Games where units are groups of simulated models

[Nutmeg]

Well, people quickly started mentioning games quite different to what I originally had in mind (old title of the topic used the wording "ordered formations" in lieu of "groups", which corresponds with the the first three lists below), but why fight it? Here's what people have been talking about:

Games where (some) units are models arranged in *ordered* formations, real-time, fictional:

Siege (1992)
Shadow of the Horned Rat (1995)
Dark Omen (1998)
Zeus (2000)
Dominions (2001, 2003, 2006, 2013, 2017)
Warrior Kings (series) (2002, 2003)
Battle for Middle Earth (series) (2004, 2006)
Black and White 2 (2005)
Mark of Chaos (2006)
King Arthur (series) (2009, 2012)
Total War (series) (2016, 2017, 2022)
Bad North (2018)

Games where (some) units are models arranged in *ordered* formations, real-time, historical*:

Walls of Rome (1993)
Caeser 2 (1995)
Sid Meier's Gettysburg (1997)
Caeser 3 (1998)
Pharaoh (1999)
Sid Meier's Antietam (1999)
Cossacks (series) (2001, 2005, 2016)
Total War (series) (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020)
American Conquest (2002)
Emperor (2002)
Praetorians (2003)
Knights of Honor (series) (2004, 2022)
Imperial Glory (2005)
Crusaders (2008)
Imperium Romanum (2008)
Grand Ages: Rome (2009)
Histwar Les Grognards (2009)
King's Crusade (2010)
Hegemony (series) (2010, 2014, 2015)
Scourge of War (series) (2012, 2015)
Ultimate General (series) (2014, 2017)
Seven Years War (2015)
Ancestors: Legacy (2018)
Grand Tactician (2020)
The Valiant (2022)
The Great War: Western Front (2023)

Games where (some) units are models arranged in *ordered* formations, turn-based, historical*:

Pike & Shot: Campaigns (2015)
Sengoku Jidai: Shadow of Shogun (2016)
Field of Glory (series) (2009, 2017)

Games where (some) units are squads of models, real-time, fictional:

Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency (2000)
Ground Control (series) (2000, 2004)
Kohan (series) (2001, 2004)
Dawn of War (series) (2004, 2009, 2017)
Empire at War (2006)
Tiberium Wars (2007)
Halo Wars (2009)
Iron Harvest (2020)
Starship Troopers: Terran Command (2022)

Games where (some) units are squads of models, real-time, historical*:

Panzer Command (series) (2006, 2011)
Company of Heroes (2006, 2013, 2023)
World in Conflict (2007)
Graviteam Tactics (series) (2012, 2016)
Wargame (series) (2012, 2013, 2014)
Syrian Warfare (2017)
Regiments (2022)
Warno (2022)

Games where (some) units are squads of models, turn based, fictional:

Final Liberation (1997)
Armageddon (2014)

Games where (some) units are squads of models, turn based, historical:

The Troop (TBD)

Games where (some) units are squadrons (as in aviation or space flight) of models, real-time, fictional:

Haegemonia (2002)
Empire at war (2006)

Strange, but related, Japanese takes:

Dragon Force (1997)
Ogre Battle 64 (1999)
Yggdra Union (2006)
Last Remnant (2008)
Lost Technology (2017)

*Historical includes historical fiction.

Statistics

Will be re-done once thread stabilizes.

But general observations are:

1. Lots of real-time historical games, specifically games from the Total War series and their clones (is it fair to say Total War clones? I guess it's like Doom clones, in that it wasn't the first, but it was definitely the game that everyone cloned). Popular periods are the time of Rome, the 17th to 19th centuries (various theaters), and of course World War 2.

2. This approach to units seems to be a 21st century thing. Very few examples from the 90s, none from the 80s.

 

[Modron]

What are your thoughts on games where units are smaller scale formations of actual individuals like Ogre Battle 64, Last Remnant, and I guess technically Sengoku Rance?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Does Mount and Blade qualify? And if we're including weeaboo stuff, maybe check out Lost Technology. Though in both cases units are technically individuals, they're basically faceless drones with a level attached for veterancy. Dragon Force was probably one of the earliest versions of it, though the tactical options there are extremely limited.

And yeah, if you include turn based examples, there are a ton. But I find in practice those function very differntly, since there's no tactical application of the formations so it's akin to a blobber rpg. If you want to be able to blow up a dense knot of troops at a gate or break through a thin line to attack a commander, Mount and Blade and Lost Technology are my recommendations.

