What are some good turn-based strategy games?

[Helton]

Well, naturally, the Civ series.

Civ 4 is pretty solid but I still have a soft spot for Alpha Centauri.

Master of Magic, as has been recommended. I can recognize it's a great game and I played for a couple dozen hours in an obscenely small amount of time when I got it -- but I felt like I'd seen it all fairly quickly.

But, hell, it was free. Thirty hours for a free game can't complain.

I always have to bump Stars! as it was probably the first game I ever really got into. Makes Dwarf Fortress look like it's got bloom.

Also, I haven't played it yet but Original War sounds really awesome off of Gog and only reason I havent got it yet is I'm spending way too much time in Civ 4 right now already.

 

[Vidder]

Never heard of it; please tell me it's supported by DOS. I absolutely hate trying to get old games to work on XP. Regardless, I'll look up some details about it in a little bit.

If you like SpaceHulk'esque squad based tactics, Incubation is probably the best there is. Certainly the best I've ever heard of. It's a Win9x game & a bit of a bitch to get to run & look right under WinXP, but it can be done. It's one of the very few games I re-play every couple of years, so I've managed a few times.

Speaking of TBS games though, Incubation is part 3 of a series of very different TBS games set in the same universe. I've never seen the 2 previous instalments, but I have the 4th as well, and though it's nowhere near as good as Incubation, it's worth a look if you'd like to try what a straight up RTS is like if it's turn based. As an added bonus, that one does run under XP. I'd tell you the name too, but I can't remember right now & I'm too damn lazy to go look for the CDs. Oh and, be sure you don't miss the expansion to Incubation. It's better than the original missions.

Incubation is really great, yes. The 5th game in the battleisle series was "the andosia wars", also a real turnbased gem. A little bit slow because you have to move your reinforcement troops over the already taken battlefield also via turns of course. I loved the idea that you have to manage your base parallel to your invasion. Mine minerals, build better tanks and bring them to the front.

 

[Seldon]

My recommendations list:

Exceptional games:

Civ 4 + Beyond the Sword
Alpha Centauri
HoMM3
Lords of the Realm 2 (rt battles)
King’s Bounty (combines strategy and rpg, tb battles, real-time map movement)

Very good games:

Galactic Civilizations 2 +expansions
Master of Orion 2
Master of Orion 3 (Many hate it though)
Age of Wonders 2
Rome: Total War
Shogun: Total War
HoMM 2
HoMM 4 (Some loath it though)
HoMM 5

Good /fair games:

Sword of the Stars
Space Empires V (extremely ugly, but interesting)
Civ 4: Colonization
The Rise and Rule of Ancient Empires (enjoyable, but with certain problems)
Conquest of the New World
Civilization 3
Lords of Magic (rt battles)
Havets vargar

Approach carefully:

Medieval Total War 2 (do not even think of touching this crap without a mod!)
Shattered Union (interesting concept, and game, but quickly got a bit repetitive)
Warlords 3: Darklords rising
Warlords 4

I can also recommend almost all Paradox Interactive games. They are not TB, but are played in a grand fashion:

EU2, EU3 +exps, CK +exp, Rome +exp, Victoria +exp (and HOI 2 If one likes WW2 strategy games). Avoid Diplomacy, and do not play Rome and Victoria without their expansions.

 

[Disconnected]

Incubation is really great, yes. The 5th game in the battleisle series was "the andosia wars", also a real turnbased gem.

Sorry, meatware failure at my end. Hope I won't need a brain transplant...

Anyway, the first three are on Abandonia:

Battle Isle 1
Battle Isle 2
Battle Isle 93

 

[desocupado]

Everybody is talking about incubation, but the review I read made the game look pretty bland. Did the patches improve the game much, or was there some obligatory mod to install before playing?

 

[Destroid]

Incubation isn't bland at all.

 

[Mr. Wednesday]

Seldon, is the first Medieval: Total War as bad as the second? It's the only one in the series that looks interesting to me.

 

[Destroid]

You don't get to play PC games anymore Mr. Wednesday.

 

[kris]

I played the demo of Pacific General at least 3 times (a single battle). I loved it, but I'm not sure whether the game was ever eventually released in Poland, so I never ended up buying it. Anyone tried People's General?

Like all their games it was pretty similar, but I liked it. Played through the allied campaign.

 

[Seldon]

Seldon, is the first Medieval: Total War as bad as the second? It's the only one in the series that looks interesting to me.

To my shame, I have never played the first one. Therefore I can not offer an analysis based on experience. However from what I have read based on opinions and the game's features it seems pretty good, and far, far beyond MTW2 . More similar to Shogun, and has that old strategical map that I like.

It is pretty cheap too nowadays, so it is most likely a good investment. I am going to get it myself one day, when I have time to play it.

 

[zer]

Wages of War (Random Games)
Soldier of War(Random ... again)
Squad Leader (Random ...more)
Hammer and Sickle (based on Silent Storm engine)
Final Liberation: Warhammer Epic 40K
Spellcross

 

[Burning Bridges]

Seldon, is the first Medieval: Total War as bad as the second? It's the only one in the series that looks interesting to me.

