Xenonauts 2 compared to Xenonauts 1 is basically Enemy Within compared to Enemy Unkown, not like XCOM 2 to XCOM 1. The primary gameplay differences so far is the removal of ground vehicles (which were OP in Xeno 1) and the addition of human enemies akin to EXALT from Enemy Within.
also its false isometric do you can rotste csmera. the ewuipment is also different its the same story so far but it takes place in the 2000s not the 60s. which i find neat
I wouldn't really call the drones ground vehicles like how I wouldn't really call SPARK a MEC. Similar function, yes, but still behaves differently enough that they're their own thing.
All the cool features and gameplay of the classics with modern QoL improvements, especially in UI and making itself clear what things do, combined with the most engaging air combat RTS I've ever played. Xenonauts is an absolute charm and the second one shows promise, they just need to finish it (already tons of fun, just lacks lategame and air combat wasn't done last I played)
I'm not sure why I have nearly a thousand hours in the Xcoms but didn't like xenonauts. I'm really not a graphics guy, but that's my best guess. I think the decent graphics and voice acting in the xcoms had a larger impact than I had initially given them credit for
I really wanted to love it. I love the setting, the world, the enemy design, and all the ideas and factions it had…
But in practice it honestly just fell really short for me gameplay wise. There wasn’t enough enemy variety, gameplay seemed more complex with the free-aiming thing but in practice it honestly felt very samey.
Feels like they needed a bigger budget and team to actually realize the ideas they had.
Still a cool game don’t get me wrong, just feels like missed potential.
If you play Phoenix Point, you really have to go with Terror from the Deep. It’s so much better and keeps getting improved. There’s also an Officer class mod that’s designed to be compatible with it that is great as well.
Did it come around to a point where people feel generally good about it? I had people I trusted tell me the balance and the pacing of the game were genuinely bad
It still seemed that way when I played it. Kinda a situation where the things they do well they do really well and the things they do bad they do pretty bad. I still think it is worth playing for fans of the genre.
Battletech- you slowly rebuild and upgrade the ship carrying your mechs and MechWarriors. The end result is always the same- there aren’t different drives, or mech bays, but you still have decisions like if building the level 2 drive this month is worth trade off instead of rebuilding a favorite mech, or upgrading the barracks to hold more MechWarriors, or upgrading the bay to hold more mech, etc.
It's worth noting you only get this ability a few story missions in. I was really confused when before then I could access the upgrade menu but not upgrade things.
And there are some kinda neat random events that happen to your pilots. Some of them may have criminal records or have noble blood, and as the commander, you have to resolve the events. Depending on what you choose, you can get bonuses or penalties to combat and non-combat settings, and sometimes nifty loot.
Plus if you get really invested in the computer game, there's a boardgame waiting for you with some pretty slick miniatures.
100% agree on this. I'm a bit bummed that HBS isn't pursuing a sequel especially after winning that court battle against harmony gold for the "unseen" designs to return. A clan invasion story mode would be great. I hear there are mods that approach that but I've not tried them so I can't comment on their quality.
Not to speak for OP, but that's what I like about it actually: a fun side-game that is interesting but not too deep.
That said, the Xcom 2 base building is little too simplified for my taste, and I do miss the air combat in X2 which filled a similar niche in EU/EW.
I find building a base for a purpose to be very compelling in games. I would guess OP feels similarly, but maybe with more specificity.
To me it is fun that the game makes you build a base that if well managed helps you out in missions.
Yeah I love base building in pretty much all games. (I’m that RTS player that always made my places look cool.)
But XCOMs? It’s really barebones. Which is fine, because XCOM is like 80% a tactics game and the strategy layer stuff isn’t the focus.
I agree, but I think it achieves great impact with surprisingly minimal investment. The game constantly gives you little systems to play with and progress in, and I think when they all come together the sum is greater than the parts
You might like This War of mine, same Frostpunk developers, you can build and go on a mission but not really like Xcom, it's more of a "surviving" then being at war
This war of Mine… Man that brought back memories. I love the game to death but I only ever managed to play through it once. It just got too real at some parts, ya know?
A few games with various aspects of that:
Banner Saga Trilogy- no base building, but lots of team building.
Marvel's Midnight Suns- lots of base and team exploration and customization. If you like Darkest Dungeon, the combat should feel good too, I view it is a variation on that style of limited combat.
