What is/are your turn based strategy of choice

[Greenflame133]

Turn based strategies! I do like them and I;m looking for some new games to try, so I’m going to share some I enjoy and briefly talk about them. Hopeful some of you do the same. Boust points if game is free as it makes expermanting saver.

The Battle of Polytopia, I like it as it’s simple. There is a lot of tactics as each unit is quince with in game but is every basic for of he concept. Economy is simple and I find that to be a good thing as having to run a nation and wage a war at the same time often prove too much in more complex games as both usually feels a 2 games. (Free Mobile Game)

Card Hunter, tabletop themed game when you control characters on battle grid. Each of them has its own hand and deck, actions that take and armor they may have is determined with carts. Deck is based off items they have and items they have are bested on cass and race. (there are 3 races and 3 classes). One great thing it has are puzzles that give you premade characters meaning that it’s pure puzzle and avoids feeling grind like the rest of the game. Say it has many drawbacks. Such as playable characters being rather boring (especially as enemies get to use way more different characters sometimes with custom skills) and getting tiered items make it so grind (or paying) is necessary to progress (Free PC Game)

Wakfu, MMORPG, I had a ton of fun with this game but it might have a lot of to do with having a friend to play with. Your character has a lot of abiles and effects that do have a lot of interactions. Ones that I remember the most is abilities that affect area on the end or start of a turn and abilities that move characters and that one passive that damaged on on being on the turn. There is nice organic world and I must say it had the magic making just nice world to be in. Sadly as MMO it has a lot of grinding and that was reason I stopped playing (Free PC Game)

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, it’s not pure TBS as it’s mixed with FPS but I play it as TBS. I actually just pick it up and it sparked in me need to play full out TBS, so far it looks simple but one thing I enjoy is ability to have Combo kills, getting set up and timing just right and the blowing up whole bunch of enemies. Still I feel I will enjoy it more as pure TBS (PC game)

[Jama7301]

Lately, when I get that itch, I go for Into the Breach. Squashing bugs with big 'ol mechs is fun, and the game feels incredibly fair. Not "fair" as in "evenly matched" but the type of fair where you know if something goes bad, it's mostly your fault. It's almost like a puzzle game.

Man, Card Hunter. There's a lot I like about that game, I just can't keep it installed for any length of time. I'll play it for a week, then uninstall it for 6 months.

[Psyren]

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, it’s not pure TBS as it’s mixed with FPS but I play it as TBS. I actually just pick it up and it sparked in me need to play full out TBS, so far it looks simple but one thing I enjoy is ability to have Combo kills, getting set up and timing just right and the blowing up whole bunch of enemies. Still I feel I will enjoy it more as pure TBS (PC game)

Have you played XCom Enemy Unknown? It's basically the far more popular/acclaimed big brother to Bureau, and it's also the one they used as the basis for the sequel.

[Greenflame133]

Lately, when I get that itch, I go for Into the Breach. Squashing bugs with big 'ol mechs is fun, and the game feels incredibly fair. Not "fair" as in "evenly matched" but the type of fair where you know if something goes bad, it's mostly your fault. It's almost like a puzzle game.

Man, Card Hunter. There's a lot I like about that game, I just can't keep it installed for any length of time. I'll play it for a week, then uninstall it for 6 months.

Oh Bureau, I was looking at it on steam. I may even have it saved up somewhere as a game try out.

I play carthunter at rate if about dungeon a weak. The main annoyance is how items are hard to come by and you generally have to have 1 of each class. Still it's rather enjoyable.

Have you played XCom Enemy Unknown? It's basically the far more popular/acclaimed big brother to Bureau, and it's also the one they used as the basis for the sequel.

Not yet. I picked up Bureau on give away and only began playing it. Do you recommend getting through the story of Bureau first or jumping to EU?

[Cespenar]

Lately, when I get that itch, I go for Into the Breach. Squashing bugs with big 'ol mechs is fun, and the game feels incredibly fair. Not "fair" as in "evenly matched" but the type of fair where you know if something goes bad, it's mostly your fault. It's almost like a puzzle game.

That's it. They have somehow managed to distill the essence of the turn based tactics genre, and boy it's good.

On the aforementioned games, I have tried Bureau but honestly it was like a cheap knockoff of Mass Effect, mechanics-wise. Wouldn't recommend.

