Fantasy war games?

[KainenMorden]

I also support the recommendations for Warbanners and Drums of War. These are quite solid titles. They may feel a bit more like tactical RPG, as they focus on the skirmish level.

You want hex-based fantasy war games?

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=1684,1717 I think that should open up Steam's browse-by-tags for fantasy and hex-grid. I haven't played many of them, but I did like Age of Wonders III. I'll also recommend Himeko Sutori, but I might be biased.

I happen to have a significant part of these on Steam, so here is my take on them:
Not a wargame(more of a tactical or RPG):
Urtuk
Fabled Lands
King's Bounty
Blackguards
Chaos Reborn
Braveland

More 4X than wargame
Deity Empires
Thea
Endless Legend

4Xish wargame:
Wizards and Warlords: good system, but very poor AI

Wargamish 4X:
Warlock: Master of the Arcane: another good system with a very poor AI. The end game DLC that adds Demons kinds of makes up for that, as they don't follow usual rules
Age of Wonders 1-3: these might feel closer from Fantasy General than a traditional 4X actually.
Eador Genesis: Very good game, but the campaign is a bit repetitive


Board games:
For the King
Armello
Gem Wizards Tactics

Discontinued:
Dogs of War Online: This one was actually a miniature-y wargame based on Confrontation

warhammer armaggedon is a nice panzer corps clone.
rites of war is also a good panzer general clone.

Rites of War feels closer from a fantasy game, with its overpowered heroes. It is also better than most Warhammer Armageddon campaigns (because the system in Armageddon doesn't work with super strong units, so the better campaigns are the ones which limits you to low tiers units).


There was also a game from Slitherine using the Battle Academy engine, named Hell. I didn't play it much, and it has Mixed ratings though.
There is also the BattleLore game, which is a mobile port from the adaptation of the board game.

Vestaria Saga and Symphony of Wars could fit the bill, but they are closer from tactical RPG (like Ogre or Fire Emblem).

Thanks for taking the time, very monocled response.

 

[Infinitum]

Dominions 5 is complex but generally the rules are intuitive and you can learn them as you progress

Let's not get carried away here. Dominions is a pretty dope meme generator and scratches a very particular itch but as a game it's a barely functional, unbalanced and incoherent mess.

 

[Dadd]

Dominions 5 is complex but generally the rules are intuitive and you can learn them as you progress

Let's not get carried away here. Dominions is a pretty dope meme generator and scratches a very particular itch but as a game it's a barely functional, unbalanced and incoherent mess.

What I said is completely reasonable.

 

[Infinitum]

Intuitive apart from the ui, the turn order, strategic movement, scripting, the tactical ai, spell and ritual effects, the undocumented features, the barely documented features, the manual straight-up lying and how the game handles the myriad edge cases that arises? I like Dominions 5, but it's one of those games where you spend more time googling or searching discords attempting to parse why the fuck it just did that than you do playing it.

 

[octavius]

Lords of Midnight was a pretty good fantasy wargame. It's free on GOG now.

 

[Ladonna]

Everything has pretty much been mentioned here.

War in Middle Earth maybe?

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Ladonna I don't know if that's the same game a friend of mine told me about. It looks like the right age. My friend told me he started that game, started walking south toward Mordor, then a couple people in the game said "It's the ring-bearer. Let us accompany you!" And then they joined up. Then my buddy got to Mordor and his followers were like "We should leave to go fight this army while you continue on your quest!" And my buddy allowed it. And then he walked right up to Mount Doom and beat the game. Whole thing lasted like 15 minutes.

Infinitum Dadd How is that game so popular? 1,600 reviews implies about 48,000 sales. For a $40 game, that might mean $30 average per sale across regions, maybe even $20 average if most people bought it on sale. Even then, we're still talking about a game that made $1 million in revenue. How??? The whole trailer is just original 1995 PlayStation graphics and generic fantasy music bragging about "100 factions! 200 gods! 8 schools of magic! 3000 spells! 500 craftable items! 5000 random events!" Is this like the fantasy-general version of Call of Duty bros who buy the same game every year because "It's just like the last version, but this one is newer!"

