Yet another LOTM recommend me a strat game thread

[lord of the mark]

Ok, heres the rules:

Constraints
1. Must be strategy game - not in the mood for shooter, RPGs, etc (ive played lots of BG2 and HL recently)
2. Not a "social simulation game" Since this is part of a break from the Sims, no Sims games, and no city builders. No flight sims either, as I think theyre too frustrating without a joystick, which I dont have. Maybe a sub sim.
3. Not a "classic" RTS. After lots of time recently with AOK and RON, Im RTSed out. Paradox or TW games are ok though.
4. Mainly Im thinking TBS. Im also including some game of a historical subeject that may fall all or partly into the areas ive just said I dont want, but sound too cool to overlook.
5. Must run on my circa 2006 budget PC = P4 3 GHz with HT, 512MB Ram, ATI Radeon Express 200 Int Graphics.

Heres my thoughts,games in rough order of publication per Mobygames. What I get will be contingent on what I can actually find, in brick and mortar or online.

1. Harpoon - this is ancient, but whats a better modern naval warfare game?
2. Populous - also ancient, but Ive never actually played anything by Molyneaux
3. X-Com Collectors Edition - everyone says this is the one of the best TBS of all time
4. HOMM3 - or better HOMM4? Probably cant run HOMM5? Whats this series all about?
5. TOAW-COW - id love a real wargame, and this is supposed to be great and from a great designer - Norm Koger. Its been pricy for its age, but maybe with TOAW 2 out it will be less? I dont know if I could run TOAW2
6. Patrician 2? Or go for Patrician 3?
7. Steel Panthers - isnt that free?
8. Trade Empires - comparison to Patrician?
9. Age of Sail2 ?
10. Combat Mission - Beyond Overlord. Or the later anthology? Again, i dont actually own a WW2 tactical war game. I assume CM has completely displaced the close combat series.
11. MTW - Im not as keen as I was on TW eras (which included STW, MTW, and RTW, with all expacks) as Im thinking now that really is more gameplay than I need, but OTOH it depends what deal I can get on any game individually. I dont think I can run MTW2. I might play something else, and wait for Eras to get even cheaper.
12.Knights and Merchants - whats that all about?
13. Europa 1400 - ditto
14. Austerlitz - follow up to SM Civil war games, by Breakaway.
15.Age of Wonders:Shadow Magic - we've discussed that here
16. Gal Civ - my local Circuit city has this plus the xpack for $10. Tempting. Galciv2 plus its xpack was either 20 or 30, I forget, and I dont know if my PC could run Galciv2
17. Crusader Kings - very tempting, Ive played all the earlier Paradox games, I might not have enough Ram.
18. SM Pirates! - for some reason guys here dont like it. SOunds good to me, and Id like to keep following Sids career
19. Port Royale 2 - comparison to Pirates?
20. War in the Pacific - anyone played it?
21. Civ4 - dont suppose my PC is up to it?
22. HOI2 - Sounds good. Will my PC manage it? Esp with Doomsday?
23. Silent Hunter 3- any thoughts?
24. Victoria-Revolutions - ive enjoyed Victoria, this might hit the spot for a Paradox game, esp if I cant run CK.

[Maniac]

Re: Yet another LOTM recommend me a strat game thread

Originally posted by lord of the mark
21. Civ4 - dont suppose my PC is up to it?

Sure it is - as long as you don't play on maps larger than small/standard.

[Apocalypse]

The game you are actually looking for is Sword of the Samurai by Sid Meier.

[Wiglaf]

Simant is always good, and would run like a dream on your PC. Those ****ers will be digging so ****ing fast on that machine it will be like an Antfarm except with you on drugs. Fastest ****ing ants ever.

[EPW]

Silent Hunter 3 is pretty fun until you get blown up

[Kuciwalker]

SimAnt

[DinoDoc]

Old games? Homeworld. It's an RTS but completely different from AoK and RoN.

[Wiglaf]

big pimping

[demon59]

These games are old , and would probably require emulators to run on a modern PC, but I've always considered them classics. Don't expect much in the way of "eye candy" from them.

M.U.L.E. -- Planetary colonization based around basic, but surprisingly good, free-market economic simulation. Cut-throat competition to become the "First Founder", but you also had to make sure the entire colony survived. Always four colony factions. Up to four human players, with computer playing left-overs. All computer display mode useful for learning basic game-play/strategies

Silent Service -- Submarine sim, WWII Pacific Theater. One of Sid Meier's early efforts. Had a sequel, but I always liked the original better. Could be played as single, "historical" missions or as theater based "campaign" game.

Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon -- Four difficulty levels and three "realism" toggles (no collisions/dispatcher train control, basic/complex economy, and friendly/cut-throat competition) means you can have fun "playing with the trains" while you learn the interface and basic game mechanics, or have a serious challenge at the higher difficulty/realism levels. As a plus, the Deluxe version is available for free download (strictly legit!) at the official Sid Meier's Railroads! website. Even includes a pre-Pentium PC emulator so it will run on newer machines.