 

[Nutmeg]

Dragon Force was probably one of the earliest versions of it, though the tactical options there are extremely limited.

Also IIRC the standby command was extremely OP. You could use it to take down generals at range with no fear of retaliation, and it gave melee units a huge advantage too after they engaged.

What are your thoughts on games where units are smaller scale formations of actual individuals like Ogre Battle 64, Last Remnant, and I guess technically Sengoku Rance?

I remember Ogre Battle being very broken, and I haven't played the others, so I don't know. But in terms of what qualifies that brings me to

And yeah, if you include turn based examples, there are a ton. But I find in practice those function very differntly, since there's no tactical application of the formations so it's akin to a blobber rpg

Not necessarily. There may be abstractions for facing, wedging, unwanted charges etc. The first Fields of Glory game does a good job with this, as it adapts rules from a miniatures game. Not sure about the other Fields of Glory games.

I think as long as an attempt is made to capture the spirit and dynamics of dudes in ordered formations fighting eachother, it qualifies.

Lost Technology

Cool, hadn't heard of this one. Looks cool, especially the vaguely mid 90s art style (homage to Suikoden 1 or Dragon Force?) for something I assume is made in the 10s. Although units don't really seem ordered, just kinda flock together.

As for M&B, I can see why you mentioned it, but it's not really a war game, though you can restrict yourself to playing it kinda like one.

 

[Aemar]

Cossacks series, American Conquest, Kohan games, Hegemony series.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Ultimate General- series.
Scourge of War -series.

 

[Jaedar]

Dawn of war might count, although the formations are small.

 

[Levenmouth]

Warno, previous War Game titles. Only the infantry units are groups, but you can and usually do group tanks and such into formations too.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think as long as an attempt is made to capture the spirit and dynamics of dudes in ordered formations fighting eachother, it qualifies.

If that's the part that gets your rocks off, I think Dominions is where it's at. You can sperg out for hours setting up formations and orders in that game, so that the archers land a volley just before the cavalry makes contact, or the elephants open a hole in the lines on the north side of the battle to let your assassin hero sneak through to the enemy commander, or your infanty forms a funnel to make the enemy blob up and suffer from the AoE dumped on them by mages or catapults. Sadly the AI is crap at the game and playing against people both takes forever and likely results in a curbstomp since the people that play MP have invested several small childrren's liftimes worth of time in learning the game.

 

[Nutmeg]

Cossacks series, American Conquest, Kohan games, Hegemony series.

Ultimate General- series.
Scourge of War -series.

Interesting, many of these are set in the musket and early rifle era (Hegemony and Kohan being the exceptions).

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Cossacks series, American Conquest, Kohan games, Hegemony series.

Ultimate General- series.
Scourge of War -series.

Interesting, many of these are set in the musket and early rifle era.

If you want more modern, then you can look into likes of Close Combat -series, Wargame -series, Firefight, Armored Brigade, Steel Panthers -series, that one WW1 game which name escapes me, etc.

 

[Nutmeg]

Cossacks series, American Conquest, Kohan games, Hegemony series.

Ultimate General- series.
Scourge of War -series.

Interesting, many of these are set in the musket and early rifle era.

If you want more modern, then you can look into likes of Close Combat -series, Wargame -series, Firefight, Armored Brigade, Steel Panthers -series, that one WW1 game which name escapes me, etc.

It's not a matter of what I am after, this thread like many of my other threads is intended as a community resource.

But anyway, I actually think close ordered formation dynamics play a bigger part in melee combat heavy historical eras or fictional settings, hence my opening examples.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

For turn based games, I recommend the following:

Pike & Shot: Campaigns (an older release but still holds up, lots of great community content)
Sengoku Jidai: Shadow of Shogun (same ruleset as Pike & Shot, but covering 1500-1600 Asia)
Field of Glory series (Medieval being the latest release)
The Troop (excellent stuff, smaller scale WWII battles in Normandy)
Warhammer 40000 Armageddon (p. good in itself, amazing with the community mods that can be found on Slitherin forum)
Warhammer 40000 Final Liberation (old release available on GoG)

For real time:

Syrian Warfare (excellent RTS presenting a vatard view of war in Syria)
The Great War: Western Front
Halo Wars
Iron Harvest (diesel punk 1920s)
Ancestors: Legacy
Regiments (IMO the best RTS set in Cold War era)
Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency (oldie but goldie, hard to get nowadays)
Starship Troopers: Terran Command
The Valiant (fairly good medieval/fantasy stuff)

Stuff like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes can also fit the bill, especially if you want to play MP matches.

