King of Dragon Pass, which got a new iOS port last year, should satisfy the learning curve requirement. It’s heavy on text, but the text is good, and the whole package – setting, artwork, game dynamics – is enjoyable rich, especially if you like an evolving story.
Elite series.
Darklands.
Independance War series.
Any decent in-depth flight sim.
X-wing/Tie fighter.
Alternate Reality: The City on atari 8bit (more so than the later, The Dungeon)
Moo 1+2
X-Com and Terror from the Deep
Jagged Alliance games
Does it have to be a strategy game? You might want to try Richard Burns Rally. It’s a hardcore rally simulation. best played a with wheel and pedals, but I heard a gamepad can also be used.
As you start out you’ll mostly find yourself visiting the ditches along the road. Later you’ll start mastering steering techniques.
Hurling your car along the track at the edge of its grip is very satisfying. Btw, it doesn’t require twitch reflexes. you need to plan on the fly, but the emphasis is still about your decisions.
Another vote for eve online. The game itself is already complex enough but the added human interaction makes it wonderful. The learning curve is actually part of the interest.
And for an offline game, the original X-com and HoI3
But, really, give eve a try, it is an amazing experience.
One thing to keep in mind is the campaign in 2070 is actually terrible for teaching you the basics, as it keeps some parts of the game locked away until later missions.
Yeah, the game basically assumes you’ve played previous entries in the series (and why haven’t you, frankly?), and even then it does a bad job explaining what’s new. I got through the tutorials fine because I’m a veteran of the series, but I had no real idea how the new systems fitted together.
I didn’t think these games had that much of a learning curve, at least not when compared to most of the other games mentioned in this thread. I thought one of their strengths was that they were relatively easy to learn.
I’ve been playing my brother (who is in Japan and not otherwise accessible for real-time gaming) by email since last December and we’re still having tons of fun. We’ve even recruited the other two Gaslamp Games partners and Alex, maker of Starfarer, for Indie Game Developer Domimions 3 Grudge Matches.
I seriously think it’s my favourite game. Sure, the UI is kina garbage and the graphics are generally crude (though the unit sprites, I’ll argue, are actually very skillfully executed). You just have to get through the UI and complex mechanics and then you’ve got pretty much the best computerized epic-fantasy strategy boardgame there is.
The magic, the tactics, the strategy, the diplomacy - it all comes together beautifully. Sure, it’s stupidly complex, but for a certain type of personality I think Dominions 3 just does what it does better than anything else.
You should join in one of the QT3 Dominions 3 games organized here if you have the time! Hmm, I wonder what you guys could come up with if you made your own Diggle nation mod with their own modded in items and spells complete with your own talented flavor text. That would be very cool!
This needs an echo even if it is a bit on the older side. There were some great scenarios in the third edition.
Also, how about Mount & Blade? It’s admittedly a FPS-style game, but it can be brutal on new players and the difficulty scales more with experience/knowledge and equipment than it does twitch.