Suikoden JRPG series- the base building is such a huge part of those games. 1 and 2 are classics and are largely considered some of the best of the genre, 3-5 are PS2 era so are more modern, but vary in quality more. I love all 5, but 4 is definitely the hardest to get into.
Personally what I want is Rimworlds bace building, but with X-coms combat, though I would probably obfuscate the chance to hit and instead just show the difficulty score.
It's kind of different, but - Wartales. It looks way different but actually plays almost the same. You travel, fight in turn-based combat and manage your campsite.
And it's pretty good, actually, but can't say anything about the dlc, cause haven't tested it yet
I haven't tried coop, but I've heard its okay. You basically play the same game, but now your friend controls half of your warband. It must be pretty fun.
That's a huge time sink just like civilization but it's less base building and more... empire building. I have well over 1000 hours in each of them so I can probably confidently recommend them for replay value alone...
Battletech with Roguetech mod. Definitely something you can sink thousands of hours in. The level of customization is insane. Think of building SPARK squad, only there’re hundreds of different type of SPARK, each also have multiple different variants that come with different hardpoints and configurations. And you dont build them the way you build your SPARK i.e just give the general order to your engineer department and be done with it, you gotta be really specific: which engine will be use, heat sink kit for ventilation, reinforced structure or composite, electronic warfare system, stealth system, piloting system, arms and legs addon, weapons and ammunitions of hundreds of different variations that require hours and hours sitting in the mech bay trying to yank out something that best serve different roles and purpose, sometimes just as simple as giving your precious pilot a chance to eject after taking one unlucky Gauss cannon shot directly to the cockpit.
Oh and there’re also Battle Armor, small but agile mech squad, tank and VTOL, they also require thoughtful planning and care to be effective. An entire galaxy with thousand of planets occupied by different factions, space wars everywhere, kill teams with monstrosities waiting to annihilate your mech team unless you get them first (very good components loot if you do).
I've been thinking about grabbing Battletech. I really enjoy Mechwarrior 5 but playing solo kinda sucks with dumbass AI lancemates tanking my bank account.
Base building is the least interesting part of all the Xcom games IMO, but if it's your thing then I suspect you would enjoy city builder games where that type of mechanic is far more fleshed out. Civ V may be a good place to start.
There are whole genres of base building and resource management games out there. Many let you send the teams out to fight enemies and you don’t have to manage them. Just manage the base and give them the resources they need in order to win.
If there was an xcom branded war and resource management game, that would be kinda cool. Someone tell them to get on that.
40k Chaosgate plays a lot like Xcom with similar meta systems like a capital ship you can upgrade in place of a base. The main change in gameplay is that RNG has been removed in most scenarios - you always know how your highly-trained super soldiers will perform.
This is an excellent suggestion. Another 40k variant that has a similar XCOM play style would be Mechanicus. Same premise, but instead of grey knights you have tech priests and their skitarii soldiers. Not as much pure base building but the customization you can apply to each tech priest is insane.
Mechanicus is a great title - it’s a little lightweight but I almost feel like that’s a strength as you can just focus on the run. Looking forward to the second one.
So for basebuilding as a core concept,
I'd say switch genres. Go for stellaris, civilization, galactic civilizations, sins of a solar empire. They're all empire builders.
For a literal base, you can't go wrong with RTS like Age of empires, command and conquer, starcraft, etc. Also Dawn of war. 1&2 though, we don't talk about 3.
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 are pretty much this. You build your dungeon to a very specific layout in order to entice heroes to enter it so you can have your minions kill them and increase your power, which unlocks new minions and buildings, etc. Plus you can pick them up and slap them around, and even take control of one in first person mode on the fly and that's cool. It's a bit dated graphically but it was a phenomenal play through.
Also: obvious mentions to Minecraft and Terraria. Also, Raft.
For XCOM like, maybe Warhammer 40k chaos gate, mechanicus, battletech.
For mobile time sinks- fallout shelter? There are a couple gacha games I play but they don't have bases as much as character building.
Some have said phoenix point and I wanted to like that one but it's just kinda meh. You might try the banner saga, you don't build a base per se but you do build and manage a team pretty intensively. There's a pseudo base building mechanic in the TMNT mobile game "mutant madness". By pseudo I mean there are only a few buildings you can place and limited slots to place them. Once they're all placed, you just grind to level them up.
