Favorite Strategy/Tactical Games

[Kid Panda]

Knights in the Nightmare

 

[Neodogg]

Oregon Trail
Military Madness

 

[bloodycelt]

^_^ I do like Phantom Brave. No idea why Disgaea rubs me the wrong way, but Nisa's other Tactical RPGs I usually enjoy.

( Though where are the Disgaea and Fire Emblem fans o.0 )

 

[greedostick]

Strategy RPG are my favorite genre of games. So there are a ton I really like.

Civ V was good. I played it a lot, but i'm not sure it's one of my favorites, but fun for sure. I always went for the science win.

OK, here we go.

Fire Emblem Awakening
Shining Force 2
Shining Force CD (this one was great because they removed the walking on the map RPG style)
Shining Force III
X-Com UFO defense. The original, and the one that came out a few years ago.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions PSP
Tactics Ogre PSP
Jeanne De' Arc
Basically all the ogre battle games.
Vandal Hearts 1 and 2 (both awesome, with deep stories)
Valkyria Chronicles of course. All of them. Should be the new standard in strategy games really.
Darwinia (awesome game)(on steam)
Black and White (although maybe not completely strategy)
Europa IV Universalis
Kings Bounty Series
Kohan
Ruse
Sid Meyer's Pirates: Live the Life (PC)
Dawn of Discovery (wii)
Age of Wonders III (Backed by Notch, because he wanted to play it that bad)

I'm also a big fan of the ANNO series of games. They are all a lot of fun. I have yet to play the newest one, but I will get it eventually. Most people claim they don't like ti because it's futuristic, but those who give it a chance seem to say it's the best in the series yet. I think it looks amazing, and I enjoyed all the previous one.


I really need to get into Crusader Kings II. I played it a few hours, but the learning curve is brutal, and everything is so small, I find it give me a headache. But it seems awesome.

 

[ki_atsushi]

I recall the most annoying AI trait was they'd go around and snatch up all your mines.

I think I should go and find Dune II. I feel neglectful, considering Dune -> God Emperor is one of the few Science Fiction series I really enjoy.

Dune II is on Abandonia for free.

 

[Hikaru Ichijyo]

Just off the top of my head

Herzog Zwei (GEN) One of the first games I bought strictly because of the cover art.

Military Madness (TG16) I never got very far in this game but I liked the premise a lot.

Desert Commander (NES) My brother and I used to play the hell out of this game.

Dragon Force (SAT) I can't tell you how many hours I've lost to this game. It has made me late to work more than once and if I ever break the Saturn out I have to forcibly resist the urge to put this game in lest I end up being up till the wee hours of the morning.

Age of Mythology (PC) This game is not allowed to be installed on my PC as it has the same issue that Dragon Force does and has me up all hours of the night playing.

 

[lolifoxgirl]

Greedostick gets it, eu4 is like methadone for strategy fans. Its all there, you can set the speed to low and just soak it in. Or crack out and try to get the achievement for conquering the world as the ryukyus.

 

[bloodycelt]

Greedostick gets it, eu4 is like methadone for strategy fans. Its all there, you can set the speed to low and just soak it in. Or crack out and try to get the achievement for conquering the world as the ryukyus.

I have a current Welsh game in CK2 running via Ironman, once I manage to survive to the end, I plan to import it into EU4, see where I go with it.

@greedostick
You should try playing Civ V as the Huns on a small map; conquest can be fun.
I usually go for Science or Culture; one of the more amusing runs was playing the Inca on a mountainous map and just trying to see how crazy I could get the food production.

 

[ebinsugewa]

Alpha Centauri
Age of Empires 2
Fire Emblem
Allied General

 

[neobuyer]

My all time favorite strategy games are the Warhammer 40k games Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and DOW: Soulstorm. These are my go-to games for stress relief. I cannot pick a favorite between the two because of their differences- Dark Crusade is freaking perfect except for the fact that it doesn't have the Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar or the additional flyer units added in Soulstorm. But Soulstorm removed retaining all the structures you built when conquering territories, i.e.: other than buying fortifications (which are very limited) you have to rebuild every time you are invaded or lose a territory and have to re-conquer. The original DOW games are still very popular today, more than 10 years after the first DOW game. The mod community is massive and people have created models for literally every unit in the tabletop games and created mods where you can have huge epic scale battles with titans and Imperial knights and huge numbers of troops.

