Big Strategy Games for Big Dummies

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I'm looking for recommendations for myself to maybe try getting into the big strategy games. Probably the only games similar I've played that may be similar are Star Craft 1 and nu Xcom. Anything that is easier to learn but also with decent depth?

 

[fantadomat]

hmmm homeworld

 

[Catacombs]

AI War 1 and 2
Command & Conquer 3
Northgard
Warhammer: Dawn of War
Total Annihilation
Medival: Total War
Rome: Total War

 

[Johannes]

What's a big strategy game? Something with a big scope, or with big popularity, or what

 

[Matalarata]

nuXcom is a squd-based tacticool. Very little strategy in that one. Starcraft is called real time strategy but it's also more on the tactical level, imho. Strategy games are shit like Paradox titles and most 4x.

If you want a similar experience to nuXcom, although I never tried it, I heard good things about Gear Tactics, as an introductory, easy-to-learn title. Otherwise try narrowing it down a bit with the shit poop you like and I'll try again.

 

[Sukhāvatī]

Rise of Nations is easy to get into, and goes for cheap on sale on Steam.

 

[Johannes]

Starcraft is a strategy game, it has tactics but you still make big strategic decisions... Which is not about the scale of the forces used.

 

[The Dopamine Cleric]

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

nuXcom is a squd-based tacticool. Very little strategy in that one. Starcraft is called real time strategy but it's also more on the tactical level, imho. Strategy games are shit like Paradox titles and most 4x.

If you want a similar experience to nuXcom, although I never tried it, I heard good things about Gear Tactics, as an introductory, easy-to-learn title. Otherwise try narrowing it down a bit with the shit poop you like and I'll try again.

I haven’t really played a 4X and always forget why it’s called that to be honest. I’m looking for a game that makes me think I’m a high level genius and then say check make and hot women pop out of my computer.

 

[Vic]

nobody mentioned Age of Empires II yet

 

[The Dopamine Cleric]

Age of Empires II

 

[Skorpion]

nuXcom is a squd-based tacticool. Very little strategy in that one. Starcraft is called real time strategy but it's also more on the tactical level, imho. Strategy games are shit like Paradox titles and most 4x.

If you want a similar experience to nuXcom, although I never tried it, I heard good things about Gear Tactics, as an introductory, easy-to-learn title. Otherwise try narrowing it down a bit with the shit poop you like and I'll try again.

I haven’t really played a 4X and always forget why it’s called that to be honest. I’m looking for a game that makes me think I’m a high level genius and then say check make and hot women pop out of my computer.

4X stands for explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Its a phrasing used to describe large scale empire type strategy games such as Stellaris or Civilization for example because the basic gameplay revolves around those 4 things.
Speaking of which I think Old World is quite good in that genre if your interested.

 

[Matalarata]

Which is not about the scale of the forces used.

I know. The point is, would you rly define Starcraft as a game where strategic decisions make up the biggest part of the gameplay?

Not particularly fond of RTSs but most of the strategy I see used in SC is actually rotes repetition. Efficient build orders are identified and copied with very little strategy involved, beyond the choice of what units you'll be producing. The time you need to click around getting all that shit set up is the discriminant skill. Decisions on the strategic layer proper are limited to how you adapt during the game to your adversary, imho. I can hardly find a real life example of a strategy that requires timing down to seconds, to be succesful. Game time is abstract tho so I can easily concede that.

Compared to the amount of time and actions you spend ordering units directly and activating skills, the strategic choices make up a limited part of gameplay and decision making. Just my 2c as I'm not exactly fond of the genre and it's not my intention to redefine genres. I was simply trying to understand what kind of game he wanted to play.

I’m looking for a game that makes me think I’m a high level genius and then say check make and hot women pop out of my computer.

Then go for management, not strategy.

 

[Dayyālu]

I'm looking for recommendations for myself to maybe try getting into the big strategy games. Probably the only games similar I've played that may be similar are Star Craft 1 and nu Xcom. Anything that is easier to learn but also with decent depth?

Easier to learn? There's a shitton of strategy games. Starcraft is a RTS and .... in SP it does require a bit of thinking (mainly how to crack preplaced defenses and specific mission parameters) but in MP it's as Matalarata said.

For lite and easy strategy games, I'd suggest Fantasy General II as a comfy Turn Based hex game (it's easy, decently balanced, shitton of content, pretty enough). Or you can go 4x in Space and for that my go-to for beginners is Sword of The Stars 1 (the first one not the second) a very relaxing 4x with real time tactical combat and somewhat lite 4x section.

RTS games got hit hard by the changes in the industry, but if you want decent stuff because you played all the classics (Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, the Red Alerts and C&C - that all have fun if simple campaigns) there's Petroglyph that kept throwing out stuff like Empire At War or Grey Goo. Not devastatingly new or amazing, but good working games.

Commander: The Great War is a functional "high-level" strategy game that can be a good starter. I would say that most Paradox titles are pretty bad at strategy being mostly meme machines or map-painting exercises nowadays.

Or you can hurt yourself and play Shadow Empire (it's amazing trust me it's really good! But it's clunky as fuck).

