of the old game of SE5.

[GalaxyCat]

So they made a digital implementation of a boardgame that is itself a physical implementation of a digital (SEIV) PC game??
SEIV on a PC is a great game btw.

[mr.tajtas]

I love this game. I just wish it would look better.

[elqord.]

That stock footage is unnecessary and annoying

[lastburning]

Space Empires 4x refuses to accept that it's a board game and insists on doing things that are just unfeasible for a board game. It doesn't work. The digital implementation on BGA on the other hand works.