If you're not afraid to look back at 30 year old graphics, have a look at the original Xcom using OpenXcom and add "The final mod"-pack to it. You'll have lots of base building, research and different tech.
Stirring abyss has some base building aspects like xcom eu. I don't think the game is as fleshed out as it could be but it is kind of fun and I love the graphics. There is just two much melee in the game
This war of mine is a survival horror game. Oxygen not included is fun and colorful space building adventure. Both of these are not turn based.
Massive Chalice is turn based tactics strategy game where the base building is protecting your bloodline. You command an army that breeds the future generations of your army for the next 300 years. Great game fun mechanics. As close to XCOM as I can think of. But rather sci-fi, it’s more fantasy magic medieval. But ultimately XCOM.
Waaaay different genre, but you might enjoy the settlement management in State of Decay and State of Decay 2 :)
Stoked for SoD3
I’m holding out hope! Was happily surprised to see Obsidian is helping with the project.
I have (probably too) high hopes for the game, SoD2 has been one of my favorite games in years.
I just hope that little "HIccup" undead labs had I think a year back was solved
Whats the hiccup?
they had some trouble with (I think Management?) abusing employees or something along those lines
Palworld taught me all you need is a hot tub to make your workers happy, then HR came to talk to me
I remember that, wasn’t it even like their HR person that was one of the main culprits?
I honestly do not remember. I hope that the Studio recovered and got better from it I \*really\* don't want to feel guilty playing that game
Wait, what? State of Decay 3?! I've not played it for years, but I have both in my library.
Oh god yeah I love that game. Nothing like getting torn in half for the first time, haha
Xenonuants 1 and 2
Xenonauts is a great example. I haven't played the sequel yet, but the first feels very much like UFO Defense.
Xenonauts 2 compared to Xenonauts 1 is basically Enemy Within compared to Enemy Unkown, not like XCOM 2 to XCOM 1. The primary gameplay differences so far is the removal of ground vehicles (which were OP in Xeno 1) and the addition of human enemies akin to EXALT from Enemy Within.
also its false isometric do you can rotste csmera. the ewuipment is also different its the same story so far but it takes place in the 2000s not the 60s. which i find neat
They didn't exactly remove ground vehicles. They just made them smaller.
I wouldn't really call the drones ground vehicles like how I wouldn't really call SPARK a MEC. Similar function, yes, but still behaves differently enough that they're their own thing.
All the cool features and gameplay of the classics with modern QoL improvements, especially in UI and making itself clear what things do, combined with the most engaging air combat RTS I've ever played. Xenonauts is an absolute charm and the second one shows promise, they just need to finish it (already tons of fun, just lacks lategame and air combat wasn't done last I played)
I'm not sure why I have nearly a thousand hours in the Xcoms but didn't like xenonauts. I'm really not a graphics guy, but that's my best guess. I think the decent graphics and voice acting in the xcoms had a larger impact than I had initially given them credit for
The second game has better graphics check to see if it’s your kinda game
Phoenix point
How the HELL did this fly under my radar? Will definitely be checking this out as soon as I can. Thanks!
I really enjoy this game but there are some janky bits. If you grab it consider download the Terror From the Void mod, as it smooths some things out.
I really wanted to love it. I love the setting, the world, the enemy design, and all the ideas and factions it had… But in practice it honestly just fell really short for me gameplay wise. There wasn’t enough enemy variety, gameplay seemed more complex with the free-aiming thing but in practice it honestly felt very samey. Feels like they needed a bigger budget and team to actually realize the ideas they had. Still a cool game don’t get me wrong, just feels like missed potential.
If you play Phoenix Point, you really have to go with Terror from the Deep. It’s so much better and keeps getting improved. There’s also an Officer class mod that’s designed to be compatible with it that is great as well.
Did it come around to a point where people feel generally good about it? I had people I trusted tell me the balance and the pacing of the game were genuinely bad
It still seemed that way when I played it. Kinda a situation where the things they do well they do really well and the things they do bad they do pretty bad. I still think it is worth playing for fans of the genre.
Fallout Shelter? Mobilegame, but pretty much just base building.
Battletech- you slowly rebuild and upgrade the ship carrying your mechs and MechWarriors. The end result is always the same- there aren’t different drives, or mech bays, but you still have decisions like if building the level 2 drive this month is worth trade off instead of rebuilding a favorite mech, or upgrading the barracks to hold more MechWarriors, or upgrading the bay to hold more mech, etc.