 

[spectre]

"Big strategy game" is awfully vague.

If you want something by Paradox (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Hears of Iron), they're more intimidating with their information overload than anything,
your best bet is to watch a let's play on youtube, listen to the commentary and try to emulate what they're doing until you eventually concede that map painting is fucking boring.
Unless we're talking something like Harpoon, that's your best bet for getting into anything in the genre, watch some gameplay to pick up the basic tips, then expand on that.

I'd say there's nothing wrong with starting with Heroes of Might and Magic III, my seven year old could play it and so can you.
Come to think of it, no reason not to brush up on the classics like Jagged Alliance 2.

Shogun 2 Total War is probably the most accessible of the nu-total wars, so I'd start with this in the series. Biggest problem with the series for a newb, imo, is information overload on the screen.

I wouldn't consider Civilization 4 to be inaccessible, so I recommend this, 5 and 6 were sufficiently dumbed down for the mass audience if that's what you're looking for.

Mechanicus is a rather simple and not too difficult game, it's decently written and is nice if you want to dip a toe in Warhammer 40k

For RTS, the old Dawn of War remains a decent offering, or Company of Heroes (I'd start with 1) if you prefer WW2. Total Annihilation is great when it comes to gameplay,
but campaigns are lackluster (especially if your point of reference is starcraft). You will mostly want to play skirmish with AI, so might as well play Beyond All Reason, which
is free, has a modernized engine, strong AI and plenty of tutorial videos.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Rise of Nations is easy to get into, and goes for cheap on sale on Steam.

Rise of Nations is great, and I'll happily play anyone at it.

 

[Victor1234]

I just replayed Age of Empires II after a long time. It hasn't aged well for me even though I loved it back in the day. It has too many fiddly bits that newer games streamlined. Especially on the economy side, villagers need a lot more micro than newer games of this genre. Likewise I found the AI to be bad compared to other offerings (both generally and with unit pathfinding in particular).

I was also positively surprised by how simple the tech tree/few upgrades there were. Games sure were tightly designed back in the day.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I’m looking for a game that makes me think I’m a high level genius and then say check make and hot women pop out of my computer.

Sounds like Warlords II:

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Red Alert 2. If you've already played it, play it again.

 

[JarlFrank]

nobody mentioned Age of Empires II yet

I recently started playing the Definitive Edition and it's absolute peak. Especially with the new DLCs, which are all pretty cheap, there's a shitload of campaigns to play through and they're all of good quality. Multiplayer is fun too but you will lose a lot at first as a noob.

It was my favorite game as a kid, and it still holds up. If you're new to strategy games and only played Star Craft, it's a great game to get you deeper into the genre. It adds several layers of complexity and nuance compared to Star Craft, with a bigger focus on macro than micro, without being overly complex. It's easy to learn and hard to master.

You get 4 resources: wood, food, gold, stone. Wood is used for buildings, food for recruiting villagers, most military units require gold, and stone is exclusively for fortifications. The one rote task you need to learn is to constantly queue villagers in your town center, you gotta keep pumping those dudes out so they can gather resources, but what you do with them is a major strategic decision: do you prioritize wood, gold, or stone? How many farms do you build? Depending on what kind of military you want to go for, you'd want to prioritize different resources. Wood and gold for archers, food and gold for knights.

There's a big enough variety of units to make tactics interesting, and because gold and stone are important but scarce, achieving map control is important.

The campaigns offer a great variety of mission goals, and many are quite challenging (especially the new DLC campaigns).

As far as traditional RTS games go, AoE2 is the best in the genre. Its lasting popularity is testament to its excellence. A team of modders was working on a big content mod for the game, then Microsoft hired them to remaster the game, which they did. Their mod was turned into an official DLC, and then they made two more DLCs... after which the game was remastered again, much more thoroughly this time, and Definitive Edition is the best example of how to remaster a classic. None of the gameplay was changed, but a lot of QoL features were added, and some of the weaker campaign levels were overhauled, and they added three more campaigns! And now they keep pumping out DLC for it, and the game has an incredibly active multiplayer scene, as well as mods that add new campaigns and gameplay modes.

In fact the game has a more active playerbase than the new sequel AoE4. It's an enduring classic for a reason. I've been an RTS fan since my childhood, but not a single game in this genre has managed to surpass AoE2. It's just that good.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I think the fact that they heavily hinted at AoE4 as being multiplayer first and also the fact that they didn't even bother to use another historical setting had a lot to do with the last bit you mention. The beta I signed up for was multiplayer only. Everything they were testing had to do with online modes. Which is fine, and while it's certainly a big component of the game, I'd be willing to say people play more single player than multiplayer.

 

[Gaznak]

Big strategy games to feel yourself like high level genius?

Civilization (Test of Time, 3 or even 4, later they become too zoomerish to tolerate)

Master of Orion 2 (don't bother about modern 'remake', it's a cheap and ultimately boring dreck)

Ehm, well... I thought I would write a loooong list but everything I can think of seems to be rather hard to grasp for a person who's not familiar with strategy games enough.