 

[KateMicucci]

Infinitum Dadd How is that game so popular? 1,600 reviews implies about 48,000 sales. For a $40 game, that might mean $30 average per sale across regions, maybe even $20 average if most people bought it on sale. Even then, we're still talking about a game that made $1 million in revenue. How??? The whole trailer is just original 1995 PlayStation graphics and generic fantasy music bragging about "100 factions! 200 gods! 8 schools of magic! 3000 spells! 500 craftable items! 5000 random events!" Is this like the fantasy-general version of Call of Duty bros who buy the same game every year because "It's just like the last version, but this one is newer!"

How can a video game with bad graphics be popular? Must be the COD bros.

 

[Infinitum]

It's popular for pretty much the same reason Aurora 4X or Dwarf Fortress or legacy roguelikes are popular with a very distinct subset of people - a couple of nerds started adding shit to a simultaneous turns strategy passion project and never fucking stopped. There are endless build/strategy tinkering opportunities. Furthermore, it's easily moddable meaning there's more content in it than you can shake a stick at.

Starting to play multiplayer can be amazing what with the out-of-box solutions you are forced to come up with in response to other players' bullshit, not to mention throw at them in return. And again, due to the nature of simultaneous turns there's nothing quite like the dread of opening a .trn file, eyeiing through the message log, not knowing whether this is the moment everything finally comes crashing down. Makes for good AAR's too; check out something awful and whatnot.

Of course, once you've seen most of what it has to offer there's a rather stark lesson to be had about the inside-the-box threats some nations can muster that there simply aren't cost-effective answers to, the appaling systems and ui in general and the sheer amount of jank one has to grind through to get to the good parts.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I also support the recommendations for Warbanners and Drums of War. These are quite solid titles. They may feel a bit more like tactical RPG, as they focus on the skirmish level.

You want hex-based fantasy war games?

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=1684,1717 I think that should open up Steam's browse-by-tags for fantasy and hex-grid. I haven't played many of them, but I did like Age of Wonders III. I'll also recommend Himeko Sutori, but I might be biased.

I happen to have a significant part of these on Steam, so here is my take on them:
Not a wargame(more of a tactical or RPG):
Urtuk
Fabled Lands
King's Bounty
Blackguards
Chaos Reborn
Braveland

More 4X than wargame
Deity Empires
Thea
Endless Legend

4Xish wargame:
Wizards and Warlords: good system, but very poor AI

Wargamish 4X:
Warlock: Master of the Arcane: another good system with a very poor AI. The end game DLC that adds Demons kinds of makes up for that, as they don't follow usual rules
Age of Wonders 1-3: these might feel closer from Fantasy General than a traditional 4X actually.
Eador Genesis: Very good game, but the campaign is a bit repetitive


Board games:
For the King
Armello
Gem Wizards Tactics

Discontinued:
Dogs of War Online: This one was actually a miniature-y wargame based on Confrontation

warhammer armaggedon is a nice panzer corps clone.
rites of war is also a good panzer general clone.

Rites of War feels closer from a fantasy game, with its overpowered heroes. It is also better than most Warhammer Armageddon campaigns (because the system in Armageddon doesn't work with super strong units, so the better campaigns are the ones which limits you to low tiers units).


There was also a game from Slitherine using the Battle Academy engine, named Hell. I didn't play it much, and it has Mixed ratings though.
There is also the BattleLore game, which is a mobile port from the adaptation of the board game.

Vestaria Saga and Symphony of Wars could fit the bill, but they are closer from tactical RPG (like Ogre or Fire Emblem).

I am not seeing Fallen Enchantress is the list, what gives?

 

[KateMicucci]

Of course, once you've seen most of what it has to offer there's a rather stark lesson to be had about the inside-the-box threats some nations can muster that there simply aren't cost-effective answers to, the appaling systems and ui in general and the sheer amount of jank one has to grind through to get to the good parts.

What nations specifically do you have problems countering?

 

[Dadd]

Intuitive apart from the ui, the turn order, strategic movement, scripting, the tactical ai, spell and ritual effects, the undocumented features, the barely documented features, the manual straight-up lying and how the game handles the myriad edge cases that arises? I like Dominions 5, but it's one of those games where you spend more time googling or searching discords attempting to parse why the fuck it just did that than you do playing it.