 

[adddeed]

Imperial Glory
Haegemonia
Paraetorians
Black and White 2

 

[Justinian]

Infantry in Command & Conquer 3 works that way.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Interesting, many of these are set in the musket and early rifle era

Line tactics seem to be good fit for these types of games.

With more modern setting (Wargame-series for example) focus seems to go towards vehicles with infantry side getting somewhat simplified and abstracted.

 

[vota DC]

Infantry in Command & Conquer 3 works that way.

Also angry mob from C&C generals

 

[VerSacrum]

Histwar Les Grognards

It's basically Total War Napoopan for, well, grognards.

 

[Nutmeg]

Good contributions from everyone, I added everyone's suggestions and added some categorization people might find handy. I invite everyone to gaze upon the OP in awe.

Over a dozen zoomer games

This is a whole lot of zoomer shit. Which is good, as it's an era of games I ignore by default. Would you consider any of them "must plays"?

With more modern setting (Wargame-series for example) focus seems to go towards vehicles with infantry side getting somewhat simplified and abstracted.

Agree. "squads" are much simpler in how they function compared to ordered formations (deformations e.g. splitting have less of an effect and are usually omitted from game rules, facing likewise). Hence why I used squads vs ordered formations as a category boundary in my edited OP, and hence why I initially started the thread with only the latter in mind.

 

[deuxhero]

Nintendo Wars/Advance Wars has each unit (who occupy a single tile on the battlefield), except for ships and some wunderwaffe introduced in Dual Strike, be a group of units who lose members (and thus deal less damage) as they lose HP (the few units that are single units also lose power, but it comes from batteries knocked out). It first appears in the original Famicom Wars, but the GBA/DS Advance Wars games are the best known (especially in the west where they're the only ones translated)

 

[catfood]

Sid Meier's Gettysburg and the rest of the games in that series is what you're looking for.

Since you've added Cossacks on that list you might as well add Knights and Merchants too. Each unit is simulated individually but they can and ought to be controlled in groups.

 

[Nutmeg]

Since you've added Cossacks on that list you might as well add Knights and Merchants too. Each unit is simulated individually but they can and ought to be controlled in groups.

I added the Cossacks games because someone else mentioned them. I myself have never played them.

If unit of control = individual that would disqualify these games (I mean, if it's so for the majority of units, it's ok if e.g. a handful of large units are individuals but infantry and smaller vehicles are groups). Should I remove Cossacks?

EDIT: After watching some gameplay, Cossacks has been removed.

EDIT: After an appeal from JarlFrank later in the thread, Cossacks has been reinstated.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Over a dozen zoomer games

This is a whole lot of zoomer shit. Which is good, as it's an era of games I ignore by default. Would you consider any of them "must plays"?

I would say Regiments, as it is IMO the best take on the Cold War era mechanised combat to date. For the turnbased ones, you cant go wrong with Pike & Shot, especially if you want to try out battles in conflicts that were basicaly never covered in vidia - the community content for the game includes stuff like the Zulu war, British fight against Mahdi´s army in Sudan, Crimean war, or battles of Friedrich the Great against Austria. The base game covers the period between the Italian wars in 1500s to the Great Turkish war in the late 1600s, which in itself is terribly under represented period in gaming.

 

[Nutmeg]

I put 600+ hours into Wargame Airland Battle BitD (or so says steam), yet I can't remember many basic things about how it plays. Probably because a lot of that time was coming up with nice decks of units for each of the factions, and because I played those 600 hours in a one or two month span. But from memory, infantry didn't play a big role at all, and the fact that units indeed did consist of multiple models was more a visual thing than anything that actually affected play. Models were basically HP plus damage, i.e. the Famicom Wars formula, which is, IME, one of the simplest and least interesting approaches to units as squads, squadrons or men or machines in ordered formation.

Regiments looks like a Wargame clone. Does it do anything interesting that Wargame doesn't, or is it just better tuned, so to speak?

 

[Nutmeg]

you might as well add Knights and Merchants too

Do you know what's criminal? Not one codexer mentioned KaM in my RTS thread. I myself have not played it, so that's my excuse, but I've seen it praised by men of good taste elsewhere and I know it has an active multiplayer community (as active as a niche, old game can have) and an actively developed open source engine, two big green flags in my book. From what I have seen, it looks like the better alternative between itself and Settlers 3, both of which are evolutions of Settlers 2 in a more conventional RTS direction. Well, that's a discussion for my other thread, and a comparison for me to explore in greater depth (by playing the games back to back) some other day.