Need low-micromanagement game

[Mr. President]

I'm bored with both Civilization and Alpha Centauri at the moment, since the last time I played either I almost choked under the minutiae involved. I found the games degenerating into arrow key-tapping festivals to move my units into adjacent squares, punctuated with letter keys for commands. I just don't find placing workers as exciting as I used to.

I love strategy games in general, but I want to actually lead and not move six hundred units one space each turn. What game would you recommend to someone who is almost comatose from micromanaging?

[DrSpike]

Sounds like you need a RTS to play along with your proper strategy games. I'd recommend Warcraft 3, which has a decent SP game and huge MP following.

[Lemmy]

CtP2 is low micromanagement for a civ-game:
* No workers (terraforming) to move around, public works pool instead
* No city workers to place
* Armies are easily created
* Carefull city placement really pays off, so you'll usually end up with less cities to manage then with other games

[FrustratedPoet]

Don't listen to Lemmy! It's a trick!



He's right, though, CtP2 does seem like it has far less micro-management than either SMAC or Civ. It should be very very cheap to buy these days so it couldn't hurt for you to give it a try.

[DrSpike]

I think playing CtP2 would be a step in the wrong direction.

[Maquiladora]

Depends where he wants to go, and less micromanagement is certainly where CtP2 is. (see endless threads about stacked combat and public works)

Shogun Total War, you get to move five thousand units at once instead, but infinately more important than cleaning up that 243rd polluted tile, takes quite a while to get into though.

Or you could always play the original Themepark on sandbox mode. Alleviates stress i find...

[DrSpike]

Well medieval total war is out now.......and I would have suggested it as it is a great game. However the micro in the turn based portion is quite heavy. The real time battles are good though.

[Lemmy]

Seriously, i don't understand how the game (CtP2) could have gotten such a bad reputation, i understand that Activision isn't popular after abandoning it, but i played it for 2 weeks now, with the Apolyton Pack, and liked it, and i didn't notice any bugs either, no crashes etc..

[loinburger]

Lords of the Realm II. You've only got a coupla armies and a coupla provinces, and for the most part your provinces will run themselves once you figure out the game's economic system. This is my favorite TBS game.

Heirs to the Throne is even simpler, almost completely taking the economics out of the game. I don't particularly like this one -- it's too simple.

[Dauphin]

CtP2 is alright. I play it more than Civ3, but then that isn't saying much.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Lemmy
Seriously, i don't understand how the game (CtP2) could have gotten such a bad reputation, i understand that Activision isn't popular after abandoning it, but i played it for 2 weeks now, with the Apolyton Pack, and liked it, and i didn't notice any bugs either, no crashes etc..

The bad reputation comes largely from people who bought it on release and hated Activision for abandoning support within a month after issuing a single quick patch that failed to address many issues. After a lot of work by fans the modded game is really pretty good. Of course some people will always dislike some of its design decisions in the same way that Civ III has its fans and detractors. I think everyone should at least try it. For me the army combat wins out over Civ's endless single unit scraps every time.

[Apocalypse]

The ba reputation came largely because they tried to pass the game off as the true successor to Sid Meier's franchise and many people (mainly the Nimaders) were really disgusted by this.

[Mr. President]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

[Thrawn05]

Force Commander has no micromanagement.

Total Annihilation has little micromanagement.

Rebellion is nothing BUT micromanagement.

Civ3 is all about micromanagement.

Don't even consider Close Combat.

[Urban Ranger]

Master of Orion (the original one) - very simple and elegant.

Warlords III - all the micromanagement you have to do is to figure out how to make stacks and what to make in cities

Ages of Wonder - only a small number of armies and no need to mess with peasants/formers.