Really Good Games

gazmond141014

Hey
I am looking for some really good strategy games. Ones that have lots of different things in it. Fighting (war) games are my favourite but i also like to play the others. Any Idea's?????????????

Goodshape

Bit obvious maybe, but Civilization 3 is the dogs bollox.

Pugsley

Age of EMpires 2, and 'the conquerers' expansion for all your war strategy needs.

Pharoah seems to be a good game so far, Im playing it a bit at the minute, if you want a more economic game.

Civilisation if you dont mind losing weeks of your life, and want to to build one huge nation and take over the world. (i stress how easily you can lose your life to this game)

C&C:Generals if you want a bit of quick fun, but not a game you can get totally hooked on really, and it has a dire single player aswell, and the skirmish is mediocre at best due to bad AI, good on-line or on LAN tho.

Mech Commander series if you want some real heavy thinking in your game and dont mind planning your fight for about 20 minutes before even firing a shot off (this also has one of my favourite single player campaigns ever IMO).

ps: you were thinking of starting warhammer 40k too? jeez your gonna be busy

BigEejit

Or if you want to be driven completely bonkers you could try Silent Storm ... *sigh* I was just at a critical bit on a mission and my sniper missed 4 times .... :rolleyes: FFS, the bloody guy he missed then proceeded to kill him in two shots ... :mad: ...infuriating isnt the word

The Zero Hour expansion for C&C Generals really makes it a much better game strategically ... I highly recomend it:D

Fuhrio

Its an oldie but a goodi, AOE II, The Conquerors Expansion, what a game!

jaggeh

Empieror of the fading sun or MOO3

MEch commander i highly reccomend, but not mech2 as microsoft used thier "fluffy bunny" wand on it and its nowhere near as good.

magick

Sudden Strike for complete and utter frustration

Age Of Empires 2 for good ol resource building and growing armies, though its looking a little dated

Any of the total War series for complete and utter madness!:D

quank

Civ 2 REALLY good, so simple, yet so sexy
Age of Empires (any of them)
Command and Conquer games get really boring i think
the Warcrafts is good, but they can get a tad boring after a few days mebbes

HaVoC

starcraft: broodwars its old but has loads of differant strategys that can be learned it can turn into an addiction and become very time consuming once you get into it and start learning all the rushs build orders etc

Da_cOmRaDe_MiKe

i have these games. in my opinion this is what i think.


age of empires 2 ( RESOURCE GATHERING AND FIGHTING)- extremly popular for resource gathering, multiplaying, and attacking. games on the internet can last for hours depending on your competition.

conquerors expansion - just adds a little more to the game including new units, civs and tactics. Not much different form the original game. OVERALL 8/10

Civilization 2 ( RESEARCH EXPAND AND CONQUER )- not the most amazing of sid meirs creations. but has its addiction. long games, great and multiple strategies and research always a crutial. OVERALL 4/10

Civilization 2 test of time ( RESEARCH EXPAND AND CONQUER )- more of an improved version of the original. more units, larger game and much more map creating abilities. mulitplayer abilities but not so popular as real time based games such as age of empires 2. OVERALL 6/10

Civilization 3 ( RESEARCH EXPAND AND CONQUER )- probably the most addictive game as it takes FU*CKING ages to play a decent game. you will spend months on 1 game. great research, real time fighting and the computer keeps up well with you on the harder levels. great map and scenario creating abilities and there are serveral competitions and files and forums available on www.apolyton.net. OVERALL 8/10

Alpha Centauri ( JUST BUILD, RESEARCH AND FIGHT ) - an amazing game with amazing game play. great research and its basically a continue to civilization. just new planet, research and more up-to date tactics of warfare. great graphics and overall brilliant. mulitplayer abilities but as most older games has become less popluar...... OVERALL 7/10

Rise of Nations ( RESROURCE GATHERING, RESEARCH AND FIGHTING )very new game. very detailed game. like age of mythology but a lot more features. probably as good as age of empires 2 and the conquerors but not out long enough for a general decision. OVERALL 9/10

Starcraft + Broodwar expansion ( RESOURCE GATHERING AND FIGHTING )- an amazing game for multiplaying. not the most exciting single player. the scenarios are very well done and the in-game graphics are excellent. however the computer competition is a total let down. other than multiplaying this game is not worth the time. OVERALL 4/10 - singleplayer.... OVERALL 8/10 multiplayer.

