It's really a matter of taste. The list you gave is pretty eclectic to say the least. I'm surprised no one recommended the highly regarded Sins of a Solar Empire, also by Stardock, and no doubt superb.

I was a big Civ fan, and when I heard of GalCiv2, I was curious. Civ in space? I hadn't really been taken by Alpha Centauri, and was hesitant about this. I finally demoed it, played a couple of games, lost, read the entire manual, still lost, and was feeling frustrated to be honest. In fact, by the time I was about 10 pages from finishing the manual, I realized I was going to buy it, so I just did, and decided I'd figure it out somehow. I could sense this was a really good game, but I was having trouble 'getting it'.

Then I ran across the excellent guide by Jeff Pinard, to whom I owe a huge thank you, and suddenly it made sense. After that I really started to have fun. As soon as Twilight was officially out, I took the plunge. I didn't regret Dark Avatar by any means, and I didn't see how I could go wrong with ToA, especially considering the amazing feature list.

Still, it's not for everyone, though if you like the Civ-type games, and enjoyed GC2:DA, I don't see how this can't be considered a must-buy.

I do this , yeah maybe I will grab the medevial 2 expansion in a few weeks, I ended up buying the gciv 2 expansion but will probably end up buying many of the games mentioned in this thread. AramisX , I TOTALLY see where you are comming from in regards to your comments about current games. In regards to gothic do you prefer gothic 2 or 3? I have a friend who has the 3rd one but I played the demo of gothic 2 ages ago and liked it, even though it wasnt so open ended. In regards to fallout well I realise the graphics will be bad but irrespective of this if I put the effort in with the game do you wtill think the story holds up well? Heres a question for you all which I would be very interested to know .........final fantasy 7 or fallout [have played ff7 really liked it] I will check out that Divine divinity as well.

My friend has portal and really likes it e.g the orange box but I think I will wait until the price comes down a tad, thanks for mentioning it though he always ssays I should buy it as well

In regards to kotor kind of games , I have played and completed : KOTOR the first one and jedi academy (Have also played jade empire/assasins creed/stalker) Its so hard to remember them all

Gothic 2 is mostly regarded as the best of the entire series, though I find Gothic 1 better than Gothic 2. I would personally play them chronologically, but if you find the graphics of Gothic 1 a bit too outdated, then go for Gothic 2 first.

For total amount of gameplay, Gothic 3 has the most. The world is huge (IMO a bit too big, and at times too generic), loads of quests, but lacks some of the atmosphere which made Gothic 1&2 so good. I am not saying that Gothic 3 is bad (I'm actually playing it right now, and enjoy it quite much), but Gothic 1&2 are a tad better.

AD I cant believe I forgot to mention this it must be because I havent long bought the product but I also have sins of a solar empire and am starting to really like it

Great! Glad you're finding some good games. And when the Orange Box drops to your desired price range, be sure to pick it up. I'm not a huge shooter person but I LOVED Half-Life 2 and Portal.

I did and I happen to agree with all the points made in the thread, the great response is really appreciated because before my next purchase I will refer back to this.

I am sure I mentioned it but before I bought the latest gciv 2 expansion I had gciv 2 gold and have yet to play dark avator. Anway I have them all now but am playing the dreadlords campaign and doing them in order, I will be honest I only played gciv 2 once before and wasnt sure about it but yesterday on the dreadlords campaign apocalypse mission well that was dam tough; in fact one of the toughest missions I have ever played in any game since the old 8 bit games, seriously lol

The sense of achievement managing that is amazing and I thinking it has helped me start thinking on multiple levels where strat type games are concerned. (Really dam hard mission, the final few moves were like a game of chess lol)

I am currently about to retry the salvation mission, last mission I took to long and dreadlords started flying about, I must admit though for someone like myself who generally doesnt take to these kind of games I am liking the drealords campaign as playing it on normal its forcing me to think of where Im going wrong and going the most optimum research route for a strong military and soldiering. (Just wrote all this to let you know Im happy with my purchase but I really need to get better at the game )

dam no edit button but just to finally say thanks for the kind comments regarding my collection of games . Im a bit fanatical when it comes to games though I guess, I actually would rather sit and play a good game than watch a film much of the time.

