Your 5 Favorite Games That Are Not Civilization

[lymond]

Silent Storm is awesome. I picked up that and Sentinels on a Steam sale. I've been having a blast with it ever since.

Really glad you enjoyed SS, Lemon!

It's really quite an unknown gem, even more so for TBS fans. Didn't realize Steam had it. I was very pleased when GOG picked it up a few years ago and updated it, as it would not run on Vista+ without some weird tweak to the executable.

 

[SombreDolphin]

Most favorite to least (this month at least.. it always changes )
1. Bully Scholarship Edition
2. Ace Combat 5
3. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (classics amirite?)
4. Assassins Creed... uhh 3 I think, I can't remember xD The one with the 13 American Colonies
5. Minecraft... (if I could put civ on the list, minecraft would not be on the list xD)

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

In no particular order:

1. World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
I loved this game back when it had an active community. There was barely a day going by without me playing a few matches. It was just such a unique RTS, because you built no base, no units, no gathering of resources , no building up your economy and swarming the enemy with a large carpet or something. No, instead you had a fixed amount of points you could spend on flying in units from outside the battlefield/map in your team's reinforcement zone. If a unit of yours got killed, you got the points you spent on it back over time. For the most part you controlled half a dozen units, e.g. five main battle tanks or five gunships depending on your role, and it was your job to micromanage every single one of them. Games were usually 8 vs 8 players, one team NATO/USA vs the other team USSR (it's set in an alternate history where the cold war got hot in '89), and every player had to pick whether they wanted to command infantry, armor, helicopters or support units, and specialize in that role. Theoretically an Infantry player could also buy a light tank or an air player a jeep, but at double the cost or something like that, so obviously the most efficient way of playing was everybody focussing on their own role and working together with teammates of other roles. An armor player had to keep in range of their support player's AA-guns and SAM launchers if they didn't want to be ripped to shreds by enemy gunships, the support player with their artillery and AA and repair vehicles obviously can't do anything against enemy tanks on their own, and an air player needs their teammate's tanks to take out enemy AA to swoop in and wreck havoc, and infantry, well, they were the jack of all trades and heavily dependent on terrain, and pretty much the only role that could operate more or less self sufficiently. This was an RTS that required teamwork and coordination, that needed every member of your team to work together like clockwork to launch a successful offensive.

Never mind in no particular order, after Civ4 this would definitely be number 1 and I would play it to this day if there still was a community, but alas, over the years it had sadly grown ever more toxic and eventually disappeared, and it's just not the same with bots. It will however forever keep a special place in my heart.

2. Left 4 Dead 2
What can I say? It's fun goofing around with friends and shooting zombies.

3. Killing Floor
See #2.

4. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
You can keep your stupid skins, I'm here for the gameplay.

5. Civilization 5
Dun dun duuuuuuuun! Now before you get out the torches and pitchforks let me add the caveat that I only play it with the Community Balance Patch mod, which really makes an entirely new game of it and adds many features from Civ4 as well as original ideas while fixing 90% of what's wrong with unmodded Civ5. I can only highly recommend everybody who was disappointed with 5 to try it out. You won't regret it!

 

[cseanny]

@ Imp K

Is World in Conflict still around? I actually prefer RTS games over turn based. I find this a bit ironic since when I do play single turn games I play slow as hell lol. Guess that's cause when I've finished a few hours of Black Ops or BF I just wanna chill.

Dun dun duuuuuuuun! Now before you get out the torches and pitchforks let me add the caveat that I only play it with the Community Balance Patch mod

I've never been a fan of Mods myself and feel a game should stand up on its own. Additionally, when I play Civ I primarily play HoF which disallows such things.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Is World in Conflict still around? I actually prefer RTS games over turn based. I find this a bit ironic since when I do play single turn games I play slow as hell lol. Guess that's cause when I've finished a few hours of Black Ops or BF I just wanna chill.