Galactic civilizations - extremly complicated game to play. most people spend hours playing and end up getting no where. this game takes a long time to get use to. it has many features that other games dont offer. its a great resource and military game but highly time consuming. OVERALL 6/10

Pugsley

Rise of Nations ( RESROURCE GATHERING, RESEARCH AND FIGHTING )very new game. very detailed game. like age of mythology but a lot more features. probably as good as age of empires 2 and the conquerors but not out long enough for a general decision. OVERALL 9/10

I really dont see how this game got higher than AoE2 and Civ3. It was nothing special IMO, the warfare in this is too simple for my liking. the opening for tactics is too limited for a game of its style, the only thing in this game that strikes me as quite good is the advancing side of things, but even that doesnt come close to Civ3. (and stealth bombers are far too powerful too)

yeah I have to agree with that. I liked RON, but the problem is basically that you have to do too much at once.

Mad Mike

Sacrifice

Available cheap for about a fiver.

Panned by the critics and a commercial failure and yet I think it is one of the best games I have ever played.

Its not a slow thinker - its a fast thinker the battles are relentless fast and furious. It seems impossibly hard at first - which explains some of the bad reviews but brains will always win over brawn and the true richness of the game reveals itself. Ultimately its all about strategic control of resources and territory.

Simple resource structure (only two resources)
Beautifully balanced and varied units
Beautiful Graphics sound and gameplay even by todays standards
Well thought out storyline with lots of 'personal' touches which show that this was a labour of love.
Huge replayability owing to the fact that there are five seperate allegiances (gods) you can follow each with their own powers and units and you can mix and match paths through the game - each giving combination giving a unique set of powers and units.
Even has a multiplayer although I doubt if you'll find too many playing on line today.

Da_cOmRaDe_MiKe

imo pugsley thats the best thing for a game. more you have to do the more harder it is. there aint no point in playing a game where you can just sit there and be bored like a dog. id rather be doing a load of different stuff while my army is being built.

they best parts of RON is the new strategy's.

i love building a sh*it load of cities and making generals and then entrenching my units all around my territory. this gives you a defence thats literally unbeatable. which allows you to concentrate on more detailed aspects such as research and resources...

its a pretty easy tactic but when you play harder levels it gets more fun.

id easily give this game a higher rating than civ3 or age of empries 2 and the ocnquerors.

well thats just IN MY OPINION REALLY.

not sure about the rest of you.....

Justice

my vote is for Civ 3, (especially after buying the conquests Expansion pack).

but another good strategy was earth 2150. tis old now (about 4 yrs) but theres have been follow up games (which i didnt get )

Pugsley

heh, earth 2150, forgot about that, its a pretty good RTS. Its very strongly influenced by Warzone 2100, but its sped up a lot (games are MUCH shorter), and theres 3 totally diffrent teams in it.

Its not an amasing game as it does get quite boring quite quickly, but definately worth a look.

-oRnein9-

Like many others I have to say Age of Empires2 is the business.

Big al

Medieval Total War has to be one of the best, what other game allows you to attack the Pope FFS

jill_valentine

Bloody Poland demolished me again! WTF?

Creon

U can't go wrong with Medieval Total War a great game and it's rather cheap to buy as it's been out for quite a while.

CnC games are great too my personal favourite being Red Alert 2, great online and single player is quite good too.

article6

Has to be Age of Empires II Conquerors. I'm playing that a lot more than Civ3 - Conquests at the moment, even though it's fairly old.

User45701

CnC are the best stratagy games out there.
I cant wait for TT

jill_valentine

I'm close to deciding that Total War is my favourite game ever. Which makes me a freak among gaming girls who tend to lean towards The Sims or Survival Horror/ or GTA, but I love the balance of politics and warmongering. I'm actually more interested in Medieval era war than Rome though, so I'm not too hyped about TW:R... Heh...I wish there was a Mod set solely in Ireland....I know VI has it but its not the same...

quank

Originally posted by article6
Has to be Age of Empires II Conquerors.

exactly! :P

kick ass game

im actually off for a game with my matesies

joshcork

for an old classic go for imperium galactica the first one now none of the rehashed stuff.
or to the past medieval total war very good quite complicated.

Sand

Medieval Total War is quite good on the battlefield but is let down by the strategic level game where the AI is appalling tbh.

Galactic Civillisations is an excellent strategic game - theyve worked on making sure the AI is no push over - its frustratingly smart actually. It doesnt do stupid things, it doesnt ignore you when youre blatantly getting ready to smack them, it wont attack you if youre a strong trade partner ( unless theyre evil and youve foolishly been ignoring the fact that theyve beat up the rest of the galaxy and youre the only competitors left )

Now that you mention Imperium Galactica, ive been trying to get into the second game - the real time and the fog of war combine to mean you actually need to patrol your borders with picket fleets to keep ahead of enemy raiders, and the graphics blow anything else in the "imperial strategy" genre away even being so old. But its also incredibly frustrating - game design 101 screams out for an auto pause when building is complete, research complete, enemy fleet spotted etc etc. At least the option to do so. A few relatively minor adjustments, tack on the Galactic Civllisations AI and generally update the game to modern expectations and youd have the best strategy game ever.

