Phc7006: Maybe not that lighter but the balance is different. In Haegemonia, you basically go through a succession of missions. Whatever effort you've made to exploit / explore is limited to your mission or, in the best cases, to a succession of 2-3 missions. Exploit means a limited number of developments to your planets, with little impact on your production, and to mining ore from asteroids. And the mission seetings impose you clear limits : your ennemies are set and you don't have alternative diplomatic options.
Total war is not a full RTS either, but it gives a lot more freedom of movement. You have a full map at your disposal and it's up to you to favour an option or another. City / fortresses development may be limited but has an impact on what you can produce and on the size of your army. There are dimplomatic options, although this is not the best aspect of that franchise. So you can eventually craft a personnal way of playing these games and they offer a lot of re-playability.
Aye Rome Total War is one of my favorites. I wasn't saying Rome was full RTS - it is after all turn based on the strategic map! :)
Sounds like the Haegamonia is like Homeworld with more strategic options thrown-in. I've found most RTS games mostly to be really at their heart RTT or RTO - tactical or operational and I suppose Haegomonia would therefore be a real-time operational game.
LordGaga: First I'd like to thank everyone for posting, I will have to take a look at some of these. But Phc70006, you're totally right, although diplomacy has been present in all of the Total War games, there has never been quite the concentration on the diplomacy aspect, which in later iterations gets better, but is simply not that great. What I do admire the Total War series for is the combat which feels exciting, instead of just stacking a bunch of units in a single hex like the Civ series. What puzzles me is why this subgenre has not had more games from big publishers? Sometimes soon I want a current game where the battles have the thrill and the strategy needed from the Total War series, but a more intuitive diplomatic system (or one that is realistic--as Total War games have hardest settings have allies that think nothing of the treaty you made with them 2 turns ago), say from the Civ series. But there seem to be some great gems I will pick up in the mean time. Has anyone played King Arthur: the Roleplaying Game? I've heard it was 4x-ish and I bought recently from Steam, but have yet to try it.
I've heard good things about King Arthur. Another one you might want to look into is Europa Universalis III - my roommate had that, it looked good.
serpantino: Are the Total War games even 4x? I always thought 4x was kinda boardgame style strategy like Heroes of Might & Magic, Civ etc... Total war feels more like a turn based strategy with realtime elements.
Just wondering if 4x is really what you're after :). I love the mix the Total War series has, though i know a few people who never play the RTS side of it and just play the map, auto-resolving battles but I've never thought of it as a 4x game.
Well Total War is then indeed like many board games. Some wargames I've played (wargames with a physical not virtual map that is) even had a dual tactical and strategic component to them. Of course they were turn-based in both, but the precedent is there. :) I suppose if I were to think of wargames with similar play-style to Rome, I'd have to go with The Conquerors - which was Alexander/Rome and almost exactly like Rome: Total War, but a board game (unfortunately I cannot find references to it online only a new board game with a similar name & theme but it certainly isn't older game I was thinking of).
As for specifically 4X, it's true genres can be a bit fuzzy. Total War does indeed share a lot of aspects with 4X games though it certainly isn't classically 4X, but I would say it shares enough with the genre that it counts. I suppose it really depends on whether or not you consider strategic wargames on a computer to be similar enough to 4X games to count as the same genre.
