Favorite strategy game and why.

Bertylicious

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I kind of enjoyed Airland Battle with the nice balance between realism (kinda) and arcadey goodness. Also Migs & A-10 Warthogs and Challengers and surprise Royal Marines leaping out yo' cornflakes to stab you in the teeth!

Haven't tried Red Dragon yet, though, because of poverty.
 

Kungfu_Teddybear

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Age of Empires 2 & 3 because they're really simple to play, and don't have so much features that you end up forgetting about some of them like some strategy games, yet at the same time they're really fun.
 

GundamSentinel

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Homeworld, for the style rather than the mechanics. Great visuals that have aged surprisingly well, amazing soundtrack, lumbering capital ships and swarming fighters. Great game.

Other favorites: Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, Warcraft III and Frozen Throne, Shogun 2: Total War (and Medieval II, for that matter), Starcraft II and Age of Mythology.
 

GabeZhul

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Naeras said:
forgo911 said:
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.
It's because HoMM3 had a winning formula. Balanced factions, lots of units, fun magic and hero abilities. Its only problem was the sadistically hard campaign and the AI.

4 practically broke all of those good points. The factions were incredibly imbalanced with each of them having at least one game-breaker unit that, if you could roll it out in numbers before your opponent did the same, steamrolled everything (effin Vampires come to mind).
The option to choose between two different units each tier was fine on paper but in practice it just meant that people figured out which one was the better and never used the other one (Ogre Magi, Champions and Hydras were the poster children of this, as nobody used them, ever).
As if that wasn't enough, the hero abilities were another set of completely untested and unbalanced game-breakers. For example, if you had a hero with a high enough Stealth, put a bunch of dead heroes into his/her party and ran around on the map sneaking by mobs (you gained XP for each successfully avoided battle), you could power-level your dead party to the point where they were chewing on Black Dragons for breakfast... while they were dead!
And then I didn't mention the Druids summoning Tier 3-4 creatures every turn, the Necromancers getting free vampires after every battle and so on. The only thing HoMM4 did infinitely better than HoMM3 was the campaign structure and narrative, but it was pretty much broken in every other aspect even after patching. It was just not a well thought-out game.

As for my favorite strategy game... Uh... Hard question.
If you ask which one I played the most, it would be probably a space 4X game, like Sword of the Stars or Endless Space. I wasn't really clocking my playtime though. The thing is, I am a stimulation-gamer. I play games to the point where I see all the content in them and then I consider them finished.
In case of FPSs it means I finish the single player campaign, in case of RPGs it might mean I replay the game several times to see the repercussions of different choices and see the different romance-subplots (if ME3 didn't crap its pants in the last half hour I would probably still be playing it right now), while in the case of strategy games I just... well, want to see all the units, all the upgrades, what said upgrades do and... That's about it. If there is a single player campaign I play that too (unless it bores me to tears (looking at you, Disciples III!)) but generally once I saw everything I move on. In fact I can't even comprehend how some people can spend hundreds of hours on some Total War games (or thousands on some 4X games) replaying with every single faction and whatnot. My life has a limited timespan, I prefer spending it on experiencing new stuff, but each to his own I suppose.
 

ExDeath730

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Hard question! So i'm gonna say my favourites, both turn-based and RTS, or hybrid:

Rome Total War + Europa Barbarorum mod: Ok, this is a modded game, but the first RTW was already a pretty good game by patch 1.3, the two expansions are a joy to play, and i loved the game as the Western Roman Empire in Barbarian Invasion, so hopeless, and epic. Anyway, the thing about using Europa Barbarorum is how insane the unit variety is, what they were able to do in that engine was amazing and the game is great, there is a real feel to each faction, and they're all fun. I remember having the time of my life using the Romans and the Parthians, factions who have opposite fighting styles.