Ah well.

Memnoch

I've played pretty much every strategy game mentioned here a fair bit...
I guess it depends on weather you want to play single player or multi player as different games have strengths and weaknesses in this regard. Same goes for weather you prefer RTS or turn based.

For Turn Based -

Civ 2 is definately my favorite. I enjoyed Civ 3, but wasn't tooo fond of some of the changes (especially removing the fundamentalist government which was by far my favorite in civ 2 as a war mongering maniac). The civ games definately suck you in for a good long time, and you could easily spend an 8 hour session at it and not even realise where the time went, literally, turns fade into each other and 1 more turn before bed at 10pm ends up finishing at 4am :P

Other good turn based ones have been mentioned including imperium galectica. However there is a big lack of good online turn based games. However one very little heard of game is actually quite good and balanced for online play... in fact its entirely online
www.metalknights.com I advise any turn based fans looking to try a game online to check it out, you can play free as an unregged account if you wish for as long as you want.
This was actually my first "online" game, and I spent the better part of a year addicted to it!

RTS games.

Its hard to pick the best game here, different games have different things going for them. However when it comes to overall depth of strategy and styles of play, I would have to say that

STARCRAFT BROOD WARS is definately the best. There were so many "neat" tactics in this game to employ. You cannot simply win by just "sitting" in your base amassing troops for hours on end ( atleast not in multiplayer). Also battle.net's multiplayer support has always been excellent. Not to mention the numerous custom scenarios made by other players.

Warcraft III/Frozen Throne - This is currently one of the best online RTS's to play and the one that is played "professionly" as RTS pros go. This is the first game to introduce the "hero" system which really adds a LOT of depth to the game play. Having one "elite" unit whose fate can determine the result of the game. Having this unit level up and learn new unique skills as they progress is pretty cool also! I cannot stress more the "depth" of strategies availible in this game. Another neat feature is the fact that you have fewer units, and while this may seem like a "detraction" it actually isn't. This means every unit in a fight is important and you actually use the special skills of all your units. The best players are the ones with the most strategy AND skill. And skill REALLY plays a big part in the multiplayer games, where you must have an in depth knowledge of your units and the enemies, abilities strengths and weaknesses. With the best players performing up to and over 100 actions per minute on their units. (watch a replay and you will see what I mean). Also the single player campaigns are wonderful and the story is very good ( though a good bit reminiscent of lord of the rings in some ways). I can't even start to mention all the countless player made custom mods for this game that add ooodels and ooodels of fun to the gameplay.
Three main types of these are mini games unto themselves... being footman wars, Defence of the ancients and the many many incarnation of Tower Wars.

Each is a fun game in itself that you would spend hours playing online.

Another thing worth mentioning about Starcraft and Warcraft are the blend of unique strategies only availible in these games, and not really executed any better in other games.

In Starcraft for examples, there is the ability to have cloaked units and detecters, and this is far more indepth than what you might see in the C & C games. There are also numerous cool "transportation" technologies, including dropping troops behind enemy lines. Building a secret underground tunnel inside the enemy base, the ability to plant a "parasite" in the enemy units giving you their line of sight.. the list is endless.

In warcraf the unique hero abilities are truly wonderful. With abilities such as aoe nukes, teleport, aura's. One of the coolest abilities is "Mirror Image" that belongs to the blademaster. This ability creates up to 4 "mirror images" of your hero that look exactly the same to the enemy. These mirror images deal no damage and take damage at twice the rate of your heros, but nevertheless when used correctly can through the enemy's attack into disarray with precious time wasted on killing mirror images as the enemy blade master picks off your weaker units, or makes good his escape

The last thing I will mention about both Warcraft and Starcraft is that while resource management and control is important, it is not the "focus" of the game, like in Many RTS games. The strategy revolves a lot more aroudn the control of your units, and unit selection, which allows you to focus no more battle oriented gameplay that make these games a hell of a lot of fun to play. Thats not to say you can ignore the importance of resources

AOE/Conquerors - this was the first RTS game that I played extensively online. Very good and very addictive, however not as much "fun" or action paced as the WoW games. Resource management is a much more key feature here, in comparison to blizzard games where these games are a lot more "resource heavy". With 4/5 different resources to control and manage the game is definately very resource dependent and a lot of the "tatics" focus on harrassment of enemy resource "gathering". I personally tend to focus on and enjoy more in depth battle strategies, which in fairness AOE does have a lot of. But it seems to lack the "cool" factor of various strategies that are unique to the blizzard games.

