I am new to 4X gaming, but love space themed games with exploration. I don't have a ton of time to put into a game, but I really want to try either this or Gal Civ 2. Both games are over my head, but which will be easier for a 4X noob? Also, which game has a better "exploration" factor? I suppose Moo 1 should be considered as well.

Off the top of my bad head, caveat emptor, MOO2 is the fastest and best intro. Things can get exciting fast in MOO2.

But before making a decision you might want to watch some videos. Space 4x is a wonderful and very large genre that you cannot exhaust.

Further info you might like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4rFkoZXlv8 this is the beginning of the wonderful tutorial and play through of Master of Orion 2 by quill18. The first few videos will teach you a lot! Quill18 is a very good commentator, like him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5aD7rxRexA is the start of a play through of Galciv 2 Twilight of the Arnor by GetDaved who is also a five star commentator.

While you are at it, do not overlook Sins of a Solar Empire Complete with all expansions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0R5zo0-W3A&feature=related A play through by GetDaved starts here. Sins is RTS but not a button mash fest. You can pause it and look around and your empire and make changes. A demo of Sins is still around if you Google.

Galciv 2 and Sins are both on sale this weekend, 4/22/2011 over at Impulse Driven. The standalone Rebellion expansion of Sins will contain all of the prior games and add new content and features. It will be out late this year or early next.

Then too, there is Sword of the Stars. Sword of the Stars 2 is coming out later this year. There is also a demo of SoTS around, make sure you get the most recent.

There are a lot of these games. Just my two cents and my IMHO take a close look at MOO2 first. MOO2 the great grand daddy of them all. MOO2 has it all in very compact and easy to learn form. Once you learn MOO2, you will judge all other space 4x in the light of the old master. Assuming you are able to unimmerse yourself long enough to look!

Thanks, Bill. I have both games, but every time I try to get into one of them, I become confused and quit. I will check out the instructional videos. Gal Civ 2 seems to be the more complex game of the two, from what I can see. I want to settle on one game and devote some time to learning it. It seems like a fun genre.

What did you end up going with? I've been tempted to buy the Gal Civ 2 Ultimate pack a couple times now, but was always told it had less character than the MOO series.

While MOO is superior in some respects, Gal Civ 2 has one of the most brutal AIs I've seen in a strategy game. The level of complexity is roughly similar in both games, so it's kind of an irrelevant criterion for picking one. I enjoyed the old MOO more, but Gal Civ is really a close second. What I really think things boil down to are the age. GC2 is newer, has better graphics and some tweaks to the political system, but MOO is overall a hell of a lot more charming.

Both are great games really, and taking the time to learn and play them can be really rewarding.

I played MoO2 yesterday from start to finish for the first time.

I found it way more simpler than GalCiv2, so maybe there's where you should start. ;)

Yeah, they're quite different games in my opinion and both, when run with right settings, are beginner friendly. MOO2 offers a more pure, basic 4X gameplay in my opinion while GalCiv2 has a nice level of complexity that will keep you engaged in it for a very long time. If I had to choose one to start with I'd go with MOO2 just because it's seems much easier to pick up and play in my opinion but once you pick up either game they will be hard to put down.

I loved Sins, but then i found the Distant Stars mod that adds such a huge number of planet types and fun map objects while retaining the core gamplay, i simply cannot play without it now.

The problem is, the game still has tons of crash issues with big mods like that.
So now i'm stuck between playing Sins vanilla and wishing it had more than a handful of planet types, and playing Sins with the mod and crashing.

This causes me to just play other games instead, lol.
But definetly a great great game.
But i would strongly recommend Sword of The Stars, much more simple in terms of being a 4x game, but with the best combat in any turn based 4x game by far. The physics in combat (mass drivers can cause ships hit to weave off course..) is unrivaled. And the user interface is absolutely brilliant.

In fact i prefer it to Galciv2 (which i feel lacks a certain "dark space" feeling), and Sins.

In the gaming press, MOO2 is still used as a measuring stick for the worth of newer 4X games. Despite its age it retains a fan-base that plays online and even holds tournaments. As for other titles, there's no contest. If you want a basic introduction to the genre with staying power, play MOO2. But I'll stray from the pack and suggest a few lesser-known titles for when you want a greater challenge in the vein of MOO2.

