Recommend Louis a Good Strategy/Business/Simulation Game!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Help - I've ran out of games to play!



I want a new game.

Loves:

Civilisation
MTW
Capitalism
Railroad Tycoon
Sim City
Space trading games


Didn't really cut it for me, but came close:

The Sims (first week I thought it was the greatest game ever, then I realised I have plenty of waking up, going to work, cook, go to the bathroom in actual life)
Zoo Tycoon (fun, but the challenge was aesthetic, not strategic)
Europa Universalis (too long)


Dislikes:

Men with guns
Cartoony simulations
Flashy 3D over substance
Open ended games
Real time strategy / clickfests
Lots of games whose titles I can't remember because I didn't like them




I want a game that's run from a spreadsheet! Numbers, stats, graphs! Market shares, production numbers! Not into games driven by 3d graphics, or 'exciting' real-time.

Any recommendations? Any hidden gems somewhere?

[TevashSzat]

Hmm.....I've always loved X3 series from Egosoft, of which the most recent is X3-Terran Conflict.

It is a space simulator / sandbox game so to speak. Basically, you control a space ship as expected in a huge open world with I think ~200 sectors, 6 main races, hundreds of ships, etc...

There are story lines but they're optional and are in no way required for the enjoyment of the game.

The best thing of the game, though, is that you have an immense amount of freedom. You can, as one would expect, just build up a huge fleet of ships (oh, forgot to mention, you pilot one ship yourself, but you can control hundreds of other ships as well, allowing for fleet on fleet action) and just go picking a fight with a faction or invading a sector. Alternatively, you can also go a big economic route.

There is an extremely intricate economy present with a ton of goods that you can buy or sell. Everything that you buy, though, must be made at a factory that is supplied with the required materials. Prices are dependent on supply and demand allowing you to make a ton of money just trading and finding the good routes. You can set up automated sector traders that will gain in experience and become universal traders once you are richer. Once you have enough capital, you can build large factory complexes and just wait for AI traders to come buy your goods. In designing your factory complexes, there is actually a ton of research/math involved to find the perfect sector, sufficient asteroids for raw materials, the necessary number of factories to become self sufficient, etc...

I will be frank, though, and admit that this game as a horrendously large learning curve. You can easily spend your first 20-30 hours just kinda fooling around, not totally knowing what you are doing but once you get to know the game, it becomes deeply satisfying.

[Azathoth]

Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War III? Advanced Tactics: World War II? Victoria? Over the Reich? Achtung Spitfire? War in the Pacific: Admiral Edition? Imperialism? Imperialism II? Third Reich? The Airborne Assault games? Carriers at War? BCT Commander? Balance of Power? Fragile Allegiance? Kharkov? Korsun Pocket? WW2: Road to Victory? WW2: Time of Wrath? The Falklands War: 1982? Space Empires: IV? Into the Void? Gary Grigsby's World at War? Gary Grigsby's War in the East? Across the Dnepr? AGEOD's American Civil War? Starships Unlimited: Divided Galaxies? Storm over the Pacific? Democracy? Master of Orion? Sid Meier's Colonization? Rise of Prussia? Rising Sun? People's General? The Strategic Command games? Supreme Ruler 2010? Supreme Ruler 2020? World War One? War Plan Orange? Wall Street Trader 2000? Football Manager 2010?

The Operative: No One Lives Forever?

You're a really boring guy!

[Krusader]

Only game that springs to mind is OpenTTD (Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe).

[Louis VI the Fat]

I'm going to check reviews of Egosoft and Transport Tycoon. X3-Terran Conflict sounds good.


The Operative: No One Lives Forever?

You're a really boring guy!No One Lives Forever is the greatest game of all time! I love both I + II with a religious devotion. http://matousmileys.free.fr/anbet2.gif


And yes, I'm boring. So I need boring games. Stats and graphs.
I'll copy-past all those games into gamespot, check them out.

[miotas]

Transport Tycoon is really a brilliant game, I think I've still got the disc floating around somewhere, I'm gonna have to go and try to find it now. If you thought Europa Universalis was too long, then I don't know that you will like X3. I don't know if the new version is still the same, but I played X2 and was put off by how loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong it was. I quite enjoyed the depth of the trade system in the game, but most of the game is seriously just sitting and waiting while your ship travels from one space station to the next.

[Azathoth]

If you want to play a buggy and prohibitively difficult game, get anything with Battlecruiser in the title, especially Battlecruiser Millenium (which has been released as freeware).

More economic strategy games: Starship Tycoon, Industry Giant II, uhhh...

Have you tried Dwarf Fortress? It's one of the ugliest and most complicated games ever.

