Favorite strategy game and why.

[axillarypuma]

It can be any strategy game! 4X, turn based, tactical, squad based, real time, grand strategy, as long as it's strategy.

Mine is age of empires 2+conquerors+forgotten empires, it's just great, it still looks good to this day IMO, the game is balanced, good variety of maps and simple but still fun.

 

[Majinash]

Dota2

I love the possibilities of the game, and the execution is super fun. I don't know how else to add to it. I really enjoy the game, more so with friends, and I think the part I enjoy the least is when I run into some really bad (negative) players. I think it is a good sign of a video game when your biggest problem with it isn't even a part of the game.

 

[Elfgore]

Medieval 2: Total War.

Easily the strongest title in the Total War series, the last game before they started going downhill. A nice pool of nations to play as, which you had to unlock by defeating them. A great modding scene, bringing out two of the most impressive mods I've ever seen. Probably the best AI in a Total War game. Diverse units, great expansion packs, and overall an impressive game. I've easily sunk a hundred plus hours into this game.

 

[Trillovinum]

Supreme Commander: the first one I mean. A great and entertaining game that me and my friends sunk alot of time in. A really massive scale too, thousands upon thousands of units if your pc could handle it. A sad thing they dumbed down the sequel so much.

Total War: Medieval 2, Shogun 2 and Rome 2.
Medieval 2's greatness was explained above.
Shogun 2 makes the list because of its coop campaign. A thing me and a friend greatly enjoyed. The seige battles were quite flawed though, making head to head gameplay quite difficult.
Rome 2 is a great game actually though it could have certainly done with a later release than was actually the case. In the start it was plagued by massive issues that actually made it hard to play and put off alot of the early players. Most of those problems have been patched out since then though, making for a very entertaining game. It doesn't excuse its unfinished state at launch though but the game also doesn't deserve to be vilified like I've seen some people do.
The coop and head to head campaigns are very entertaining and much better than those in shogun 2.

 

[Naeras]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

You should have heard about this game if you've ever played a strategy game. If not, then go pick it up from GoG right the fuck now, and play it. It's easily one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time. Almost infinite content, a very good combat system and a crapton of long and entertaining campaign modes makes this one of the games you need to play.
Oh, and the local multiplayer is a load of fun as well.

Honorable mention goes to Company of Heroes for being one of the most innovative and interesting RTSes of all time. The focus on tactics, individual units and active map control over macromanagement was executed extremely well. The flow of the game at its best was on a level few other strategy games even came close to. It had some weird balance issues, it introduced two subpar factions in the expansion(one of them badly designed, one of them horribly designed) and there was a severe lack of balanced maps available, but overall the game is an absolute pearl.

 

[Alterego-X]

Europa Universalis and the related Paradox lineup, because of their historical coherence.

Too many strategy games tend to treat the historical setting as just a skin, a shallow aesthetic choice, a "starcraft with horses" presentation, while they are really revolving around generically balanced puzzle logic.

The Paradox games might not be entirely "realistic" as such, but they are the only ones where I feel that the creators' intent was to get as close to simulating historical nations' functioning, as possible. Maybe Age of Empires's balanced maps or Civilization's balanced tech trees are "fun", but in a way, playing with any possible nation in the world can be fun as well, and not because they are equally balanced, but because they are not. Playing with Brittany and trying to avoid getting conquered by huge powerful France, can be it's own kind of fun, more so than in a Total War game where absurd maps are invented just so Germany and Hungary can be fairly balanced players.

 

[Super Cyborg]

I'm going with Valkyria Chronicles. It doesn't require nearly as much strategy as other games, but it is a game where one has to be careful, and losing even one ally in a battle, especially later. You have to balance out which characters you use, and also use the appropriate characters on each map to optimize the advantages. You have to decide where to place each character, when and where to move them, and other things. I'm preparing to play the first one again soon because of how much I like it.

 

[crazyarms33]

Panzer General 2 is whole heck of a lot of fun. Playing as either Russians, Germans during the Blitz, the Brits, the Americans or the Germans on defense gives you a whole lot of campaign modes. The prestige mode that goes from 25 to 300 determines how many points you get to buy or upgrade your units. You can also take over the whole damned world as the Germans during the Blitz which is nice cuz you get to play battles that never actually happened and is the only game I have ever played where you can actually win as the Germans.

The Civ series is great as well but I figured that goes without saying.