 

[bloodycelt]

My all time favorite strategy games are the Warhammer 40k games Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and DOW: Soulstorm. These are my go-to games for stress relief. I cannot pick a favorite between the two because of their differences- Dark Crusade is freaking perfect except for the fact that it doesn't have the Sisters of Battle, Dark Eldar or the additional flyer units added in Soulstorm. But Soulstorm removed retaining all the structures you built when conquering territories, i.e.: other than buying fortifications (which are very limited) you have to rebuild every time you are invaded or lose a territory and have to re-conquer. The original DOW games are still very popular today, more than 10 years after the first DOW game. The mod community is massive and people have created models for literally every unit in the tabletop games and created mods where you can have huge epic scale battles with titans and Imperial knights and huge numbers of troops.

Are you excited or worried about the Total War: Warhammer Fantasy game?

 

[oliverclaude]

Warsong & Herzog Zwei on the Genny. Have to try the Nectaris series yet, everything else feels plethoric.

 

[Takumaji]

In the old days I used to play a lot of SSI war games, among them Panzer General 2 on PSX but also Germany 1985, Crusade in Europe, Kampfgruppe, Battle Cruiser and others on C64 during the 8bit era. SSI games were imports and thus very expensive over here, they cost twice or even thrice the amount of a normal release so I always made sure to check them out first in order to get the most fun out of it. Zzap!64 (a well-known 8bit UK gaming mag of the 80s and early 90s) had a decent strategy/war game section that helped me a lot to find the gems among the stream of games that kept coming out back then. They were all turn-based and I still prefer turn-based games over real-time stuff as I like to thoroughly plan my turns rather than making quick decisions. One of the few exceptions here would be Herzog Zwei on Genny, loved it a lot and played it to hell and back. Gets very intense in later levels.

My fave Civ is still Civ 2, it' so... smooth sailing. You can sit there for hours expanding your cities and I really love it.

Speaking of cities, Sim City also was big for us, played it a lot and still do on Atari ST. Just recently I started a new game but it doesn't look good at the moment...

However, my three biggest strategy/war game obsessions were Knights Of The Sky, Silent Service II (both by MicroProse) and Mechforce. All three came out on Amiga and gripped me like not a lot of games before or after. MicroProse had this thing of adding lots of historical info to their manuals which always were lovely written and designed. Mechforce is a more or less accurate translation of the board game to Amiga, complete with large hex maps with all sorts of nasty terrain, tons of Mechs, a cool repair and tuning shop and all the bells and whistles of the Mechwarrior/Mechforce levelling system. The program was shareware and the author got in trouble later on with the MechXXX copyright holders so he couldn't release an updated version which was then released under the table so to speak and circulated among fans for years. You could spend days with creating a custom Mech and trying it out in the arena. The game can be played by up to 8 people (4 on either side) and we sometimes did just that and had hours of fun blowing each others' heads (or cockpits, to be precise) off. I break it out from time to time on emulator (WinUAE) and it still gets me. Graphically it's very simple and there's no sound except for sampled laser zzaps, cannon shots and explosions but if you have a bit of imagination and like the theme, it can't get much better than this.

 

[fake]

bahamut lagoon and fire emblem are my absolute favourites. love the presentation and story. but most of all, these games are strategy noob friendly. i tried to play final fantasy tactics and vandal hearts. and i sucked at those games. which is a shame, because i was really enjoying everything about them.

I'm terrible at strategy games too so I might check out Fire Emblem. The only strategy game I've playEd and not gotten frustrated with is Darwinia. What's the best Fire Emblem to start with?

 

[ebinsugewa]

Famicom series is the best imo

 

[Tung Fu ru]

Not a genre I dabble too much in, but I do like these:

Dragon Force (Saturn): Love this game, unfortunately my Saturn took a shit and died. But I still have the disc, so one day I'll replace it and play through yet again. One of these days I need to find the english translated ROM of the sequel, and play that through.

Genghis Khan (NES): Played this a bunch as a kid, never came close to beating it. But it was fun and unlike any other game I was playing at the time.

