I love me some strategy/tactics games. However, as we’ve all learned from the Chick Parabola, it’s not enough for PC strategy games to be balanced and well made – these games are still limited by their AI. It’s very, very hard to both make a game that has interesting, varied and balanced decisions as well as an AI that can make those decisions at any level that is competitive with a human.
As a result, I’ve started to compile a list for myself of games that beat the Chick Parabola in some way, I’ve found that there are a few ways to do it:
a. Make the game palatable for humans to play against one another instead of needing AIs. In my book, that means it can’t be a game where I need to spend hours online at a time (unlike e.g. Civ multiplayer).
b. Make the game asymmetric, so that the AI needs to make simpler decisions than the human playing.
c. Make the game moddable, release the source code, or just have someone reverse engineer it, so that fans can come in years later, after the main strategies have been learned, and mod in balance fixes and improved AI.
EDIT: d. As mentioned by @nesrie, another solution is a variation of b: make the game entirely systems-based, so that no AI is really needed.
Examples of great games in each of these categories:
a. Chaos Reborn, Antihero, Tooth and Tail, Dominions 5. (Possibly Kohan?)
b. AI War, Firaxis Xcom1/2/WOTC.
c. Civ 4 (+kmod), x-com (+openxcom), Jagged Alliance 2 (+ja2 1.13).
d. Slay the Spire, Simcity, (arguably) Slay the Spire.
EDIT:
I’ll maintain a list of the games I think beat the parabola here:
a. Multiplayer, low time commitment:
- Chaos Reborn
- Antihero
- Tooth and Tail
- Dominions 5
- Frozen Synapse
b. Asymmetric AI:
- AI War
- Firaxis Xcom
- Invisible Inc
- Slay The Spire
- Crusader Kings 2 (AI is incidental to the core game)
c. AI improved over time by mods:
- Civ 4 (k-mod)
- x-com (openxcom)
- Jagged Alliance 2 (ja2 1.13)
- Pandora First Contact
d. No AI; Systems only. (This is a much more open category – games are judged based on mechanic balance only.)
- Management games (Simcity, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Frostpunk, etc)
- Survival games (Don’t Starve etc)
Since I’d like to expand my list, I’d be happy to hear about more such games. Note that I realize that most RTS games fit the bill (since they’re meant to be played competitively against other players), but I’d only like to consider games that don’t require high APM to play well, and can be played over short sessions.