Would playing for the Xenon be only reasonable and somewhat challenging thing in X4?

* Xenon are the weakest faction in the game by far. * Xenon have a clear objective - to destroy everyone else.

At the same time, when playing for a normal faction:

* The game doesn't care if the player exists in the game. Player is a separate faction and even if you install mods, like Dynamic Wars, the game still ignores it. * The game doesn't challenge the player at all. You can build anything and destroy everyone, because there are no obstructions in your way. * It is extremely easy to do whatever you want because there is no competition. Take for example the Civilization games: the AI constantly challenges you, it's angry when you do bad things, it's warring with you after the tensions exceed a certain threshold.

I have played every X since X2. X2 was pretty good, the khaak could jump into any coords of any sector and they were a real menace. X2 also had xenon invasion and the taxi mission where you had to drive a dude chased by the xenon. X3:R was pretty good too. X3:TC and AP were the first games where the game would play itself because of missile quick response fleets. Like for example if you take a kill mission, the target ship spawned as a hostile. So naturally the quick response fleet would jump next to it and kill it. X4 is just plain dead in aspects of gameplay for the player. Yeah, you can shoot stuff, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I can build any complex I want that'll build any fleet I want and then proceed to kill everyone for no reason at all. Those who are unable to compete with me at all due to job limits in the engine and due to them being not in war with me.

Terraforming missions are not a challenge. They don't actively challenge you.

Probably these conclusions have reached your minds too. What do you think?