To my shame, I have never played the first one. Therefore I can not offer an analysis based on experience. However from what I have read based on opinions and the game's features it seems pretty good, and far, far beyond MTW2 . More similar to Shogun, and has that old strategical map that I like.

It is pretty cheap too nowadays, so it is most likely a good investment. I am going to get it myself one day, when I have time to play it.

You guys should have a look at Take Command: Second Manassas. Battles much more realistic than any game by CA, but no strategic map, only basic linear campaigns.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I tried getting into ageod games but I couldn't, I don't know why. Maybe it's the setting or that the same music loops every 30 seconds, but I find it not worth the effort. I played the demo of American Civil War and I couldn't force myself to sit through it, and I hear that ACW is the best one.

No shame to admit that you don't want to sit through it, but the devs are not to be blamed for making games that are so long, and so large in scope.

Btw, I also don't like the music, but it's easy to mod.

Just wading through Ageod's ACW game now. I'm sure it's brilliant if you're into that particular time period. Sadly, I'm not and it's leaving me more and more cold the longer I play it. It's very deterministic with it's events and I'm getting increasingly fed up with building industry one turn to find it's not there the next. It's not helping that the game relies on you having knowledge of neutral states etc in order to play - I'm British ffs, it really is no concern of me that Kentucky was neutral and if the game doesn't tell me in advance, how the hell am I meant to know it's a bad idea to go charging in there.

Well that's what everyone is saying when they play it the first time, but once you read some books, know the location of the major towns, states as well as the names / bio's of the important generals, it shouldn't bother you any more.

In that respect the ACW games were very educational, I picked up a lot of knowledge about the USA, be it geography, history or sociology.

 

[Tails]

Laser Squad Nemesis - Game made by creators of X-COM Ufo Defense. Long time ago I played it with friend on trial account, great experience. LSN is pretty well balanced and has nice 2d graphics.

 

[Lightknight]

Laser Squad Nemesis

Its not turn-based.

 

[Tails]

Its not turn-based.

Unique turn-based combat - The game uses a unique and innovative, turn-based combat system, with the fine control of turn-based games and the exciting action of real-time strategy games.

 

[Destroid]

You don't take turns - you both enter your orders at the same time, then watch the results in real time. Rinse and repeat in fixed time blocks.

 

[Lightknight]

Unique turn-based combat

They wish !

unique and innovative, turn-based combat system

Um, yes, quite fresh and unique...it was invented in the 80's and was named phase combat.

 

[LCJr.]

Since no one else mentioned it.

Missionforce Cyberstorm Just be sure to track down the full game. The CD-rip version on the abandonware sites cuts out a lot of neccessary information.

Saw Battle Isle mentioned. There's two very well developed opensource clones.
Advanced Strategic Command http://www.asc-hq.org/
Crimson Fields http://crimson.seul.org/ Crimson Fields has been ported to about every OS in existence including Palm OS 5, Nokia 770, Sharp Zaurus, etc...

Spellcross, definite love/hate relationship with that one. Loved the basic game. Hated the extent to which the AI was given cheats. I finally gave up in the middle of chapter 7.

 

[Lightknight]

Spellcross, definite love/hate relationship with that one. Loved the basic game.

Have you ever seen the full version ? Shops, torrents, friends, anywhere ?

 

[Tails]

grumbling

Yeah, you are so cool by bitching around good game.

Anyway: UFO: Alien Invasion - It's a XCOM inspired game using Quake 2 engine. Currently is rather poor but maybe in year or two can be something good.

 

[Lightknight]

Yeah, you are so cool by bitching around good game.

Thats just your personal opinion. Mine is that Gollops never created anything praise deserving after the original X-Com. Honestly, sometimes i even wonder if they really are the ones who created X-Com in the first place.

 

[LCJr.]

Spellcross, definite love/hate relationship with that one. Loved the basic game.

Have you ever seen the full version ? Shops, torrents, friends, anywhere ?

I had the HOTU version years ago. Never looked for the full version myself.

 

[Ghoulem]

About turnbased strategy games. I really liked the Rise of Nations strategy map. It's such a shame they ruined that and everything else with Rise of Legends. They really could have gone somewhere with that map. More regions, different type of armies, better diplomacy etc. Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought that? And why didn't the developers think about it?

 

[Zhuangzi]

About turnbased strategy games. I really liked the Rise of Nations strategy map. It's such a shame they ruined that and everything else with Rise of Legends. They really could have gone somewhere with that map. More regions, different type of armies, better diplomacy etc. Please tell me I'm not the only one who thought that? And why didn't the developers think about it?

Agreed. I thought Rise of Nations had amazing possibilities - looked like it could bridge the gap between TBS and RTS genres. But Rise of Legends was an abomination. Not a terrible game, but retarded gameplay for sure.