More:

Republic: The Revolution
Political Tycoon
Superpower
Superpower 2
President Forever
Kudos
Capitalism
Capitalism Plus
Capitalism II
Geniu$: The Tech Tycoon Game
Railroad Pioneer
Rails Across America
The Corporate Machine
Railroad Tycoon 2
Railroad Tycoon 3

[CountArach]

Europa Universalis (too long)
You should give Victoria: Revolutions a try. Dirt cheap and with a pretty decent economic modelling (compared to other games on the market). Plus there is a #2 coming out later this year that looks promising.

[Meneldil]

You 'ave Distant Worlds, which is a kind of Europa Universalis/Victoria in space. Zere's a topic dedicated to it somewhere in ze forum. It's pretty cool and has loads and loads of graphics, stats and what not.

[Fragony]

Master of Orion, old but good

[aimlesswanderer]

Would also recommend X3, though it is a real love/hate game. Sounds like you enjoy the details and numbers, so it may be just what you're looking for.

MOO2 is a classic, still get it out every few years. MOO3 was a complete shocker, stay well away.

[Azathoth]

MOO2 is a classic, still get it out every few years. MOO3 was a complete shocker, stay well away.

Apparently fan mods and unofficial patches have greatly improved the quality of Master of Orion 3. :shrug:

[caravel]

Only game that springs to mind is OpenTTD (Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe).
This has the advantage of being free as well. Give it a try. My only criticism is that the micromanagement eventually gets tedious once your transport empire grows to a large size.

[al Roumi]

SMAC!

Years agao I had tried to get the alien crossfire expansion to go with my old cd of the original game, a month ago i just checked on amazon and Sold Out have re-issued a complete SMAC disc, including the expansion! £5!

I've enjoyed re-discovering my favourite Social engineering values, Chairman Yang's cutscenes are great. This morning I finished off hammering the Spartans (who were powerful, but because they lucked out and landed next to the monsoon jungle) as the believers. It makes a change to play the ginger freaks, instead of having to purge planet of them as one inevitably has to as any other faction.

Have you tried games like Settlers and Stronghold? These are vaguely logisticaly satisfying games, if not particuliarily fast paced and thrilling.

[Azathoth]

Oh, Space Empire V. How'd I forget that one.

[rajpoot]

Open TTD.
Edit:
I see it's been mentioned already.

Anyway link to website (http://www.openttd.org/en/).

[Caesar the IIIV]

Aha, the only game in these catagories is Roller Coaster Tycoon.

[Krusader]

Another suggestion is Tropico 3 (or 1 which is on gog.com). You're El Presidente and in charge of your own banana republic.

And I heartily recommend Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri too. That deserves a gog.com treatment in addition to a sequel after Civ5.

[edyzmedieval]

Industry Player! Industry Player! Industry Player!

www.industryplayer.com

[Vladimir]

Well there's always Master of Orion 3; one of the best 4X games ever.

Now, back to reading the thread...


Apparently fan mods and unofficial patches have greatly improved the quality of Master of Orion 3. :shrug:

Truth!

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Like Azathoth said, try Dwarf fortress :beam:. Graphics are VERY old, but it is surprisingly complex and in depth. Plus its completely free. You will have tons of Fun.

[Askthepizzaguy]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/monopolytycoon/index.html

Monopoly Tycoon.

This game will provide you a fair amount of entertainment until you become much smarter than the AI. Until you get really good at the game, that does become a challenge on the harder levels. I think it is worth the price.


Look on Amazon.com, you can get it BRAND NEW for like a dollar.


Let me know if you enjoyed this recommendation after you play it.

[el_slapper]

FRee : Simutrans(better than Open TTD IMHO) and gamebiz 2

[Monk]

Another suggestion is Tropico 3 (or 1 which is on gog.com). You're El Presidente and in charge of your own banana republic.

And I heartily recommend Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri too. That deserves a gog.com treatment in addition to a sequel after Civ5.

Tropico 3 is quite fun, a little difficult to get the hang of at first though. Everything is really cryptic, thankfully the Absolute Power expansion really helped in that regard.

For other city builders, check out Anno 1404 (Dawn of Discovery), heard really good things about it but never played. Pretty sure it's on Impulse as well.

[Martok]

Going by what you've said so far, Louis, there's a number of PC titles published by Matrix Games (http://www.matrixgames.com/) that I suspect you might enjoy. They tend to be a bit short on graphics, but long on gameplay. (Their games also have no DRM, only requiring the serial number to install and receive patches/updates.) I've been increasingly becoming a fan of them the last year or so.

Two of their games in particular that come to mind are Distant Worlds and War in the Pacific: Admirals Edition: They do require you to have an interest in space 4x games and WW2 strategy games, respectively, but they're both widely-regarded. WITP:AE is especially deep and "grognard-ish", and requires a fairly heavy degree of micromanagement. DW is also deep, but focuses more on larger-scale macro-management than micro- (although you can still manage a lot of the lesser details if you so desire).