I agree about the UI but the combat, movement, province mechanics, etc, feel intuitive if you learn as you play. You need to learn the turn order for any turn-based game. What specific cases of the manual lying are you talking about? Personally I don't mind some mechanics being hidden/undocumented for me to figure out if the fundamentals are covered in the manual.

 

[Infinitum]

There's plenty threads bitching about Dominions already. Riddle me this and I might humour you though: Under what circumstances can a counterthug catch and combat a stealthy commander using a stealth movement order?

 

[KateMicucci]

There's plenty threads bitching about Dominions already. Riddle me this and I might humour you though: Under what circumstances can a counterthug catch and combat a stealthy commander using a stealth movement order?

So your frustration comes from getting elfed?

 

[Kruyurk]

There's plenty threads bitching about Dominions already. Riddle me this and I might humour you though: Under what circumstances can a counterthug catch and combat a stealthy commander using a stealth movement order?

With that profile picture and your 666 posts, this riddle could be an attempt to trick us mortals in helping your evil plans. Not this time, Satan.

 

[Dadd]

Provide a significant example of what makes the game a "barely functional... and incoherent mess." Because that sounds like an extreme exaggeration and I haven't seen any evidence that supports that statement. I accept that it is unbalanced, and that is part of the appeal.

 

[KateMicucci]

I accept that it is unbalanced, and that is part of the appeal.

You certainly wouldn't find the game appealing if the same one or two nations always won. Dominions is mostly decently balanced except for a few crap nations that need an update. What you actually like is that it's asymmetrical.

 

[Dadd]

I accept that it is unbalanced, and that is part of the appeal.

You certainly wouldn't find the game appealing if the same one or two nations always won. Dominions is mostly decently balanced except for a few crap nations that need an update. What you actually like is that it's asymmetrical.

It is unbalanced, it's just that there are lots of nations.

 

[Infinitum]

So your frustration comes from getting elfed?

One always gets elfed, unless the Van player has no idea what he's doing. It's just a nice little puzzle question involving some amount of rules knowledge. Two correct answers exist that I know of, the trivial one being patrolling provinces and hoping something blunders in. The other is a little bit more involved, but shouldn't* be too hard to solve once one has some nice intuition of the game systems at play. Again, when sneaking, what set of circumstances can force a commander into combat anyway?

 

[Galdred]

Ladonna I don't know if that's the same game a friend of mine told me about. It looks like the right age. My friend told me he started that game, started walking south toward Mordor, then a couple people in the game said "It's the ring-bearer. Let us accompany you!" And then they joined up. Then my buddy got to Mordor and his followers were like "We should leave to go fight this army while you continue on your quest!" And my buddy allowed it. And then he walked right up to Mount Doom and beat the game. Whole thing lasted like 15 minutes.

Infinitum Dadd How is that game so popular? 1,600 reviews implies about 48,000 sales. For a $40 game, that might mean $30 average per sale across regions, maybe even $20 average if most people bought it on sale. Even then, we're still talking about a game that made $1 million in revenue. How??? The whole trailer is just original 1995 PlayStation graphics and generic fantasy music bragging about "100 factions! 200 gods! 8 schools of magic! 3000 spells! 500 craftable items! 5000 random events!" Is this like the fantasy-general version of Call of Duty bros who buy the same game every year because "It's just like the last version, but this one is newer!"

Dominions 5 is the goto multiplayer fantasy 4X. There is just no competition. It also kind of works as a single player LARPing simulator. As Infinitum mentionned, it is one of those games where the author decided not to give a fuck about the UI, AI, and GFX, and keep addning content.
Not many game can come close in term of complexity. And as FFA MP is the main game mode, imbalances are not such big an issue (ie, just gang up on the stronger "civs" if you are unhappy with them winning constantly).

Its MP popularity might also come from the fact that it supports real simultaneous TB (unlike the civ, or AoW series where it is very awkwards to play simultaneously, and very impractical to play TB).
Also, it's not like there are that many new versions. I think I bought Dominions 2 aound 2000 (2003 actually), so 3 new versions in 19 years is not close to CoD level, and because of the MP focus of the game, many players will feel the need to upgrade.