Final Fantasy Tactics+ FFT Adavanced (PS1, GBA): Great story, art, gameplay. Great series, needs more IMO.

Currently playing:
Banner Saga (multi platform): Got this about a week ago on my I-pad since I was going out of town and wanted a fun game to play on the plane that required no internet support. Kinda had my eye on it for a while to be honest. Really fun game. Almost a twist on Oregon Trail mixed with strategy/tactical fighting. Pretty close the end of my first play through, really liking it so far. Should be interesting to see how different play-throughs play out with different choices given throughout the game.... Kinda surprised nobody mentioned this game earlier.

 

[Ip Man]

I'm terrible at strategy games too so I might check out Fire Emblem. The only strategy game I've playEd and not gotten frustrated with is Darwinia. What's the best Fire Emblem to start with?

out of all the ones i've played, the two on the gba are a good place to start imo. they are noob friendly but do not compensate on quality. fire emblem: path of radiance for the gamecube is the fan favourite, but is a bit on the expensive side. and i'm also hearing a lot of great things about fire emblem awakening for the 3ds.

 

[bloodycelt]

Warsong & Herzog Zwei on the Genny. Have to try the Nectaris series yet, everything else feels plethoric.

Warsong is the localized name for Langrisser, have you tried others in the series, Der Langrisser and Langrisser IV have patches available.

I'm terrible at strategy games too so I might check out Fire Emblem. The only strategy game I've playEd and not gotten frustrated with is Darwinia. What's the best Fire Emblem to start with?

Fire Emblem: Awakening is very n00b friendly, I hear Fates:Birthright is as well.

What part of strategy games do you have trouble with?

I would say in some respects Warsong/Langrisser is very forgiving. The game has you hire soldiers for each character, so you have leeway with mistakes as you have a LOT of expendable units. Character leveling and equipment is much simpler than Tactics Ogre, of Final Fantasy Tactics.

 

[FinalbossNYC]

Love KitN, FFT and so many others but the first 2 I ever enjoyed as a kid were Populous on my PCE and Shining Force on the Genesis.
Would replay those two other and over

 

[lolifoxgirl]

Kartia word of fate is kind of cool if you tactical nuts need a fresh hit off the pipe.

 

[bloodycelt]

Kartia word of fate is kind of cool if you tactical nuts need a fresh hit off the pipe.

I got that recently; playing Eternal Poison ATM however. That one is interesting, it split the game into at least 3 short campaigns.

 

[lolifoxgirl]

I have a copy of that, any good?

 

[bloodycelt]

I have a copy of that, any good?

I've only so far played the prologue, but it has a mechanic I find interesting; you can move pieces and have them wait to then execute combo attacks. ( Stella Deus has something similar. )

What it goes beyond Stella Deus is you can just have them sit there, and then on the Leader's turn order them to do stuff, which isn't revolutionary considering there are tactics games (Like early Langrisser or Vandal Hearts) where you just move/attack and setup your pieces all at once, and then end your turn.

(It may have been better and less complex if they just did that.)

 

[greedostick]

I'm terrible at strategy games too so I might check out Fire Emblem. The only strategy game I've playEd and not gotten frustrated with is Darwinia. What's the best Fire Emblem to start with?

All the fire emblem are notorious for being hard. Thats why I like them, they're the only console based strategy games you have to think hard to succeed in. That being said, they're still great to start out with. Just don't expect them to be easy. The best fire emblem is Aldo the most common and cheap. Fire emblem awakening on 3DS is a masterpiece of a game. And in the later levels the 3D is phenomenal.

I forgot about banner saga, it's solid. There's also a Xbox live/steam might and magic game that's really good. Bit I can't remember the name. It has an anime inspired cover.

And don't forget Archon on NES. Its a strategy chess hybrid.

 

[fake]

Thanks for the Fire Emblem advice. Is the DS remake of the original any good?

I can't put my finger on what is so difficult about strategy games for me. I guess I usually play it safe, especially in games where if your character dies in the battle, you can't get him back. I just remember playing FF Tactics and being stuck on the third battle. My friend came over and beat it on his first try. It's a shame because I LOVE that art style.