So one of my biggest gripes about 4x games is that once you complete the initial peaceful expansion phase and get “landlocked” by AI and peaceful expansion is no longer possible, you have to choose between building enough military to dissuade the AI from killing you (but not enough to actually destroy them either) and then put the rest into resources to win the game, or build enough military to hopefully take over AI territory. It seems like it’s always a gamble because unless you build enough to conquer any more resources spent on military beyond the bare minimum is a waste.

I know I’m comparing 2 genres of game here, but compare that to an RTS game where you can do all sorts of things with military units. You can backstab and kill workers, you can skirmish in the map over key resources or choke points. You can posture in the middle of the map to ensure you can expand behind it because your opponent is defending, or you can seriously commit to an attack and gamble on winning big.

I wish 4x games were more like that with military but war always seems like such a big commitment and gamble. Then endless games and humankind have Cold War which lets you skirmish without going to war, but so much of the valuble targets are centralized in cities or systems that are naturally defended by militia and walls etc that there is little you can do that feels impactful.

Am I just barking up the wrong genre or are there games that do this?