All time favorite strategy games post

[LouigiVerona]

StarCraft for me. Love the game!

[magicsofa]

Putting in another vote for Brood War. Although, I have a serious love-hate relationship with it, because once you get into online play you realize that you will never ever be good unless you want to spend hundreds of hours developing carpal tunnel as you train your fingers to press buttons at inhuman speeds. So finding well matched players is really important. Even so, the mechanics require such unrelenting speed for potentially hours - it's exhausting. But exhilarating.

The thing about Brood war is that the actual strategy part is quite deep, and the balance is pretty damn good considering how different the three races are. I find that aspect of it extremely engrossing. However, pressing buttons until my fingers bleed isn't really my thing. For this reason I've kept my eye out for a strategy game that is just as fulfilling in the realm of base building, army composition, and tactical play but not as taxing in terms of mechanics. Haven't really found one. I have some half-formed plans to make my own indie game to fill the void but, that's a long way off...

A favorite from the past that I haven't revisited in a long time however is Pharaoh. Sunk a lot of hours into that one back in the day!

[Aaron Blain]

This thread has covered most of it for me. No mention of Cossacks: European Wars, though? It's so good.

 

Oh, and don't forget Koei. I'd like to get into a number of their games, but I've played a decent bit of Romance of the Three Kingdoms III on Genesis. It's handy being able to pull it up on RetroArch on my phone and play a couple of turns here and there.

 

I have a Ptolemaic campaign going in Roma Surrectum 3, but the battles and load times are so long that I very rarely have the chance to play it.

 

I finally started learning to play board wargames over the past year, and I find them vastly more compelling. My favorite so far is Great Battles of History. I've only played them thus far on Vassal (which is free btw), but I'm looking forward to visiting a club now that the world is opening back up.

[Sena]

Does Scrabble count?

[Kurogachii]

1 hour ago, Aaron Blain said:

I have a Ptolemaic campaign going in Roma Surrectum 3

I also would recommend Extended Cultures V, it's the perfect blend of vanilla and authenticity, also it has a culture system that makes you recruit exclusive units depending of the settlement culture.

[[McD] James]

Starcraft, Starcraft 2, Dungeon Keeper, Final Fantasy Tactics, Magic: The Gathering. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by [McD]James

[Barry Burton]

Warcraft 2 and Starcraft. I played War2BNE so much. Online had some really great modes like Free Castles, Tower Wars and Mageball, some quirky ones like BGH and Waterknights. Free Castles especially was great as it was so fast paced (you didn't have to wait for units/buildings to be made as it was instant and costs nothing). Starcraft I didn't play too much online because I was used to War2BNE and Free Castles and SC felt slow in comparison. Plus, the skill level of some players just simply eclipsed me.

[ReaperAA]

Oh yeah SC2. Apart from C&C games, I also really enjoyed playing the single player campaigns of Starcraft 2 (WOL+HOTS+LOTV). In fact I think SC2 missions are probably the best designed mission I have played in any RTS game.

 

Though I never tried MP of SC2. SC/SC2 multiplayer scares me 😅

[jazzmaster9]

I always go back to the Rise of the Reds mod for Command And Conquer: Generals.

 

It gives the game additional depth with an expanded tech Tiers, New Factions and and General Rebalancing of existing factions.

[Tony_Pepporoni]

Blood 1 and tabs

[franckFRAG]

Definitively Age of Mythology, and the Titans expansion

[LordEntr0py]

2 hours ago, Omniarch said:

Total Annihilation

The reason I can't play RTS games any more. Never enjoyed an RTS as much as I enjoyed TA.

[Omniarch]

Just now, LordEntr0py said:

The reason I can't play RTS games any more. Never enjoyed an RTS as much as I enjoyed TA.

Hell yes! Did you ever play MP or no?

[LordEntr0py]

6 minutes ago, Omniarch said:

Hell yes! Did you ever play MP or no?

I'll see your hell yes! and raise you double! I played a little online, but that was insane. A lot with friends.

 

It was just so unique.

[LordEntr0py]

@Omniarch Still got an install with the third-party QOL mods installed for when it's time to play it again...

[Omniarch]

Just now, LordEntr0py said:

I'll see your hell yes! and raise you double! I played a little online, but that was insane. A lot with friends.

 

It was just so unique.

I was very late to the party, arriving in 2013 or so. Never got into MP, but spent at least a thousand hours playing various mods, lurking on the forums and watching demos, as well as drawing fanart and writing thinly-veiled fanfiction (which later evolved into my first 'novel').

