Tactical strategy games, help me get my fix

override368

Okay so I've got an itching for a tactical strategy game, I've played fallout tactics and silent storm, but there have to be other games in this genre.

Anyone have any suggestions?

admanb

X-Com is one of the best games of all time, but it may be a bit strategy heavy. Jagged Alliance is probably the closest to FO:T.

override368

Oh yea how could I forget about those 2... haven't played those in forever

Thanks, are there any newer ones you can think of? It's kind of a sparse genre

acidlacedpenguin

1.13 user patch for JA2.

SkutSkut

I second X-Com, I've never spent so much time managing a base before, and I play Starcraft.

citizen059

Not being heavily experienced in strategy games, can someone explain to me the differences between a "tactical" strategy game and other types?

Basticle

tactical strategy games focus on directing units rather than resource gathering and building units.

citizen059

So, something like Ground Control, which was released free to promote GC2, where you start each map with all the units you're going to have...that would be tactical, as opposed to something like WC3 or WH40k: DoW

Correct?

The only strategy game I've played recently is Wesnoth, and I'm not sure where that fits in either.

Xenogears of Bore

There are a bunch of them on the GBA and DS even though you seem to be leaning towards PC games.

SammyF

Brigade E5 is like a 3D version of Jagged Alliance with pause-able simultaneously-executed action and horrible camera controls. Once you get past aforementioned horrible camera controls, though, it can be pretty fun. I still enjoyed Jagged Alliance 2 more, it should be noted, but mainly because of the broader strategic aspects.

There's also the UFO games. These games are invariably compared to X-Com for the obvious reasons and always to the newer franchise's detriment; however, the latest in the series, UFO Afterlight, is far and away better than the other iterations in the series. Still misses something from the original X-Com, but like BE5 it has pause-able simultaneous execution and brings the graphics into the 21st century.

Zenitram

World in Conflict sounds right up your alley. Limited management RTS, mostly combat.

Bouncing_Soul

Do the Total War or Myth series count?

They're both real-time but tactical as well.

Couscous

Rebelstar: Tactical Command is a GBA game that plays a lot like X-Com.

Goumindong

citizen059 wrote: »

So, something like Ground Control, which was released free to promote GC2, where you start each map with all the units you're going to have...that would be tactical, as opposed to something like WC3 or WH40k: DoW

Correct?

The only strategy game I've played recently is Wesnoth, and I'm not sure where that fits in either.

Almost, most are turn based rather than real time as ground control is, and they separate out the combat and unit production steps as Wesnoth does not.

Real time games like ground control are more about micro management rather than tactics. They are usually based around humanoid like opponents so that you can exploit crouching/turning/aiming time by forcing actions. Many also incorporate large scale management on an overmap which is separate from the tactical component as well as RPG elements where your guys get better as they progress.


E.G. in Jagged alliance if you shoot at a guy and miss, it might make him crouch, do it again and it might make him go prone. So if you put short bursts in the general direction of exposed enemies it will slow their advance while your other forces can get around to a better vantage point. This is because it takes nearly a full turn to get up from prone and fire or to turn around when prone

JA 2 is probably the best the genre has to offer and is one of the better games of all time. Very difficult but very fun.

minigunwielder

citizen059 wrote: »

Not being heavily experienced in strategy games, can someone explain to me the differences between a "tactical" strategy game and other types?

Tactical=Turn/Phase Based, with the added benefit of not having to maek manz while your Skyranger is touching down in a Seattle just crawlin' with aliens.

Also, there's a good reason for that, Rebelstar is a blatant XCOM clone created by, GASP, the father of XCOM.

TychoCelchuuu

Laser Squad Nemesis is something to look in to.

Bugman

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 comes out soon

Toxic

I would highly recommend picking up a GBA. A ton of tactical-lite games that strike just the right balance of difficulty and fun.

Zenitram

Oh man how could I forget the Combat Mission series. WW2 strategy, similar in style to the old Close Combat games but WAY better. Beyond Overlord is the first, and is the war from the British/American/German perspective. Barbarossa to Berlin is the sequel, takes place on the Eastern front. Afrika Corps was the 3rd installment, and is quite obviously the African theater.

Phoenix-D

There's also UFO: Extraterrestrials. No relation to the other UFO games- its a straight throwback to X-Com. And quite moddable, which is nice because there are several mods that improve the game quite a bit.

Bamelin

Requoting an old blurb I have saved ....

Star Chamber

What is Star Chamber?

Strife is ascendant in the Republic. The Emperor’s disappearance has sparked a clash between his followers and rival separatist forces, a clash that threatens to pull all the races into full-scale war. As battles rage across the galaxy, opportunistic senators and diplomats bid for power in the Star Chamber, the neutral headquarters of the Republic. In the midst of war, scholars unearth an ancient civilization. All eyes turn to this find, as each race believes this ancient legacy is their destiny.

