Favorite Strategy Game?

[Lacker]

So what game really peaked your interest in strategy games on the CPU. Most people on other sites I talk on say either the Civilization Games or, of course, War Craft.

My favorites have to be:

1.) X-Com UFO Defense:
The first version of this game is the ONLY science fiction game that I enjoyed playing....and MAN did I enjoy it. It wasn't too spacy, as you started out with some crack mercenary style soldiers running around with rifles. There was very little that could be done to make the game better in my opinion except make the fight sequences real time in stead of turn based. (they did this in the 3rd installment, but by that time the game was just kinda silly. too many alien types etc.) It was simple yet interesting and I got completely wrapped up in some of my characters lives. If it worked on my current computer (sound but no picture for some reason...sigh) I'd probably still play it as much as MTW.

2.) War Craft II:
To this day i have never played WCI or III but this game is easily one of my favorites. I'm not into magic or dragons or the like, but thanks to this games introduction to the concept of the map editor I could do whatever I wanted. It was also my first dabble with real time battles. What a hoot if only on a smaller, rather cartoony scale.

3.) Command And Conquer:
Again, the first version of this was fantastic. The second version had some great new ideas (like paratroopers, different strafeing planes etc) and some terrible ideas (lasers etc.) Oh for an accurate WWII style game with all the unit variety and complexity of MTW yet C&C style engine.

Lemme know what yours are and why

A

[The_678]

For me it was Age of Empires 2 that REALLY got me into strategy games. Before that I did play and love strategy games, but most of the time it was just too hectic to be really good. The first time I ever seen the pause feasture was in AoE, and I thought all games should have it. It allows you to actually command properly and effieciently while maintaining your economy too.

But the first strategy game I played was starcraft and that is waht got me into RTS.

[Athénian]

I still play Xcom UFO Defense sometimes.
The last sequence was a little disappointing for me....
The semi-turn-based combat system was interesting,but they removed much of the base management element...

As for Warcraft II,when it came out(1996 i think),
i first got a demo,which i finished the very same day.


Also,its ''lifespan'' would have been lengthened a lot if the human and orc units were exactly the same...

[Magic Window]

Anyone remember King's Bounty? I used to have it on my 386, it was an adventure game concerning you, a general who had to recruit and amass an army of fantasy-cliche monsters and warriors, and travel around the Kingdom defeating evil for the King.

The Battle mode was turn based over different battle theatres, and like TW in the sense that each unit had it's own pluses and minuses - and a lot of them. A real classic.

http://home.wish.net/~cvdelzen/Scree...ingsBounty.gif

[Phatose]

King's bounty was fun - it was hard to play right though. Very, very tempting to just go in search of maps, then hire 1 flyer and pick up all the treasure.


For me, it's Master of Orion 2, and Master of Magic.

[Sociopsychoactive]

I'm an avid X:com fan, the first is great, the second is, well, almost exactly the same, the third is good, but nowhere near as stratagy as the others.

I have to point out another great turn based game though,

Incubation

It has all the aspects of a combat game, big guns, big aliens, buying weapons and armour, units that panick when their arm gets chewed off and so on. Yeah, it has no strategy to talk of (other than shoot these things in the back, their front armour is really heavy) but for a shooter it rocked, and being turn based worked well for it.

Also, though this is again off the mark, one of my all time faves in strategy is Fallout. Yeah, it;s more roleplay than strat, but again it has a very effective turn based combat system, and big guns, big bad guys but in addition to that, it has LOADS of stuff you don;t have to do, loads of options of being good or evil and even moreso in the sequel.

But, keeping with proper strat I gotta love Command And Conquer. Original rocked, red alert was ok, red alert 2 was nothing special and tiberian sun was pants. The original had everything you could ever need.

I still play warcraft, 1, 2 and 3, but 2 is still my fave. Gotta love what your soldiers tell you when you keep clicking on them, starcraft wasn't half as good.

[Knight_Yellow]

Dark Colony

Age of empires

AOE2

STW

MTW

Hopefully RTW

[nightcrawlerblue]

X-Com UFO Defense, Master of Orion I & II, and that's about it. That's most of the strategy games that I played (I mostly played other kinds of genres).

[gaijinalways]

Let's see, I like a lot of strategy and role-playing games. I currently play Medieval (still learning, in my 7th campaign now), Tropico ,and Baldur's Gate II. I have played Warcraft I and II in the past, as well as Starcraft. I also have Baldur's gate I, Pool of Radiance (the predecessor to BG) Airplane Sim, Monopoly Sim, Industrial Giant, and Capitalism I, II, Civ II, and the Sims.

I like role-playing in the D and D series games, and running businesses in the business sims, thus medieval has a nice mix of economy in a turn based system and battle tactics.