I accept that it is unbalanced, and that is part of the appeal.

You certainly wouldn't find the game appealing if the same one or two nations always won. Dominions is mostly decently balanced except for a few crap nations that need an update. What you actually like is that it's asymmetrical.

Not really. If the main mode of play was 1v1 disciple wars, you could probably tell the winner right after the pretender selection phase. Actually, that's why I could never find enough players to arrange such a game, so the factions are known to be imbalanced, but not to the point that some diplomacy cannot solve the issues. The game could certainly use a handicap system (ie, some factions have less points than other, with the bonus/malus depending on their overal non-beginner MP scoring). But it can hardly be avoided with asymetric games anyway. MOO2 was not very different in this regard.

 

[Galdred]

I also support the recommendations for Warbanners and Drums of War. These are quite solid titles. They may feel a bit more like tactical RPG, as they focus on the skirmish level.

You want hex-based fantasy war games?

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?tags=1684,1717 I think that should open up Steam's browse-by-tags for fantasy and hex-grid. I haven't played many of them, but I did like Age of Wonders III. I'll also recommend Himeko Sutori, but I might be biased.

I happen to have a significant part of these on Steam, so here is my take on them:
Not a wargame(more of a tactical or RPG):
Urtuk
Fabled Lands
King's Bounty
Blackguards
Chaos Reborn
Braveland

More 4X than wargame
Deity Empires
Thea
Endless Legend

4Xish wargame:
Wizards and Warlords: good system, but very poor AI

Wargamish 4X:
Warlock: Master of the Arcane: another good system with a very poor AI. The end game DLC that adds Demons kinds of makes up for that, as they don't follow usual rules
Age of Wonders 1-3: these might feel closer from Fantasy General than a traditional 4X actually.
Eador Genesis: Very good game, but the campaign is a bit repetitive


Board games:
For the King
Armello
Gem Wizards Tactics

Discontinued:
Dogs of War Online: This one was actually a miniature-y wargame based on Confrontation

warhammer armaggedon is a nice panzer corps clone.
rites of war is also a good panzer general clone.

Rites of War feels closer from a fantasy game, with its overpowered heroes. It is also better than most Warhammer Armageddon campaigns (because the system in Armageddon doesn't work with super strong units, so the better campaigns are the ones which limits you to low tiers units).


There was also a game from Slitherine using the Battle Academy engine, named Hell. I didn't play it much, and it has Mixed ratings though.
There is also the BattleLore game, which is a mobile port from the adaptation of the board game.

Vestaria Saga and Symphony of Wars could fit the bill, but they are closer from tactical RPG (like Ogre or Fire Emblem).

I am not seeing Fallen Enchantress is the list, what gives?

Good point. Some of the Fallen Enchantress games were quite enjoyable actually. The last two ones I would say. They would be relatively close to Age of Wonders in terms of characteristics. They are a bit more flawed, but they have pretty cool exploration and stuff that makes them feel almost like tactical RPG at times.

 

[The Limper]

For some old school fun, try Warsong( Langrisser). Its the reason i still have a sega genesis. Leaders, troops, magic, magic items.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Victor1234]

I saw Sword of Aragon mentioned earlier but here's another recommendation for it. Aside from being an excellent wargame combined with fantasy combined with overarching story, it's also got one of the best wargaming army building mechanics I've ever used that hasn't really been copied since.

You don't recruit archers or infantry or unit type X like in every other game. You recruit recruits and then you organize them into units however you like (with max size being the only annoyance). Now your gaggle is an army but they're still useless, you need to decide how to equip them. There are some restrictions (you can't have dudes that are two-handed swordsmen archers on horseback with crossbows in the other hand) but you decide the equipment combos.

You want a unit that is great at ranged fighting but also close up? Expensive but possible. Do you want a unit that has horses to travel the world map quickly but dismounts to fight battles on foot? Expensive but possible. Do you have a unit of expendable dependable heroes that you want to reward after many victories? Your cheap grind infantry are now your elite knights with only a few buttons and a lot of money spent.

Seriously, horses are super expensive in this game and that's how it should be.