39 replies to this topic

[mattness]

Hi all,

I joined the forum to help promote my favorite game Star Chamber, but while I'm here I'd love to know what people think are the best turn based strategy games out there at the moment.  

My favorite is Star Chamber, but I also like Battle for Wesnoth.  I was a big fan of the Heroes of Might and Magic series, but I hate Heroes V.  It represents a disturbing trend I see in commercial computer games these days where they seem to think that pretty 3d graphics are necessary for the game to sell, and pursue them at the expense of gameplay.  I find the need to constantly rotate and zoom the camera really time consuming, disorienting, and frustrating and not suited to the genre at all.  

I'm also not a huge fan of the real time Dune II/Warcraft style strategy games.  I like a little time to ponder my moves.    Any other good turn based games out there?

-mattness

[Eric5h5]

mattness, on June 11th 2008, 10:51 PM, said:

Any other good turn based games out there?

Yes, Civilization.  There have been Mac versions of all of them so far, but only III and IV run on OS X.  IV is the best, if your computer can handle it.  The port is, alas, more sluggish than it should be.

--Eric

[QuantaCat]

Even though it actually is Realtime, I think Europa Universalis 3 should be considered a TBS title. Oh and MoO3. (never played MoO3 though)

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Realmz had quite a bit of strategy to it.. 8) Then there's Battle For Wesnoth (And its even free!), and of course Civ as mentioned...

[Jude]

Also:
Supernova and Supernova 2
Magic Stones
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
Weird Worlds
Lux
DROD
Ticket to Ride
Massive Assault
Combat Mission series (some only work booted into OS 9, though because of Rave graphic requirements)

There are also turn-based RPGs like:
Fallout
Avernum
Geneforge
Nethergate Resurrection
Styrateg
Gorky 17 (which also has strategy-based battles)

Jude

[Janichsan]

Quote

Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
Weird Worlds

...are not turn-based.

[Jude]

Janichsan, on June 12th 2008, 06:52 AM, said:

...are not turn-based.

I haven't played for a while, but I seem to remember that moving to a new planet constituted a new turn (which used up available time), and that the game waited for you to make decisions.  Strictly speaking, you are right, but it is pretty close.


In addition to the RPGs I listed before, it should be noted that the Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale, and I believe, Neverwinter Nights let you set pause options so that the game can almost be played turn-based.

The Heroes of Might and Magic series were some of the best turn-based games.

Jude

[Eric5h5]

Jude, on June 12th 2008, 05:55 AM, said:

Massive Assault

And the sequel, Domination.  I wish that wasn't a download and was available normally; I played Massive Assault to death.  Something strangely compelling about that even against the AI, which is fairly terrible so I was stuck playing the 3 maps with essentially no naval combat, so there was at least a 2% chance the AI could win....

--Eric

[Zak]

Eric5h5, on June 12th 2008, 09:07 AM, said:

And the sequel, Domination.  I wish that wasn't a download and was available normally; I played Massive Assault to death.  Something strangely compelling about that even against the AI, which is fairly terrible so I was stuck playing the 3 maps with essentially no naval combat, so there was at least a 2% chance the AI could win....

--Eric

For me, the biggest problem was VPs port of Massive Assault.  That thing ran horribly on my well-above specs computer.  Plus, the final mission of the final campaign would always crash upon victory.  The final strike came when they disabled multiplayer, which was the best way to experience that game.

Taken together, I can say the game is great, the port is terrible, and support is nonexistant.  I decided to take a pass on domination until VP could find a way to take its collective head out of the sand.  I just don't trust the quality of their ports.

[Eric5h5]

Yes, the crash is annoying.  Other than that it runs fine on my G5 so I have no complaints about performance.  The gameplay itself does have a few bugs; not sure if those were inherited from the PC version.  VP is no Feral, for sure, but despite that I'd buy Domination if it was on DVD or I had a faster connection.

--Eric

[Zak]

Eric5h5, on June 12th 2008, 10:03 AM, said:

Yes, the crash is annoying.  Other than that it runs fine on my G5 so I have no complaints about performance.  The gameplay itself does have a few bugs; not sure if those were inherited from the PC version.  VP is no Feral, for sure, but despite that I'd buy Domination if it was on DVD or I had a faster connection.

--Eric

Hmm.  In retrospect, I'm too harsh on VP.  They actually produced beautiful ports of Spartan and Gates of Troy (two other fantastic turn-based strategy games, especially if you like ancient Greek culture and pseudo-civilization style gameplay).  So that suggests that VP was handed a huge file of messy code, and tried to make the best of the situation.

Still, I did really enjoy Massive Assault.  Has anyone purchased Domination, and can they give us a brief review/assurance that the quality issues that plagued MA have been worked out?