 

Just now, LordEntr0py said:

@Omniarch Still got an install with the third-party QOL mods installed for when it's time to play it again...

I'd be more than happy to try MP out with you, when said time arrives...

 

I call Core. Arm is for vermin.

[LordEntr0py]

1 minute ago, Omniarch said:

I'd be more than happy to try MP out with you, when said time arrives...

 

I call Core. Arm is for vermin.

Oh, good. I do like crushing those machine-consciousness scrum. ;-)

[Omniarch]

Just now, LordEntr0py said:

Oh, good. I do like crushing those machine-consciousness scrum. ;-)

Obstinate fleshling. Someday you will see the light, embrace the Patterning, and join Central Consciousness in sublime unity. Meat and bone may crumble to dust, but adamantine steel lasts eternal...

[LordEntr0py]

8 minutes ago, Omniarch said:

Obstinate fleshling. Someday you will see the light, embrace the Patterning, and join Central Consciousness in sublime unity. Meat and bone may crumble to dust, but adamantine steel lasts eternal...

Oh this is so ON.

[Vermil]

Starcraft and Warcraft 2 and 3 for me. Though C&C3 is also pretty good and I spent a long time playing it.

[Chezza]

Grand strategy for me.

 

Medieval Total War 2 is my number 1 game. I have been enjoying Warhammer Total War 2 quite a bit lately as well.

 

I also like Dawn of War (first installments).

[[McD] James]

35 minutes ago, Vermil said:

Starcraft and Warcraft 2 and 3 for me. Though C&C3 is also pretty good and I spent a long time playing it.

 

Warcraft 2's soundtrack is amazing. The graphics hold up really well, too.  

[Rook]

8 hours ago, The_SloVinator said:

Populous The Beginning is rather a unique one on pretty much every aspect, though it lacks any variety in objectives. It's basically a 'conquest' game by destroying enemy tribes on each planet. Regardless, the spells you unleash on the enemy are satisfying.

 

Populous: The Beginning is superb and a game I will often recommend to people. It was very much ahead of its time in 1998 and was likely punished for that in terms of sales. I wrote a piece about it last year, trying to capture what I think is so unique and special about it. If you pick it up on GOG, you get an expansion with it which was very hard to get hold of for a long time.

 

I'd also echo some of the comments about StarCraft II. To me it is really the definitive old-fashioned, "classic" RTS polished to near-perfection by Blizzard. I played it online extensively for a while, but the campaigns are also extremely good and worth playing. My one gripe with them is Blizzard's determination to constantly create urgency by imposing time limits of one kind or another - this is the reverse of the original, which tended to give players all the time in the world.

 

Also last year, I finally got around to playing Company of Heroes and its expansions for the first time and thorougly enjoyed it. The level of realism is just right, and it modernised the RTS in ways which I think few (if any) developers picked up and ran with subsequently.

[Chopkinsca]

I'm too slow to play strategy games properly. I'm partial to Starcraft, even though I suck at it, when I played it last. I bought the Starcraft battle chest twice in my lifetime. The Warcraft 3 Battle Chest was a good purchase too.

 

I remember the early Command & Conquer games being great. Played quite a bit of Tiberian Sun. The newest one I played was Red Alert 2, so not too new.

[Kurogachii]

1 hour ago, Chezza said:

Grand strategy for me.

 

Medieval Total War 2 is my number 1 game. I have been enjoying Warhammer Total War 2 quite a bit lately as well.

 

I also like Dawn of War (first installments).

I love Medieval 2, i don't know why but it gives me a comfy, nostalgic feeling, those games that you play and you don't pay attention to the world around you.

[Arrowhead]

'Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War' is my absolute favorite strategy game - don't know if anybody mentioned it already! Second favorite is probably Age of Empires 3.

[roadworx]

hoo boy, playing strategy games is something i've done WAY too much of lol. i absolutely love them - that is, when i'm not hyperfixating on some other game like doom or the sims or something. i kinda grew up on games like civ4, men of war, and superpower 2, so they've always been a recurring theme throughout my life

 

tbh, the one that i have the most playtime with is probably men of war: assault squad 2, simply because of its editor. i love making scenarios, making maps and then blowing the shit out of them, creating historically accurate recreations, etc etc etc. i've probably spent hundreds of hours doing just that alone, honestly! and don't even get me started on the modding hot DAMN i've done a lot of that.

