Best strategy games?

[Shadyjames]

This seems like the sort of forum that'll be full of strategy gaming enthusiasts, so heres as good a place as any to ask. Whats your personal favorite strategy game? And i'm not limiting the scope here, you can tell me about RTS, turn-based, or traffic tycoon deluxe. If its a game that values cleverness over micro i want to hear about it. You could even tell us about a board game thats awesome, and then we'd spend a fortnight programming a computer version of it with internet multiplayer. The funny thing is you think i'm joking.

Now me and my friend, we've been having cravings some multiplayer strategy/sim sort of games, we like to play cooperatively (because i always kick his ass in versus games, and it makes me feel bad and it makes him rage ), but the thing is we've exhausted our current strategy gaming options. We got a kick out of playing total annihilation spring for a while but we want something thats a bit less "Economy micro kgo" and a bit more "strategic placement of stuff, and territory control". Think a super-cyborg coming together of ground control II, and age of empires.

Don't get me wrong, Total annihilation spring is REALLY awesome, but i'm hoping (and half expecting) the fourth or fifth poster in this thread will be like "Hey i'm a massive strategy enthusiast and i have exactly the game you want in my trouser pocket...let me give you the link"

So, HIT IT people, rave about the best strategy games you've ever played!

PS: he refuses to try starcraft (asian phobia i think ), and we can't get space empires V multiplayer working, so those are out.

[Allandaros]

I love strategy games, even though I'm not very good at them. How familiar are you with Dawn of War? I haven't tried DoW II yet, but DoW I sounds like what you're looking for. RTS with minimal economy - two resources, both of which autoaccumulate. You gain resources by being aggressive and pushing forward, capturing "strategic points," which fosters engaging battles rather than turtling.

I have a suspicion that the same applies to Relic's other big-name RTS, Company of Heroes, but I haven't played that one too much either.

[jioan]

My favorite strategy games of all time are:

Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones
Age of Empires 3
Starcraft
Civilization 4
Dawn of War
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (Not best game in series but far better story.)
Rise of Nations
Warcraft 3
and recently Battleforge

I'm at least average at all of them. The only one I'd say I'm a pro at is Age of Empires 3.

Also, anybody else look forward to Starcraft 2? I loved the original and signed up for the beta.

[Shadyjames]

I think they're going to be doing some seriously extensive playtesting for starcraft 2, i bet the actual games already been done for a year now, they've just got so many expectations to live up to they have to dot their I's and cross their T's on the balancing front.

And thanks for the suggestion, i might get the demo (or just yarr it) of dawn of war to see if its worth getting. Same goes for a few on jioans list i'm not familiar with.

[jioan]

I just wanted to say if you don't like Dawn of War (or if you do) Dawn of War 2 is an entirely different game. Still based on the 40k universe, of course, but the gameplay is so different you couldn't tell they were in the same series. I personally like the original better due to the buildings and such but the second is fun for shorter matches and contains more combat tactics.

Also, the original has an immense amount of content with 3 expansions.

[konmanrocks]

dawn of war FTW!!
i love playing the dow games, dow 2 sucks though. im to much of a fand of buildings and base defenses than army combat

[Cmdr I. Heartly Noah]

Anybody here play ol' Master of Magic?

[psilontech]

Mmm... Master of Magic. You know, I hear they're making a spiritual successor to MoM over at stardock. Elemental: War of Magic it is called, IIRC.

While we're talking about a microprose game, Might I make the suggestion of Master of Orion II? (And I too...)

Other strategy games I enjoy:
Homeworld
Civilization II
Alpha Centauri
Panzer General
Company of Heroes

I'm certain something else will pop into my head and I'll feel stupid for forgetting it, but all of these are pretty good, IMHO.

[DougGlendower]

Yeah, I'll shout out for AlphaCent too, but I've been playing Sid Meier games for... ever.

Red Storm Rising is still my all time favorite game.

[psilontech]

Ah, just remembered one!

'Stars!' (Note the '!') is a 4x strategy game that... well, isn't very graphically intensive. It's hard to describe. Follow these links and read up, I just wanna say I love the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/sta ... ead-review

[Zeus]

Master of Magic. It's my all-time favorite game. To this day, if I don't know what I feel like playing, I can load up a game of MoM and have a ton of fun.

MoM effortlessly combines (and some would say rips off two of my other favorite games, Civilization and Magic: The Gathering. The best thing about it that each game is totally new. There's no campaign to beat and then get bored of. You can create a custom wizard, which means you aren't locked into any one leader type strategy. And the tactical combat is the BIZOMB. That's right, I said bizomb! So many strategic games blow it off, favoring "Advance Wars" type cinematic conflict resolutions, and while that's all well and good -- MoM had a quick battle option -- Master of Magic actually lets you roll up your sleeves and get tactical.

Yeah. I can't even touch GalCiv and stuff, due to lack of tactical combat. I needs it.

[Cmdr I. Heartly Noah]

That's probably the only thing missing from Alpha Centauri, a tactical battle.