 

[gewata]

Crusader Kings 2. Nothing else allows you to fuck with history to that extent.

 

[Nazulu]

It's either Starcraft: Brood War or Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge for me.

I reckon they both have great atmosphere, both have great soundtracks, both simplistic but give you a lot to use, and both have very fun challenging campaigns. Also I love how the promotion upgrades work in RA2, and I personally love the sound bytes for almost everything in Starcraft.

Others I was thinking about were Metal Fatigue, C&C Generals: Zero Hour, The Moon Project (Earth 2150), & Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. Yes, I love my base building games.

 

[joest01]

I'm going with Valkyria Chronicles. It doesn't require nearly as much strategy as other games, but it is a game where one has to be careful, and losing even one ally in a battle, especially later. You have to balance out which characters you use, and also use the appropriate characters on each map to optimize the advantages. You have to decide where to place each character, when and where to move them, and other things. I'm preparing to play the first one again soon because of how much I like it.

This. If you can beat the expert skirmishes without much strategy I salute you!

 

[James Rednok]

Command and Conquer. The original and Red Alert 2, that is. Both were fabulous RTSs and landmarks in their own right.

More recently, I've been enjoying X-COM: Enemy Unkown and World in Conflict. Both are fun, and worth it if on sale. ^_^

 

[lacktheknack]

Civilization V. I really, REALLY suck at RTS, I have to stick with TBS.

 

[Avalanche91]

Fire Emblem Awakening.

I am pretty terrible at RTS games, so it was always gonna be TBS for me. FE isn't thát hard but it can be very punishing because of the permadeath system. Previous entries in the series were pretty good, but I think Awakening was the best one yet. The plot is good fantasy fun, it has a lot of DLC (some of which actually worth buying) and whole, shipping-as-integral-game-mechanic, was something new and surprisingly amusing.

 

[forgo911]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

You should have heard about this game if you've ever played a strategy game. If not, then go pick it up from GoG right the fuck now, and play it. It's easily one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time. Almost infinite content, a very good combat system and a crapton of long and entertaining campaign modes makes this one of the games you need to play.
Oh, and the local multiplayer is a load of fun as well.

Honorable mention goes to Company of Heroes for being one of the most innovative and interesting RTSes of all time. The focus on tactics, individual units and active map control over macromanagement was executed extremely well. The flow of the game at its best was on a level few other strategy games even came close to. It had some weird balance issues, it introduced two subpar factions in the expansion(one of them badly designed, one of them horribly designed) and there was a severe lack of balanced maps available, but overall the game is an absolute pearl.

Just a question, why do you prefer 3 over 4? Having played quite a bit of both (I grew up on those games) I always preferred having my hero in battle over having him sit on the sidelines twiddling his thumbs? I'm not even going to ask about 5 due to how broken some of the scenarios were.

OT: Man that's a really hard choice. I would have to say either civ 4 or Gal Civ 2. I've played retarded amounts of time on both and I love both companies and their products (Fallen Enchantress and Civ: Colonization)

off topic again: I really can't wait for gal civ 3 to be finished, having played the alpha, it makes me really excited to see the full game.

 

[Verlander]

Total Annihilation
Supreme Commander
AoE


Could happily play those games forever

 

[Naeras]

Just a question, why do you prefer 3 over 4? Having played quite a bit of both (I grew up on those games) I always preferred having my hero in battle over having him sit on the sidelines twiddling his thumbs? I'm not even going to ask about 5 due to how broken some of the scenarios were.

It's been many, many years since I last tried HoMaM 4, and while I clearly remember not liking it (at all), I can't remember why I didn't like it. I have the same problem with 6: the core gameplay is similar, but it just doesn't grab me in the same way 3 does. And I can't quite put the finger on why that is the case.

 

[smithy_2045]

The Civilization series is the ultimate. I would have put at least 10000 hours of my life into the various iterations of that game.

 

[prowll]

The Civ series is great for this. If you're feeling 'old school', I'd got back to MOO (Masters of Orion) series. I miss having a planet-buster fleet flying around, blackmailing people to do my bidding...

 

[duwenbasden]

Starcraft 2, because the Zerg build (centralised/explosive unit production, speed) is frantic and fun to play.

also, Civ 2. It is complex, yet simple, instead of spending 200 years doing warrior battling ala Civ 5, every combat is deadly.