 

my brother has also been big into it in the past, and he spent countless hours making a hyperaccurate map of omaha beach :p

 

medieval 2: total war is another big one for me. before i got super into it i was never into much medieval stuff outside of crusader kings 2 (although i DID play a fuckload of that game) - 20th century history is usually what i'm into - but once my civ4 fixation had ended with me doing some digging into medieval stuff, i tried this game out and  L O V E D  it. not only is it grand strategy, but it also gets down into the actual battles and isn't just a bunch of numbers on a screen like paradox games are. it's an absolutely fantastic game, i would sing praises about it but i'd rather not be up all night doing that lmao

 

i mentioned civ4 because that's yet another huge one for me, both with modding and with playing with my s/o. it's the best civ game in the series by a large margin, a big part of that being the actually decent ai and the ease at which you can fuck around with the internal files. the core gameplay is fantastic as it always is with the civilization series, but i feel like those two factors are what make it the best imo. it's just no fun when all your opponents are idiots and modding the game is more restrictive.

 

paradox games are another big one, unsurprisingly. i couldn't tell you what my favorite is because of how long it's been since i was hyperfixating on one of them, but i think the one that i've played the absolute most of is either crusader kings ii, hearts of iron iv, or stellaris. i feel like i haven't been playing anywhere near as much of those in a while tho, i'm not entirely sure why. however, considering i suddenly became interested in doom for the first time in 3 years, i'm sure that i'll return to them eventually.

 

other than that, there's also age of empires 2. i think i first got into it when i saw some spirit of the law vids, but i always was terrible at it and didn't play anywhere near as much as i did watch stuff about it.

 

i'm sure there's others, but rn i can't think of them, and this post is already a bit too long, so i'll shut up for now lol

[Albertoni]

I particularly love Endless Legend. The army and battle system, where you can make armies with separate equipment for separate situations, and how the battles use the terrain around them, so if you face someone in the right spot you got a free choke-point or so. The lore is absolutely lovely, and the OST is top 10 OSTs for me as well.

 

The Warlords series was okay. Mentioning it because it wasn't mentioned before, but it's an interesting take on turn based strategy, specially the RTS spin-off, Warlords: Battlecry. In the first one, with the right build, you could convert all resource sources to yours due to insane range on conversion. It was fun to just stand in the middle of the map and convert all the bases, shutting enemies off resources for half a minute or so. Not the absolute best build, but definitely one of the funniest and it'd win almost all battles against the AI due to attrition.

 

Then there's Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics. Plays kinda like XCom without the unfair rolls. I particularly love it, but I do admit it's better bought on a 50% sale, and it's broken as hell. There's this girl with a pistol that if you give her all the upgrades, she has a 5% chance to miss and a special action where she shoots twice and if she doesn't miss she can just do the same action again. So she becomes a sniper that can shoot like 20 times in a round, no kidding, and basically wipe the floor, with the 3 other characters just there to buff her and move around to get line of sight to enemies. The ambience and story is lovely though.

 

Edit: Also, Civilization: Beyond Earth. I understand why some people hated it, but I loved it exactly because you feel incredibly lost all the time. You're not guiding civilization based on your knowledge of how things should be. You're going into the future, and the future is confusing. So many branches, so many things to possibly do, where to focus? I've spent like 100 hours in it and I still don't have a solid build for most situations like I had with Civ V. And I love that. It keeps me on my toes constantly.

[Combinebobnt]

90s games and early 2000s do it for me

 

Favorite: Age of Empires 2

 

Other RTS:

Starcraft

Dawn of War Soulstorm

Age of Empires 1

Command and Conquer 95 & RA2 (Mental Omega is nice too)

Empire Earth for the memes

Homeworld Cataclysm has some nice things (3D rts wow!)

Cossacks 2

Darwinia

 

TBS:

Advance Wars

Civilization 3 & 4

XCOM original (UFO2000 port has pvp which was neat)

Galactic Civilizations I would have been good if it had MULTIPLAYER

[Hypnotik]

Gonna have to go with any of the older Total War games, to be honest. (Medieval 1 all the way to Napoleon.) I would obsess and play those for hours upon hours. Wasted a descent amount of hours of my life to them games. sacrificing responsabilities to engage in them. Lmao. And once I found mods. "Fooget a'bout it!"

Age of Empires.  "Real War" .   Conflict Zone on the PS2 was a favorite of mine as a kid. Europa Universalis III. There's so many.