So my favorite genre, turn based strategy is pretty dead these days. I’m really in the mood for a good TBS but not finding anything I haven’t already played to death.
I’ve already played the obvious big name stuff (Civ I to IV, GalCiv I & II, etc) as well as a lot of the newer stuff (Fantasy Wars and the new Kings Bounty) and even some of the obscure stuff (Armageddon Empires).
Is there any quality turn based strategy, out now, that’s worth checking out if I missed it?
HoMM 3 holds up pretty damn wel if you haven’t played that in awhile. I find myself in the same boat as you being a TBS fan.
Don’t know if you have a DS but the Advance Wars games really gave me a lot of hours of TBS fun. IMO they feel a lot like the old SSI General games.
I’ve actually been finding myself playing HOMM 3, Disciples 2 and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic a lot lately. I so wish I could get Fantasy General to run. cries
You didn’t mention if you’d tried Dominions.
According to the Qt3 folks that play, the third one is pretty good.
But I’m waiting on it till I’m done with Civ4 and GalCiv2. Still finding much fun with them.
I’m also playing browser-based strat, they feel TBS cause they’re kinda slow.
Evony, Imperion, and Xeno (was called EV online, but CCP asked them to change it)
Sword of the Stars is really good, and I’m getting ready to play Dominions 3 against the AI.
If you have a PS3 (long shot, I know, but at least it’s cheaper now), Valkyria Chronicles is probably the best TBS of the generation thus far. A TBS-obsessed friend calls it the best game ever made, period.
Jagged Alliance 2
Dark Wind (online game car wars type game, can play some of it for free)
Silent Storm
Also, Dragon Age is coming out next month and that looks like it will be a great tactical TBS combat system like the old baldurs gate (ok ok pause-able real time - whateva).
Does it have to be for the PC? Most console TBS games are silly, like Disgaea – great cutscenes and humor, weak gameplay – but a few are at least semi-serious, like Front Mission 4 for the PS2, which I think may be the best for that platform. Of the Nippon Ichi silly TBS games, I think I like La Pucelle best.
For the PC, I have to agree, going back to HoMM 3 would be great if you can find it or resurrect it on your machine. I hope it shows up on GoG soon, as HoMM 2 is fine, but HoMM 3 is better.
I tried to replay JA2 recently. The early stages of the game are still a lot of fun, but later on, with tanks everywhere, I got tired of it.
Well, w00t! Started the download before I finished this reply…
It runs fine in dosbox.
Battle for Wesnoth
It’s probably still free to download and play. I just started messing around with it myself, but it seems like it has good production value and 100+ campaign maps.
I can tell right off the bat that it has a high priority for leveling up your army, which I don’t usually enjoy, but I have had some fun with it anyway.
Some of these games are old enough that I don’t feel bad about recommending Warlords III: Darklords Rising. As for current games I think all the ones I enjoy have been mentioned.
Military Madness: Nectaris on XBLA was a good buy for me. I really like the unit support/surround system of combat and pushing around my little tanks on what looks like a 3-D miniatures board.
I keep Darklords Rising on my hard drive :)
An offbeat recommendation is Montjoie. It’s a turn based strategy boardgame conversion. It’s overall my favorite strategy game, but it’s also the most challenging.
Have you played Blood Bowl?
King Arthur looks interesting if the Total War-like rts fights don’t turn you off. We’ll also see what Akella will do with Disciples 3. Besides World at War that jpinard mentioned there’s Making History on Impulse, which I haven’t tried. There’s AGEOD’s games, which I just saw a compilation pack of on gogamer. And of course the upcoming Elemental.