Its funny because the more I am playing gciv and sins the more they grow on me? (crazy considering I havent touvhed the expansions yet , I think I am going to lose alot of hours of life lol )

Heroes of Might and Magic V...with expansion it is best and series. 

those are alot of games....

i can only give my opinion on a few of these

Bioshock: regret i ever bought it, was fun and new in start.... but totally bores me now (chapter 2 i think)


Age of Empires III (gold):love the AoE (3) series... to bad it crashes if i run it(all lagged up even in singleplayer 4 me, so far no help from Technical support


Civ4: very popular, but never liked the turn-based / grid-based gameplay style of that game


SupCom: if your looking for a game to test your strategic abilites, then thats your game... still play it every so often and i'm still sweating my ass off everytime i play vs 4 cpu's or online mode just trying to stay alive

lots and LOTS of units 2 control .....

downside however is u're gonna need a pretty fast PC just to play it normally (dont even think that 1024 mb RAM wil be enough, better go for the 2048 (wich on a 6 player map stil wont be enough to play without alot of lag in the end


anno1701: it's a fun game, bout building "american" colonies. i played, i had fun, but now im done so better said, u'll find it fun to play the first week, then thing'll get old... again the same buildorder.. again the same strategy.....


C&C generals: fun game, did good overall, but is more like a cheap Red Alert imitation to me


Eve-online, fun game, to bad u'll need ~13$ a month

Enemy territory - quake wars: love the quake genre + story, but that online-only mode = nothing 4 me, u have peeps that play 4 fun and u have peeps that play 24/7, and u DONT put those together ......



that'd be around every game i played on that list: it's only my opinion about them, and taste differs from person 2 person
i love strategy stuff, so thats where most of my taste is build upon...


S_o_L

The big problem with advice is that enjoying games is so subjective and personal.
For example, Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) got lots of great reviews , and people here still mention it... but I hated it! Why? No idea, I just did. I actually gave up on it.

It isn't like a hardware component that you can benchmark; a game is an experience and so is much more complex. No matter how much advice you seek, you may end up getting something that you don't like.

Unless you get the TA expansion pack of course....

Hi , yeah I actually bought the gciv 2 expansion after all , what stopped me playing gciv 2 was the dreadlords apocalypse mission but I finally managed to complete the dreadlords campaign yesterday :)) I hadnt really played much Gciv because of the dreadlords but now that I have persevered I have made it to the dark avator expansion , I dunno thus far I feel dark avator plays better, but its probably because I am finally starting to really like gciv 2 , thats why even in the initial instance I always planned to come back to it because Its my view that unless you want to be playing FPS games all the time well certain games take effort initially but you get more out of it longterm. (I used to be a bit of an FPS fanatic, and believed that RPGS were for geeks, and then I finally got into them hehe and love them , so I always go back to a game again and again and try not to judge games until I have finished them unless on the rare occasion a game is just way to bad)

As it stands I have played lots of games and am for the first time really appreciating the strategy genre so it pretty much takes and exception for me to truely hate a game, the only games I truely didnt like were space force rogue universe and parkan 2

Totally agree though about games bring subjective and personal but Im always looking to find games I havent seen the good in yet and to adapt to new concepts(Dont no how many of you this has happened to but have you ever hated a game then went back to it later and realised you have missed some stuff out and really like the game now - that has happened to me a few times)



Actually that is sound advice even though I have the expansion now , thankfully I am really liking gciv 2 now and finally starting to get somewhere with it. Finding a great sense of achievement with completing the dreadlords campaign and now doing dark avator(+ TOTA to come ). Actually happy I didnt really play gciv way back because now I can basically follow the story right through ....I will try to not touch my purchased TOTA until I have done all the dark avator campaign though!