[bighairyman]

[QUOTE]3.) Command And Conquer:
Again, the first version of this was fantastic. The second version had some great new ideas (like paratroopers, different strafeing planes etc) and some terrible ideas (lasers etc.) Oh for an accurate WWII style game with all the unit variety and complexity of MTW yet C&C style engine.
[/QUOTE

try C&C Generals and then Zero hour, really really good.

here are some of my favorites:

Caesar 3(first )
civilization 3 and the expansions
Shogun and medieval total war
Age of empires
rise of Rome
age of kings
the conquerors
tropico
age of mythology
empire earth (to some extend)
Risk (but not risk 2)

Zeus:master of Olympus+ expansion
empires: Dawn of the modern world
emperor:rise of the middle kingdom

and there are several others i can't remember right now.

[Nowake]

How about Imperialism I&II? That kept me some time in front of the PC.

[PseRamesses]

Started out with Civilization I and Colonization - will never forget when I discovered the fountain of youth in S.America and immigrants stampeeded my borders.
Civilization really got me hooked. Modded it for some 6 years and finally got almost everything pretty much historically correct. Made an awsome Rise of the Lower and Upper Egypt mod with a timeframe of 3500BC-332AD. Ahh, thoose where the days.
Besides AoE, RoR etc games like CaesarIII and Pharaoh really caught my attention but with all games I always missed thoose real battle depictions... until I discovered STW - boy, pure joy

[Henchman]

I've always been fond of the Close Combat series. I still revive it every now and then. It has lots of cool mods that has kept it alive for a long time.

[Anselm]

One word:

HOMEWORLD

Anselm

[Sociopsychoactive]

*drifts off into the days of colonisation on his mums P 0.66*

ahh those were the days, colonising america was great fun, I loved every minute of it. Civilisation one was great to, and civ 2 was pretty darn good, but all after that just annopyed me, to much, to far.

Ceaser three was good, but the batle aspect of it was to little, and to hard to predict. Plus it grew nearly immposssible to kepe such a high population happy and make money at the same time.

Ah, the good old games. I wish I still had colonisation...

[makkyo]

Favorite strategy games eh? TOTALWAR hehehe

If I had to choose an other game... RISK would be it...

[Jeff]

Well I'll go old school on yall - Defender of the Crown on my Commodore 128. Also playing the old Axis & Allies board game as well as Risk when I was a kid really cemented my love of Strategy games.

[Thon]

definitely Civ 2, god i spent far too many sunny days glued to my old 486 playing that.

and despite it being a bad game, i played star wars rebellion to death. i pre-ordered it a half year in advance and was damn well going to enjoy it. i was such a fanboi at the time i was blinded to the faults. although it did have a *few* positive sides. the scariest part was that after a while i could understand what R2-D2 was saying before C-3PO could translate

[bighairyman]

Oh yeah also EU 1 &2 and also Hearts of Iron are also awesome

[Game Over!!!]

What got me started on Strategy games was 'Command: HQ'. You could play WWI, WWII, WWIII or even WWIV. You only had about 6 different units to choose from...less if playing WWI. My first world domination game, those were the days. I still had my copy of the game 10 years after I bought it but the wife sold if last year at a garage sale...

MOO2 is still on my hardrive and I play from time to time. Now that's a GREAT game Since STW though I've been hooked. No other game comes close to the total war series on games...I can't wait for RTW. Until then it's wait and slowly go crazy.

[Fortebraccio]

Centurion: Defender of Rome; Uh-Lie-Ance. This word I no like. Those silly Narbonenses.

Master of Magic; Strategically non existent, but sending a single Demi-God level Chaos Warrior stuffed with custom artifacts against hordes of pathetic elven swordmen was somewhat cathartic.

Close Combat series; funniest rts game I ever played.

Titans of Steel: Excellent Battletech style turn based strategy game, you can get the most out of in multiplayer battles (you can find a complete freeware version at the underdogs)

[son of spam]

I totally agree with Anselm. Homeworld was an awesome game, cool explosions, cool weapons, good music, good storyline, even some strategy

Too bad Homeworld 2 left out the storyline

[Russian Threat]

MTW was my first strategy game, and since the day I bought the box home from the software store, it's been the one true (non-human) love of my life. I love this game

[Lechev]

Sword of Aragon for me. It was RPG/Strategy game developed by SSI and i find the features whereby you can upfit yout units with many types of armours and weapons really cool and a nice story too.

another fave old game is Sword of Samurai developed by Microprose ( SP? ). Whereby you start at a humble begining as a lowly feudal japanese retainer and climb up the ladder to become a daimyo and utimately to become Shogun.