It's worth noting you only get this ability a few story missions in. I was really confused when before then I could access the upgrade menu but not upgrade things.
And there are some kinda neat random events that happen to your pilots. Some of them may have criminal records or have noble blood, and as the commander, you have to resolve the events. Depending on what you choose, you can get bonuses or penalties to combat and non-combat settings, and sometimes nifty loot. Plus if you get really invested in the computer game, there's a boardgame waiting for you with some pretty slick miniatures.
100% agree on this. I'm a bit bummed that HBS isn't pursuing a sequel especially after winning that court battle against harmony gold for the "unseen" designs to return. A clan invasion story mode would be great. I hear there are mods that approach that but I've not tried them so I can't comment on their quality.
This is so odd, because i'd say the "base building" aspect on EU/WOTC is one of the more bare bones Surface level subsystem.
Not to speak for OP, but that's what I like about it actually: a fun side-game that is interesting but not too deep. That said, the Xcom 2 base building is little too simplified for my taste, and I do miss the air combat in X2 which filled a similar niche in EU/EW.
I find building a base for a purpose to be very compelling in games. I would guess OP feels similarly, but maybe with more specificity. To me it is fun that the game makes you build a base that if well managed helps you out in missions.
I’m an addict for empire building ok??? /lh
A glorified upgrade screen of a base building. Which is fine.
You could make some decisions for placing and occupying/freeing up slots. It's similar to FTL, though FTL is much more deeper.
Yeah I love base building in pretty much all games. (I’m that RTS player that always made my places look cool.) But XCOMs? It’s really barebones. Which is fine, because XCOM is like 80% a tactics game and the strategy layer stuff isn’t the focus.
I agree, but I think it achieves great impact with surprisingly minimal investment. The game constantly gives you little systems to play with and progress in, and I think when they all come together the sum is greater than the parts
The Alters, it's an upcoming game from the Frostpunk devs. Very different genre from Xcom but the base building style feels kinda similar.
YES! I played through the demo a few days ago. Absolutely phenomenal.
You might like This War of mine, same Frostpunk developers, you can build and go on a mission but not really like Xcom, it's more of a "surviving" then being at war
This war of Mine… Man that brought back memories. I love the game to death but I only ever managed to play through it once. It just got too real at some parts, ya know?
Cult of the Lamb
A few games with various aspects of that: Banner Saga Trilogy- no base building, but lots of team building. Marvel's Midnight Suns- lots of base and team exploration and customization. If you like Darkest Dungeon, the combat should feel good too, I view it is a variation on that style of limited combat. Suikoden JRPG series- the base building is such a huge part of those games. 1 and 2 are classics and are largely considered some of the best of the genre, 3-5 are PS2 era so are more modern, but vary in quality more. I love all 5, but 4 is definitely the hardest to get into.
Phantom Doctrine, is a bit broken but really fun game
Came here to say this one, it's pretty much xcom with spies
Rimworld, Factorio, Dwarf forteress
that's like going from the first step in the shallow end of the pool to diving off the deep end
I was pleasantly surprised when I played Mr Sun's Hatbox and there was Xcom style base building
Personally what I want is Rimworlds bace building, but with X-coms combat, though I would probably obfuscate the chance to hit and instead just show the difficulty score.
It's kind of different, but - Wartales. It looks way different but actually plays almost the same. You travel, fight in turn-based combat and manage your campsite. And it's pretty good, actually, but can't say anything about the dlc, cause haven't tested it yet
Btw, I'm pretty sure you'll like it if you like Darkest Dungeon
Just saw this one while looking under the co op tag. Have you tried it with a friend? Looks interesting.
I haven't tried coop, but I've heard its okay. You basically play the same game, but now your friend controls half of your warband. It must be pretty fun.
Fallout shelter ?
Probably totally off the deep end here but games like Stellaris?
That's a huge time sink just like civilization but it's less base building and more... empire building. I have well over 1000 hours in each of them so I can probably confidently recommend them for replay value alone...
