Best strategy games.

[CivIVMonger]

Starcraft was one of the best games ever made, and more balanced than most RTS...and often ranks among the best games all-time when competing against everything.

That none of the starcraft/warcraft series showed up in the poll, but age of mythology and all the age of empires did is pretty sour, especially given that these games compete with ratings against ALL games, not just strategy games .

Sorry TMIT. I did my best for only 25 options. And, I don't know every game as well. Im a hardcore PC gamer, but... Not for everything.

 

[LegionSteve]

Good poll C4M

I voted MTW. This runs BTS very very close for my favourite game (including board games and tabletop games and whatever) of all time. I play BTS more than MTW now so I guess BTS wins but since MTW is a lot older the fact that I still play it at all means a lot.

RTW was fun, I loved the roman setting. The fact that they changed the risk type map for something much more complicated, without telling the AI about it, so all it could do was pathetically randomly bumble about, I could sort of forgive because I was Rome and they were useless barbarians.

I expected that they would fix the AI in M2TW but instead they made it worse. After that badly polished turd I refuse to buy any more of their games. So apart from the usual bum licking reviews I have no idea what ETW is like.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I've tried a lot of other computer strategy games, and they are mostly disapointments.

So I wound up going back to pre-computer board games with replayabillity. I always enjoyed 3M's Feudal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal_(game)...basically a turn based strategy game, chess-like pieces, but you move all 13, or none if you prefer on your turn. It had impassible mountains, and rough terrain impassible to mounted.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Good poll C4M

I voted MTW. This runs BTS very very close for my favourite game (including board games and tabletop games and whatever) of all time. I play BTS more than MTW now so I guess BTS wins but since MTW is a lot older the fact that I still play it at all means a lot.

RTW was fun, I loved the roman setting. The fact that they changed the risk type map for something much more complicated, without telling the AI about it, so all it could do was pathetically randomly bumble about, I could sort of forgive because I was Rome and they were useless barbarians.

I expected that they would fix the AI in M2TW but instead they made it worse. After that badly polished turd I refuse to buy any more of their games. So apart from the usual bum licking reviews I have no idea what ETW is like.

Civ is my number one. Only by a very, very, thin thread that separates TW series apart. RTW, graphics are somewhat horrible, and yes, the AI is bad. MTWII is AWESOME, The Graphics are amazing and the fighting is so real. 2 things it lacks, good AI and real blood. If it had that than MABYE it would take #1... They are 2 different genre's though. To fix the AI, just play online! Your fighting real people just as good or better than you. That is an easy problem to fix. I am saving up to buy a computer able to run ETW, MTWII runs O.K. Good frame rate at med settings. ETW is plagued w/ bugs but they came out with a patch. Increasing the hyperthreading technological capacity greatly, greatly improving duel core preformance. Just get a good duel core and gpu, 3 gigs of ram and your good! The graphics on ETW are so detailed that you can actually see the individual threads on peoples jackets. I did vote MIITW though. I do actually have that game.

 

[warpstorm]

I like BFME2ROTWK, but I have reason to be biased.

 

[warpstorm]

II always enjoyed 3M's Feudal.

Wow, my brother and I used to play that all the time.

 

[braindrain]

old school fantasy empires woo!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sorry TMIT. I did my best for only 25 options. And, I don't know every game as well. Im a hardcore PC gamer, but... Not for everything.

I'm suspending your "hardcore PC gamer" license for cause. The cause is that you put age of mythology (among other affronts) in that poll and not starcraft .

Also, I'm hearing that you are hereby banhammered from entering South Korea. Forever. The only way to lift the ban is to get an APM over 200 .

 

[CivIVMonger]

I'm suspending your "hardcore PC gamer" license for cause. The cause is that you put age of mythology (among other affronts) in that poll and not starcraft .

Also, I'm hearing that you are hereby banhammered from entering South Korea. Forever. The only way to lift the ban is to get an APM over 200 .

Haha Tmit. I don't even like AoM. I hear it's really good though, for 5 years ago that is.

For your matter. AoM will just represent Starcraft on the poll. By the way, what is starcraft. I'm not a gamer of the 20th century so don't be like, "You AREN'T a hardcore gamer until you have starcraft.

It's not even funny I know your going to say that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Haha Tmit. I don't even like AoM. I hear it's really good though, for 5 years ago that is.

For your matter. AoM will just represent Starcraft on the poll. By the way, what is starcraft. I'm not a gamer of the 20th century so don't be like, "You AREN'T a hardcore gamer until you have starcraft.

It's not even funny I know your going to say that.

Hmmm, I guess if you're a youngin' you might have missed out. But you could at least have placed warcraft III there, even if it isn't as good as starcraft . The blizzard games have reigned at or near the top of RTS since the mid 90's. If they ever *actually* release starcraft II (I know they're working on it, trailers have been around a long time), you're going to see what I mean.

