Other turn based strategy games

[Drakarska]

Agree with Imperialism 1& 2, both were great games. Didn't know GoG had them, guess I should pay closer attention to my notifications.
HOMM 3 &4
RoTK series ( Minus a few notable exceptions that had me scratching my head in puzzlement)
GalCiv II plus expansions
Space Empires IV

TBH, I haven't really seen anything recently that strikes my interest, other than what has been mentioned above. I keep checking the Steam store for anything new, but keep getting disappointed

 

[Haggbart]

Can vouch for Stellaris.

As for strategy board games converted to computer games, you absolutely must play Twilight Struggle. Also available on Android/IOS, I think it's the only game I've ever bought on three different platforms (tabletop, Steam and Android )

 

[chazzycat]

Master of orion 2 is still one of the best 4x games out there. I didn't hate the recent remake but it didn't have half as much depth as I had hoped.

I have such fond memories of Moo2. The graphics are pretty outdated at this point, but man...it's just a fantastic game. If there was one mechanic I would love for Civ to steal from that game - it would be the option to decline victory. Then the rest of the map unites into 1 giant civ and declares permanent war on you. So. Much. Fun.

Stellaris is a fun game too but probably worth mentioning it is not turn based.

 

[Karmah]

Endless space 2 really got me hooked for a while. As someone who is not much of sci-fi fan thats saying something.

 

[redrum68]

TBS: Endless Space 2, Endless Legend are both solid games that bring some new ideas to the table
Grand Strategy: Paradox games (EU4, CK2, Stellaris, etc) which aren't true TBS but played at a slow pace and add diplomacy to the mix
Free Board Game Engine: TripleA (has lots of interesting TBS games with rules evolved primarily from Axis & Allies board game)

 

[Socrates99]

Agree with Imperialism 1& 2, both were great games. Didn't know GoG had them, guess I should pay closer attention to my notifications.
HOMM 3 &4
RoTK series ( Minus a few notable exceptions that had me scratching my head in puzzlement)
GalCiv II plus expansions
Space Empires IV

TBH, I haven't really seen anything recently that strikes my interest, other than what has been mentioned above. I keep checking the Steam store for anything new, but keep getting disappointed

ooh RoTK! I loved those back in the day! Are any of the newer ones any good?

I think Genghis Kahn 2 from KOEI was my first TBS love and it led me to RoTK. Sunk hours into those.

 

[Smity2k1]

In addition to ones already mentioned (Xcom, Endless space) I've been enjoying the Shadowrun games and the just released Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark (Like Final Fantasy Tactics).

 

[acluewithout]

Has anyone tried Pax Nova? It’s current in alpha on Steam.

Battle Tech looks good, particularly now with the urban combat dlc (expansion, whatever). But that seems to be in the same place as Civ development-wise - needs more patches, expansions etc to hit its stride.

 

[Karmah]

Agree with Imperialism 1& 2, both were great games. Didn't know GoG had them, guess I should pay closer attention to my notifications.
HOMM 3 &4
RoTK series ( Minus a few notable exceptions that had me scratching my head in puzzlement)
GalCiv II plus expansions
Space Empires IV

TBH, I haven't really seen anything recently that strikes my interest, other than what has been mentioned above. I keep checking the Steam store for anything new, but keep getting disappointed

ooh RoTK! I loved those back in the day! Are any of the newer ones any good?

I think Genghis Kahn 2 from KOEI was my first TBS love and it led me to RoTK. Sunk hours into those.

never heard of RoTK , a brief look on steam shows they are many and not all in english. Which one would you advise to start in 2019 ?

 

[Drakarska]

RoTK VII & IX have always been my personal favorites, as the sheer amount stuff in the games is phenomenal.
Mod community is still very active, and as for translations to English, Mod community is extremely helpful there as well.
I haven't played the latest in the series, as I haven't had sufficient time to see if it is worth the investment of time and money.
Also, much like Civ ( and other games) certain iterations are not worth it to play ( at least for me). I can recommend VII at the minimum at least, as that is probably my most favorite.

 

[Leucarum]

Has anyone tried Pax Nova? It’s current in alpha on Steam.

Battle Tech looks good, particularly now with the urban combat dlc (expansion, whatever). But that seems to be in the same place as Civ development-wise - needs more patches, expansions etc to hit its stride.