X-COM 2, on the other hand, is really good.

[Eldan]

Both XCOM and XCOM 2 are really excellent. They just do a few things differently. Overall, with the expansions, I'd say that XCOM 2 is better, but I do miss mutations and the ability to make mech suits that can punch through walls.

[Deatch]

If you are ok with older games, which might not look visually stunning and might need some tinkering to get running, these are some goldies:

Ufo: Enemy unknown (or X-COM: Ufo defense) - the already mentioned grandfather of the XCOM games.

Master of Orion 2 - space empire building strategy. In my opinion the best of the series. And maybe it is nostalgia speaking, but I like much more rewarding than the newer space 4X games.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - the series is still ongoing under the flag of Ubisoft but many will agree that HOMAM3 is still the best one.

Pharaoh, Emperor - city building games by Impressions Games with some unique mechanics

[Hunter Noventa]

I'm a big fan of a lot of these kind of games. The first and foremost would have to be Final Fantasy Tactics, sadly the only reliable way to acquire it now is for Android or via the PSN Store, and I would suggest the latter, personally.

I will also vote for XCOM and XCOM2, both are very enjoyable and the latter is also highly moddable.

The other big TBS series I like is Super Robot Wars, but you need a PS4 or Vita and be willing to pay for imported games and know a lot of mecha anime to fully enjoy them.

[Ignimortis]

I adore Heroes of Might and Magic as a series. The first one is pretty meh, and the last two (6 and 7) are also pretty meh, but the rest are awesome - and each in a different way, too. Here's a recap:

• HoMM II: Probably one of the best graphical achievements of the 16-bit era, on par or greater than FF VI. The gameplay is wonderful in the old good "not exactly balanced along the same traits" way - the Knight town is extremely cheap to develop and has good troop production speed, but their best units can't hold a candle to the mythical monsters later in the game, so you either win quickly or fade to obscurity, and, vice versa, Warlocks are bad at early game, but if you got your hands on Black Dragons, you probably win the game if your economy can afford to keep buying them.
• HoMM III: Lauded as the greatest of the series, and with good reason. The graphics got a dose of the 00s with the "realistic colors", but in small doses, so that the game still looks gorgeous. The gameplay was streamlined a bit, and some factions really got turned around - humans are now mid-to-late game powerhouses, and early game rush strats are best done with Barbarians or Beastmasters, for example. There's a significant addition of the "underworld" layer of the map, which can double already expansive map sizes. As a person with zero talent for drawing, I make my maps with the HoMM III map editor, and my players love them.
• HoMM IV: The black sheep of the series with most fans, but pay them no heed. The developers took some risks and the fanbase is still divided over whether those paid off. The most important change is that eponymous heroes are now units by themselves, instead of being a mostly passive leader figure off the battleground. This means that HoMM IV has some delightful RPG-style maps, and in general your hero plays a far more active role in combat than before. The graphics are divisive, too, with some weird art decisions, but it's still mostly solid and nice to look at even now.
• HoMM V: The first part made after series had been acquired by Ubisoft. While it has aged a bit worse than its' predecessors, it's still pretty good. While superficially more similar to the third installment, it's very much a new game, with its' own quirks and tricks. While some decisions are questionable (two factions' worth of elves? Why?), the factions still retain their own personality and distinct playstyles.

Oh, and all of those have wonderful soundtracks.

[Cheesegear]

PC
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate (1998) is one of my favourite turn-based strategies of all time. Unfortunately, it has a lot of problems being run in Windows 10 (yes, even on Compatibility Mode) because of some kind of interaction with modern graphics cards and/or CPUs. Though there are some workarounds for W10 if you know what you're doing. It was also one of the first games I learned to mod, as experience tables and values, and ways to earn medals (character upgrades) were tabulated in an extremely easy to read .ini file.

Incubation: Time is Running Out (1997), was modern X-COM, almost 15 years earlier, than modern X-COM (which has already been praised several times in-thread)

I also very much liked The Banner Saga (2014; 2, 2016; 3, 2018 [confirmed]). But, it doesn't really have replayability, unless you're shooting for difficulty achievements. But, as far as I'm concerned, difficulty didn't really add anything to the story or to the artwork. The story and artwork only needs to be seen once, really, because then you've already seen it, right?