I played the C & C games a lot, but in the end I feel their time is past. I don't really enjoy their graphics anymore, and I feel that the game play lacks depth and innovation. But this is probably more due to my personal preference than a fault with the games

BadCharlie

Pld warcraft 3 over the weekend on lan and it was great fun. Will be playing it again i hope this week its a very good game indeed.

Another game i'd like to mention is Rise Of Nations. Have pld this game alot on line and over lan and its great fun when you get into it.

steve-hosting36

civ III, can't type, another turn ...

i_am_dogboy

Originally posted by Mad Mike
Sacrifice

Available cheap for about a fiver.

Panned by the critics and a commercial failure and yet I think it is one of the best games I have ever played.

Definitely buy this game. I don't think I can add to what he said without repeating him, It's just an absolutely wonderful game, and it's got something that's missing from most strategy games, a good storyline.

I would also recommend Giants: Citizen Kabuto, not really strategy for the best part, but it's probably the most fun I've had building bases.

And finally Ground Control, brilliant strategy game, hugely tactical, no base building, so it eliminates resource whores dominating in multi player. The single player is excellent, the missions are a bit hard at times but it's worth playing through, great story, some of the best game mechanics i've seen, excellent collision detection(you can hit aircraft with artillary fire accidentaly if your not careful). Not to mention an insanely fast paced and fun multi player game with some of the best balanced units out there. It cant be beat, no matter what anyone else says about other strategy games being better-they are just wrong and stupid.

Mad Mike

Originally posted by i_am_dogboy

And finally Ground Control, brilliant strategy game, hugely tactical,

Yup I like GC too. Although I have one major gripe: It has very limited saving ability. As far as I can recall you are only allowed to save once per mission. I got about half way through and hit a wall at one particularly long and difficult mission.

Of course the beauty about all of these games (Sacrifice, Ground control and Kabuto) is that they are all available on budget - 3 for €14 if you look around.

NeoSlicerZ

Blademaster's Mirror image sucks. Demonhunter's Evasion is far better..

Sefrian

lol lads ne1 play warcraft online very hard to get good personally im lv 10 and im still crap after a whiule of playin this you kinda of think it doesnt blong here beacuse its more of an action game than a strategy

BadCharlie

Yeah i play it im level 7 after about 4 days of playing it. But i play my games against america's i did not know you can pick what region you want to play in.

Sefrian

Europe myself find it less laggier tbh! you play team games or solo

joshcork

Oh yes Ground Control very cool stuff so simple yet so hard
Something else worth mentioning would be Alpha Centauri Civ esk game playing at the moment very addictive

article6

Originally posted by joshcork
Something else worth mentioning would be Alpha Centauri Civ esk game playing at the moment very addictive

That was another excellent game. Unfortunately, at the moment, Civ 3 Conquests pwnz it.

BadCharlie

Always play team. They are normaly over very fast. After the first big battle if yee lose well then its game over.

The Real B-man

Blitzkrieg on the pc is brilliant best game i played in ages
http://www.cdv-blitzkrieg.com

Nietzschean

ye can't beat Total Annihlation + Core Contengency... best game ever

Pugsley

btw, for all you fans of the mech universe, excellent mech mod for C&C:G, public beta is now released, and it has a LOT of mechs etc up for grabs (unfortunately, no masakari, or daishi's), heres the site, its worth getting.

sparkthatbled

Dark reign and dark reign 2 are terribly under-rated. Love them games. The diverse weaponry. Hope they come out with dr3

vega_AH64

Total annihilation.

Loads of units. land, air, sea. Unit packs online and some very big maps
Large scale all out war. But you have to be playing some one with the same level of skill otherwise it will be all over before it has even begun.

l3rian

gotta be age of empires: tc, online play is great fun

take a look at this recorded game, you'll need the 1.0c patch, and extract the game into C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\SaveGame

i got the game here: http://www.bskzone.com/

this is a 3v3 expert game, they really really know how to battle big, shows you how fast and furious every second of the game can be



recorded game

Nietzschean

Originally posted by vega_AH64
Total annihilation.

Loads of units. land, air, sea. Unit packs online and some very big maps
Large scale all out war. But you have to be playing some one with the same level of skill otherwise it will be all over before it has even begun.

Not if u decide to remove the unit limits and have stupid ammounts of pheonix's and hawks circle'n their coastlines......can't leave their base, but ye don't have to quite kill em....kill em with peewee's

huge

age of empires series
rise of nations
age of mythology