In Star Chamber, you take the role of one of the major races of the Republic. You must balance the careful planning of a turn-based strategy game with the unexpected twists of a dynamic trading card game. Will you lead your nation to victory through military conquest, cultural achievement, or political domination? The future of the galaxy rests in your hands.

You can check out the game at the Sony Station: http://starchamber.station.sony.com/


The game has been mentioned on the front page several times by Tycho:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2004/02/09

and is well worth checking out.


Some words about StarChamber:

First off I've been playing it for over 3 years so I'm a tad bias.

Do you like war/board games?
Do you like CCG's?
Do you like games that favour deep strategic thinking over fancy graphics?

If yes to the above then StarChamber is the game for you. One thing to keep in mind is that SC has a very strong CCG component. The SC community is very nice and will literally GIVE you ALL the commons from every single set ever released. Just ask.

Despite this eventually you'll need to buy packs to be able to compete. Unlike games like Magic The Gathering, Sanctm, Chron X and others, StarChamber is not "rare" heavy. You CAN compete with a common only deck. Board play is just as important as card play ... sometimes even more so.

There are 3 ways to win. 1 is by grinding your opponent's homeworld to dust under the weight of your superior military. 2nd is by achieving a "cultural" victory of 30 pts ... Culture and tech (mana) is gained through artifact planets, 2 culture per artifact. 3rd is by winning 3 "Power Play" votes in the StarChamber. Votes take place every six turns.

Because of the very different ways to win the game you see very VERY different strategies employed by players. It makes for extremely interesting gameplay.

The game is very good, well worth checking out if you like turn based strategy war games.

DisruptorX2

Wh40k: Chaos Gate is a decent Jagged Alliance clone.

-SPI-

Ignore the rest, go with the best: Jagged Alliance 2.

TehSpectre

Shining Force 1 & 2 are the best.

Cliffjumper

TehSpectre wrote: »

Shining Force 1 & 2 are the best.

Also, if you like Warhammer 40k, or squad based action in an "Aliens" like environment, try downloading Space Hulk by Teardown.

Details of the game can be found here, but they had to take down the download links on their own site. http://www.teardown.se/

However, googling it should enablt you to quickly find the download link somewhere else.

It's a great game too.

Zell

Nectaris (aka Military Madness), imagine Advance Wars with no way to build units, no resource management and units having an effect on all six hexagons around them. Advance Wars might have surpassed it in every other way, but Nectaris' basic gameplay is still very awesome. Also, Commandos?

SanderJK

Commandos may fit the bill pretty well. It's very late in the 2D era, games that are still very playable today. Bloody hard too.

Fallout Tactics isn't for everyone, but most of it's flak was ill-deserved. It got hated on mostly for not being anywhere remotely like Fallout. In it's own right, it's quite nice, if slow. And again, late 2D means it looks pretty good.

Gal Civ II and Sins are probably my contemporary favorites though. Civ IV coming in just after that.

Alpha Centauri is my alltime favorite.

Sins is actually pretty unique in that it is very slow real time. While technicly an RTS, it's almost all about taking decisions, and nothing to do with fast responses.

Arrath

I like that about Sins, you can feel more like a really high up the food chain commander, belting out orders to all the lesser people and watching the results. (yay good ship combat ai). Factor in things like travel time and gravity wells, once you make a choice to reposition a fleet or attack or whatever, you're pretty well locked into it.

BigPointyTeeth

Zenitram wrote: »

Oh man how could I forget the Combat Mission series. WW2 strategy, similar in style to the old Close Combat games but WAY better. Beyond Overlord is the first, and is the war from the British/American/German perspective. Barbarossa to Berlin is the sequel, takes place on the Eastern front. Afrika Corps was the 3rd installment, and is quite obviously the African theater.

Those are my favorite strategy games of all time. I've had so many epic battles against a friend in the first two. Almost every battle would quickly turn into an absolute bloodbath, or a slow, grinding battle of attrition with one of us grudgingly giving up ground.

The latest game is set in modern day. I couldn't recommend it at launch, but they've patched it up quite a bit since then. It still hasn't clicked with me yet, but that's mainly because I've only played the AI. Once TCP/IP WeGo gets patched in, I'll no doubt get into it. But anyway, they released an updated demo a patch ago. It can be found here.

BubbaT

Distant Guns
Sid Meier's Gettysburg
Take Command 2nd Manassas
Over the Reich

On the console side:
Full Spectrum Warrior

Kris_xK

I love this genre, so good. We need a new Jagged Alliance!

SammyF

Kris_xK wrote: »

I love this genre, so good. We need a new Jagged Alliance!

