Best Strategy Games Part Two.

[Lemon Merchant]

you can always take the "scares small children" approach. That seems to work for me regardless of whether I try to apply it .

I already frighten small children. (Especially those nasty little noise generators who misbehave in grocery stores or restaurants. They get Nasty Nat's "You'd better smarten up" look, or better yet, my "Nurse Voice" if they get really outrageous, since I can't very well put them in restraints. If you've ever been in a hospital and crossed a nurse, you've received "The Voice". It can be terrifying. )

Actually, my biggest beef with D&D is that it's turning into a strategy (or rather, tactics... but nobody ever makes the distinction) game and I vastly prefer it as a more open-ended 'adventure simulator' with a heavy emphasis on 'rules are suggestions to make the GM's life simpler, nothing more.'
This might be a futile and somewhat illogical protest, since it originally descended from tabletop wargames though...

I would agree with that, though I have never played a lot of tabletop adventure games. I tried in college, but the other people seemed to be just loony about it, and would get a little too carried away. Role playing, yes, but do you really need to show up to play wearing armor?

The last D&D type PC game that I enjoyed was the Baldur's Gate series. The problem with it, though, was that it was so linear. I could make a few deviations along the trip to the end, but I still needed to collect the Magic Hat, the Boots of Pointlessness, the Runes of Foolishness, etc. in order to be able to finish the game. There wasn't a lot of strategy there beyond knowing what spell to throw, and guessing if the RNG would let you win this or that particular battle. There wasn't much replayability either.

All this talk of Starcraft has me thinking. I've seen it rather cheap in the stores lately, and I am a sci-fi nut...

Lord, something else to keep me from getting the housework done...

 

[Iranon]

Starcraft can be a little hard to stomach if you start it now... it does feel woefully out of date and has all the usual blizzard quirks (no real difficulty adjustments for random games, micromanagement-heavy).

On the other hand, the combination of balance and depth is something I haven't seen surpassed since then and it's deservedly a classic...

 

[Racsoviale]

and as a plus, it has quite a cool storyline and setting. If youre into sci-fi I think youre gonna like it

 

[morss_4]

Am I the only one who really separates RTS from turn-based strategy (TBS?) in their mind?

I like turn-based strategy games so much because they're entirely cerebral. No multi-tasking, building macroing, drag+drop+attack frenzy that takes place in other games - not that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed RTS games, but they generally are more eye-candy, less brain-candy IMHO.

Try the Paradox games, like Europa Universalis III, Hearts of Iron or Victoria.

They are the TBS fans RTS.

 

[thekaje]

I guess it sorta depends on my mood. I think Starcraft is incredibly deep, well-balanced, and just cool. I even like watching the pro Koreans sometimes.

Starcraft and Blizzard both deserve their reputations. How do you balance perfectly three completely different races? It's amazing.

Besides, Blizzard has never released a critical or commercial flop. Every release gets universal praise and sells millions.

I think Europa Universalis is incredible for history people, or people who like to sit back and strategize.

 

[grommit5]

I'm still going to have to go with 'other'. Space Empires IV. Although HOMM III would also have to be at the top of my list.

I think this really is a tough question. There have been way too many games over the years. I can't even remember all of them.

 

[Icekommander]

HOMMIII did it for me. I don't think I've logged as many hours on any other game I've played. For a period of three years or so, I alternated between it, and Warcraft III intermittently. I still go back and play it fairly often. Civ and Europa Universalis are both fun, but both tend to drag out and get repetetive. And I've played starcraft, but TBH I sorta sucked at it(Ok, really sucked at it), and was alot like Warcraft. I guess
I would have voted for Warcraft, except I missed it when I first looked at the options. Not so much for the Core Multiplayer stuff, but because of the custom games and the campaign (Some missions I've done upwards of ten times).

 

[PaulisKhan]

CIVIVMONGER: I would recommend you get settlers 2 for the pc if you want a good settlers game, it has a very laid back attitude, and you can really learn a little about the art of logistics and manufacturing.
Remember to play with music from your itunes library instead of the ingame music though(oldschool sounds/music gets annoying very quickly).
The problem with the later installments of settlers is that they try to make it more into a genuine wargame(while still trying to keep the management part, in this they fail and I think you will only have bad experiences with that) It's a bit amusing but it seems that every new settlers game they make, it gets worse. I have: the settlers 2(as well as the 10th anniversary edition), settlers 4, and heritage og kings(and in my mind they go from very good to bad to worse.
I dont know much about the rise of an empire, but in my experience with settlers, I think you should try end get the settlers 2 10th anniversary edition(I promise you that your computer can run it) the only extra you get from the 10th anniversary edition is some polished graphics, sound and some new maps I believe, but it should also be a little more vista friendly(you know what vista is like concerning games riiiiiiight)

^
what that guy said (except that I is even better than II).