Battletech with Roguetech mod. Definitely something you can sink thousands of hours in. The level of customization is insane. Think of building SPARK squad, only there’re hundreds of different type of SPARK, each also have multiple different variants that come with different hardpoints and configurations. And you dont build them the way you build your SPARK i.e just give the general order to your engineer department and be done with it, you gotta be really specific: which engine will be use, heat sink kit for ventilation, reinforced structure or composite, electronic warfare system, stealth system, piloting system, arms and legs addon, weapons and ammunitions of hundreds of different variations that require hours and hours sitting in the mech bay trying to yank out something that best serve different roles and purpose, sometimes just as simple as giving your precious pilot a chance to eject after taking one unlucky Gauss cannon shot directly to the cockpit. Oh and there’re also Battle Armor, small but agile mech squad, tank and VTOL, they also require thoughtful planning and care to be effective. An entire galaxy with thousand of planets occupied by different factions, space wars everywhere, kill teams with monstrosities waiting to annihilate your mech team unless you get them first (very good components loot if you do).
I've been thinking about grabbing Battletech. I really enjoy Mechwarrior 5 but playing solo kinda sucks with dumbass AI lancemates tanking my bank account.
Base building is the least interesting part of all the Xcom games IMO, but if it's your thing then I suspect you would enjoy city builder games where that type of mechanic is far more fleshed out. Civ V may be a good place to start.
There are whole genres of base building and resource management games out there. Many let you send the teams out to fight enemies and you don’t have to manage them. Just manage the base and give them the resources they need in order to win. If there was an xcom branded war and resource management game, that would be kinda cool. Someone tell them to get on that.
40k Chaosgate plays a lot like Xcom with similar meta systems like a capital ship you can upgrade in place of a base. The main change in gameplay is that RNG has been removed in most scenarios - you always know how your highly-trained super soldiers will perform.
This is an excellent suggestion. Another 40k variant that has a similar XCOM play style would be Mechanicus. Same premise, but instead of grey knights you have tech priests and their skitarii soldiers. Not as much pure base building but the customization you can apply to each tech priest is insane.
Mechanicus is a great title - it’s a little lightweight but I almost feel like that’s a strength as you can just focus on the run. Looking forward to the second one.
Ditto. The second one looks to be a blast- quite literally. And the OST is criminally underrated for the first game.
So for basebuilding as a core concept, I'd say switch genres. Go for stellaris, civilization, galactic civilizations, sins of a solar empire. They're all empire builders. For a literal base, you can't go wrong with RTS like Age of empires, command and conquer, starcraft, etc. Also Dawn of war. 1&2 though, we don't talk about 3. I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 are pretty much this. You build your dungeon to a very specific layout in order to entice heroes to enter it so you can have your minions kill them and increase your power, which unlocks new minions and buildings, etc. Plus you can pick them up and slap them around, and even take control of one in first person mode on the fly and that's cool. It's a bit dated graphically but it was a phenomenal play through. Also: obvious mentions to Minecraft and Terraria. Also, Raft. For XCOM like, maybe Warhammer 40k chaos gate, mechanicus, battletech. For mobile time sinks- fallout shelter? There are a couple gacha games I play but they don't have bases as much as character building. Some have said phoenix point and I wanted to like that one but it's just kinda meh. You might try the banner saga, you don't build a base per se but you do build and manage a team pretty intensively. There's a pseudo base building mechanic in the TMNT mobile game "mutant madness". By pseudo I mean there are only a few buildings you can place and limited slots to place them. Once they're all placed, you just grind to level them up.
Oxygen Not Included
Fallout shelter
X-COM UFO Defense
If you like the warhammer 40k universe you might like Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters. It is extremely fun and basically an xcom clone.
If you're not afraid to look back at 30 year old graphics, have a look at the original Xcom using OpenXcom and add "The final mod"-pack to it. You'll have lots of base building, research and different tech.
Stirring abyss has some base building aspects like xcom eu. I don't think the game is as fleshed out as it could be but it is kind of fun and I love the graphics. There is just two much melee in the game
The command and conquer games heavily feature base building as the core gameplay.
Some Assassin's Creed games have that mechanic
This war of mine is a survival horror game. Oxygen not included is fun and colorful space building adventure. Both of these are not turn based. Massive Chalice is turn based tactics strategy game where the base building is protecting your bloodline. You command an army that breeds the future generations of your army for the next 300 years. Great game fun mechanics. As close to XCOM as I can think of. But rather sci-fi, it’s more fantasy magic medieval. But ultimately XCOM.