Europa Universalis Series: I'm still split between III and IV, but i really enjoy the flow of the game, or even better the focus on Great Strategy, the diplomacy, politics, how to run you nation. It's very fun game, and you will lose a lot of hours without noticing! And even with purists getting pissed, you can change history! I bet everyone here that played changed history in some way or another. Me? I took over the Mediterranean as Venice, by the 1600s the Otoman Empire was no more, divided by myself and the Mamluks, no Byzantines either, i took Greece along with a lot of Eastern Europe for my Empire, and now i'm kicking Austria's butt while spreading the joys of Capitalism! on the rest of Italy.

Starcraft 2: I loved Starcraft Brood War, really, i have played that game more times than i can remember....An i fully embraced SC2 when it came out. Besides loving the faction rebalance and the new units, even at the expense of some favorites, i liked the game and for me he was still going strong. Another thing that a lot of people hated, but i liked is the 3 games stuff, i like because every storyline focus on the faction of the game, you delve deeper and there are more missions, and the variation is amazing.

Command & Conquer 3: I loved that game, i played the first, Tiberian Sun and RA2 back in the day, but C&C3 is a damn good game, it's fun, the story don't make sense, but i don't need to, it's just Kane being Kane once more. And as a NOD player it's just fun to go along, see all the backstabing and hope to survive by the end of the day. And it is just me, or GDI kept losing the "protagonist" role while the series was going? More people played just for the NOD part of the game.
 

Bertylicious

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GundamSentinel said:
Homeworld, for the style rather than the mechanics. Great visuals that have aged surprisingly well, amazing soundtrack, lumbering capital ships and swarming fighters. Great game.
Oh shit, I forgot Homeworld existed there. That was a hell of a game.

Them junkyard dogs from Homeworld 2 stealing your ships made me rage personified, though.
 

Johnny Impact

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Civilization is still the king of strategy. Pretty sure I've put more hours into its various iterations than all other games and franchises combined.

Homeworld is the most atmospheric, most immersive, and overall best space game I ever played. Also greatly enjoyed the new XCOM. For that matter, still play the old XCOM once in a blue moon.
 

TheMigrantSoldier

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Medieval 2: Total War by far. Diverse set of units and factions (made even more diverse with Kingdoms), wonderful music, excellent mods, and decent battle AI. It's marred by overemphasis on micromanagement with agent units (namely the diplomat), unit path-finding issues and some idiotic campaign map AI.

Crusader Kings 2 is working its way up to my favorites. I love how warfare is only part of it.

I've noticed a trend with why I like these two games. I love messing around with history.
 

L. Declis

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If you're talking grand scale, Europe Universalis 4 makes history feel alive, and it's deep and complex and gives you a huge amount of freedom, even before you get the DLC's. I often get to play China for once, and you can have political marriages, fight over it with your neighbour, create a fake war between people, make a coalition and a hundred things more.

If you're talking turn based, Civilization 5 will always have my love, and Civ Beyond Earth has already been pre-ordered for me and my girlfriend for a small anniversary present for us. I have never liked twitch reflex RTS's because I just can't think or react that quickly, but I prefer the slow growth games.
 

Retsam19

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I'm a fan of strategy games, so there's a log of them that I've played and a lot that I'm a big fan of, some of the ones mentioned above (Age of Empires 2, CKII, EUIV, etc.), but there's one strategy game that I've probably put more hours into than all of the others combined:

And it's freaking Slay.



This is the PC version, the mobile version has slightly more polished graphics and (paradoxically) is much cheaper; so that's the one that's really the time sink for me. It's an incredibly simple and incredibly "pure" strategy game.

Your goal is to take over the entire grid; each connected patch of territory of your color has its own pool of money. You buy the weakest units, peasants, combining units makes stronger units (Peasant + Peasant = Spearman, Spearman + Peasant = Knight, Knight + Peasant = Baron), but the cost of each unit goes up basically exponentially (they cost 2, 6, 16, 64), so to support a knight you need 16 connected tiles. You can't capture a tile if it's adjacent to (or occupied) by a unit of equal strength. If a territory doesn't have enough money to support its units at the beginning of the turn, all units in that territory die. So getting your territory split in half can be disastrous if you're not careful.

