It's not the same kind of game or as grand in scale, but I really enjoyed Into the Breach because each turn you only have a limited number of choices and units each turn, and each choice feels important.
However, it achieves this by eliminating the combat, the opponent AI, and ways to revise your decision-making, instead making it more of an economic logistics puzzle with immense numbers of dependencies to consider on every turn, which makes some players used to having a build strategy to exploit and an enemy to beat up accuse it of being "not a game", always a good sign that you're on to something new and different.
It's originally a PICO-8 game, which gives some idea of how compact it is. You can still play that version right now: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=30978
I suffer from the same problem. I love these games. I've played Civ 1-5, Alpha Centauri, Master of Orion 2, Master of Magic; all quite extensively. Every single time I get bogged down in the late game. I automate my bases/cities/planets with all of the available automation options and then try to wrap things up as quickly as I can but it always takes longer than it should.
I agree with you that the number of choices you need to make in the late game is overwhelming, and many of these choices are trivial, but there's an additional problem: you are often so far ahead of the computer AI opponents that it feels like you'd have to make some huge mistakes to give them any hope at all. It can then feel very frustrating that you're so far ahead but must still go through the whole song and dance to finish the game.
What these games really need is a diplomatic option for you to demand they surrender to you completely and become a client/puppet of your empire. Furthermore, the AI should always accept this offer if they can see they have no chance at defeating you in a war.
It’s nice when games acknowledge it as the article mentions - and some have a “victory” screen with a “keep playing” option.
The 4x games are almost between normal games and pure simulations like the city builders - where the simulation can become the fun.
It might be fun if the goals of the game turned upside down when you're winning. The AI players surrender and you're the newly crowned Galactic Emperor, congratulations! Everybody works for you.
Now comes the second half of the game where you try to keep your empire together while it decays into bureaucracy. In a thousand years, a Hari Seldon appears and you have to decide whether to exile him...
Try Stellaris then; vassalizing your opponents is a great strategy (even more so now that they have fixed a few things). Another strategy is to force your ideology on them, changing them into an empire with ethics more like your own who can become an ally.
> there's an additional problem: you are often so far ahead of the computer AI opponents that it feels like you'd have to make some huge mistakes to give them any hope at all. It can then feel very frustrating that you're so far ahead but must still go through the whole song and dance to finish the game.
Stellaris has an interesting innovation here too. As the end of the game approaches, there is always a Crisis which is more powerful by far than any of the AI. A good human player can beat the crisis head–on in most cases, but it is definitely a challenge. In fact, the whole game can be seen as an escalating series of boss fights built into the 4X framework, with the crisis as the final boss.
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War is enjoyable too -- it's quite simplified (the space marines can only build the one city, as appropriate for a 40k game there's zero diplomacy, etc).
Warlock - Master of the Arcane is a Master of Magic spiritual successor, and I found it a lot less taxing than Civilization in the late game.
1) You didn't have to manage individual buildings, they were just priority bars on planets...
2) Ships of the same class stacked.
meant that scaling up the empire wasn't the kind of tedious nightmare we see in more civ-style 4X games. Sadly Moo2, while a superior and more polished game than Moo1, moved away from this innovation into more conventional construciton and ship management.
Way too many mechanics that seem complex on the surface, but as far as game impact are actually irrelevant, so it feels like busywork. As opposed to MOO, where 1 slider early game can change the outcome of the entire game.
Stays relevant until the very end.
I tried a few other 4X space games, but none scratched the itch that Stellaris did. It's the only 4X space game I play now. And Paradox keeps adding content!
At that point you're strong enough that you can beat all the other empires but then an extra-dimensional invasion happens that's just so much stronger than anything else you've encountered and it works really well to spice up the late game and make everything relevant again.