[Eric5h5]

Domination seems to have had some pretty serious quality issues with the PC version, so I'm not sure I would expect perfection, but I do hope they got it playable at least.  There was an IMG review a while back that didn't suggest anything was terribly wrong.

--Eric

[mattness]

I do of course like the Civ series, but have yet to try CivIV.  As I've said in previous posts, I have had bad luck with 3d engines in Strategy games. That and reports of it bogging down make me reluctant to purchase it.  My favorite Civ game was Sid Meirs Alpha Centauri and I still play it on occasion.  I haven't tried the OSX port since I've upgraded to intel though, so I don't know if it works.  I hope it does...   I am intrigued by Massive Assault.  I seem to have missed that one.  Anyone know how well it runs on Intel?

-mattness

[Eric5h5]

mattness, on June 14th 2008, 12:50 PM, said:

I do of course like the Civ series, but have yet to try CivIV.  As I've said in previous posts, I have had bad luck with 3d engines in Strategy games.

The 3D part of CivIV is fine, as far as not being annoying goes (not so fine as far as being fast, at least on the Mac version).

Quote

I am intrigued by Massive Assault.  I seem to have missed that one.  Anyone know how well it runs on Intel?

You should probably just skip Massive Assault and get Domination.  The game is largely the same, plus Domination is Universal.

--Eric

[Mac_Gamer]

I love to play Tradewinds Legends. It is one of the best strategy games i have ever played. If you like to play games where you need to sail, trade and battle, try this one.

[Jude]

Mac_Gamer, on June 15th 2008, 12:32 AM, said:

I love to play Tradewinds Legends. It is one of the best strategy games i have ever played. If you like to play games where you need to sail, trade and battle, try this one.

I wanted to like it because I usually love this type of trading/quest/exploration game.  But I found the "humor" to be so sexist and homophobic that it disgusted me.

Jude

[alldaveallen]

mattness, on June 14th 2008, 09:50 AM, said:

I am intrigued by Massive Assault.  I seem to have missed that one.  Anyone know how well it runs on Intel?

-mattness

I agree with Eric about going right to Domination. There's definitely more bang for your buck.  I wrote the review of Domination for IMG, and I have a fairly middle-of-the-road iMac (24", 2.16 GHz Intel Processor, 2G of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT graphics card).  Anyway, it runs very well; the only slowdowns I noticed were when there were a lot of moves for the computer to make up its mind about.  I'd recommend this game as long as you hit the "mute" button during the terrible voice-acting parts.  Read the review and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[Sparky9292]

Jude, on June 12th 2008, 04:55 AM, said:

Combat Mission series (some only work booted into OS 9, though because of Rave graphic requirements)

To be specific, only the first game of the series (Combat Mission: Beyond Overloard) had a hybrid CD that allowed the game to play on OS9.  All other releases are Windows only.  The developers have responded that they were fed up when Steve Jobs went to OSX and decided it was not worth porting.  I've tried it in Classic Mode under Tiger, but it's pretty flaky.

http://en.wikipedia....er_game_series)

Such a great series... This is worth installing Bootcamp to play.   I'm normally a RTS person, but this was the game that convinced me of how a turn based system could be fun. It's actually better than turn based in that both players set up the commands in advance at the same time, and then watch the action in real time.  They call it a WE GO system.  It's got a pretty kick ass map editor/scenario editor, and there are TONS of skins for it.

The game is actually quite easy to learn and play -- but tough to master.

[Jude]

Actually, that is not so.  I own Mac versions, on CD, of the first three games of the Combat Mission series, bought directly from the company:
Beyond Overlord
Barbarossa to Berlin
Afrika Korps  (I think this one runs under OS X all right)

You are correct that only the first game came on a hybrid CD.  The other two had separate Mac and Windows CDs, and their latest games seem to be aimed mostly at Windows.

Jude

[DaveyJJ]

Jude, on June 16th 2008, 08:56 AM, said:

Afrika Korps  (I think this one runs under OS X all right)

AK runs on OSX? Really?? Can anyone confirm this? I'll buy it in a second of true. Beyond Overlord is one of my favourite all time Mac games, ever. I loved that game and think I played that more than any other game on my Mac in the day.

EDIT ... Nope.

"Since this game is still based on the original Combat Mission code which was designed to run on Rave3D and that API is not currently supported in OS-X, CMAK will not run in native OS-X mode. In all likelihood it will also not work in classic mode either but we can not predict what changes Apple may make with Classic Rave3D support between now and the time CMAK is released. Either way, OS-X in native or classic mode is NOT supported. The aforementioned CMX2 engine WILL support OS-X."