Recommendable TBS games?

Well, the age of the Turn based Strategy has seen better days, unfortunately...to get the really good ones youll have to go back quite a few years, GC2 notwithstading. Recently...

... Id have to recommmend Medieval 2. The turn based component is not on Par with GC2 or Civ, but it has undergone a lot of expansion, and coupled with the stellar tactical battlefield sims, its great. Be sure to patch it though.


If youre dead set on a "Civ" type game, Id encourage you give Europa Universalis 3 a look. Its "real-time", not turn based...but not a "real time strategy" in the mold we usually see them. Its a civ type 4x game that unfolds slowly at a speed you can set to your preferences, and its very deep and addictive.


In the bargain Bin, I actually enjoyed the Disciples 2 pack you can download on TGN for the price. Its more of a straighforward conquest campaign than a 4x game..but I found it nicely distracting, and I like the 2d gothic fantasy graphics. Since youre a Dominions 3 owner, youre not concerned with having the best graphics.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The graphics are dated, but this is the pinnacle of the Civ-type TBS.

Not a new game, but if you haven't already you should look for the Fall from Heaven 2 mod for Civ IV. It turns it into practically a new game. It's still Civ IV of course, but with very different units and events.

Battle for Wesnoth is a good game. free to.

Thanks, I'll definitely check out the Fall from Heaven 2 mod. Europa Universalis 3 sounds interesting too. I played Battle for Wesnoth, it was alright, but I've got plenty of those game types on my handhelds.

Yeah, I try not to get caught up in graphics. Considering the minimalist approach taken by Dominions though, I still think its visuals are pretty impressive for what they're worth. Definitely basic, but charming in its own right.

EU2 was actually a better game than EU3 (EU3 stripped the historical feel, which was the series' main draw), but if you didn't like the HOI series I suspect you won't like either of those either since they're made by the same company and are along the same lines.

Unfortunately i haven't really got anything to recommend to you, the truth is I popped into this thread hoping to see something I didn't know about. If you haven't played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) it'd be worth your while, as one of the above posters mentioned. I really think it's a better game than any of the actual Civ titles, personally.

Other than that your shelf sounds pretty similar to mine. Best of luck!

SMAC (Alpha Centauri) is an oldie but a real classic! One of my faves.

Steel Panthers World War 2 is a free download, and it is pretty impressive. The volunteer developers at Camo workshop have done a great job of polishing it up!

If you're willing to play a TBS w/a very strong Role Playing element, Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators (available here from Stardock!) is a lot of fun. Very light-hearted and whacky, but fun!

The old Combat Mission series was pretty cool for a squad-based WW II game: I think they've morphed into some other game system (Close Combat, maybe?), but the gameplay remains the same. It's turn-based, but with a hitch: The game pauses every 90 secs (maybe 5 minutes of game time?), you get to issue as many orders as you want, and then you let the next 90 secs play out in realtime, as you watch (and you can rewind and zoom around the map, etc.).

Warlords IV was a bit of a disappointment when it came out, but some volunteer developers (aided by the game's original developer) over at www.warlorders.com have come out with some patches that make it a much more engaging play. They've fixed the AI, which was my biggest beef with that title.

The Total War series can be very addictive, but for the most part, I lost interest in the tactical battles (which are done in realtime) because the AI was just too lousy. I gave up after Rome: Total War. I don't know if they've fixed the AI since then, I've read mixed reviews on that even for the latest release, M2: TW.

New to the forums, and to this game, but I would like to recommend the Combat Mission series from battlefront.com. WWII based... I am to tired to describe them properly so I suggest you go to the site to look them up. I do suggest you purchase the cd from the site and not retail since at least the first one was changed so it could be sold in Germany. I do not know about any of the rest since I just bought them all as they came out from battlefront.

I really wish they'd pick alpha centauri back up. It was a really good game, but they didn't support it very well (there were lots of bugs). On the mac, multiplayer didn't even work although it said otherwise on the box. I wish someone, maybe stardock, would put together a similar game (read alien planet colony simulation) and do it right.

You could try Rise of nations. Though it is a RTS-game, it have a certain TBS feel.
I think the game even was designed with that in mind that also some TBS-fans also could find the game enjoyable.
Play it with the slowest possible speed and paus the game everytime you actually DO make decissions etc.
In fact, RON and its expansion is the only RTS I have ever truly enjoyed playing.

I recommend Spartan by Slitherine...good TBS set in the Antics

Hmm Heroes of Might & Magic II with the mod me and some others are doing over at celestialheavens. Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic in multiplayer is also real good.

My boss has been addicted to that for the past few months. That lil piece of freeware has eaten up a ton of his time and it has some insane depth. Looks like its from the good ole SNES days but plays like a dream. Very well done.

Speaking of SNES there are TONS of TBS for GBA (including many SNES remakes) or Nintendo DS if you or your kids have one. For starters check out the Advance Wars or Fire Emblem series (polar opposite of what the little handhelds have to offer in terms of TBS titles).

Sorry for the sidetrack, but does anybody know where to get a copy of SMAC and SMAX? I have been hunting down these gems recently and the only places are on Amazon for 99 pounds!! What happened to game prices for 8 year old games?

SMAX is only a couple of dollars on the US Amazon site (jewel case). A credit card will do the currency conversion for you.

Hmm I don't know what will happen to the TBS-genre in the future - look at a game such as sins of a solar empire - it seems like there is a tendency to moving the TBS-games towards semi-RTS like games, which is kinda weird, cause the low-stress strategic thinking you can do in a TBS-game is something lots of players like I think. Right now I'm playing Lost Empire game - a 4X-turnbased game. Its got some new ideas for the space strategy genre which I really like. Plus its got multiplayer which works really well if youve got a whole night for it. Before that I played GalCiv2, a bit of MoO3 and LOTS of MoO2 and some SE4. - Once in a while I still pickup MoO2 - its still one of the best space strategy games I think, even though it is so old. - It really had a nice atmosphere.

I would also strongly recommend Disciples II (gold edition), Age of Wonders/Shadow Magic, as well as Heroes of Might and Magic II and III, Master of Orion II, and last but certainly not least, Sid Meier's Civilization II. All very good, with Disciples II being my favourite of the bunch.

On the tactical games note, there is Jagged Alliance 2. It's old and hard to find these days--and pretty tough to play as well, but on one of the best tactical turn-based combat games ever.

There's a brand new game:

Commander: Europe at war by Slitherine

WWW Link

Slitherine has a pretty preposterously bad track record. Ever make the mistake of playing Chariots of War?

Uh...what's bad with Chariots of War? i think it's a very decent wargame especially if you consider that Slitherine was a team of 3 at that time.