[RD] The most intellectually challenging PC game

[dusters]

Since I felt like boasting yesterday, I asked my friend what does he suggest- he said Europe Universalis or Stellaris.

I was like - are they really harder than playing Civ 3 on SId or Civ 5 on Deity? He said yes.

What is your opinion?

***

Mods, if this thread belongs in "Other games" section, sorry for inconvenience.

 

[Tahuti]

What is "intellectually challenging"? I know people who avoid games like Fallout and Deus Ex and prefer Far Cry or Call of Duty instead, because they find the narrative of the first two too complicated. They still are hardly unintelligent though. If my overall intelligence resembles my Civ Skills, I should conclude I'm pretty dumb.

 

[dusters]

I could say - the one which requires the highest strategical, mathematical and logical intelligence to win on the highest difficulty setting.

 

[Leoreth]

Achron? I still haven't wrapped my head around that one.

 

[REDY]

I wasnt able to finish Quadrax X.

any chess game, without knowledge how to exploit its AI

Some games also have different learning curves, lack of or misleading tutorial making intellectually challenging even relatively simple games.

 

[Tahuti]

I could say - the one which requires the highest strategical, mathematical and logical intelligence to win on the highest difficulty setting.

That is just step 1, step 2 is integrating these skills together for that particular purpose - to win on the highest difficulty setting - as you mentioned. That's different for any game and may each present a different learning curve.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'd nominate World of Tanks. It's an intellectual challenge because the game takes the basics of online battle games and slows everything down a lot (a lot). Even in random games with a bunch of strangers the 15 tanks on each side are meant to comprise a team and the individual vehicles aren't intended to be equal to each other. Every vehicle has its own strengths and weaknesses, down to weak points in armor, gun reload times that can run many seconds, and movement speeds so slow you have to plan and anticipate the action (take a single wrong turn at the very beginning of a battle in a slow tank and you can cripple your team).

The fact that it's a purely multiplayer game is key here, because other players can and do take advantage of every little detail and club you to death with them. Detailed knowledge of every map and every vehicle is rewarded, and wherever your ability, or interest in keeping up, ends is where you will be blown into fiery slag.

Skim the forums and you'll see people complaining that the game is "random", that people are cheating, that they get killed without warning and don't even know how or why. It takes many players hundreds of games even to grasp the fundamentals, and many players have no idea how to interpret what's happening right in front of them.

Back in the day, my friends and I played infamously challenging tabletop games like Squad Leader and Starfleet Battles, and World of Tanks reminds me of those games more than it resembles contemporary online shooters.

 

[dusters]

Achron is being downloaded right now. And quadrax too.

Chess - I have played since 4, been in top3 and top6 in my country for kids my age, I'm well aware that I can't beat computers who can beat Super grandmasters. But Chess in PC is a game simulation, I'm asking for PC games.

Thanks - i might try WoT although I have avoided it for years due to its fast paced gameplay.

EDIT - Quadrax looks like Blizzard's Vikings remake. Unless 1st quadrax came out before 90s. Vikings were super fun back in the day.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Thanks - i might try WoT although I have avoided it for years due to its fast paced gameplay.

It's a 'real-time' game, not turn-based, so in that sense it is fast-paced. However, as real-time games go, it's extremely slow and measured. Finding the pace of a given battle is key to playing well; many people get blown to Kingdom Come because they rushed, and many people lose game after game because they dawdle.

 

[Leoreth]

Achron is being downloaded right now.

The game is kind of flawed but definitely deserves more attention than it got.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The game is kind of flawed but definitely deserves more attention than it got.

I'd never even heard of it before. I'm a little weary of time travel fiction, but I've never played a time travel game. Looks intriguing.

 

[dusters]

It's a 'real-time' game, not turn-based, so in that sense it is fast-paced. However, as real-time games go, it's extremely slow and measured. Finding the pace of a given battle is key to playing well; many people get blown to Kingdom Come because they rushed, and many people lose game after game because they dawdle.

Yes, my all time favourites are Civ 3 and HoMM 2/3. All turn based games, so I would prefer something slow. From what you said, it might be ok too. I'll check out shortly.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'm not sure it's the same as "intellectually challenging", but I found the sheer amount of information the Football Manager games throw at you to be overwhelming (see the Player Attributes screen below, which is just one page of one player's folio). You don't need to be a soccer fan to play the game, but of course it helps. Playing a single season is like a whole game of Civ, and can take weeks.




(I just noticed the joke. )

 

[dusters]

My mate spent a year or so playing a hat trick, some kind of football manager 15 years ago. I'm well acquainted with games like that, no, thanks. I kinda prefer games that I can finish in one week. And, like in Civ, I like to see how far ahead AI is. In Civ3 you can see that, in chess you can see that. In Homm games as well.

 

[warpus]

Eh Football Manager is not really that intellectual tbh, even though at first glance there's a lot to it. And there is, but I took a team from the 8th tier in English football to Champions League glory and my tactics were basically to get my team playing well in 2 formations, 98% of the time used 4-4-2, to slightly alter my tactics whenever teams started beating me (I would change a specific thing and then change it back, once teams adapted), make sure I had 2 solid players per position for each of my formations, made sure to never play a high defensive line, to keep my wage structure under control, and.. luck. My team was the youngest in the EPL once I got there, took me 3 seasons to start dominating.. and I was still the youngest team in the league and had the lowest wage bill. Realistically my 21 and 22 year olds shouldn't have been able to compete with veterans, but in the game once you're on a roll, you're on a roll, and you keep winning. Plus the human player is given "the benefit of the doubt" it seems, so if you do most of the things "right", the game doesn't punish you, like reality might.

It's a fun game but I wouldn't call it overly intellectually challenging. Once you figure out the patterns you can take a crap team all the way to the top.

Besides, FM is very very addictive and can ruin lives.

 

[mrt144]

Blood Bowl

 

[dusters]

Blood Bowl

Looks intriguing. My 49.99 euros is nearly there.

Thanks.

 

[mrt144]

Looks intriguing. My 49.99 euros is nearly there.

Thanks.

There are other ways to play - Fumbbl.com for example.

The reason I consider it so good is there are many aspects of thought you need to juggle

1. You need spacial visualization skills
2. You need planning and prioritization and adaptive planning skills
3. You need cogent team building ideas
4. You're managing risk of failure on every move or action you take
5. You're managing attrition of your players

It combines really well into a crude hybrid of Football/Rugby with a fantasy fluff artifice. I've been hooked for 3 years now.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Strategy games like Civ don't provide a very good example. They could, in some circles, but this isn't one of them because this is a Civ forum. It doesn't take breathtaking leaps of creative intellect to play Civ at a high level, it just takes a visit to the S&T forums. Follow along in the footsteps of "optimal play," ignore the fact that doing so is really just sacrificing any fun the game might offer, and there ya go.

 

[tetley]

MHO: most intellectually challenging has to be an RTS. It has not just to make you think, but make you think quickly. And expand your memory banks, and make you store away and recall loads of information on-your-feet.

It's just hard to think which RTS did that. I used to play 8 AI's in Red Alert 2, which did it. Rise of Nations (which is basically the RTS version of Civ) had quite a number of stalemate situations, where there was perpetual combat; but even as you are trying to micro that, you have to come up with an overall strategy to break the stalemate. Sins of a Solar Empire 4-way multiplayer was very intellectually stimulating.