Still, how many of those games you listed have televised matches and tournaments in other countries ?

 

[grommit5]

Space Empires IV

and now you can get it for almost nothing, $10 on steam. dated graphics but still good.

 

[CivIVMonger]

Hmmm, I guess if you're a youngin' you might have missed out. But you could at least have placed warcraft III there, even if it isn't as good as starcraft . The blizzard games have reigned at or near the top of RTS since the mid 90's. If they ever *actually* release starcraft II (I know they're working on it, trailers have been around a long time), you're going to see what I mean.

Still, how many of those games you listed have televised matches and tournaments in other countries ?

I'm not as old as you. I'm not a stalker but i've seen your youtube page (looking for more LP's). Probobly not as young as you think but i'm not as old as you.

Is starcraft from the 20th century?

Edit. World of Warcraft?!? Isn't that like the biggest nerd game ever!?!

 

[grommit5]

braindrain, that was a good one, Fantasy Empires. makes me want to get out the CD and load it on the old P100.

if you want to go old school though how about "Empires Deluxe" which is nothing more than a windows version of "Empires", an old DOS game, which was an even older Mainframe port into DOS.

now i'm really showing my age. oh well.

it was a great game. extremely simple by todays standards but a great game for its day.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Civ is my number one. Only by a very, very, thin thread that separates TW series apart. RTW, graphics are somewhat horrible, and yes, the AI is bad. MTWII is AWESOME, The Graphics are amazing and the fighting is so real. 2 things it lacks, good AI and real blood.

I find that the real blood tends to make my keyboard slippery and my screen unviewable.

Wow, my brother and I used to play that all the time.

I loved the looks of the miniature figures. That, and putting my castle in a corner of the board where the archer was protected and could cover the green. Keep the king in the castle.

 

[sfnhltb]

braindrain, that was a good one, Fantasy Empires. makes me want to get out the CD and load it on the old P100.

I have Fantasy Empires installed on a fairly new quad core Vista box, you just might need DosBox (even on XP probably, to control the game speed, and in Vista for full screen DOS support). I have a note that you need to Ctrl-F10 to get the mouse to work in the game, but apart from that it was no problem.

My list would probably be something like this:

1. Hearts of Iron 2 Armageddon (but 1936 scenario)
2. Civ 4 BTS
3. Europa Universalis 3 Complete
4. UFO Afterlight
5. Master of Orion 3 (w/Strawberry or similar)
6. Star Wars Supremacy (Rebellion in the US)
7. Medieval Total War 2
8. Imperialism 2
9. Homeworld 2
10. Railroad Tycoon 3
11. Alpha Centauri
12. Majesty Gold
13. Lords of Magic
14. Heroes of Might and Magic 4 Complete
15. Disciples 2
16. Lords of the Realm 2
17. Domination
18. Space Empires 5

 

[grommit5]

that's why i keep the p100 around. it dual boots to either DOS 5.0 or WIN95. I keep it around for old school games. use it for the old Gold Box D&D games also.

Ahh the good old days.

Gotta disagree with you about Space Empires V. Too buggy even after all this time. i'll stick to SE IV.

 

[sfnhltb]

I probably got SE5 quite late on, because I don't remember encountering any bugs significant enough that I noticed them. The reason it barely makes the list is the AI is so easy to roll over, even on the higher levels. I have SE4 as well (part of some publisher pack on Steam), but I think I have only played it once and it just seemed a pale version of its successor.

 

[grommit5]

have you tried balance mod? it toughens up the AI significantly. and yes, a lot of the bugs have been fixed by variuos modders. i'd say 30% of the game was nonfunctioning on release though. it was literally unplayable. i was just extremely disappointed cause i loved SEIV so much.

 

[Iranon]

I wasn't too fond of Warcraft 3 as a game (liked the atmosphere); unnecessarily heavy on micromanagement and the hero system worked far better in other games like the Warlords: Battlecry series (which I would have liked to be an option; bugs and lacklustre production value are more than offset by sheer depth. Same goes for Master of Magic for turn-based games).

I definitely agree that Starcraft needs to be the there as well; despite the typical Blizzard shortcomings (come on, how hard can it be to implement random maps and a practical difficulty selection for single player) their ability to combine balance with radically different gameplay for all sides is something to be respected.

*

Anyway, I suspect I will still be playing chess and the occasional game of go long after the listed games lose their appeal for me.

 

[Glassfan]

I still have my old Starcraft and Broodwar disks and load them up for play occasionally, but I think the best game I ever played was Diplomacy (board). If you got some good players together, it could be the most bloodthirsty, stab-in-the-back, totally butt-kicking good time.