That's the thing, the community is dead. I mean I guess I could reinstall it and check again, but the last time I went online a year ago I could only find one or two servers up. The thing that's WiC's blessing and curse at the same time is that it's so team based, so unless you get at least 6 players (3 for each team) together for a game you don't really get the full experience. Then again I remember having fun in special 1v1 modes as well, hmmmmm. Maybe I should look around and see how many people I can gather to play a few matches for old times' sake.

I've never been a fan of Mods myself and feel a game should stand up on its own. Additionally, when I play Civ I primarily play HoF which disallows such things.

I think mods can enhance my enjoyment of a game a hundred fold. Civ4 is a very good example with many awesome mods that could all stand up as their own games. I have a bunch of mods and am even modding myself. Of course if we are talking about unmodded games only then Civ4 beats Civ5 any day, but 5's Community Balance Patch is imo better than unmodded Civ4 and can even stand up to most of 4's mods.

What about non gameplay affecting mods like BUG or Blue Marble?

Edit: While it seems official support for World in Conflict has been continued and the servers shut down, there are still some groups on reddit and steam that hold on to dear life with alternative modes of multiplayer. Huh.

 

[Rodney Nelson]

Nobody's mentioning MoO II?

I've been playing MOO2 for the past 19 years. I've got a game going now (I'll have conquered the Psilons in another two or three turns and then the Bulrathi better watch out).

I'm really impressed by DOSBOX, it lets me play a game Windows 10 thinks shouldn't exist.

 

[elitetroops]

It's been a very long time since I played any game seriously but Civ IV, so I will have to go back to my top 5 games of all time, not top 5 games I like to play now.

#1 is easy: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. This game took up most of my gaming time in the years prior to the release of Civ4. Spent so much time on this game playing and also modding. Later I tried Oblivion but hated it. I also have Skyrim, but never fired it up because of fear of what it could do to my work and social life if I happen to like it as much as I liked Morrowind.

The remaining four, listed in no particular order:

-Dune II: Battle for Arrakis. I played a lot of Command and Conquer and also some Starcraft 2. I was thinking about which of those should be included on the list, then I realized it has to be the one that started it all, Dune II. Playing this game when it was first released was something completely different from anything I had experienced before. I can still remember all the details of the game, while the C&C games just mesh into some kind of blur of impressions, where I can't tell which elements are from which game.
-Tie Fighter. X-Wing and Tie Fighter are the only two flight simulators I ever played seriously. Loved them both, Tie Fighter still a bit better than the predecessor. I just watched some youtube review of this game for nostalgia. The reviewer started by saying that you have to have a joystick to play the game. Wrong. I played it through with mouse and keyboard. My arm was so messed up by the constant scrolling.
-Burnout 3: Takedown. Never been much of a racing game fan, but my god this game is awesomeness squared! Crashing cars has never been so much fun. And it comes with several different game modes, all of which are great fun. Twice I played through the game to unlock all the bonuses from scratch. If I fire up the game again, I'm likely to do the same thing a third time.
-Star Control II. I have so many fond memories of this game, yet it now took me quite a while to find out what it was called.

Honorary mentions go to:
-Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (played it at age 9. Probably never progressed much in the main quest, but loved it anyway.)
-UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-COM: UFO Defense)
-Commander Keen series
-Duke Nukem 3D (Only fps that ever got me hooked)
-Sim City series (Not sure which is my favorite, possibly 2000. Didn't play the latest installment.)

 

[Windsor]

League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Half-Life and Colonization are the four that stand out the most. Have problems picking a 5th game.

In general my favorite genres are non-fantasy FPS and games in the intersection between builder, trade/tycoon and conflict/war(like Anno).

I also tend to dislike most games I try and really stick with the ones I love.

 

[Keler]

Thanks Lemon Merchant for creating this thread

These are my favorite and mostly played games.
1. The Sims 2

Spoiler :

2. Civilization 4

3. The Sims
4. Red Alert 2
5. SimCity 4
6. Heroes of Newerth- better than dota 2,lol

I enjoy games where there's no must do objectives
I like to be able to be a bit creative while playing games, never liked games with controling a person shooting with guns involved etc.