Space Empires IV is MOO2 on steroids, larger and more complicated, featuring hundreds of technologies and systems to explore, and dozens of races to stumble upon (and a massive number of mods). The more recent Space Empires V is sleeker, albeit at the expense of Space Empire IV's UI's simple charm. In both versions, larger games can be massive. I'm not kidding. My most memorable Space Empires IV game lasted nearly a year--collectively several months of playtime.

If that sounds somewhat insane, you might consider the game Cosmic Supremacy. In my mind it is the true spiritual successor to Master of Orion 2. Similarly easy to pick up, less easy to master. Research and colonization are handled like MOO2 and the look and feel of the game will be instantly familiar, but diplomacy is where things get interesting. Those alien civilizations you'll bump into won't be mere computer opponents. Cosmic Supremacy is a turn-based, 4X massively multiplayer space strategy game; a spectacular game and development team that has grown from its humble origin as a project for a single programmer. Server costs are funded entirely by a close-knit community's voluntary donations, so it's free to play.

Master of Orion 2 remains the simplest 4X game to pick up and play. Deceptively simple, mind you. Like Chess, it is easy to learn, much less easy to master. Actually, a comparison to Chess is quite appropriate: There are people who have been playing Master of Orion 2 for many years off and on, and have not mastered it in the slightest, yet continue to have fun regardless.

I first played MOO2 in 1996. Stuck inside my first apartment during a freezing winter, all that time on my hands, and the rules and basic strategies for managing an empire were no less frustrating to grasp. So I feel your pain. Fifteen years later, I've picked up a few good moves. But the focus of my games, whether online or off, is on having fun and immersing myself in the political intrigues and wondrous technologies of my interstellar empires. Fifteen years! No other computer game has come close to that kind of replayableness.

Semi-necro, but felt it was worth a mention

Of the MoO-style, I would go with GalCIv 2 for a newbie. If only because it is newer and easier on the eyes.

That being said, I would actually suggest the Space Empires series for a newbie. In MoO/GalCiv, the entire galaxy is one big map. So you can navigate around systems and avoid costly wars. In Space Empires, each system is its own map, and they are connected by fixed portals. So you can set up a pretty hefty defense on your border worlds, and not worry too much about your core worlds getting attacked (unless they have jumpdrives :p).
Both approaches have their merit, but the SE approach is a lot more friendly to the defensive-minded player.

I love Gal Civ 2 that game would be perfect but the lack of multiplayer kills it for me, despite having more depth on every form of play I found myself playing more MOO2 with my brothers than playing Gal Civ 2 on my own... Besides, Gal Civ 2 isn't on GoG. I also find that MOO2 is more battle/war oriented than Gal Civ 2.

Also Gal Civ 2 is very easy to mod, if only it had a MP mode(even without AI) I would cry tears of joy.

I'd recommend the opposite. The GC2 economic system still gives me a headache. I can understand it in terms of game mechanics, but it is complete nonsense if you try to imagine what you are doing from the standpoint of an imaginary interstellar civilization. The MoO2 economic system makes more sense. Either works from a game mechanics standpoint, the MoO2 one is just easier to understand when you're trying to imagine you're a galactic despot giving the orders, not just a guy in front of a computer playing a game.

Fair enough, I will fully agree that GalCiv2 is very much a game first in terms of mechanics.

That being said, I am not sure if a new gamer will need to worry too much about economics beyond "Tax until people murder you" and "If it says it gives a bonus to moneys, build it".

The catching point is the need to turn off labs to activate factories, and vice versa. There is no limited resource involved that would make the system comprehensible outside of the game mechanic level. Not people, not money, nothing. You just have to turn off a percentage of your labs to activate an equivalent percentage of your factories, regardless of what absolute quantities those two percentages may be.

I guess a newbie could just leave it at 50/50 and run with it, at low-ish difficulty levels. I still think the system is bizarre, nonsensical, and easily the most off-putting thing about GalCiv2.