The Strategy Game Thread (All Platforms)

[Randomizer]

    I loved the Command & Conquer series .... especially Red Alert !  Einstein messing with a time machine and rocket infantry vs. dogs ... I had a lot of fun with that game ... Also I got recently Warcraft III and got the  hang of it .

[RagingDragon]

    I loved the Command & Conquer series .... especially Red Alert !  Einstein messing with a time machine and rocket infantry vs. dogs ... I had a lot of fun with that game ... Also I got recently Warcraft III and got the  hang of it .

I enjoyed some C&C as well.

Warcraft 3 was the beginning of the end for Blizzard, as far as graphics were concerned. At first I thought their 3D art style was kind of charming in a way, and then, it just dominated everything they made and became some requirement for being a Blizzard game. Now it makes me vomit on myself.

But, Warcraft 3 still has great gameplay and production. I loved playing as the Undead with their body carts and plagues. Didn't like the humans stupid steam tanks and rifles and crap, but oh well. Blizzard always nails it where gameplay and presentation are concerned, whether or not you like their "style" lol.

I grew up on Warcraft and Warcraft 2, though, so I missed a lot of the more traditional fantasy and rts elements in WC3. I wanted bigger and better along with the heroes, but the scale got smaller due to their inclusion and the rpg-lite system.

[Effectz]

C&C 3 Tiberium Wars was the last good C&C that was made,was starting to get interesting with the Scrin arriving.

[Blacklabel]

Welp.. THIS happened in my Terror from the Deep playthrough. (genius difficulty).



USA made a pact with the "aliunz" and rescinded their XCOM funds... lost a cool "mili" per month.
BUT THE WAR RAGES ON. 

[RagingDragon]

Welp.. THIS happened in my Terror from the Deep playthrough. (genius difficulty).



USA made a pact with the "aliunz" and rescinded their XCOM funds... lost a cool "mili" per month.
BUT THE WAR RAGES ON. 

Aww boned! Those f**king American pricks!

Does launching patrols with your interceptors over their countries actually do anything? I don't know if I care either way because I roleplay a bit like a true nerd, lol, but I've been doing that when countries get pissy just to see.

Don't know if it does anything positive, and might just be spending jet fuel and making my expenses rise.

[Blacklabel]

i'm actually fine with losing USA support... I get most of my funds from selling alien submarine parts and weapons from downed USO's and raiding alien colonies... I play like a pirate.

Launching patrols with interceptor's can do a few things actually: a) Patrols out of the range of your radars can pick up nearby UFO's that wouldnt normally show up on screen. (landed or on air.) b) Sometimes, if you send a patrol to an area loaded with UFO activity they can find an alien base.

It can be useful! You just gotta know where to look. If you suspect there's a base in a certain area.. send a couple of interceptors to snoop around.

[RagingDragon]

i'm actually fine with losing USA support... I get most of my funds from selling spaceship parts and weapons from downed UFO's and raiding alien colonies... I play like a pirate.

Launching patrols with interceptor's can do a few things actually: a) Patrols out of the range of your radars can pick up nearby UFO's that wouldnt normally show up on screen. b) Sometimes, if you send a patrol to an area loaded with UFO activity they can find an alien base.

Aw man, so cool! These games have so much in them for their time; truly classics. I knew you can find bases, but I've yet to have one of my bases be attacked, or finish a terror mission without losing at least 2-4 soldiers lol.

Can't even imagine the death that would occur if I found and tried to raid an alien base. There would be some new recruits, for sure.

[Blacklabel]

Invest in TANKS. Send them ahead to do your bidding. Let your soldiers be snipers from a safe position. And take it easy.  Copious amounts of grenades are also handy.

Have you met the "mind control" Ethereal aliens, yet?

GET READY. 

Oh and i recommend investigating laser weapons for when the Sectopods show up... it's their achilles heel.

[RagingDragon]

I've researched Laser Weapons, but once you have the tech, then you have to pick each individual weapon and their magazines to research lol. I really like it, but there are so many choices and when you're new, you have no clue what to pick. I got seduced by the plasma rifles and started researching those.

I'm just getting the hang of grenades, smoke and regular, and using the heavy cannon and rocket launcher. Grenades are super cheap and very effective, but just one quesion: do you have to prime them?

I had one moment where I was figuring out how to equip and throw them when my sergeant threw his rifle at the f**king Alien instead of throwing the grenade.

[Vepariga]

Im a big Might & Magic fan. Got all the HoMM games and the M&M Rpgs. Just a rich world.

I love me some rts thougj. Dawn Of War, AOE, Warcraft, SW:Empire at war,  Conquest frontier wars..etc

[Blacklabel]

but just one quesion: do you have to prime them?

Yup. And when you do prime them, there a few numbers to pick from.. that's the number of "alien turns" you'll have to wait before they explode. choosing 0, makes them explode during the next alien's turn. (Nothing happens if you keep a primed grenade in hand though, so relax. BUT! If your soldier dies with a primed grenade, it'll go off on the next alien turns (depending on how many you chose when you primed the 'nade.)

I had no idea i knew so much about XCOM. X) 

Heavy plasma rifle is the best thing to research (and use). So powerful and cool looking...
i mean.. LOOK AT THAT SHIT.