Gameboy Advance
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003) was great.
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (2002) ditto.

[Eldariel]

If you are ok with older games, which might not look visually stunning and might need some tinkering to get running, these are some goldies:

Ufo: Enemy unknown (or X-COM: Ufo defense) - the already mentioned grandfather of the XCOM games.

Master of Orion 2 - space empire building strategy. In my opinion the best of the series. And maybe it is nostalgia speaking, but I like much more rewarding than the newer space 4X games.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - the series is still ongoing under the flag of Ubisoft but many will agree that HOMAM3 is still the best one.

I'd second all these. If I get the itch to play TBS, I launch one of these (though I definitely prefer HoMM2 over HoMM3). Alpha Centauri: Alien Crossfire (the best but a bit different fluff-wise), Civilization 4 and Civilization 5 are also pretty high up there. All extremely high quality games and the best at what they offer.

And Masters of Magic is absolutely awesome far as fantasy style goes though sadly the AI is a bit hopeless and there's no multiplayer. If it were just remade with better AI and multiplayer and some balance improvements, I'd still consider it the best TBS (and thus the best game) ever. There's just something about Spell Immunitied Great Wyrms running over the whole plane only to run into their end in the face of Siegfried (if Sky Drake is a bit more optimal but every MTG player knows that blue is imbalanced).

[Yora]

Does Darkest Dungeon count?

[GloatingSwine]

And Masters of Magic is absolutely awesome far as fantasy style goes though sadly the AI is a bit hopeless and there's no multiplayer. If it were just remade with better AI and multiplayer and some balance improvements, I'd still consider it the best TBS (and thus the best game) ever. There's just something about Spell Immunitied Great Wyrms running over the whole plane only to run into their end in the face of Siegfried (if Sky Drake is a bit more optimal but every MTG player knows that blue is imbalanced).

Nothing beats the comedy achievable by the Myrran Warlord of Life though.

Especially if you pick Halflings.

Halfling Slingers at level 5 with all of Life's combat buffs exterminate everything.

[tyckspoon]

Nothing beats the comedy achievable by the Myrran Warlord of Life though.

Especially if you pick Halflings.

Halfling Slingers at level 5 with all of Life's combat buffs exterminate everything.

Buff-stacked Guardian Spirit (I think? The upgraded version of the spirits used to claim node sites) to quick scout and pick off treasure dungeons - they could take out most enemies in the first half of the difficulty curve and travel faster than almost anything else you could get out that fast. Death Halflings, because their basic troops come in larger-than-standard unit sizes, so you get oversized Werewolf troops plus the still incredibly potent Slingers once you find a source of mythril or adamantium. Take all the crafting-related traits, giving you all the item-making spells to trade around early game and allowing you to craft items for less mana than you get back from breaking them. Send a couple squads of Pixies out and just cheese anything that is unable to attack Flying units. Sooo many degenerate strategies in that game :)

[GloatingSwine]

Oh yeah. Invulnerable Guardian Spirit was a one unit game win (and basically necessary on Impossible) because everything with more than 10 shields took no damage from normal weapons, so you could just charge it around the map eating everyone's early units.

Plus you could start the game with it if you had 10 books in Life.

[DodgerH2O]

It warms my heart to hear talk about Master of Magic. I still play it (GoG version) but would pay so much money for a modernization or true successor of the game. Fallen Enchantress and Civ mods just don't quite scratch the itch, so a balance pass, AI upgrade and graphics/UI revamp with the mechanics intact would probably be my dream game.

[Leecros]

Lords of Magic


*sigh, I miss that game...It's a good thing it's on Steam.

[Cespenar]

Come on guys. It's Myrran + Warlord + Life + Dwarves.

Fully buffed Hammerhands.

Full tax + Prosperity + Stream of Life + Dwarf prod bonus + Trade goods.

Plus, they have beards. A couple pixel each, but still.

It warms my heart to hear talk about Master of Magic. I still play it (GoG version) but would pay so much money for a modernization or true successor of the game. Fallen Enchantress and Civ mods just don't quite scratch the itch, so a balance pass, AI upgrade and graphics/UI revamp with the mechanics intact would probably be my dream game.

