I used to play RTS games like Warhammer, then got into Heroes of Might and Magic and its spin-offs like Pennon and Battle. I’ve also played XCOM 2 and Age of Wonders 4. Any other must-play series you’d recommend?
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Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
StarCraft (not sure how the remaster is but the OG is something I would consider a “must play” game)
While it’s not exactly a good game, I had a lot of fun with Heroes of Annihilated Empires and enjoyed it even though parts of it can be difficult or clunky and I couldn’t even finish it. It was kind of like high fantasy RPG RTS.
The Dungeons series is fun.
Some might not call Mindustry an RTS, but it’s similar and a lot of fun.
I also felt Company of Heroes 2 was a good story and had a lot of playability.
Circle Empires again isn’t exactly RTS, but is similar and a unique take on the concept.
Also you can’t go wrong with most Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, and Halo Wars.
While it might not fit the vibe (and you might already know it), I feel like Songs of Conquest needs to be mentioned, being a Heroes spinoff. It’s an interesting twist on the formula, with lovely graphics, some things streamlined and some interesting new mechanics (like the essences for spellcasting).
Medieval 2 Total War. It’s the best Total War game and one of the oldest. It has a basic campaign map where you create and manage armies which you then use to go into a real time battle with thousands of units. There is nothing as satisfying as routing the enemy with a massive cavalry charge into the rear when they’re in hand to hand infantry combat.
On top of what was recommended here, Total War: Warhammer 3 is pretty much back since the updates done in 2024!
Hmm. “Strategy” is pretty broad. Most of the new stuff you have is turn-based, but you’ve got tactics stuff like X-COM and strategy stuff. If we’re including both real-time and turn-based, and both strategy and tactics…What do I enjoy? I tend to lean more towards the milsim side of strategy…
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Stellaris. Lot of stuff to do here – follows the Paradox model of a ton of DLCs with content and lots of iteration on the game. Not cheap, though. Turn-based, 4x.
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Hearts of Iron 4. Another Paradox game. I think unless someone is specifically into World War II grand strategy, I’d recommend Stellaris first, which I’d call a lot more approachable. Real time, grand strategy. I haven’t found myself playing this recently – the sheer scope can be kind of overwhelming, and unlike 4X games like Stellaris, it doesn’t “start out small” – well, not if you’re playing the US, at any rate.
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Carrier Command 2. Feels a little unfinished, but it keeps pulling me back. Really intended to be played multiplayer, but you can play single-player if you can handle the load of playing all of the roles concurrently. Real-time tactics.
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Rule the Waves 3. Lot of ship design here, fun if you’re into gun-era naval combat. Turn-based strategy (light strategy), with real-time tactics combat. Not beautiful. There is a niche of people who are super-into this.
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I agree with the other user who recommended Steel Division 2. If you’ve played Wargame: Red Dragon or earlier Eugen games, which are really designed to be played multiplayer, you know that the AI is abysmal. I generally don’t like playing multiplayer games, and persisted in playing it single-player. Steel Division 2’s AI is actually fun to play against single-player. Real-time tactics, leaning towards the MOBA genre but without heroes and themed with relatively-real-world military hardware.
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XCOM-alikes. I didn’t like XCOM 2 – it felt way too glizy for me to tolerate, too much time looking at animations, but I may have just not given it a fair chance, as I bailed out after spending only a little time with the game. I have enjoyed turn-based tactics games in the X-COM series and the genre in the past – squad-based, real-time tactics games. Problem is that I don’t know if I can recommend any of them in 2024 – all the games in that genre I’ve played are pretty long in the tooth now. Jagged Alliance 2 is fun, but very old. Silent Storm is almost as old, has destructable terrain, but feels low-budget and unpolished. There were a number of attempts to restart the Jagged Alliance series after 2 and a long delay that were not very successful; I understand that Jagged Alliance 3 is supposed to be better, but I don’t think I’ve played through it yet. Wasteland 2 and Wasteland 3 aren’t really in the same genre, are more like Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, CRPGs with turn-based tactics combat. But if you enjoy turn-based-tactics, you might also enjoy them, and Wasteland 3 isn’t that old.