One downside of the game is that the difficulty really varies by level, and it's hard to know what levels are easy and what ones are hard. (There's AI level; but I always play on the hardest AI level, and the starting terrain has a huge impact on the difficulty) Some levels barely require thinking, where some I've attempted many many times but never managed.

So yeah, if you haven't played Slay, super recommend it.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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Majinash said:
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.
I've always considered the MOBA games to be more akin to a fighting game than anything else. So much of the game is about psychology - the bluffing and counter bluffing - which is what tends to define high level fighting game play.
 

Necron_warrior

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Verlander said:
Total Annihilation
Supreme Commander
AoE


Could happily play those games forever
Oh my
Oh my Oh my

Question, Have you ever played Planetary Annihilation?
I ask because it is most definitely Total Annihilations better successor (I admit I enjoyed SupCom but I always found the scale of units to commander really jarring and that the unit swarm was faaaaar to big to be even the slightest micromanagable) And it the only game I've seen that does interplanetary warfare in a fluid fashion.
I suggest you at least give it a look, if you haven't already.
 

Dirkie

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Rise of Nations with the Thrones and Patriots extention, for me it's a very nice Risk-but-bigger game, played for a long time.
 

Not Lord Atkin

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X-Com: Enemy Unknown.

My problem with strategy games is that they tend to put up a massive wall of information and tutorials and do not allow you to enjoy yourself before you have managed to memorise all the game's systems. X-com actually manages to explain all the important mechanics on the go, easing you into the role and helping you along the way, and as soon as you start feeling confident in what you're doing, it takes off the training wheels and kicks you in the face with a flying sidekick.

It's a game that manages to be deep and challenging without resorting to poorly tutorialised complexity. And most importantly, it got me interested in a genre that up until that point I found confusing and alienating.
 

Seraj33

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Elfgore said:
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.
I agree with you compleatly. I did enjoy Shogun 2 for its setting and Rome 1 for its atmosphere and simplicity, a great deal. But Medieval 2 definantly takes the cake. The battles just felt so raw and ruthless compared to Rome 1 and the later installments.

The later games simply do not use a good engine that allows for realistic melee combat (they use the one engine made for Empire, which was made with a focus on ranged combat over melee, which is why it makes the combat so liquidy and predictable) and Rome 1 was more fast phased.

Medieval 2 however. I don't know, it just FEELS more heavy and chaotic.

For me personally music is also one of the most important parts in a game. And I can easily say Jeff van Dyck has made some of the most diverse and fitting scores Ive ever heard.
 

NuclearKangaroo

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Company of Heroes, everything feels so great, the combat is so brutal, viseral and authentic, the tactical options are plentiful, and since its slower paced than say, starcraft, is more based around micromanaging and tactics and reflexes

also its damn fun to watch, i used to download replays all the time



too bad the sequel wasnt that good, i didnt like the stripped down base building and selecting and moving units around doesnt feel as good as in the first game
 

Bat Vader

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Total War: Shogun 2 and Crusader Kings 2. Shogun 2 because I consider it the best in the series and Crusader Kings 2 because I love the Game of Thrones and The Witcher Kings mod.
 

Idlemessiah

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Feb 22, 2009
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Age of Empires II because it was awesome when I was a child and it is still awesome now. Also It was one of the first games I had with a custom scenario maker.

Age of Mythology. Same as above but HOLY CRAP its got all the things that fascinated me when I was younger. Also better map maker.

Dawn of War series (apart from Soul Storm). The original is a stellar example of pure RTS, Winter Assault actually made the Imperial Guard cool (also Basilisk tanks!), Dark Crusade has one of the most fun grand campaigns I've ever played and DoW2 because I was skeptical about the different play style but it actually worked out really well and I played the hell out of it.

Total War series because giant scale is awesome. Rome because they fought for the emperor before it was cool. Medieval 2 because its just such a solid, well made game. Empire because of the insane tech tree and I'm probably the only one who enjoyed the navy battles. Still not got round to playing the rest.

Civ 5 because sometimes I want to annihilate the French with methods a little more subtle than a full on invasion.

And finally X-Com Enemy Within because that game is making me its ***** right now.