Steam sale: any strategy game recommendations?

[Fire Fly]

Link

How is Space Empires? AI War: Fleet Command also looks interesting. Anyone else played it yet?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

SE5 is probably the "best of genre" (not that the genre is particularly big) if you like that sort of game. It lacks the charm of, say, MoO2, but makes up for it with its depth and breadth which far outstrip MoO. And if you don't like the base game, the mod scene has plenty of solutions.

One caveat: It is very much a DX9 game. Some can get it to run on Vista and Win7 just fine, but if you have one of those systems there's a not-insignificant chance the game will run into unplayable performance issues from DX10/11 trying to emulate the game's DX9. It runs fine on my XP machine but my Vista laptop absolutely chokes on it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

And A.I. War Fleet? I've dusted off my Steam account and am considering this, since it looks quite spiffy and should run on my Win7 laptop fine (unlike Supreme Commander).

[Gaidin]

AI War is actually really good.

[Stark]

It's a bit strange, though; I don't think it's for everyone. They REALLY need a decent UI too... but it's got a great scope.

[adam_grif]

Company of Heroes. I don't care if it's not on sale, buy it.

[Stark]

Fuck off, the adults are talking. Is 'apple' the correct answer to 'how far away is the nearest ATM'?

AI War has a really small demo, so there's no risk if you want to try it. It's very frequently updated, but I found the play to clunky and micro to enjoy it too much.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Screw it, I bought it. Forgot I can reacquire all my previous Valve games too. For four quid, even if it isn't awesome, I shan't cry over it. Just means I'll not be buying any Xmas gifts this year.

[Stark]

If you've got it, I might buy it too. It's definately a game that would improve by having other players.

[Admiral Valdemar]

But STRAK, you might shout at me for sucking so much against a good AI (take note, Creative Assembly). I've not had a decent RTS experience in a looong while. Aside from SupCom killing my new lappie, I only had C&C's free game pack and DEFCON. I blame those stupid FPS games on the PS3 distracting me. And the death of PC gaming, or something.

I see there's an add-on expansion too. No idea what it offers, I figured the DLC content was free, as per... something. I read it somewhere.

Hot tonight, and as much as I want to play with this now, I shall fall asleep before the download ends. I'll see if I can get some gaming in come lunch break instead. No Wi-Fi in my lab, sadly.

[Xenophon13]

If you're looking fore something unique, cheap, and quirky I'd recommend Flotilla.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I have not played it, but Sword in the Stars + expansion packs has been highly recommended to me by my flatmate. It's a more combat oriented 4x game which looks like it has pretty well done spaces battles and a wealth of actually cool random events to scupper a player who is dominating.

Examples:

Researching AI technologies has a small chance of causing an AI rebellion, resulting in a big chunk of your Empire being lost to machines. You can then research anti-AI hacking technologies to counter them.

Gigantic planet killing alien vessels might carve a path right through your empire, devouring every planet in their path.

An intergalactic peace-keeping force might show up in your galaxy, demanding everybody stops fighting and disintegrating your warships with the cheesy 50s flying saucers.

...and many more. There are other neat features such as the various races all using significantly different methods of FTL travel which affect your strategy, and also the available technologies are randomized each time you play so there's no "perfect" tech build.

It's currently £12.50 with all the expansions (which improve it hugely).

[Covenant]

I have never been a SotS fan, but if you enjoy the concept, buy the expansions. Kerebos stole* most of my extensive mod to round out the weapon trees and add in a sense of depth, so at least you can be sure it's better than the original, which is fun only if you're addicted to ANY variety of 3D spaceship game with a stapled-on strategic mode.

However, you'll probably want to mod the UI. It's eye-burningly awful. I made it blue, but I no longer have those files due to crash. You may get lucky and find them hosted on Filefront somewhere but I sincerely doubt any of them work with the modern x-pac versions.

Space Empires is a bit gross to look at, but has longevity, and people here have played it.


*I say this in jest. But the people who saw my mod's new weapons and graphics for the original game remarked along with I about the similarities and modifications in some of the weapons released in the new packs. It's not surprising though, a good idea is still a good idea, regardless of who had it first.

