Best strategy game ever?

[skywolfblue]

Starcraft 2. The game that improved upon the already best strategy game of all time.

Though, I can't let the Homeworld series go without an honorable mention. Amazing story, awesome ships, loved that series so much.

 

[Yopaz]

I will name my two favourite strategy games because they touch upon slightly different areas.

Battle For Westnoth. Great turn based strategy game with a lot of updates on character models and campaigns on top of it being free and compatible with most Linux or Windows operating systems.

Red Alert 2. Great real time strategy, incredibly hard computer players at the higher difficulties, works fine with both full online and LAN and the campaigns are pretty good.

 

[Sorya]

Company of Heroes.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

For real-time: Definitely Starcraft.

For non-realtime: Europa Universalis 3 by a long, long shot.

Factoring in nostalgia: C&C Red Alert (the first video game I spent a large amount of time with)

 

[Da Orky Man]

Age of Empires 2. Not without its share of problems but I have more fond memories of playing it with friends than any other Strategy game. It was good when we could agree on what was OP (Koreans and Goths pretty much) then continue to play interesting matches against each other.

This. Age of Empires 2 is simply sublime.
As for who is OP, Mongols. Their Maguadai simply march over everything. Paladin's can do some damage, ut pike can remedy that. We actually had to enforce a ban in order to keep matches fun.

 

[Legiondude]

SOASE, quick pace, yet slow enough to be able to really be in control

heard a bit about that and it sounds interesting, but I never played it or even seen it. found Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity on steam for 15 bucks. Would you recommend that one? (as opposed to another entry in the series)

If you have the stamina for long games, go for it. Seriously I average about 10-15 hours a match in 6 player team/FFA games on medium maps. Gone up to 20 on large maps before I gave up out of boredom.

I'm still sticking around with it because of the Halo mod [http://www.moddb.com/mods/halo-sins-of-the-prophets] that's coming, finally want some UNSC/Covie space action the franchise deserves.

Rise of Nations was pretty interesting over my AoE3 raised mindset. Many of the mechanics, such as territory, supply lines, and terrain made each battle very sweet in my mind, it let you feel the actual struggle of combat as you watched the battle lines swell or wane with your army. The control groups changing names with troop amount and distributions(IE: 1st Army, 4th Navy, 3rd Armored, 5th Squad) was a very nice icing on the cake for me. Campaigns were a bit dull though because of how quickly things got out of control(capture an enemy capital, and you get all of their territory on the world map[Risk style]. You can take Asia in leaps and bounds.). It pretty much killed my interest in Age of Empires, I just found it so fun to play skirmish.

Rome TW and Medieval II TW have their own charms. Don't think they need to be spoken on.

And I hear SupCom is pretty epic, I still wanna go and buy a copy and get in on the theater scale conflicts.

I own both SC1, SC1BW, and SC2. Never really liked Brood War because the AIs would group up and kill me(in free for all matches, they'd all come and kill me). SC2 I'm only Silver on the previous seasons ladder so I can't really vouch for it's legitimacy or not as a be-all-end-all RTS, especially with how much people scream about balance. I like it though, certainly better to look at than the previous version.

 

[redisforever]

My favorite strategy game, probably Company of Heroes. It's one of the most intense RTS games ever.
I also really love Red Alert 2, Medieval 2 TW, Rome TW, and Total Annihilation, just for the pure insanity of the last one.

 

[Sandjube]

These probably aren't the "best" but my favourites are Red Alert 2, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, and Supreme commander, in no real order....though I guess I'd put Dawn of War/2 at the top, personally. Love all the DoW games oh so much.

 

[mateushac]

AoE 2, no doubt!

 

[El Presidente]

Civilization IV for me. Not a fan of RTS, but I love the Civ games.

 

[Sajuuk-khar]

Jagged Alliance 2 and Heroes of Might & Magic III if I can count those as strategy.

If not, as for real strategy games, I'll go with Age of Empires II. Still really enjoyable over LAN. Saracens ftw, although not having good fireships sucks. The mamelukes costing loads of gold kind of sucks as well, as it in FFA usually makes me destroy my most dangerous friend and then losing against some of the lesser players... ah well.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

These probably aren't the "best" but my favourites are Red Alert 2, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, and Supreme commander, in no real order....though I guess I'd put Dawn of War/2 at the top, personally. Love all the DoW games oh so much.

Your Cultist-Chan avatar agrees with the DOW sentiment.

 

[hawkeye52]

Europa universalis 3. Simply one of the most in depth games you could get for a grand strategy game. Actually most strategy games from paradox plaza

 

[Vigormortis]

My favorite strategy game, hmm? A good question. One that is easily answered.

I could say it's Starcraft or Starcraft 2, as I love both games, but I won't.

I could say it's MechCommander 2 for it's amazingly brilliant and "ahead of its time" action strategy elements, but I won't.

I could say it's Populous: the Beginning for that games brilliant design and unique spin on the genre, but I won't.

I could also say it's Sins of a Solar Empire, as it is by far one of the best strategy games ever conceived, in that it rewards tactics and not "hotkey" memorization and build orders. But, I won't.

So where does that leave me? Simple really...

Homeworld.

Homeworld is not only STILL the best RTS ever made, in my opinion, but has easily one of the greatest stories ever put to the video gaming medium. The game was a pure work of genius, and I still occasionally play it to this day. It was, and still is, fantastic.

(Of note, Sins of a Solar Empire is very much an heir to the Homeworld throne. It lacks the narrative, but drastically expands on the game-play mechanics and ideals.)

 

[Mozza444]

Mine is final fantasy tactics WotL for psp strategy on the go mofos!!!!

Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. (1&2)

Epic games, never played the PSP version though.. nearly bought a PSP just to play it, is it any good?

 

[rofltehcat]

Can't decide...
MAX (Mechanized Assault & Exploration): Very good old DOS game, my first strategy game. Loved Hot Seat games.
Company of Heroes: Awesome game but lacked advertisement/hype on release. Balancing sometimes a bit off. However, horrible community that will shit on whoever they deem inferior (Brit faction). Random damage rolls can ruin your match.
Men of War: Awesome game with a lot of possibilities but very hard to learn. Severely lacking size of community. Often kind of random and some people are just too lucky (I sometimes fear there may be a 100% accuracy hack out there and used by certain people). Random chance can ruin your match. Still a lot of fun.

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

Though it is likely not the best, I have to say the one I enjoyed the most was Total Annihilation. It's campaign was garbage. But the online portion was outstanding in my opinion,and I loved the unit designs.

 

[Orcboyphil]

A toss up between UFO: Enemy Unknown and Civilisation. Almost added Syndicate to this list buts that's more of a tactics game with some strategy elements.

 

[Amarok]

See now this is rough. I love Starcraft (and Starcraft 2) but I like many others here remember AoE II as being great...
Can I say AoE singleplayer, SC multiplayer or is that a total cop-out?

 

[negimafan587]

Mine is final fantasy tactics WotL for psp strategy on the go mofos!!!!

Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. (1&2)

Epic games, never played the PSP version though.. nearly bought a PSP just to play it, is it any good?

I've never really played the advanced series so I wouldn't be able to really compare them but WotL really fixed any problems that the original psx tactics had. All the text was redone and battle system was balanced and bugs fixed so it was ,in my opinion, the best port ever done. So its not worth a psp purchase but it is if you include crisis core and birth by sleep.