I own Distant Worlds, and it's terrific. People have compared it to being EU in space (I'll warn you the game is in real-time), and I can see the analogy.

I can't personally vouch for War in the Pacific: Admirals Edition, but it's received high praise from those who've played it. Players often claim that WITP:AE isn't so much a game as it is a way of life. ~;)

[gaelic cowboy]

Well you could try Victoria by paradox that is pretty deep, But I think Vicky 2 is coming out soon so you might want to wait a while. I have never really been able to crack the larger empires like Russia, Britain or France, usually I pick Belgium, Brazil or Holland easier to run there empires cos there smaller.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I also suggest checking out what Matrix Games can offer you. I have played some of their games and so far I have enjoyed all of them.

[Fragony]

Also try Evil Genius, for a No One Lives Forever fan pretty much a must

[Vladimir]

What about the game of life?

http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

[Veho Nex]

The Guild is good if you get it modded and patched.

I heard Anno 1404 was good aswell.

[Azathoth]

How about Freelancer? The graphics might be too acceptable for your tastes, and the game is centered more on combat than trading, but it's a got a very interesting plot that I think you might enjoy unraveling.

Freespace 2 is also a classic, but it's very combat-heavy and you'll probably want to buy a joystick. The graphics are state-of-the-art pre-millennial.

[Fragony]

Oh and Ghostmaster, criminally overlooked game, Sims with twist, you have to scare them! It's hilarious how the react.

[Husar]

Locomotion, which is basically a newer version of Transport Tycoon.
Anno has already been mentioned, Tropico is also very nice.
There are two more here in Germany at least which I played before, not exactly splendid but you might want to have a look at Transport Giant and Industry Giant, too.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Awesome.


Several I own:
Industry Giant - didn't really like it.
SMAC - loved it. For a while.
Master of Orion2 - Genius game. Maybe I should dust it off, or try a modded 3.
1602 / 1504 / 1404 series - I tried one. It had real time building. Bah. I'll never get used to that. Shame, the games looked awesome.
Transport Tycoom. Rather liked it.

@AskPizza - Monopoly tycoon looks fun. Real-time though. It does look good. Maybe I'll check it out if I can get it cheap.

El Slapper - Simutrans looks awesome. Could be right on the money!

Thanks Frag - I know we share a taste in games!


To all the others: I'm googling / gamespotting all suggestions offered, then will download / bargain bin find a whole bunch of them, until I find those two or three games with just the right chemistry.
I don't play a lot of different games, I tend to have only a few, which permantly reside on my harddrive. I then play them for months or even years on end, repeatedly returning to them. Such as Civilisation, MTW, or No One Lives Forever. Alas, of my favourites, only the Civ series managed to maintain quality with newer installments. all of my other game series dried up. I am going to make a serious effort of finding me a handful of new games to play.

[Beskar]

Did you ever play tropico 3 (or the original?)

[Louis VI the Fat]

Tropico 3No, never played it. It looked like one of those Pizza Tycoon XXIV games, cartoony graphics and real time kiddie strategy.

What was I thinking? The review sounds awesome. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/tropico3/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary%3Bread-review


Serious economical management and a sense of humour. I'm so going to get it. I've always had the ambition to coup d'état my way into Banana Republic overlordship. :jumping:




Also, where I said 'download' in my previous post I meant open source / freeware games such as the ones proposed by El_Slapper. :sweatdrop:

[Beskar]

It is a good game. Tropico 3 is basically a graphical update of the original, with some added features.

The only trouble I have is with the Capitalists, they keep getting annoyed at me for having low income disparity in my Socialist paradise. The Communists on the other-hand, think I am the second coming of Marx.

[Husar]

I usually manage to make them both happy somehow.
Quite frankly I like Tropico 3 but I wouldn't call it a deep management game or anything like that.
I don't really get the problem with the game not pausing while you build something though, Tropico 3 does it but why is it so important?

[Fragony]

Again, just what the doctor ordered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTeaPcsRt9A

[Fragony]

Oh how could I forget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOaMKyjkKS4 my favorite RTS ever. Hard as nails very tactical, 5 factions who's strenghts you REALLY need to exploit. Hectic as can be, but you can pause and give commands. You have to fight for every inch and will be using all your unit types as they all have their advantages. Plus, excellent writing, loads of personality, tons of black humour, I laughed out loud a few times And the music is just epic. For a game this old the graphics are mindblowing. Get it from GOG

no going back after this, meet your masters. chose wisely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1AFOkCcW6U&feature=related

[Beskar]

That reminds me, Tropico 3 is currently on offer on Steam.

[Vladimir]

After reading this thread, I purchased Tropico 3. It's a fun game with a nice Latin flavor. It needs music tracks but I generally like it.