Looking to get into space 4X games

[ixelion]

I need some recommendations on 4X games, what I like in order of priority:

1) Has descent amount of depth, I really like exploration/empire management.

2) Very good UI and controls, if I have to click a "Move" button every time I want to dispatch a fleet, I will get bored.

3) Combat that grants you a lot of control over ships, for example: execute orders see it play out type of thing, or something similar.

4) Decent graphics, doesn't have to be cutting edge, just relatively clear and representative.

Here are some games that I have played:

Endless Space - Got bored of it pretty fast, not much to do.
Sins of a Solar Empire - need to play this more, but it does feel more like an RTS.
Sword of the Stars I/II - Didn't like the interface or controls at all, didn't like the RT combat.
Distant Worlds - No UI scaling at all, playing on 1440p is not possible with my crappy eyes.

I can go TBS or RTS, but think I would prefer TBS.

 

[KaOTiK]

StarDrive

 

[shortylickens]

If you havent played Master of Orion 2, you really arent in the genre yet.

 

[zinfamous]

Sins of a SOlar Empire is more RTS-y than 4x...but it is fun as hell, I must say. I haven't yet tried the sequel, though.

...consider the X series. Those things will suck your time like nothing else. They are complete space sandbox games. I believe there is a storyline attached to them, but damn if I ever followed it. Got too busy putting together my space burger empire in order to fund my Universe-Murder fleet.

 

[Anteaus]

Distant Worlds...although it is expensive compared to the competition.

 

[NAC]

Galactic Civilizations II is the predecessor to Sins of Solar Empire, and is turn based. I highly recommend it. I prefer the original version Dread Lords to the later versions because it has everything you need but less micro-management than later versions.

 

[ixelion]

StarDrive

just started playing this, I like the transport of food/production with freighters, fun so far!

 

[KaOTiK]

just started playing this, I like the transport of food/production with freighters, fun so far!

Yeah, the game is really cool. It has some automation that you can turn on that takes away the tediousness of the genre but it doesn't offer too much automation either. You'll love the way fleet stuff works, with designing a fleet then you hit create fleet and it search all for all ships not in a fleet and if any of them are the same you used in the creation of the fleet it will ask if you want to assign them to the fleet and then it will spread out the ship orders across your various planets to get the fleet built quicker. And when you are fighting or afterwards you can just pull up whichever fleet took loses and tell it to build those ships.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

I've played GalCiv 2 on and off for years and really like it. But it does fail your #3.

Basically Civ in space (obviously)

 

[Midwayman]

StarDrive

Ugg. I thought it was terrible. They made a ship building game and tacked on a 4x element.