[Stark]

SotS collapses under the weight of its strategic UI pretty quickly. I've never finished a game because each day taking 5-10m is just too much work for a middling tactical engine.

And Cov, your mod is still better than SotS + two mods. Kerberos just suck at life.

[montypython]

I'm currently waiting for Star Ruler to come out, seems very promising especially as Continuous-Time X4 space strategy games aren't very common at all.

[Stark]

You can say '4X' all you want; its an RTS. It's going to need one hell of a UI to not be a clunky mess.

Hopefully it's have missing so SotS won't have had the best real time space combat system for a decade.

[KrauserKrauser]

Damn all of you, SE5 is going to be my down fall.

Just one more turn!!!!!

[Edward Yee]

Heh... when playing as the SE5 Terrans I'd perpetually go for out-teching (by pretty much always going for research facilities at every possible chance), skipping construction of certain technologies to go straight to later technology categories, then using my intelligence agency against any enemy known races, maybe even a few allies. I actually once got a neighboring insectoid species' ship, an old cruiser called Drapanidae 0039, to defect to my Empire. Even though it was all the way in the "rear" of the insectoid species' territory, I actually managed to steer it all the way into my space. For this feat, it earned a honorary place in the "Headquarters Task Force" of MY invasion fleet.

[chris0101]

SOTS I highly recommend. It's one of the better TBS games, even if planet management lacks depth. SOTS2 is coming out later. I'm hoping that SOTS 2 will succeed with a better UI this time; we may just get one of the best strategy games around.

Another TBS that I recommend is Galactic Civilizations II. Be sure to get the Ultimate Edition as it has Dark Avatar and Twilight of the Arnor expansions with it. If you like RTS, consider Sins of a Solar Empire (get the Trinity) edition - its mainly a space based RTS, although they call it "RT4X".

[adam_grif]

GalCiv II is a notorious timesink. Play at own risk.

[Stark]

SotS is fun until you have more than 10 planets and turn length blows out to manage them all, and it's pretty much a refueling simulator. Poor old Sins is just a fairly uninspired space RTS with broken knobs on (like the stock market of useless).

[adam_grif]

I never play Sins with more than about 10 planets or w/e the option is. Small maps. Otherwise it becomes hugely unwieldy and the games last for centuries.

Also, fucking pirates. Horrible feature.

[Nephtys]

GalCiv 2 is a godawful game. There is no reason for certain media to rate it nearly that highly. It's unbalanced, combat is weird Rock Paper Scissors that you have minimal control over, and the economic model is incredibly counter-intuitive. Without the EXACT mix of happiness/unhappiness buildings, econ and factories, your empire will just spiral into economic depression and defeat you. Not to mention I'm really not a fan (despite how easy it is) to use your magical culture fields to conquer neighboring empires. Really, building a few space malls that sell space blue jeans will win over foes you've been at war with for decades?

[Artemas]

Yeah I hated that as well. On the other hand, I do like having, you know, an actual border. So that fuckers can't just fly over and colonize a planet beside my homeworld or something.

[Stark]

GalCiv 2 is a godawful game. There is no reason for certain media to rate it nearly that highly. It's unbalanced, combat is weird Rock Paper Scissors that you have minimal control over, and the economic model is incredibly counter-intuitive. Without the EXACT mix of happiness/unhappiness buildings, econ and factories, your empire will just spiral into economic depression and defeat you. Not to mention I'm really not a fan (despite how easy it is) to use your magical culture fields to conquer neighboring empires. Really, building a few space malls that sell space blue jeans will win over foes you've been at war with for decades?

The racial tech makes the game even MORE unbalanced and even easier to ruin yourself; the Yor tree has fuck all econ structures so if you overspend you're totally fucked.

That said the combat is fine (oh noes no tacticool combat like MoO2 oh nooooooes) and culture is basically meaningless on anything above normal. It's a good thing someone can't plant a colony right in the middle of your space and keep it there.