Same here, but Age of Wonders 3 + all the expansions come a bit close to scratch around the itch.

[Greenflame133]

Warhammer 40,000? I remember trying o the base one (RTS). How do it feel as turn based game?

Does Darkest Dungeon count?

It absolutely dose.

Lords of Magic


*sigh, I miss that game...It's a good thing it's on Steam.

Never hard of that, mind sharing what makes this game great?

[Misereor]

PC
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate (1998) is one of my favourite turn-based strategies of all time. Unfortunately, it has a lot of problems being run in Windows 10 (yes, even on Compatibility Mode) because of some kind of interaction with modern graphics cards and/or CPUs. Though there are some workarounds for W10 if you know what you're doing. It was also one of the first games I learned to mod, as experience tables and values, and ways to earn medals (character upgrades) were tabulated in an extremely easy to read .ini file.

Both Chaos Gate and some of the other old Warhammer games are available on GOG.
Works fine. Playing my first campaign in 15 years or so and having a blast.

[Winthur]

[*]HoMM III: Lauded as the greatest of the series, and with good reason. The graphics got a dose of the 00s with the "realistic colors", but in small doses, so that the game still looks gorgeous. The gameplay was streamlined a bit, and some factions really got turned around - humans are now mid-to-late game powerhouses, and early game rush strats are best done with Barbarians or Beastmasters, for example. There's a significant addition of the "underworld" layer of the map, which can double already expansive map sizes. As a person with zero talent for drawing, I make my maps with the HoMM III map editor, and my players love them.

Barbarians were the early game rushers in 2 (because their units were super cheap and relatively fast), but in 3, the best rushers are by far the Tower with their Gremlins and possible Solmyr. Wizards are much better in the super-early game, and then in the extreme late game. The Barbarian is by far the best mid-game hero, when you still don't have access to hordes of Dragons and Armageddon, but you already have a level 20 hero with two expert magic schools, some decent artifacts, and a nice, mid-sized army. It's also worth noting that spell damage stayed the same while HoMM3 buffed unit HP across the board - no more stuff like the ultimate unit of a faction staying at measly 60 HP - so stuff like Magic Arrows and Lightning Bolts are much, much stronger in the early game than later on, where a Lightning Bolt might barely kill a single Behemoth.

As for turn-based games I loved, I recently finished Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked, which is a 3DS game that basically plays like X-Com meets Pokemon meets post-apocalypse. A very fun game to play, you get a ton of demons to make a party from and the gameplay stays engaging from the start to finish, plus it has 4 different endings and a NG+, so I will have to come back to it soon.

[Knaight]

My main jam is the Dominions series, but it looks a bit out of scope here. Somewhat more in scope (and also free) is Battle for Wesnoth, a turn based tactics game with very approachable rules that does some cool stuff with terrain and day/night cycles. There are also a few roguelikes and strategy RPGs that have enough turn based tactics elements to scratch similar itches, with Tales of Maj'Eyal, Bionic Dues, Fire Emblem, and Shining Force standing out in particular. On the more approachable side of games which also have a more strategic layer there's Age of Wonders III and Eador: Genesis.

I'd also back the consensus here regarding XCOM and XCOM 2, both of which I had a lot of fun with. I also enjoyed Card Hunter, though it did get graded on the flash game curve.

[Kaptin Keen]

Does Darkest Dungeon count?

Darkest Dungeon always counts.

[Jama7301]

Man, I just remembered I have Blood Bowl, and I haven't been able to fully understand it, given the game's tutorial. Doubly a shame that I can't strongarm convince a friend to play it.

[GloatingSwine]

What particular aspects of Blood Bowl are you struggling with?

[Jama7301]

It's been a few years since I last tried it, but I remember going "wait, what's going on? What am I doing? Is this right" for the first few matches after the tutorial.

[Ignimortis]

Barbarians were the early game rushers in 2 (because their units were super cheap and relatively fast), but in 3, the best rushers are by far the Tower with their Gremlins and possible Solmyr. Wizards are much better in the super-early game, and then in the extreme late game. The Barbarian is by far the best mid-game hero, when you still don't have access to hordes of Dragons and Armageddon, but you already have a level 20 hero with two expert magic schools, some decent artifacts, and a nice, mid-sized army. It's also worth noting that spell damage stayed the same while HoMM3 buffed unit HP across the board - no more stuff like the ultimate unit of a faction staying at measly 60 HP - so stuff like Magic Arrows and Lightning Bolts are much, much stronger in the early game than later on, where a Lightning Bolt might barely kill a single Behemoth.

