Not the Queensland beer - 4X is actually an acronym that has become part of the space turn based strategy lexicon: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Its an offshoot of the Empire model of strategy, except instead of conquering the world you set out to conquer a map full of star systems.

4X games hark back to the earliest days of computer gaming, and they really haven't changed that much except to become fiendishly more complicated. This is old skool computing, where gameplay comes first and everything else second, including good looks and special effects. And by gameplay, we don't mean high speed interaction or immersiveness in a 3D environment. The fact that your typical 4X game - even the new ones - has dreadful graphics and looks as interesting on the surface as a spreadsheet is beside the point. Take note you console kiddies! Patience, foresight and a bit of scheming cleverness are mandatory requirements, plus an imagination to make it all work. Epic turn based games frequently glue people to their computers, as anyone who has played Civilization into the middle of the next day can tell you. 4X takes the Civilization concept and extrapolates it to an entire galaxy. You don't just have the history of one planet, you have the tale of entire star spanning empires colliding.

	eXplore		All these games give you a small galaxy or cloud of stars and/or planets to explore. You get to see wondrous sights, and meet new and fascinating cultures along the way. When you start, distances seem vast and your ships' operational ranges are limited/ You slowly start surveying worlds and establishing diplomatic relations with your equally small neighbours.
	eXpand		The player represents the collective identity of a space faring galactic civilization with considerable ambition. You get to build some funky space ships, establish new colonies, grow them into massive planetary powers, terraform lifeless rocks into paradises, research and develop new and wondrous technologies. Most of the 4X strategy games have tech trees with hundreds of different tech's, and many of them offer players the capacity to design their own shipping with their freshly researched trinkets. But the ultimate aim is to conquer the universe.
	eXploit		Your burgeoning empire needs ever increasing resources to sustain itself and grow. Your people learn the not so subtle art of stripping planets and beefing up their planetary economies. Technologies start producing more and more planet bonuses and increasing production. You can set global policy options and empire wide taxes, with the proceeds usually plowed back into R&D, military, spending, economic developing and keeping the population in check.
	eXterminate		Did we mention this before? In these games there's only one winner. Big space battles, planetary bombardments, mass extinctions, planet-wide invasions and even the occasional vaporised planet are the required norm. On top of that, players - both AI and human - circle each other constantly in the diplomatic menus, establishing treaties, pacts, relationships and other exchanges of gifts, threats and bribes, but deep down everyone knows, there is only one winner. Treachery and devious schemes lurk at the heart of 4X, and frankly, if the diplomacy or AI cleverness isn't that good, then the 4X game your playing is usually a waste of time. Your tech's are what keep you alive; but if your space fleet is lacking then your diplomacy is going to make or break you.

This is usually a single player game genre requiring considerable patience, long term planning and lots of effort building your space empire. Its tricky to play as a netgame, since the game runs at the speed of the slowest turn: and a group of finicky micromanagers can take forever to do things. Unless - you're into long term games that may last anything from a few sessions to a few years. 4X is the domain of the obsessed micromanager with too much spare time on their hands.

As a strategy genre, 4X is well established with some iron clad conventions. Woe betide any developer that tries to buck them! Oddly enough, while developers in most other genres are constantly trying to come up with new angles and twists and features to keep their concepts fresh, the basic elements in 4X strategy are remarkably unchanged from its earliest beginnings. Many of the fans get pretty uptight if the basic recipe changes too much.

For some definitive examples of the turn based 4X space empire game, see Masters of Orion, Spaceward Ho!, Stars!, Space Empires, Galactic Civilizations, Reach for the Stars or Starships United.

Chat acronym: As Far As I'm Concerned. e.g. "That's a game bug, not a feature afaic."

Chat acronym: Away From Keyboard. e.g. When your logged onto a chat channel, but at the kitchen raiding the fridge, your currently afk.

Acronym: Artificial Intelligence. Generic game term, and a misnomer if ever there was one since no computer game uses real artificial intelligence. You should know by now that computers can't think - any apparent signs of life are nothing more than wishful (or fearful!) anthropomorphism. Nonetheless, the term "AI" has come to refer to the algorithm or scripting used by the program to move its pieces and direct its forces with. Its strategy is ultimately determined by the programmer. You can download custom AI files for some games in the same way you can download custom maps and units. AI's change the behaviour of the computer players in the game, especially for human players who have become jaded with the default AI's shipped with the game. Some AI's may only play a semi-scripted role in a single player scenario, stepping through their lines like actors, but many of the fan built AI's are usually aggressive versions of successful multiplayer game strategies that the game designers probably never thought of. Or approved!

Ages are found in historical RTS games. An Age is a specialised tech that when researched, bumps you up a historical epoch in a single jump. All the graphics and units then change to that of the new Age and a whole new smorgasbord of upgrades, tech's buildings and units become available. For example, you might go from the Medieval Age to the Renaissance. Its a complete kludge of course, since historians often reconstruct and extrapolate on past events using whatever records they can find, and are informed by that great thing known as hindsight and often, these reconstructions are coloured by the historian's attitudes, prejudices and the current world view at the time. In any case, many historical transitions have taken hundreds years to take place and only become recognised as "transitions" long after the fact.

But as a bit of game mechanics, an Age works quite nicely for a historically themed RTS game that has to play for a few hours. Just don't fool yourself into thinking its an accurate representation of history. Ages were pioneered by the Age of Empires series, but they're sort of almost standard these days and quite common now, featuring in many similarly minded games such as Empire Earth and Rise of Nations.

An area effect that surrounds a particular unit or structure within a (usually) circular radius. Generally speaking, auras are usually active effects, directly altering unit stats and bonuses when in range, but reverting back to their old values when out of range.

For example, any units close enough to a healer unit will receive ongoing health replenishment; the healer unit is said to having a healing aura. Conversely, a powerful Hero unit might weaken any surrounding enemies when they get close to them in combat: he might have a "fear" aura. While its often referred to in a fantasy context, you can include force fields, targeting systems that improve unit accuracy, or other effects as "auras" that change units when they're close enough.

Slang originally coined on Battle.Net used to describe a game where a number of human players team up against outnumbered computer players to rack up easy wins. Comp stomps are played out of sheer laziness or to artificially inflate a player's official online score.

Or Mod. Short for Custom Modification. A custom mod is a set of changes made to an original game that alter graphics, sound effects, unit stats, mapping or script to produce some new custom variation on the original piece of software. In the PC gaming world, most custom mods are made by the fans of the game, on their own time, often with their own homemade tools and for no other reason that they love the game to bits or, more simply, they just want to see how things tick or use the game engine to try out a few things. Mods are, in essence, labours of love. Money or financial gain simply don't enter the picture - if anything, the idea of money changing hands over a mod is almost a taboo subject. Many modders might enthusiastic gamers tinkering in the backshed, or moonlighting game designers having fun, or a freshman trying to build a portfolio with the intention of getting into the games industry.

Mods generally fiddle with the elements of the game, adding or subtracting a few extra features but the "game engine" is still essentially the same. Modding usually changes data files, not reverse engineering the game executable itself. If you want to get pedantic, you could argue that using a map editor to produce a custom map for a game could be seen as a modification, although custom maps are so common these days as to be considered a normal part of any PC game.

Some custom mods act as corrective patches to perceived problems in gameplay or game balance as perceived by the fans (or a specific group of fans) that may not see eye to eye with the developers' original intent. Custom mods are not to be confused with hacks, cheats, trainers, or pirated copies of the original game.

A custom mod that completely transforms the original game into something completely different is called a Total Conversion.