Open ended strategy?

Rome:Total war

I am suprised no one has talked about Civ IV, or the classis MOO series . . . however, for the diplomatic model . . . if you're into that . . . look at AC

As an old school strategy gamer who grew up in the late 80s and 90s strategy I feel the genre is almost dead.

But there there is at least one recent strategy game that I can recommend to anybody, full heartily as an example of how games should be today:

Galactic Civilizations 2

I can imagine your reaction as a wargamer is to look away because you dont like Science Fiction - thats how I felt about it at first - but do yourself a favour and try it. It is well thought out, replayable, it has nice graphics and sound, and most importantly a very competitive, almost human like AI. Strategy is about making tough decisions, having to wage impossible options and pondering over new approaches during the night, until your head starts smoking, and GalCiv2 is exactly that kind of game.

Unlike most games (among that the recent TW games) who are only fun in the beginning, GalCiv gets more interesting after the mid game. That is because there are alot of interesting, unexpected special events (like in my last game the Snathi suddenly stole the whole technology from the most advanced civilization and offered them for sale), because the AI adapts to new situations and is generally very challenging, and because you will discover that game has much more to offer (like I discovered space stations offer huge possibilities in defending your most important planets and boosting the economy).

One of the nicest parts is the ship designer that allows you to create your own spaceships, depending on the level of technology you have achieved. I sometimes spent several hours just designing a new generation of ships, always forced to wage between speed / firepower / price, and the need to create ships that would fulfil and fit perfectly into my tactic plans.

There is so much more I could say, but maybe I better stop here and recommend you read some reviews or try out the demo, which you should get here:

http://www.galciv2.com/Downloads.aspx

Well yeah if someone asks me about a good (and new) strategic game, I will always recommend this one.

GE

Galciv 2 (Stardock), Forge of Freedom, Crown of Glory, War in the Pacific (Matrix), Dominions 3 (Shrapnel), Great Invasions, and AGEOD's Birth of America and American Civil War all fit the bill. The last three are designed by the guy who created the original Europa Universalis board game and all are rather less buggy than Paradox has ever managed. There's a game for all tastes among that lot. WitP is a lot more 'grog' game than the rest.

Google Silent Steel I've enjoyed it very much. It has multi paths and endings. Almost unlimited game play. And had a good review. There's a
name for the genre of this game but I went blank.:oops: It's not new but kinda ahead of it's time I think. And it's availble on ebay and maybe SubSim. Try to get it from SubSim first. That is if it sounds like something that might interest you.


Lots of choices:)

Wow, you've sold me! Don't let my obsession with Naval strategy and Napoleonic combat fool you. I'll always be a sci-fi geek at heart :88). Star Wars/Star Trek have/are/will always be amongst my favorite movies and TV shows.

As long as I'm rambling on about Sci-fi strategy...has anyone tried Star Wars: Empire at War? It's sooo much fun! I bought it last year and I re-installed it the other day and I'm totally domitating the Star Wars universe. The only sad thing about that game is that the playing field is so incredibly small :down:.

How is Star Wars: Empires at War in comparrison to Star Wars: Rebellion?

Never heard of "Rebellion" let alone played it.... but considering Wikipedia's description of "Rebellion", EaW is exceedingly better. All of the review sites I've seen have agreed with my PoV. EaW is a gem among Star Wars games. It's greatly fufilling, a little simple, but still incredibly fun.:rock:

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares ... wonderful replayability. These days, I tend to take it out once a year or so and play it for far too many hours straight. Both the strategic and the tactical mode are turn-based and way too much fun.

you too should have a look at GalCiv2 then. I really liked MOO2 when it was new, but never found anything like it in about 10 years .. until GalCiv2, which I think is the real spiritual successor of MOO.

That goes for premium prices nowadays. $45-$50

To Bad MOO: III was such a bomb . . . :nope:

I'm waffling to and fro on it, and have been for some time. When it works in Wine, I'll probably give it a shot. It doesn't yet.

(Sword of the Stars was fun and graphically nice, but too short and limited for the strategist in me)

I beta tested that game.

I wrote a long laundry list of bugs and gameplay issues.

The response I got back was "Were you able to load and run it okay ? Good, thanks thats all we wanted to know." :doh:

Was that project also adopted by UBI? :rotfl: