Strategy games?

[NyQuil]

Champions with artifacts and ranged weapons work too.

 

[dogbazinho]

Champions with artifacts and ranged weapons work too.

Oh yeah. Champion of Chaos, Ravashak etc. They probably aren't the best but they were the coolest. Just hated clearing air nodes. Drakes had too much movement. Worms you could just fly over. Others you could out movement.

I found at that difficulty you almost had to start in Myrror. You could create 1 doom stack and with enchanted roads protect everywhere.

 

[NyQuil]

Oh yeah. Champion of Chaos, Ravashak etc. They probably aren't the best but they were the coolest. Just hated clearing air nodes. Drakes had too much movement. Worms you could just fly over. Others you could out movement.

I found at that difficulty you almost had to start in Myrror. You could create 1 doom stack and with enchanted roads protect everywhere.

Yeah those Sky Drakes were a *****.

That's why I liked Sorcery books. They had all the coolest spells: Enchanted Roads, Confusion, Counter Magic, Phantom Warriors and Phantom Beast, Flight, Haste, Invisibility, Suppress Magic etc. etc. etc.

You could enchant the roads on the Avernus side.

Then I'd probably go Life because of the amazing buffs.

Nature probably next, and then Chaos.

I found Death magic to be distinctly underwhelming which is a shame.

 

[Diamondillium]

Now the question becomes do you select an already existing house or do you create your own house when you play?

My favorite playthrough probably came from choosing a child Littlefinger with just a tiny lordship the slowly taking over the kingdoms with him and ruling as House Baelish for a couple hundred years.

Currently I'm trying a custom house for the first time. It's alright, but not the same.

 

[dogbazinho]

I found Death magic to be distinctly underwhelming which is a shame.

Yeah death was easily the worst but probably my most often choice just for the heroes. I'll have to load it up again to see if it had anything redeeming.

Also there is another game that I forget the name of which is very close to being Master of Magic like. It's very simple and looks dated but still fun and cheap. I'm going to have to research since I'm not at home at the moment.

 

[Caeldan]

Yeah those Sky Drakes were a *****.

That's why I liked Sorcery books. They had all the coolest spells: Enchanted Roads, Confusion, Counter Magic, Phantom Warriors and Phantom Beast, Flight, Haste, Invisibility, Suppress Magic etc. etc. etc.

You could enchant the roads on the Avernus side.

Then I'd probably go Life because of the amazing buffs.

Nature probably next, and then Chaos.

I found Death magic to be distinctly underwhelming which is a shame.

Yeah I always started as a lizard man army.
Pretty sure went heavy sorcery and nature magic with a dip into life.

Really has been a while since I played. Might have to start up again

 

[Bocephus86]

I know they are pretty famous so I'm sure you've heard of them/tried them and, based on the games being mentioned here, probably not a true strategy game you are looking for but I'm a huge dork for the total war games - even the "bad" ones most people don't like (Empire, Rome II).

Just so you know, I spent like $1100 to build a new PC just to play SHOGUN II and Rome II. Haven't tried anything else yet and I've had it for a month...

 

[dogbazinho]

Shogun II is just too awesome. I'm a fan of Far East history in general so any strategy game in the Sengoku Jidai or Three Kingdoms periods or near about I'm all in.

 

[Knave]

Probably doesn't qualify but I just want to say - I miss the Age of Empires series and I miss it being popular enough to play online.

 

[Osprey]

Probably doesn't qualify but I just want to say - I miss the Age of Empires series and I miss it being popular enough to play online.

I haven't actually checked into it, but I would assume that Age of Empires II HD (the original AoE2 updated for modern computers and resoutions) is very popular online. The game keeps coming out with new expansions, one just a few months ago, so the game is bringing in good money from sales, and I imagine that a good chunk of buyers are playing it online.

I'm still waiting for an Age of Empires HD (i.e. the original game updated). That's always been my favorite of the series and it perplexes me that AoE II HD has been out for 3 or 4 years and is still being developed for while the original game still hasn't been touched at all, even though it uses the same engine and converting it would be relatively trivial after all of the work on AoE2.

 

[Knave]

I have not actually checked into it, but I would assume that Age of Empire II HD is very popular online. The game keeps coming out with new expansions, one just a few months ago, so the game is bringing in good money from sales, and I imagine that a good chunk of buyers are playing it online.

I'm still waiting for an Age of Empires HD (i.e. the original game updated). That's always been my favorite of the series and it perplexes me that AoE II HD has been out for 3 or 4 years and is still being developed for while the original game hasn't been touched at all, even though it uses the same engine and converting it would be relatively trivial.

Yeah I'm not a big fan of AOEII

The original with the 200pop hack or expansion was my favorite
Then Age of Mythology would probably be next
Age of Empires 2 would be around where Age of Empires 3 was for me at least.

