Well yes but actual no. While 4X games are turn based strategies where most rules are implemented through simple math, the obscene scale and complexity means they’d be impossible to implement on a board. And that’s before even considering fog of war.
For a TBS to work as a boardgame, it must have a real-world mechanical solution to its secrets (cards, Stratego units, etc) and it must be simple enough for humans to execute all of the logic within the game.
on some level, I agree. The civ board game was absolutely simplified to be suitable for one-off sessions, but the underlying mechanics are undeniably an entry in the Civilization universe. It works well as a board game because civ is inherently a board game with more advanced mechanics, designed to be played by AI and a single player that must master all of those advanced mechanics. Simplifying the game into a one-shot board game does require skill on behalf of the game designers, but it’s still the same game
It’s not really about the strategy – jumping from board to a digital counterpart, it’s the book keeping that is the huge difference. All the stuff that happens automatically between turns - in civ, this is income, maintenance, trade routes, research, culture, production, population growth, happiness, religious pressure, diplomatic decay, auto move, terrain development, experience, etc figuring in all the bonuses and penalties applied by every citizen, every trade deal, every tech, every wonder, every cultural development, every special land, etc.
In theory in a 4X you’re supposed to be aware of all those rules and factors that are in play but in practice the game is too large to account for every instance.
In a boardgame, you’re executing that by hand, so it’s much more direct.