What is the single best SP TB Strategy?

[WhiskeyWolf]

Nobody mentions Jagged Alliance?

No, because then there'd be no point in other entries.

 

[Silellak]

X-Com, MOO1, MOO2.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Age of Wonders

Whoooooooooooooooah! Look at this game.

It looks amazing! 2002? It beats the graphics of every single isometric or top down game made since then. Civilization IV looks much worse than this.

 

[Eldritch]

I really don't think there's any "absolute best" unless you narrow it down to some very specific subgenre. Video Games are entitled to their own style and design that is aimed at providing a different yet still entertaining experience without necessarily being retarded. Heroes of M&M and AoW:SM are both great games in their own right providing their own flavor of challenge in which you will get pwned like a bitch if you're dumb with any of them. Saying AoW:SM being "superior" in every aspect of a game ridiculosly compared to HoMM III with the WoG mod is a notoriously assburgertastic bullshit people like to sprout about. It reminds me of the nerdy troglodytes fapping to certain paradox games with their ridiculous stat-porn with a lot of ridiculous stats thrown there for the illusion of "complexity" and declaring they're utterlyabsolutely superior and EXCELSIOR!!! AoW:SM and HoMM are both great games in their own right with a gestalt transcending the gimmicks for complexity providing a different pacing, different style, different experience, different games and both motherfucking GOOD as similar sandboxy time-killers both in SP and MP. Both being the children of King's Bounty (1990) and Master of Magic (1994) perfected with a lot of mods made for them to make these already perfect games even more perfect so much you don't know what you don't know you don't know that's how little you know and I know the natural history of our planet and what comes next...

Concerning those two games,

Heroes of M&M III with the latest "Wake of Gods" mod. = The ABSOLUTE best HoMM experience.

Age of Wonders Shadow Magic juiced up by the various mods and the special maps provided by an excellent community. I'd recommend the 1.4 unofficial patch mod as a base that also has a lot of awesome custom maps made for it, "Multiplayer 1.6 mod" that is a balanced version of 1.4 that is great for multiplayer and finally the various DWIGGSmod ones(5.0 is the latest) that perfects everything from even the AI to the problems with the unit tiers and spells. The mods also contain shit tons of new units and buildings. AoW:SM + Mods = HEAVAN.

They're my absolute time-killers along with AC, MoM and MoO as SP TB Strategy/Tactics, whatever the fuck pedantic aspie crap definiton they're called as. I also have a ridiculous RTW:RTR game going for a long time as the United Greek City-States started on one of the harder difficulty settings on top of choosing *that* faction that is killing me.

I'm thinking of organizing a hawt Codexian AoW:SM multiplayer PBEM game soon, when I'll have the free time to do so... Prepared to rock your faces, homos- especially Skyway.

 

[Eldritch]

Age of Wonders

I think that one's from my favorite map of all times, the "Yggpolar's Curse". A truly huge map full of win. Notice how I'm utterly blind to the superficial aesthetics at this point and can only appreciate the map I instantly recognized from a small portion of it for its tactical qualities.

 

[coldcrow]

I will never understand the love for HoMM. It's childish, has totally a totally retarded fantasy world and the gameplay isn't exactly satisfying either.

AoW:SM does a similar thing much better.

That being said: MoO2, MoO3 with latest mods (strawberry or chocolate v0.999), Alpha Centauri, Civ 1, MoM, Fantasy General, Panzer General 1.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Jagged alliance 2
Age of Wonders series
UFO and Terror from the deep.
Battle Isle 3 : shadow of the emperor.

Honorable mentions :

HoMM 3
Shadow watch
Wages of war
Warhammer 40000 : chaos gate
Fallout tactics

 

[Serus]

Master of Magic should be mentioned more often.

 

[kingcomrade]

I didn't like AOWSM so much because the battles were all about RNG and the overall strategy was "buff your hero till he instagibs everything"
I thought it was a good game and enjoyed it some, but probably won't go back to replay it any time soon. Also the balance was a bit fucked. Poor frostlings.

 

[circ]

I didn't like AOWSM for the single reason that it had a retarded time limit. AOW may have had that too but I don't remember. I hate that crap as I like to explore and take my time with stuff.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

The Steel Panthers series.

 

[MetalCraze]

AOWSM had a time limit?

 

[Zeus]

Master of Magic!

 

[Dark Matter]

Age of Wonders

Whoooooooooooooooah! Look at this game.

It looks amazing! 2002? It beats the graphics of every single isometric or top down game made since then. Civilization IV looks much worse than this.

Desperados and Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood disagree.

 

[MetalCraze]

There is one kind of things I like about AC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBVCi0Pm ... re=related

 

[kingcomrade]

Blood Bowl

 

[Severian Silk]

Jagged Alliance 2

 

[Seldon]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, what else could it possibly be? While Civ 4 and MOO2 are excellent games, they are far behind SMAC.

 

[oscar]

I'm finding Panzer General alot of fun and quite accurate in showing how German tactics worked. Mouse takes two years to drag across the screen though so when I quit it takes like 20 minutes to get readjusted.

 

[MetalCraze]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, what else could it possibly be? While Civ 4 and MOO2 are excellent games, they are far behind SMAC.

Don't know about Civ4, but I'm playing AC now and it is certainly better than MOO2 on many levels, also more challenging and atmospheric.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Warlords baby!!

Not the crappy sequels but the glorious original.

 

[Jasede]

Master of Magic; no contest. And I like SMAC.

Though if X-Com counts, there is a contest. JA 2 is definitely close second to both of them, though. And Master of Orion 2 is up there too, somewhere.

But yeah, Master of Magic & X-Com take the cake, any day, at least for me. I must have logged 8000 hours into MoM, easily. Fantastic game; never gets boring to me.

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 or 3 also are at least somewhere up there too - 2 because it's just so damn pretty and nice-sounding, and 3 because it's just as good as 2, but in a different style. Wars have been fought over which one is better. (2 for me!).

 

[Texas Red]

Why does nobody mention Heroes 5? Sure the cut scenes are pretty lame but I found it fun. I liked that the cities had a coherent theme instead of being mish mashes of random myth creatures.

 

[Ghoulem]

Because it isn't as good as Heroes 3, so there wouldn't be any point in doing so.

 

[Severian Silk]

I tried one of the Battle Isle clones and didn't like the separate move and attack phases. It felt like you were playing an simultaneously-executed game, except that you were alternating with yourself... Lame.

HoMM felt like a board game. The Game of Life with elves, yay!

I prefer JA2 to XCOM (except for the missing multiple elevations!) In JA2 at least your opponent has a believable semblance of personality. Too bad Silent Storm was so disappointing...

MOO2 was definitely fun! I haven't played more than a demo of any of the Space Empires games, but I liked what I played.

I've always wanted to play one of those persistent online space conquest games, but never got around to it.

I also played C-Evo pretty heavily for a while. I'd have to say it's the most polished freeware game I've played. Never actually played one of the *real* Civ games, except for a little bit of SMAC.

I managed to enjoy the Shining Force series despite the anime plotlines.