 

[The Head Crusher]

My favorite playthrough probably came from choosing a child Littlefinger with just a tiny lordship the slowly taking over the kingdoms with him and ruling as House Baelish for a couple hundred years.

Currently I'm trying a custom house for the first time. It's alright, but not the same.

I have never played as Littlefinger, I normally stay out of the Eyrie. I tend to make custom house for myself and my coat of arms generally stays the same with only colour changes, an otter.

 

[Jasper]

I love Stellaris. Will recommend 100%

I'll also throw Crusader Kings 2 into the discussion. I bought it a couple of weeks ago for the Game of Thrones mod (which is incredibly in-depth) and have been playing it pretty much non-stop. Steep learning curve, but worth it.

I need to try this again. I got CK2 just for this reason but gave up due to the hard learning curve. I'm sure I'd enjoy it if I can find the patience to figure everything out.

 

[Caeldan]

I need to try this again. I got CK2 just for this reason but gave up due to the hard learning curve. I'm sure I'd enjoy it if I can find the patience to figure everything out.

I find you usually have to play two games whenever you take a break from it.
One to figure out how the hell to play.
The second one to fix some mistakes once you figure out the learning curve.

My usual problem is though I want to just play a small independent nation that maintains its independence and just opportunistically grows. The problem is to do that you have to rely on mercenaries, which by about 1/4 of the way through the game basically disappear and no new groups ever become available (outside of Holy War types). Otherwise you just don't have the ability to generate enough troops to maintain your independence and you're not large enough for any marriage alliances to really work for you either.

 

[NyQuil]

Shogun II is just too awesome. I'm a fan of Far East history in general so any strategy game in the Sengoku Jidai or Three Kingdoms periods or near about I'm all in.

Yeah I was really into this game as well.

Shimazu for the win! Them or Chokosabe were probably my most common clans.

Although my favourite playthrough was with Hattori. Very challenging but I somehow muddled through.

 

[Desdichado93]

Shogun II is just too awesome. I'm a fan of Far East history in general so any strategy game in the Sengoku Jidai or Three Kingdoms periods or near about I'm all in.

No I really dislike it and dito for Rome II.

 

[Birko19]

Just thought to bring up Crusader Kings 2 again because it's so awesome.

Some interesting events happen in this game, here's my latest, I was playing as the high chief of the Alanian tribal confederacy, my character was so happy having 4 sons and all since that's the only way for your dynasty to survive with this culture. Eventually he passed away and all hell broke loose, for some reason my new character (The heir) became a homosexual and killed his fertility rating, the 2nd inline became an orthodox bishop and gave up his titles and marriage all together, the 3rd brother who seemed like the best of the bunch died due to an illness, and the 4th brother who became the new heir was also a homosexual

Nevertheless, I married my new character (Oldest son) to some random Armenian nobility from a kingdom nearby, he managed to get her pregnant but she only gave birth to two daughters (He needed a son), looking over to his new heir (His other gay brother), he also married but only ended up with a daughter

As my character reached the age of 63 his heir who was 10 years younger ended up dying with no sons, thus leaving me with no heir and potentially the end of the dynasty. I thought it was game over so I decided to do a hail marry, I divorced my Armenian wife (Who was 60 years old at that point) and married a 17 year old Italian girl, I also changed my ambition to have a son. Within 5 years she gave me 4 sons (The second birth was twins), and just like that the dynasty was saved, what's more random is at age of 22 she died from pneumonia and my character married another woman at the age of 70, this new woman gave him another daughter. At age 76 my character died and the leadership was passed down to his eldest son which I'm playing as at the moment

 

[Commander Clueless]

Shogun II is just too awesome. I'm a fan of Far East history in general so any strategy game in the Sengoku Jidai or Three Kingdoms periods or near about I'm all in.

My initial impressions of Shogun II were pretty bad, but now it's up there on my most played games on Steam. Fantastic game.

Rome II was a **** show at launch. A very good testament to why I'm now much more cautious about purchasing new games.

Total War: Warhammer is a lot of fun.


I found Endless Legend to be pretty fun as well, but I only played during the free weekend.

 

[RandV]

I thought I'd love Endless Legend but ended up being pretty disappointed with it, haven't quite gotten through all the expansions but still. There's a couple things that wore me down...

First I just didn't find the maps interesting. Particularly because each 'region' can only have one city, so most of the bonus resources go to waste. All of the bonus/luxury/strategic resources are completely fictional and there's so many that you can't really just eyeball the map and know what things are, so I always spent the majority of my time zoomed out in strategic view.