Zenitram

You guys remember that game that was supposed to come out a few years ago? It was supposed to be the spiritual successor to X-Com, but it got canned

It looked really cool too.

Chalkbot

UFO: Aftershock kept me entertained for a long time despite it's terrible reviews. Sure there is a lot of repetition in the missions if you dick around and don't progress the story, but I think it's more forgivable than most reviewers did. And speaking in the same vein, UFO: Afterlight is pretty good as well. I didn't like it as much as Aftershock, but everyone else on the planet thought it was fantastic in comparisson.

If you liked Silent Storm, pick up the Sentinels expansion for a whole new campaign, new weapons, and a mercenary style system where you must hire your team members and purchase new gear (ala Jagged Alliance). Also, Hammer & Sickle is a game made with the Silent Storm Engine. It's pretty hard, but I like that quality in this type of game.

I have to agree with the previous poster who mentioned Final Fantasy Tactics, if you haven't played through that one yet, get yourself a PSP. Seriously.

Tim James

As an FYI, don't bother with the original Laser Squad. I recently played it for historical purposes and although it's kind of cute, the interface is painfully slow. All the fade in and out to do basic tasks will drive you insane. It might be fun with two players (and it's one of the few games that has even tried that mode) because there are ways to fake each other out, but the game against the AI is utterly bland and devoid of any tactics.

Tim James

BigPointyTeeth wrote: »

Zenitram wrote: »

Oh man how could I forget the Combat Mission series. WW2 strategy, similar in style to the old Close Combat games but WAY better. Beyond Overlord is the first, and is the war from the British/American/German perspective. Barbarossa to Berlin is the sequel, takes place on the Eastern front. Afrika Corps was the 3rd installment, and is quite obviously the African theater.

Those are my favorite strategy games of all time. I've had so many epic battles against a friend in the first two. Almost every battle would quickly turn into an absolute bloodbath, or a slow, grinding battle of attrition with one of us grudgingly giving up ground.

The tactics here are pretty hardcore. I just started on Barbarossa to Berlin and they've stepped up the strategy, it's much more difficult to make any headway. After 5 or 6 scenarios with Beyond Overlord I had no problem mopping up at even unit strength and full fog of war (experts give the computer an advantage, but that was enough for me) but in the second game I struggle even with partial fog and 50% more units. Working on the Russian training scenarios now.

If any of this sounds interesting, I recommend picking up the original Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord demo. The two scenarios (especially Chance Encounter) should provide plenty of replayability and fun.

Heffling

Freedom Force if you want a comic book tactical RPG.

BubbaT

Tim James wrote: »

BigPointyTeeth wrote: »

Zenitram wrote: »

Oh man how could I forget the Combat Mission series. WW2 strategy, similar in style to the old Close Combat games but WAY better. Beyond Overlord is the first, and is the war from the British/American/German perspective. Barbarossa to Berlin is the sequel, takes place on the Eastern front. Afrika Corps was the 3rd installment, and is quite obviously the African theater.

Those are my favorite strategy games of all time. I've had so many epic battles against a friend in the first two. Almost every battle would quickly turn into an absolute bloodbath, or a slow, grinding battle of attrition with one of us grudgingly giving up ground.

The tactics here are pretty hardcore. I just started on Barbarossa to Berlin and they've stepped up the strategy, it's much more difficult to make any headway. After 5 or 6 scenarios with Beyond Overlord I had no problem mopping up at even unit strength and full fog of war (experts give the computer an advantage, but that was enough for me) but in the second game I struggle even with partial fog and 50% more units. Working on the Russian training scenarios now.

If any of this sounds interesting, I recommend picking up the original Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord demo. The two scenarios (especially Chance Encounter) should provide plenty of replayability and fun.

Those ones are awesome and Afrika Corps is passable, but stay far away from Shock Force.

SammyF

Kris_xK wrote: »

I love this genre, so good. We need a new Jagged Alliance!

You know I totally forgot when I limed this earlier that there's supposed to be a new JA in development by a Russian studio that's going to be published in Europe and Russia by Akella and in the US by Strategy Front. According to the Gamespy preview, it's using the Silent Storm engine. Anyone heard anything about this more recently (in other words, within the past six months?)

Lindsay Lohan

I know it sounds like you're PC based, but the DS really is a great system for the Genre - you get
Advance Wars 1, 2, Dual Strike, Days of Ruin
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Rebelstar
Age of Empires
Battles of Prince of Persia
Drone Tactics
...and I'm sure there are a ton of others. I'm fighting through Drone Tactics myself right now - it's pretty good so far.

Oz K. Fodrotski

Ground Control is a good tactical RTS.

A little bird told me that Tom Clancy's EndWar is shaping up pretty nicely, as well.