I've tried battletech, but it was before the expansions were released. It was interesting but very slow going. The management side can be quite unforgiving so if you try it I reccomend playing through the intro story missions, saving, getting used to the real mechanics, then going back to the save and doing it properly. I want to give that game another go at some point. .

 

[chriskj]

Through the Ages is a digital adaptation of the board game. Turn based, it's civ-ish and has a good AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think Genghis Kahn 2 from KOEI was my first TBS love and it led me to RoTK. Sunk hours into those.

I also loved GK 2: Clan of the Grey Wolf. Played that a lot on the SNES as a kid. I even did videos of it a bunch of years ago. Trade and ambush abuse FTW.

 

[ezysquire]

Also putting in a shout out for Battle for Wesnoth. It's simple but amazing with so much replayability. Probably the best multiplayer turn-based game going around as shorter 2v2 battles or such can be played out in relatively short amounts of time - or take forever if that's more your bag. Did I mention it was free also?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Through the Ages is a digital adaptation of the board game. Turn based, it's civ-ish and has a good AI.

Through the Ages has an excellent AI and a ton of challenge modes for after you get to the point where you can regularly beat the AI under normal rules. It also has an active multiplayer community. For beginners, you can dumb down the AI, and then gradually increase it when you're ready.

As for being civ-ish, some players will find it that way, specifically players who want to build an empire with a focus on winning and enjoy games you can complete in a couple of hours. There's no "one way to win", and you need to adapt to what the other civs are doing. There are wonders, historical leaders, a ton of technology to research, and an underlying game engine that will be familiar to civ fans: food, happiness, science, culture, and military strength (which gets modified during conflict over colonies by special colony bonuses, which are effectively your navy).

However, a lot of other civ-players would not find it civ-ish. There's no leader personality to the other civs. Diplomacy is minimal and card-driven. There's no true sense of empire-building unless you have a good sense of imagination: your empire is an engine for victory, not something to enjoy and play around with in it's own right. There's no exploration of an unknown map - there's no map at all. Territory is abstracted through colony cards, population tokens, and resource tokens. So a rich, low population empire will have few yellow tokens and lots of blue ones, while a sprawling, poor empire will have lots of yellow tokens and few blue ones.

There's a lot to love in TtA, which is a marvel of efficient game design. I enjoy it as much as I enjoy the civ-series, but for different reasons.

 

[Leucarum]

Through the Ages has an excellent AI and a ton of challenge modes for after you get to the point where you can regularly beat the AI under normal rules. It also has an active multiplayer community. For beginners, you can dumb down the AI, and then gradually increase it when you're ready.

As for being civ-ish, some players will find it that way, specifically players who want to build an empire with a focus on winning and enjoy games you can complete in a couple of hours. There's no "one way to win", and you need to adapt to what the other civs are doing. There are wonders, historical leaders, a ton of technology to research, and an underlying game engine that will be familiar to civ fans: food, happiness, science, culture, and military strength (which gets modified during conflict over colonies by special colony bonuses, which are effectively your navy).

However, a lot of other civ-players would not find it civ-ish. There's no leader personality to the other civs. Diplomacy is minimal and card-driven. There's no true sense of empire-building unless you have a good sense of imagination: your empire is an engine for victory, not something to enjoy and play around with in it's own right. There's no exploration of an unknown map - there's no map at all. Territory is abstracted through colony cards, population tokens, and resource tokens. So a rich, low population empire will have few yellow tokens and lots of blue ones, while a sprawling, poor empire will have lots of yellow tokens and few blue ones.

There's a lot to love in TtA, which is a marvel of efficient game design. I enjoy it as much as I enjoy the civ-series, but for different reasons.

Diplomacy is great fun, though unless you hate the lore the Game of Thrones board game is essentially diplomacy with a bunch of extra features which I would rate as an overall improvement.

Edit: Just realised I misread the 2nd paragraph of your post. Feel free to ignore me...

As board games go, nobody is mentioning twilight imperium. Admittedly it can take 6-8 hours to play a game, and it's space themed but I don't think any board game is more civ-like. You really get the epic feel of building up your own empire and the strategy is very, very deep.