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If you like real-time tactics, you might give the Close Combat series a look. I really liked the (now ancient) Close Combat 2. The balance for that game was terrible – it heavily rewarded use of keeping heavy tanks on hills – but it was an extremely popular game, and I loved playing it. There are (many) newer games in the series but they started including a strategic layer and a round timer after Close Combat 3. These improved things in the game (and if you like a strategy aspect, you might prefer that), but I just wanted to play the tactics side, and don’t feel like the later games every quite had the appeal of the earlier ones. Still, they’ve certainly had enough to make me come back and replay them.
Add Warno too, it’s SD2 but in 1989.
For some reason, Warno didn’t grab me and Steel Division 2 did. That being said, I may not have given it a fair chance – I bailed out on it after a short period of time, probably because SD2 was also available at about the same time. It is true that it’s one of the few options out there with a late Cold War setting, like Wargame, so if you like that setting over WW2 – which is refreshing – it’s certainly worth looking into.
IIRC, one thing that was a little disappointing was that the unit database was a lot smaller than in Wargame: Red Dragon – I’d kind of taken that, which had been built up across multiple Wargame games, for granted.
Yes, but I do prefer the very accurate division system for Warno, and the absence of contemporary “prototype” units like the rafale.
Upvoted for Stellaris, Hearts of Iron 4 and Steel Division 2. I’ve drained too many night hours on these games.
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I haven’t seen Halo Wars mentioned yet so I’ll nominate those games. Both 1 and 2 are insanely fun and they control surprisingly well on Xbox if you dont have access to a PC. I’ve put a couple hundred hours into both games on both Xbox and PC, but I do prefer M&KB controls even if it works very well with a controller.
Cutscenes are fucking awesome in both games as well!
Another game I’d like to bring up is Stellaris. If you’re a sci-fi fan and like 4X strategy games then I can’t recommend this game enough. I’ve put 630 hours into the game since I got it back in 2019, being able to role play a custom or sci-fi inspired empire is great. If the amount of DLC puts you off, then look up cream.api. Getting them for “free” is easy.
Call to Arms: Gates of Hell Ostfront
Yeah that was on sale recently so I finally took the plunge. I’m mostly enjoying skirmishes in the Frontline mode but the campaign is okay as well.
Some of the campaign missions are really good with a nice variety too. I’ve been re-playing some on the hardest difficulty and it’s a real time hog but good fun to spend 2 hours on a mission!
Rise of nations is also really good. Is like Civ in RTS form.
It’s not real time but Civilization is a must for any strategy fan. I personally recommend getting V and all its expansions, it’s peak for me still. Some like VI but I could never get into it.
Unciv is a free, open-source reimplementation of Civilization V. It doesn’t have all the eye candy and music and such that the series is famous for but as a result of not having it runs responsively on a phone.
V has the best mods too
No, Civ IV has the best mods because the game was designed to support them.
Beyond All Reason maybe?
Hell yeah, my group has been playing that for a few months now. I should donate to the devs because it’s such a great free game.
For old school RTS, Total Annihilation or if you fancy something a bit different then The Settlers II (Pioneers of Pagonia is a more modern remake). I grew tired of RTS and moved on to turn-based but Stellaris is one that recently drew me back in.
For tactics I’d say Advanced Wars, Fire Emblem and Disgagea are decent shouts. Into The Breach is probably my favourite indie of the genre, a lot of strategy packed into a small game.
If you like turn-based then Civ has always been top of my list.
For old school RTS, Total Annihilation
If you don’t care about the campaign, probably the much-newer games based on Total Annihilation that run on the Spring engine.
EDIT: Yeah, another user already recommended Zero-K.
Warcraft and StarCraft. StarCraft 1 is free and the first campaign of 2 is free as well.
Others are Command & Conquer and Age of Empires.
Even as a Protoss main, Wings of Liberty (the free Terran campaign in SC2) is by far the best in the game. I’ve replayed it at least once a year since it first released. Mass marine/marauder/medic backed by tanks is so much fun to play with.
I’m presently replaying Command & Conquer Red Alert 3 and love it. The cast for the FMVs is all-star, the game itself is a super refined version of Red Alert 2 (itself an all-time classic) and the story has no bearing on the rest of the series so it can be played in isolation with no advance knowledge of C&C
If you want to try an RTS that does something different, check out Against the Storm. It’s an RTS, but there isn’t an “enemy” so to speak. Instead, you are ‘fighting’ against the environment, trying to solve your economic and social problems before you are overwhelmed by external factors imposed by the level you are building on.
The game continues to evolve as your understanding of its various systems grows.
FWIW: It’s currently in the Humble monthly bundle.
