I know this criteria highly limit my choices, especially when it comes to strategy games still, for a variety of reasons, nowadays I only play games with a controller and I was wondering if there were any 4X games or similar enough available to purchase on GOG that you could recommend.

So far I've found the following proper 4X games:

Age of Wonders: Planetfall and Age of Wonders 4: I own both of them with all their extensions, I really like these ones.

As for 4X-adjacent games, I know of:

Songs of Conquest: I own this one too, love the retro-style graphic. The strategic layer is quite limited compared to AoW, but it's still a nice game with an interesting combat system.

SpellForce: Conquest of Eo: I've know about this one for some times but I'm not sold on it yet. I understand that "random" map generation has been added after release, this is a must-have feature. Maybe you can convince me to pick it up?

And... that's all I found. I don't expect the list to get much bigger, unfortunately many strategy game developers don't see the value of adding controller support to their games even though it's a perfectly viable way to play when it comes to turn-based games.

I was really interested in Old World for example, and there is a message from a dev in the Steam forum saying that controller support was a work in progress, but years later the game page has not been updated and I could not find any information about controller support in the patch notes :-(

I know there are some games optimised for touch screens, so mobiles and such. Not quite the same thing but maybe that would work for you too.

I only play games on my laptop which doesn't have a touch-screen, so that's not an option for me.

Revival: Recolonization has received the controller support (according to official announcement for the patch from June 2025)

https://www.gog.com/en/game/revival_recolonization

Thanks for the suggestion ! I'll go watch some reviews for it, see if it's any good :-)

I used both steam controller support and 'Xpadder' for my non-steam games to enable controllers in a whole lot of games. 'Civ 6', 'Gladius', 'Shadow Empire' and 'Battletech' for example (yes 'Battletech' is not a 4x title i know)
Of late 'Xpadder' seems a bit wonky on Windows, or better said, Norton virus protection with all of the warnings and disabling 'xpadder'so that whole thing was partly responsible for me acknowledging steam again (also ofc the amount of games i own on Steam)

Maybe the other controller apps such as 'AntiMicro' do work better or maybe 'Xpadder' works for you, it is a paid program tho


edit:

Regarding 'Spellforce' I purchased that one blind, with their previous title 'Fantasy General 2' in mind. What a disaster! Here i am expecting armies, and you get boy scouts. Still, the game was actually kinda nice, in a 'heroes of might and magic' kind of way.

Sure, I could use that type of software but I think I'll stick to games that have native controller support, it's a better experience if the UI has been design for that use.

Battletech seems like a cool game, and since I'm playing AoW you might have guessed that I also do like turn-based tactics. Thankfully, there's a lot more titles in that genre with native controller support. Thanks for your feedback :-)

Ther was a PS1 Civ 2 port for what it's worth.

MOM, the PSX console version.

I guess Endless Space 2 has controller support but I never tried it.

Funny thing is, a couple of those titles, such as Battletech seem to have the preparation for a controller integration but it never happenend. But yea, you are right. It is easier and better if a game is designed from the ground up for a controller. Still, that never withheld me in the PC version for Dragon Age!!