Solmyr is an edge case with his native Chain Lightning. Other wizards usually can scarcely afford to duel a Barb who has cheaper buildings and units early, and with some luck can build Behemoths by the end of first week of the first month. Same with Beastmasters and wyverns on turn 2. Granted, if you're swimming in resources on easier difficulties for pure PvP maps, or you're far away from each other on a large or XL map - then sure, Wizards can spike early enough. But if you're having trouble getting enough for a Mage Tower, then Gremlins and Gargoyles aren't gonna do much to Rocs and Behemoths.

Offensive magic scales extremely badly in 3, that's true. Mostly due to two factors, which are HP bloat (200+ HP on level 7 used to be special, now everyone gets that) and poor scaling from magic skills, which only increases base damage but not spellpower modifiers which would matter more at SP 15+. Buffs and debuffs rule the endgame. Therefore, the best magic schools are Air and Earth for Haste and Slow respectively, followed by Water, and Fire is usually only good in early or with Berserk/Blind. Then again, I was able to get a 7.5k Implosion a few times, and it could get better with 99 SP.

[GloatingSwine]

There are a few basic things to grasp in Blood Bowl:

Do things that can't fail first. Do all the things you don't have to roll a dice for first, they can't cause a turnover. Then do the things that put you closer to scoring. Do the fun things like punching enemies for the giggles last.

If you're going to roll dice, do as much as you can to bias things in your favour. Try not to attack unless you have higher strength than the opponent (so move players into position for assists if you need to), that lets you roll two dice and choose the one favourable to you. (You're still going to get triple skulls sometimes, these are sacrifices unto Nuffle)

The best way to get the ball to the endzone unless you're playing some kind of high mobility side like Filthy Cheating Elves is to put the ball carrier in a box. Build a square of players around the ball carrier and move them all up the field together, stopping to shove enemies out of the way with the power of your assists whilst reducing their ability to get assists against you. This is called a "cage" in Blood Bowl parlance (or a Lunchbox if you do it with Halflings). This stops enemies from getting at your ball carrier. Shoving enemies off the pitch is particularly useful as you grind up their half.

Even if you're stronger in general, don't put too much stock into thumping the other team. Whilst it's true that dead players can't score touchdowns (watch out for the undead ones though) that's equally true of players rolling around on the floor in pain. On the floor is not scoring touchdowns.

If you're a high agility team you might be able to try the most secret Blood Bowl technique, passing. Passing is risky because it relies on rolling dice and dice hate you. Try and get a player closeish to the endzone with a path to it that doesn't pass by enemies where possible, and pass to them without going over the heads of any enemy players.

Don't use rerolls on things that don't matter. Best time to use them is when you have a chance to score or stop the enemy scoring.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Hey guys... guess what comes out tomorrow?

Battletech, from Hairbrained Schemes. I'd definitely put this right up there on top of the list when it comes out.

I'd also put in SMAC-Crossfire, Civ VI (strict improvement over V, best one to come out since 2), XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within, and XCOM2 on that list as well.

MoO2, obviously, goes on the list. And even the latest Master of Orion isn't too bad, although I wish they'd spent a little less on superstar voice acting and a little more on actual mechanics. Feels like they basically took MoO2 and updated it, only they used a hyperlane transport system instead of the more open-ended range-based system of MoO2. Makes it easier to defend, at least, and makes early rushing virtually impossible.

[GloatingSwine]

Feels like they basically took MoO2 and updated it, only they used a hyperlane transport system instead of the more open-ended range-based system of MoO2. Makes it easier to defend, at least, and makes early rushing virtually impossible.

Basically that's what happens when a billionaire's favourite childhood game license comes up for sale and he says "make me a new one".

(Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming, heard that the MoO rights were up for grabs in the Atari fire sale and sent someone to buy it, MoO was pretty big in Russia as far as I can tell. Night Watch author Sergey Lukyanenko released a couple of space opera books that are basically MoO fanfiction)