That's gotta be a Rob Liefeld inspired weapon design. 

[RagingDragon]

Yup. And when you do prime them, there a few numbers to pick from.. that's the number of "alien turns" you'll have to wait before they explode. choosing 0, makes them explode during the next alien's turn. (Nothing happens if you keep a primed grenade in hand though, so relax. BUT! If your soldier dies with a primed grenade, it'll go off on the next alien turns (depending on how many you chose when you primed the 'nade.)

I had no idea i knew so much about XCOM. X) 

Heavy plasma rifle is the best thing to research (and use). So powerful and cool looking...
i mean.. LOOK AT THAT SHIT.

http://ufopaedia.org/images/a/a2/BIGOBS30.GIF

That's gotta be a Rob Liefeld inspired weapon design. 

LOL, props for that old-school space marine weapon love. Now a lot of the shit just looks like Halo I miss those Liefeld/Spawn giant torso-sized space rifles.

You are a great XCOM resource mang! Figuring out all the tactics and tricks is a big part in the difficulty. Finally got one of my dudes to successfully use the rocket launcher, but on the same mission I realized I'd forgotten to equip my team with more magazines and have them actually reload. Half of them ran out of ammo halfway through the mission, and no way to rearm at the ship despite it having tons of supplies xD FML.

@ Vepariga I enjoy turn-based strategy as well. I recently got Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic and I've been playing through that. It's a lot of fun, and I like the mage system where you have magical areas of influence and different spells for the strategy maps and tactical battles.

[RagingDragon]

Double post because I wanted to do a little topic of the day. Hopefully we'll get some good convo about this.

Are you a Star Wars fan? Do you also enjoy strategy games and find the broad, galaxy-spanning theme of Star Wars to fit nicely with the game genre?

What is your dream Star Wars strategy game? In the past, we've gotten a few offerings, from the now-ancient Rebellion, to Force Commander, to the Age of Empires-like Galactic Battlegrounds, and the latest iteration: Empire at War with its expansion Forces of Corruption.

I've been enjoying Empire at War, but it's a bit too shallow and simple overall to really scratch my Star Wars itch. It makes up for this with amazing space battles and a decent galactic map with lots of different campaigns, but I miss a lot of the older things from games like Rebellion.

For example, the politics are basically non-existent in Empire at War. You simply mass units, move them around to control front lines and hyperspace lanes, and conquer everything. When I first played the campaign, I got kind of lost and then had my butt thoroughly kicked because I was trying to play like the real Rebels did in the films.

I thought hit-and-run tactics, spies, hiding, and politics would really be important. Sadly, outside of the campaign levels that take you through a sort of story, the game is very much 'conquer everything, build as much as possible, destroy, repeat.' There's no real subterfuge, little to do outside of basic army and fleet management, and your heroes are kind of limited compared to what they could do in an older game like Rebellion. In that game, you could send them off all over the galaxy to represent the Rebellion and win systems to your cause, through diplomatic or economic means. Each character had different strengths and weaknesses, and it was great.

Do you agree? Disagree? Would you rather be making a grilled cheese sandwich right now? Let's hear your thoughts, hopefully about Star Wars strategy games!

[Nightlord]

Agreed completely about Empire at War, though the expansion added some subterfuge if you played as the consortium. I enjoyed Empire at war a lot in spite of it being such a shallow game, but that's mainly just because it's got Star Wars in the name.

My dream Star Wars RTS would be to have the ground battles be like CoH or Men of War, the space battles remain like they were in Empire at war although I'd add boarding too.

For the galactic side of things I think Empire at war did the galaxy management well enough, though an option to make it turn based would be good. Add in all kinds of agents and diplomacy options from something like Total War, and add in smaller factions where possible so it's not just a big Empire and Rebel slugfest. Also I'd have every planet have different regions on it, so every planet would be a mini Total War campaign in itself.

Probably takes months just to finish a campaign if a game like this ever got made, but damn I can dream about it.

[RagingDragon]

Agreed completely about Empire at War, though the expansion added some subterfuge if you played as the consortium. I enjoyed Empire at war a lot in spite of it being such a shallow game, but that's mainly just because it's got Star Wars in the name.

My dream Star Wars RTS would be to have the ground battles be like CoH or Men of War, the space battles remain like they were in Empire at war although I'd add boarding too.

For the galactic side of things I think Empire at war did the galaxy management well enough, though an option to make it turn based would be good. Add in all kinds of agents and diplomacy options from something like Total War, and add in smaller factions where possible so it's not just a big Empire and Rebel slugfest. Also I'd have every planet have different regions on it, so every planet would be a mini Total War campaign in itself.

Probably takes months just to finish a campaign if a game like this ever got made, but damn I can dream about it.

Hell yes, excellent. This would be a dream game indeed! Using agents similar to Total War would be a perfect solution, with Bothan spies and things like that. They had smugglers and bounty hunters in EaW, but these played kind of minor roles. No real spies other than sending R2 and C-3PO everywhere.

I think a proper Star Wars game needs these other avenues of swaying planets to your side. The rebellion was moral and decent and offered their own incentives while the Empire operated through fear and power and ultimate control. Plenty of room for lots of interesting characters that you could use in a video game setting.