Strategy Games

[Varyag]

What sorts of strategy games do you guys enjoy? I've always liked RTS but I absolutely suck at them.
I've gotten really into Dawn of War 1 since 2021, can't believe I haven't spent the past 10 years of my life playing this. Men of War: Assault Squad 2 and Gates of Hell: Ostfront are my favorites in the military tactical side. Hated my time with Wargame: Red Dragon for many reasons, mainly the RNG and the community.

I also really like the idea of tactical wargames, but I can't really get into them, they all have cryptic UIs made 50 million years ago. Just can't get into Combat Mission or Graviteam Tactics. The only one I really enjoyed and managed to get into was Armored Brigade, but it's still lacking some things. Hope the sequel comes out soon.

In the vein of turn based wargames, Panzer Corps 1 and 2 are both very good, if a bit simple. But that simplicity makes them easy to pick up and play, and they have hundreds of hours of content.

 

[nikey]

I really like warcraft 3 and starcraft 2, but I think too slowly for them)
I still like to watch major events with these games, but I play mainly turn-based strategies, including tactic-jrpg like final Fantasy Tactics or Tactic Ogre.
Now my passion is "Battle Brothers", the best tactics in the world)

 

[Xeraser]

Sins of a Solar Empire is my favorite strategy game of all time if the original WC3 DotA doesn't count
That and X3 and its expansions but it doesn't start off as a strategy game.

 

[castor_andrade]

Stellaris. I'm kinda obsessed with this games.

 

[nostaflair]

StarCraft2 - Protoss main here! Best RTS ever! Hit master a few times with cheesy builds in 1v1 and 2v2 :-) However.. learning sc is very time consuimng but also very very rewarding.. Need to push that APM! Also the only sport i watch.

LegionTD2 - Standalone game of a quite popular wc/sc funmap (legiontd, squadrontd). It´s a pvp tower defense where you send units to make your opponents waves stronger. Also you constantly decide if you need more defense or push income for that sweet $$$. Playing at least once a week with a good friend, fun times!

Anno1800 - yeah.. anno... fuck anno... i once played for like a week straight caused the worst back pain. With all dlc´s you have content for weeks. Fuck anno, i love anno... must... not.. start.. a... new... savegame... aarhgrgghg

Into The Breach - Masterpiece of an indie game from the makers of FTL. Round based.

They are billions - build defense and conquer the map. Lots of zombies want to destroy your base. sadly no MP

Manor Lords - If the military part will play decent, this will suck many many hours once released.

 

[REDACTED]

I used to play a lot of Warcraft 3 custom maps, but nowadays I just play Stellaris, when in comes to traditional strategy games and Wildermyth when we're talking more of X-Com type of games. I recommend all three though.

 

[Varyag]

I've not been able to get into Stellaris, or any other Paradox games for that matter. They overcomplicate everything except the things that matter and you'd want the complexity on. Also their bullshit DLC pratices. Hiding main game mechanics behind DLC packs.

I've played a ton of Starcraft when I was a kid, but I know I'm too slow and don't like the kind of micro of it, SC2, and Company of Heroes. Just can't really enjoy them. Which is funny, since I loved Dawn of War so much. Sometimes I still play AoE2 though, making the town and microing the economy in the early game is actually kinda fun. But that kinda pushes me in the direction of city builder games instead. Something that is not quite that but I also enjoyed, was Northgard!

Sins of a Solar Empire and Homeworld are some of my favorite strategy games and I can't believe I didn't mention them. Space games in general are cool, and shoutouts to Nebulous:Fleet Command, for being an extremely tense and slow paced naval combat simulator in space. Similarly, but not actually in space, Highfleet is extremely good. I played nothing but Highfleet for a whole month when I discovered it.

Into the Breach is really good for pick up sessions. Very simple at first but gets complicated fast when you can't save everything.

Since CoH3 and DoW2 were terrible failures, I'm wary of any other sequel coming out soon. Homeworld 3, Sins 2... Hope that they don't suck. Now, what I'm looking forward to, is Stormgate (maybe this time I'll get into an RTS of this style), Tempest Rising, D.O.R.F. RTS and maybe that new Age of Sigmar RTS that is being made by Frontier. We'll see.

Oh my, how did I forget to mention! BAR - Beyond All Reason. Modern, open-source/free to play remake of Total Annihilation. Epic scale, thousands of units, complex economy, smart orders and keybinds. Super fun to play and to watch.

 

[sanctu1]

That and X3 and its expansions but it doesn't start off as a strategy game.

Click to shrink...

finally, someone else that has heard of X. for a while it felt like that series doesn't exist outside of the egosoft forums and discord server. been playing a lot of the first game recently
as for strategy games, i'm surprised no one here has mentioned the Supreme Commander series yet given that it's basically Total Annihilation's successor. Forged Alliance is still going strong with the fan servers

 

[Xeraser]

finally, someone else that has heard of X. for a while it felt like that series doesn't exist outside of the egosoft forums and discord server. been playing a lot of the first game recently
as for strategy games, i'm surprised no one here has mentioned the Supreme Commander series yet given that it's basically Total Annihilation's successor. Forged Alliance is still going strong with the fan servers

Click to shrink...

I think X (and especially X3/AP, X4 doesn't exist) is as niche as you can get before you descend into the deepest circle of autism - Aurora 4X.