 

[Kid R]

Deus Ex (original); Unreal Tournament (original); Lux Delux (random HexInfinity maps only); Online Poker; Auro a Monster-bumping Adventure. Would have said Missile Command but not sure if the definition of game's allowed to stretch back that far lol.

 

[odin1981]

1. Ogre Battle SNES
2. Disgaea original PS2
3. Tactics Ogre better ai than FFT so who cares about worse graphics.
4. Rome- Total War with greek mod. Wasted so much time on this.
5. Romance of the 3 kingdoms 8 on PS2 my cd broke got to find a new copy .

Those would be my top 5 without civ included.

In hindsight I would honorably mention Secret of Mana for SNES also.

 

[Drakarska]

1. Ogre Battle SNES
2. Disgaea original PS2
3. Tactics Ogre better ai than FFT so who cares about worse graphics.
4. Rome- Total War with greek mod. Wasted so much time on this.
5. Romance of the 3 kingdoms 8 on PS2 my cd broke got to find a new copy .

Those would be my top 5 without civ included.

In hindsight I would honorably mention Secret of Mana for SNES also.

OMG, lol, totally forgot about RoTK series.. I think I still have VII lying around somewhere.. Anyone know if the latest versions are any good? Yes, I could research, but I actually prefer a gamers input instead of a paid reviewer.

 

[odin1981]

Don't know much about the newer ones 8 was the latest one I have played. Supposedly 13 or 14 is out soon for computers.

 

[Drakarska]

My thanks, I'll check them out.

 

[DrCron]

I hardly ever play other turn-based strategy games (tried X-Com EU/EW, didn't like the increase in randomness compared to CIV), but I do play other unrelated games, such as:

1) Mass Effect trilogy.
2) Dragon Age trilogy (big fan of Bioware RPGs in general).
3) Rocket League (if you get tired of a hard CIV game, this one is great to "turn off" your brain).
4) Diablo III.
5) Deus Ex HR.

And I think that's it at the time.

 

[Staler87]

My personal list (including board games):
1) Crusader kings II (The Merchant Republic of Scotland shall rise again...)
2) The Ninth Age (never said it couldn't be a board game...)
3) Warhammer 40 000
4) Axis and Allies
5) Dungeon Defenders

 

[elmurcis]

Some good old games to bring back
Railroad Tycoon 3
Counter Strike 1.6 (oh, yeah, shooting before civ IV session makes mind so clear and clever and help to avoid greedy wars)
Nascar 2003 or F1 99-02 (I really like "almost real" racing with best setup search with telemetry)
Gazilionaire III
...oh yeah, Age of Empires 2

 

[ston]

Blizz seems to feature quite highly in my list:

Overwatch
Starcraft II
Mass Effect Trilogy (minus the final 5 minutes)
Heroes of the Storm
Pick any one of: Half Life II, Team Fortress II, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition

Civ IV still massively outstrips all other games in terms of hours played though. I got back into it (yet) again recently after watching a few of AZ's deity games on youtube. Makes for a nice counterpoint to Overwatch too.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Heroes of might and magic
Warlords 2 and 3 (among top TBS of 90's)
Europa Universalis IV - Love/hate
Madden (too bad it doesn't work well)
Gears of war 3 (best balance by far)

Just recently I replayed the HOMM III restoration of Erathia campaign. In contrast to when I did it in my let's play, I don't suck so badly now. I went pure might strats and crushed maps so easily, it's amazing how forgiving those missions feel after getting through shadow of death and HOMM V heroic campaigns. I beat quite a few maps faster/more soundly without town portal in this run than I did with it in my LP.

I also considered putting starcraft on the list, but somehow it's fallen to honorable mention level. I've put so much more time into other games despite that their implementation is strictly inferior. I wish developers like Firaxis would consult the people who design controls for Sc2 though, or that Paradox understood the English language when writing tooltips.

 

[lymond]

Europa Universalis IV - Love/hate

.

Get outta heeyah..no way!

I have HOMM3, but need to find my way into it. Started it a couple of times, but played the heck out of 5 years ago and struggle getting into 3 for some reason.