Like I said, these are old games. The first was only released on 8-bit machines, as far as I know (Atari 800, Commodore 64, NES,and a few others), and the second on 8 and 16-bit machines (previous three, plus Amiga, IBM PC). Don't expect much for graphics, M.U.L.E. is especially primitive. Game-play on the other hand, is excellent for all three.

Not including any actual links, since the first two are strictly for obsolete systems and I don't want to get into any abandonware/warez gray areas, considering 'Poly's piracy policies (which I whole-heartedly support).

[Jon Miller]

So I first saw simant in stores, and thought it was an awesome idea. So I had it all pictured in my head.. and ended up making a game out of legos that I forced my brothers to play (whree they were an ant queen, and had to set up their colony right/etc). I would dream about how awesome the game would be... because legos are just an imperfect approximation of a video game (I had ones for civ and simcity and hero's quest, and all sorts of other games as well as entirely unique creations, my favorite being tank war 4).

After a while, I managed to get a whole fo simant....

JM

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Apocalypse
The game you are actually looking for is Sword of the Samurai by Sid Meier.

Yeah definately if you haven't played it

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/sword-of-the-samurai

but to be anal for a second it wasn't actualy made by Sid - he just did the samurai duel part of the game(which is quite excellent). Very good game, one of my favourite strat games ever - along with Xcom.

I really like the mix of play styles.

1. You have this very expansive dynasty building(become Shogun from a lowly samurai lord). Recruit more samurai for your armies, grow more rice etc

2. Some quite fun(albiet simple by todays standards) tactical battles in which you manouvre your troops using the terrain for best effect.

3. Individual heroics, where you travel around your domain meeting bandits, ronin and other samurai champions. Also this part of the game can involve sneaking into a rival lords palace to rescue any captured family they may be holding ransom.

And its all fused together by the makers of the game having an obvious love of the topic - the historic details and little graphic events are so well done. A great game than many designers today could learn much from imho. Go for it Lotm

Edit: ah - ok you may have problems getting it to run under XP(I run it on an old w98 setup with old school sound cards etc).

If not then Xcom - look for the windows friendly version(hint: non official release).

[Standup]

13. Europa 1400 - ditto

I'm assuming that this is The Guild. It's a Jowood published game so the support was a bit ropey and then the developers kept appearing on boards saying the couldn't talk about it.

The aim is to build a successful family dynasty in middle ages europe. Mainly first person 3d and quite a good choice of careers. Bit hard to describe but different from almost anything else (well except the Guild 2!).

Interesting but didn't quite work for me and initially very buggy.

It will run on your PC though - even the graphics card

[Standup]

Trade Empires - comparison to Patrician?

Not really Patrician or at least the version i last played. It looks more like Railroad Tycoon2 and has a very involved economy. Basically demand and price are linked in real time and you can see everything rising and falling.

You start off with mules or similar in ancient china and set up trade routes along the lines of Tropico/RRT. It's much more complicated though - by the same people who made Imperialism. It's enjoyable but the interface lets the game down. Considering Trade routes are at the heart of the game you'd hope for an easier system for amending them than creating a new one. Similarly it would be useful to move traders on or back one stop if demand if elsewhere.

Worth a look but probably not a beer'n'pretzels game (to use an old Wargaming phrase)

[Quillan]

You've never played X-Com? GET IT! It's old and dated but still good.

I really liked Populous way back when. It's not a traditional strategy game in my opinion but still good.

If you're concerned about your computer running Civ IV, I think you should write Silent Hunter III off your list. You must have a video card that supports Shader Model 2 (or was it 1.1, I forget) to run the game, as the ocean is handled with pixel shaders in that version. Now, assuming you can handle that, it's a very good WWII sub sim, and I liked it a lot. Recommendation: Get the GWX fan-made supermod if you go with this game.

[Sharpe]

3. X-Com Collectors Edition - everyone says this is the one of the best TBS of all time

First 2 games are reportedly the best, later ones are not so good reportedly - but the graphics are troublesome on modern computers in my opinion - ie makes it a little difficult to play at times

4. HOMM3 - or better HOMM4? Probably cant run HOMM5? Whats this series all about?

HOMM4 nearly ruined the series from what I read - I have HOMM3 - its good - I'd suggest to try a download of the demo to see what it is like

16. Gal Civ - my local Circuit city has this plus the xpack for $10. Tempting. Galciv2 plus its xpack was either 20 or 30, I forget, and I dont know if my PC could run Galciv2

GalCiv 2 Gold is generally accepted as the successor of MOO 2 for TBS space gaming except for its lack of tactical fighting (combat is more like Civ) - another expansion is due out soon which gives supposedly unique tech trees for each race and further specialization of planet environments (ie less emphasis on all out expansion to start) - in my opinion it is not quite as good as MOO2 but gets close

18. SM Pirates! - for some reason guys here dont like it. SOunds good to me, and Id like to keep following Sids career

It is basically the original Pirates with a few new tweaks

19. Port Royale 2 - comparison to Pirates?

Pirates with more trading - a LOT more trading

21. Civ4 - dont suppose my PC is up to it?

My computer is only a 2.4 Ghz and it handles regular maps fine