Recommend me a game like XCOM: Enemy Within or Heroes of Might & Magic III

[DoPo]

I think my recommendation is an unpopular one with Heros of M&M fans but I would say Heroes V. 3 is still the best imo but I had alot of fun with Heroes V. It was quite cheap on GOG last time I saw it and there are two expantions that are worth playing as well.

Oh, I love Heroes 5. I assumed OP wasn't looking for something in the Heroes series, that's why I omitted it. But if I were to amend that - Heroes 5 is really just 3 with a facelift. Most of the core is the same but some of the better ideas of 4 were incorporated in it. And I do mean "incorporated", as opposed to "bolted on" - skills are a great example - they don't require a ridiculous amount of levels to be useful (as per 4) and you don't have the odd useless ones there (as per 3). The idea of subskills from 4 is in, as well, and it actually follows the 3 philosophy. The skills themselves are varied and give interesting possible combinations. You can even get some special skills with some unique combinations, for example, a Demon Lord, if they choose the correct skills, can have the ballista shoot fire arrows, instead of normal ones. Actually, the only "problems" as such, I see with the skills is they keep the random progression from 3, so if you want a specific build, you have to be even more careful. And the other problem is...actually, the unique abilities are too complex. I've never been able to play without the Skillwheel [http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=520] - each race has their own slection of extra abilities, and even if two have access to the same one, chances are the prerequisites are different.

Other than that, I think the Tribes of the East expansion is a must have for H5. It adds the barbarian fraction to the game but also another well incorporated idea from Heroes 4 - alternative creature upgrades. Thanks to this, H5 now rises to be something that's not described as "improved H3" but more of it's own game. It helps that the barbarians were actually really interesting - they have a different system in combat, which unilises rage to buff their creatures. They also don't have any magic (well, they do have "warcries" which are a substitute" but they also have a unique skill set - instead of the magic schools they have the "shatter magic schools" - while other races can pick from Dark Magic, Destruction Magic, etc, the barbarians have Shatter Dark Magic, Shatter Destruction Magic, and so on, which reduces the corresponding spells cast. I thought it was a really cool idea, even if it somewhat too narrowly specialises your hero.

 

[Gizmo1990]

Snip

I also cannot play without the skillwheel. My personal favorite subskill is Arcane Omniscience for the Wizard. All spells are put in your spellbook and you can cast all of them at expert level. Plus I agree with the alternate unit upgrades I really loved that feature.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

-King's Bounty series. Crossworlds is probably the best game to start with of the new games but really they're not exactly story-driven experience so you can play any of them in any order. They all pretty much play and look the same just with some tweaks and gimmicks here and there.

I wouldn't recommend a warrior of the north though, where their main gimmick was tons of bugs, buggy spells, buggy dialogues and exceptionally long story.

 

[4RM3D]

Thanks everyone for your input. Got a pretty good insight on what to expect and what I want to try out.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

From memory the Jagged Alliance series features mostly identical core gameplay to X-Com : Enemy Within except that it revolves around modern-era mercenaries.

 

[loa]

So you want a turn based strategy game that will gladly slam you into a wall and molest your entire carefully trained squad but you played enemy within too many times and are tired of its same old 0 divergence upgrade system which always culminates in the same endgame?
Try the long war mod for enemy within if you have the pc version.
It adds a whole bunch of classes, items, expands the squadsize and changes how the game plays to the point of making it something completely different.

 

[Zakarath]

You could broaden your horizons a bit and play the original X-COM. Sure, it's UI is pretty clunky and the graphics don't have that modern shine (though they're honestly not that bad), it's still really good and a lot of fun.

 

[Cam Melton]

One game no one has mentioned yet is Dead State. Turn based, has base building mechanics. Don't be too alarmed with all the talk about it being an unplayable buggy mess. There are some bugs remaining but nothing beyond annoying requiring one load their latest quicksave at worst.

 

[L. Declis]

Darkest Dungeon is worth a look, in my mind. Yes, it's in Early Access, but the game is plenty playable. I have sunk about 13 hours into it and still not completed a quarter of what they have released so far. Not encountered a single bug.