Sins of a Solar Empire if not GCII: TA.

How about one not listed Enemy Territory Quake Wars, excellent FPS that is Team based all the way.

Hey thanks sorry my bad I have enemy terrotiry quake wars as well! Im actually checking out divine divinity and it looks very good but I cant find a digital download to buy, as mentioned I just bought the latest gciv expansion but I have been going nuts again buying more lol just recently bought disciples II + all expansions + jagged alliance 2 with an expansion(I think I will like this, havent really played yet), just bought ethorlords 2 and I am about to buy 1 more game then I will probably be bankrupt lol

I was looking at c&c tiberium wars. See even though I have medevial 2 total war and its a good game well the expansion would have to bring something completely differant to the table. I really liked freelancer but theres not really any other game like that out that I havent played, I also like the WOD themes and well done rpgs, I also have vampire the masquerade redemption and bloodlines(Actually liked some elements of the first one better)

If I am going for a TBS game Im just thinking I would like a game that in MP there is like a whole map of the world and then you fight for terrotiry, next when a fight starts you zoon in and its like playing a huge rts on land, its tough trying to find differant games from the norm that are really good.

Ow I was looking at UFO afterlight , what do you people think of that game?

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You know what Im thinking about that sacred plus as well, I could do with a really good rpg

I love "medievial 2 total war", but really it depends which games have the best replay value.

I have a guestion too, can anybody tell me new or old HC-strategy game they would recomend?

save it for starcraft 2

Valve never dissapoints with the HL series, and if you can find some friends to play it with, Civ 4 is possibly one of the funnest games out there

 

 

I would say you should pick up World in Conflict. This title easily beats anything I list below - and probably stuff on your list - except Eve Online. This title is just absolutely fabulous if you are into tactical RTS. Solid tactical play with line of sight, a host of modern, real-world military units with different weaponry/properties, fully destructable terrain, excellent balance and unusually strong teamplay, exceptionally smooth gameflow, no dead moments... yeah did I mention the dozens of different tactical strikes and aids, from napalm, nukes, artillery to chemical strikes, A-10 strafes, airdrops, pontoon bridges... The game is concentrated on the tactical action unlike any other RTS - no resource gathering, you just spawn your units and off you go! There is just about as much game and action crammed in mere 20 minutes as there is in your average strategy game (or even Sins for example).  You don't have dozens of units like in many other games - typically 4-6, so there is much opportunity for careful micromanagement.

Eve Online is definitely another outstanding pick. It's vast and versatile, PvP is ruthless and the combat system can keep you enthralled for months. Corporations, economy, space maneuvering... all are beyond the norm.

GalCiv 2 is very good to excellent. Nice balance of traditional space 4X elements, with some enjoyable new things like supporting star bases and influence thrown in. Still, just about totally lacking in tactical combat.

Quake Wars: ET is just very good. It's like UT and Tribes 2 put together, with a tad too much of UT style strafe jumping.

Sword of the Stars is just good. The diffefrent races and the ship design are this game's definite bright spots. The strategy part is fluid, different, but a bit shallow, while combat has some interesting aspects but it lacks a bit in maneuvering, and can get a bit tedious.

Thanks for that post varis2000.  I'm not a big gamer, but I'm always on the lookout for a good game to play on my PC.  I've played all the GC2 releases quite a bit as well as Sins and have found that space strategy games are really my thing now.  I put Sword of the Stars in my shopping cart and plan to pick it up when I get a chance.   I also like war strategy games.  I enjoyed Company of Heros.  I'll check out World in Conflict when I get a chance.

That's great that Sword of the Stars is available through Impulse.  I wan't to avoid the Steam route.  What I like about Impulse is that 1) I don't need to open up any non-standard firewall ports to run it and 2) it's not required to launch any of the games it supports.  Steam is a real hassle for me because I have to open all kinds of ports on my firewall to use it.  Also, it has to run in the background to use its products and it's not very friendly to set up for stand-alone mode (not connected).