MoM's battles are great, because you could use a few elite troops or heroes to waste huge armies over time, and conquer all the wild areas- until you ran into that one supermonster (especially the one hiding among weaker ones) that kills you so quick

[Shadyjames]

Psi, that link to the stars wikipedia page got the exclamation mark dropped from the hyperlink had to add it myself. Also, i had a look at it, and it reminds me very strongly of the space empires games. Are you familiar with these?
http://www.malfador.com/se5demo.html if you want to try it out. The only difference is apparently stars! was designed with multiplayer in mind, whereas in space empires V two of the most computer savvy people i know couldn't get an internet game working correctly over the course of a day.

Dawn of war demo was great, i might look into it. Next on my list is master of magic. this is fun

Also for you tactical combat lovers out there space empires V DOES have a tactical option when you engage in combat

[jioan]

Anyone else play Battleforge? The game is free but you have to pay to get extra cards. It has really fun PvE levels that range from 1-12 players.

[copperhamster]

RTS I really enjoyed Supreme Commander. It's the spiritual sequel to Total Annihilation (by the same people after they left cavedog) and features some similar features, but cleaner and somewhat less Micro managed (it's still there though) gameplay. But every side has units equivilant to the krogoth from TA, and in the final big campaign of the expansion it's not impossible to have dozens of them... which you'll need because the bad guys have dozens of theirs.

(available through gametap and steam, btw, in addition to a straight purchase).

That said I'm not a big strategy game player on the computer. More tactical... I like good sims. Dangerous Waters. Sub command. 688i. that sort of thing.

For board-type games...

I used to play a lot of Star Fleet Battles. Alas the people I played with have all moved on to other, generally more expensive things (Warhammer/wh40k, etc...) and I never really got into the play online style of game that ADB setup for it.

One thing I've only gotten to play a few times, but it was a hoot is this:
http://www.starblazersonline.com/ The Star Blazers Fleet Battle System.

[Lucilla]

Ummm....I'm sorry, but I really have to make this point because it's a personal irritation of mine. What are generally called strategy games aren't. It's like using the word decimate to mean "reduce to 10%". Look it up. So-called real time strategy games are invariably tactical games. I have no idea why what should have been RTT (real time tactical) became RTS. All it would have taken would have been one person on the command and conquer design team to look up the word and I wouldn't have spent twenty years being vaguely irritated with the computer game industry. I did like the Dawn of War games though, although wild horses wouldn't get me to actually play Warhammer 40K.

I haven't run across a good actual strategy computer game since Civilisation, probably because strategy doesn't play to the strengths of computer gaming (graphics, excitement, time-pressure). The Total War games' strategy component was dreadful, the AI just recruiting as many troops as it could all the time and not in any way programmed to use it's gigantic numerical advantage to any effect and becoming an exercise in endurance rather than strategic thinking.

Board games though - the John Prados version of Third Reich was a clever re-design which had drawbacks but did allow for more flexible strategy. If size matters to you, Fire in the East/Scorched Earth, presumably long out of print. War & Peace if you can find a way of overcoming the horrendous political rules. If you like things to be a bit faster paced and less like hard work Red Storm Rising (with/without the Hunt for Red October naval game) is a very fun game. And if you can get a copy of Dragon Pass that one has enough special units for any six other games.

xxx

Lou

[gameboy1234]

Alpha Centauri

This.

[Whet Lunkhoff]

Hearts of Iron II. Pause-when-you-like strategy where you take control of a country in 1936 and play until 1963. Global warfare with resource management and a basic economy system. Engaging stuff, takes a while to learn but worth it.

[Doctari]

I'm pretty sure decimation actually means to reduce by a tenth (i.e. 9 out of 10 left) instead of to a tenth (i.e. 1 out of 10 left) but that was only the classical usage of the word now it pretty much means any form of extreme reduction.

I digress:

PC:

Civ 2

Board:

Settlers of Catan (et expansion)

360:

Culdcept Saga (if you're not familiar with this its kind of like magic meets chess played on a monopoly board).

Those are my favorites, your mileage may vary.

[Shadyjames]

Any "tactics" game will have at least a small amount of overall strategy involved, unless you are incapable of thinking ahead. At the same time, ALMOST any "strategy" game will have some level of 'micro' or tactics. Either way, the mislabelling of tactics as strategy is just how the cookie crumbled this time, and i don't think theres any chance that we happy few that value using the correct vocabulary will change the worlds classification of them as "RTS" games, so i never really bother to mention it. Meh.

I got MoM running in DosBox, but there didn't appear to be any tutorial or "getting started" guide, so i'll have to google that before i try again. The first thing i did was get my 6 starting spearmen killed by some sprites, and then i'm like "ok, ragequit". But i'll give it another go i promise maybe after i get back from my two weeks in melbourne seeing some friends.

Civ 2: I totally agree, i loved that game. Once i grasped the fact that cities grew in size when their food storage was full (I WAS A KID BE QUIET) i discovered it was really quite a satisfying game.

Supreme annihilation: Fantastic game, my only problem is that i wish the unit choices had been more diverse. T1 units weren't worth building (Once i managed to destroy an army of 30 T1 units by micromanaging my ACU, while my ground factory churned out a T2 army), the strategy generally boiled down to shelling the enemy base with artillery, and guarding your artillery with the best available assault unit. However its a very good game for micromanagement, and i'm looking forward to supreme commander 2, maybe they'll deviate from the "big tank/small tank/artillery tank/anti-air tank/big robot" unit framework that supreme commander 1 stuck to so much.

Ok next on my list is "alpha centauri" and "Hearts of iron 2".