 

[Kierkegaard]

I'd like to agree that Risk is a game of luck.

Strategy and luck goes well together . And aren't most games partly luck? And some others are just spamming units and conquer all.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

I voted Europa Universalis... and now I remember where I had heard that medieval music we hear in bts... the second opus of the EU serie!

 

[Kierkegaard]

Europa universalis is a good game indeed.

 

[Brian Boru]

I voted Command & Conquer, since Red Alert wasn't listed--although the original C&C was fun too.

Nobody has mentioned Total Annihilation yet, another contender for best single RTS ever. It was part of that late 90s era of excellent RTSs, and has a spiritual recent successor in Supreme Commander, which I have but haven't played yet.

Strangely enough, I haven't played a Blizzard game yet. Starcraft is definitely on my list for 'sometime', it really does have a stellar reputation. Dark Reign is another from the late 90s which many liked, although I didn't take to its style.

 

[Panzeh]

I like the imperialism series and actually find that imperialism 2 does colonization better than any version of colonization. Less micro, more overall strategy and more emphasis on a strong navy.

 

[Mikeda]

Chess, the perfect balence of tactics (the ability to see if you can win a piece in a position), strategy, and easily being able to see somebody face to face. Just yesterday I vouleenteered at a chess club, taught a few five year olds how to play, and played a few games against strong players myself. Fun times

Civ is actually quite a bit down the list. I mostly play it when I feel like manipluating a computer, and playing a more strategical game.

 

[iamke55]

Starcraft is simply the best. Never have I been so awed by a video game. Most of the great games show a lot of potential but fail to fulfill it and yet are still amazing, but Starcraft separates itself by executing everything so perfectly.

 

[KinesongPayaso]

Chess is a very beautiful game
No matter what level you are, it's very... good, entertaining, exciting, w/e
even reading the "bibles" is entertaining


a special mention:
WCIII: FT
this game is best enjoyed being played by high level pros
I enjoy it more watching Moon or Sky play rather than me playing

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Chess is a very beautiful game
No matter what level you are, it's very... good, entertaining, exciting, w/e
even reading the "bibles" is entertaining


a special mention:
WCIII: FT
this game is best enjoyed being played by high level pros
I enjoy it more watching Moon or Sky play rather than me playing

The world editor in WCIII is a big plus too. A lot of people buy the game just to play the custom maps...well specifically one custom map: Defense of the Ancients. It's amazing, I bet purchases of WCIII just to play this player-created (and passed on, evolving) map exceed that of many games that stand alone. Some of the others are very good too though.

Watching the pros play both warcraft and starcraft is amazing, their speed and ability to manage large #'s of things at once is ridiculous, and there's a lot of hidden stuff you don't notice unless you're good yourself, like why they choose their units in a game or especially the timing of when they do things like expand, harass, or go for creep jacks.

I played against a league player who was just 1 step below the pros. I can win ~ 1 in 10 or 20 games against him (catching him off guard with something unexpected, I'm at least good enough to hang onto an advantage. A good example was KOTG + hunts and a creep jack that cost him 3 fiends early. Before he could recover, there were towers and glaives near his base ).

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Like EU, 2 had great music w it but inspite 3 was improved I dont find it that challenging or good
ejoyed the Medieval TOW very much, again great music; Rome is seriously good but I just dono like the Romans so much...

 

[Bluetooth]

For me it has to be Heroes of might and Magic III. This is a game I play over and over again and it always works like a charm on every new computer/OS. But when I installed it on my latest computer (Windows Vista 64) I was a bit worried.

This was the message I got: Setup has detected that you have 4 GB of memory available on your system. The game requires 32 MB to run. The game may run sluggishly, become unstable or fail to run.

Well, I can report that it still works like magic.

 

[sakhmet]

Jeez, Starcraft. Played it for such a long time. What a great game. It was superb in singleplayer, but when you logged on to battlenet - OMG! It sure did require skills.

And with a little over 130 days played of WoW - on just one character - I'm not the one the throw harsh words at it. I wonder which civ would have my shadowpriest as UU. It would be imba.

HOMM5 is not a bad game though. I loved the third one aswell, but there's lots of great hours in the latest edition too. Chainlightning with spellpower >25..!