Second moving through the game the experience is pretty static. Advance to a new age (which happens way to quickly) and the research tech lets you build a building that provides +15 food instead of +5. Each race has only 3 core units, but each age your research just unlocks a slightly more powerful version of the same armour/weapon/accessories. Unlike Civilization where there's certain milestones that you keep going 'one more turn' to reach, once you get your game going in Endless legend you just keep expanding and exterminating at a steady pace until you've won.

There's a few other minor things, but those are the biggest two problems I had with it. Game still does some great things though: love the combat, each race is distinctly unique and well done, the different minor factions you can assimilate is nice... but the positives just don't make up for my negatives.

Still a very good game overall and very worth the price on sale, but it didn't end up being the 'Fantasy Civilization' I was hoping for.

 

[Bjorn Le]

I need to try this again. I got CK2 just for this reason but gave up due to the hard learning curve. I'm sure I'd enjoy it if I can find the patience to figure everything out.

CK2 is probably the hardest of the Paradox games to learn. Stellaris is the easiest (by far I'd say), then it's a massive jump to EU4. After that, Hearts of Iron, Victoria, then finally CK2.

In terms of how long it took me to get a hold of each: Stellaris ~3-5 hours, EUIV ~10-20 hours, HOI4 ~15-25 V2 ~20-35 hours, CK2 ~50 hours. In every Paradox game I've been able to do just about anything I set my mind to with enough restarts and trial and error, but in CK2 I just can't without seriously gamey exploits. I probably put 40-60 hours trying to get the Zoroastrian achievement and I just couldn't get it.

 

[The Head Crusher]

CK2 is probably the hardest of the Paradox games to learn. Stellaris is the easiest (by far I'd say), then it's a massive jump to EU4. After that, Hearts of Iron, Victoria, then finally CK2.

In terms of how long it took me to get a hold of each: Stellaris ~3-5 hours, EUIV ~10-20 hours, HOI4 ~15-25 V2 ~20-35 hours, CK2 ~50 hours. In every Paradox game I've been able to do just about anything I set my mind to with enough restarts and trial and error, but in CK2 I just can't without seriously gamey exploits. I probably put 40-60 hours trying to get the Zoroastrian achievement and I just couldn't get it.

I found EU4 way harder to learn then CK2

 

[Bjorn Le]

I found EU4 way harder to learn then CK2

Maybe it's harder if you got into it late. I learnt EU4 before any of the expansions came out, so I got to know all the core mechanics before any new content. CK2 I found hard because it's so punishing for someone who isn't quite clear on the mechanics, even if you play as the Emperor in the default start date. Once you get on a role in EU4, it's very hard for you to be put down unless you do it on purpose. In CK2, you can be seemingly blobbing out of control, but if one thing goes wrong it can all fall apart. Which I mean is fun if you're roleplaying but it can happen very fast and very unexpectedly for a new player.

My first largely successful run in CK2 was an 867 start, Asturias --> Leon --> Hispania. Owned all of Iberia, all North Africa, most of Lower Egypt, the Southern Holy Land (modern day Israel and Jordan, Byzantium had modern day Lebanon and Syria), and a smattering of holdings (mostly individual baronies but some counties) across the rest of Europe tied in marriage almost constantly to a resurgent Byzantium. Tens of thousands of ducats, and levies in the hundreds of thousands.

In ~1300 during the middle of the umpteenth Jihad to take back Jerusalem, Byzantium implodes for reasons I don't remember. I have to dump my ducats into mercenaries, then my Emperor is assassinated, causing my constitute Viceroys to become very unhappy (for those that are unaware, those are king level titles that revert back to their liege when they die). Now as a newbie, I was unaware that stacking viceroyalties creates immense dissatisfaction among your vassals, so when my Emperor died, I lost someone whose modifiers could handle this and a revolt very quickly happened. Empire becomes insta gibbed, armies in the Holy Land implode, while rebels rip out every kingdom from my empire except Andalucía and Portugal (even lost my 'ancestral" kingdom in Leon). Now I found this very entertaining and realistic, which is something EU lacks, but this doesn't happen in EU4. Both games are punishing for newbies, but EU4 insulates you a tiny bit.

 

[RandV]

When I got into CK2 (only played around 30 hours) I took some advice for a simple start in Ireland/Dublin. Some frustration because you barely produce any gold so it's hard to buy things for your territories, but overall I'd agree from my own experience that it's a good training wheels location.

 

[Chimaera]

It's a good training wheels because you can basically be left alone while you learn the mechanics. You can figure out the intrigue and the different systems of the game without having the pressure of fighting any big wars. I would also say, micromanaging one or two provinces at a time is a must for a newer player. It's just too much for new players to have to control 9-10 territories until they're used to it.

There's also some expansion areas without having to be really concerned with annoying a powerful region. You can take over much of the rest of Ireland without having to be nervous about a game over invasion like some of the other regions.