Great Strategy Games ?

Apart from Civ4 & Football Manager I havn't played many PC games in recent years & I am looking for some advice regarding good TBS & RTS games. After doing a bit of searching around I have come up with the following shortlist but have a few questions that hopefully the gaming comunity on here can answer.

World in Conflict
Sins of a Solar Empire
Company of Heroes - Gold Edition
Supreme Commander - Gold Edition
Galactic Civilizations II - Deluxe Edition
Age of Mythology - Gold Edition
Medeival II - Total War

(1) As some are older games are there any known problems with running them with Vista Home Premium ?

(2) Any problems running any of them on a Dell XPS T7500 2.2 mhz 4mbL2, GT8600M 256 DDR3 & 320gb 5400 HD ?

(3) General comments on how good or bad they are & any other must buy titles.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

1. Age of Mythology might have some trouble, but running it in compatibility mode will fix that.

2. No.

3. I really like all of those games, they're all quite a bit of fun. The original Empire Earth is a GREAT game, so is Stronghold Crusader, but those two are old. The M2TW series is a lot of fun.

 

You forgot the Age of Empires Series, emphasis on AOEII: Conquerors Expansion. I have wasted many a night playing through both random maps, as well as the campaigns. It's on $20 I think for both AOEII and the expansion, a must buy if you're into RTSes.

 

1. Most of the games you listed are pretty new, so you will probably have no problems with running them on Vista. Problems might appear with Age of Mythology, since it is older game (2002), but it costs nothing to you to install it and check is there any problem. I suppose not, but cannot be sure.

2. No, your machine is enough for every game up here (medium/high settings). Maybe you will have to reduce settings on Supreme Commander, though.

3. I played AoM, Total War, CoH and Supreme Commander and those are all the great games (I'm still playing AoM on my desktop). The same I heard about SoaSE and World in Conflict. If you have many cash to spend, maybe you should check Age of Empires serial (although AoE 3 is a dissapointment, judging by impressions of its players).

I saw you mentioned Age of Mythology Gold Edition. What is that? Original verision + Titans expansion maybe? Is there any extra stuff inside?

 

Playing Rome: Total War at the moment....WOW!! makes games like C&C look like arcade coin-ops LOL! It´s turn-based AND realtime all cooked up into one. My girlfriend hates it though cuz it eats up a lot of my free time

 

The best of the best:

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire

It'll take a bit of work to get them installed on XP or Vista but some googling (or asking me) will lead you to the answers. Yes, the graphics of this 10 year old game is a bit dated but the gameplay and depth is unsurpassed. There's a group that is making an AC mod conversion for Civ IV that should be interesting.

 

Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars
Age of Empires 2 and 3

These are two RTS games I'd highly recommend.

 

World in Conflict and Sins of a Solar Empire are a must, both are RTS.

Both will run on your system without a hitch. You might have to lower your resolution or lower some settings in WiC though.

 

I max WiC on my system at 1680x1050 =D so you shouldn't have any problem. What is your resolution?

I go for WiC & C&C3

 

The games you've listed are some of the best available right now. I'd also suggest Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War Platinum edition -- availablle on Steam for about 29.99 USD -- it plays like a simpler/scifi themed company of heroes (it is made by the same company).

Later this year (and into next) I'd suggests getting Red Alert 3 and also Demigod when those come out.

Otherwise, you are in for a real treat, those are all really amazing games.

 

With an 8600GT? If that's the case, you know you are full of it, right?

 

Yea, that claim doesnt sound right.

Here is what a little search pulls out, I dont have WiC, but given these settings I find it hard to believe:

I just re-installed it today and well, it runs like WAY WAY better than before

My settings:
1680x1050
2xAA, 4xAF
Everything on highest except:
Water Reflection= 512
Compressed textures

All special effects except DX10 & Water Reflection

I'm getting 10-25FPS, which is great for that game

 

That's impossible. I can run (somewhat) smoothly at 1440x900 on medium with my card.

 

I would recommend WiC or C&C3 to tide you over until Starcraft 2 comes out.

Demigod is also a good looking game but it is much more like DOTA than an actual RTS. Pushed back to 2009 though.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I despise DotA as much as the next gamer, but improving the DotA formula and applying it to a new IP using the SupCom engine is going to make Gas Powered Games so freaking wealthy.

Fricken brilliant, that move.

 

Seconded!
That game was awesome. Although to be fair, Civ4 comes close to it (largely because it steals so many ideas from AC), and looks better and works *way* better in multiplayer.

But still, AC is awesome.

Anyway, get Dawn of War.

 

Thanks for all the great replies...

I think it's just original game & expansion.

Never played any game in the Total War series... After reading a few reviews I think I might start out with Rome TW then move onto Medeival 2 if I get hooked by the gamplay.

Any thoughts as to the best game in this series to start with ?

Played AC in the past and loved it, gonna look out for that mod, where would be the best place to find it... Appolyton ?

I played the original AOE and first 2 C&C games both were fun games but I prefered the gameplay of AOE. One game that hasn't been mentioned but is Rise of Nations which seems to be AOE with more strategic elements and might be more my thing.

 

Rome Total War is excellent for start. Gameplay is awesome, if you don't mind bothering with economy and towns developing (which is pretty interesting, at least in the shape it was made in R:TW). Also, variety of nations, wonders, military formations and weather conditions bring new, great dimension to playing.

 

I'd also recommend Universe at War: Earth Assault... It too is buckets of fun.

 

I've heard Microsoft's Live service KILLED online play for universe at war. That at peak times, hardly anyone is playing. Is that true?

 

There is no problems with AOM and vista

 

As far as a thinking persons strategy game. My vote has to go to Galactic Civilization II and Best Buy is now selling the Gold Edition for $19.99

It has a very cunning AI and almost human like in how it deals with a human player. The only downside are the graphics. This is the perfect bridge between Master's of Orion and Civilization.

Galactic Civ 2 Gold Edition adds the expansion pack Dark Avatar which makes the AI even more cunning than the first game.

If your into really deep space strategy games this is your best bet. It has been praised by the reviewers who have played it like IGN, and Gamespot.

 

Civilization IV + the 2 expansions.

One of the greatest games of all time, IMO.

 

It's okay, compatibility mode means the OS emulates an older operating system (like XP or 2000 or 98). You run it in compatibility mode by right clicking on the icon, then selecting "Run in compatibility mode" and choose the OS (XP works fine)

 

Read the reviews and it sounds great... only problem is the gold edition doesnt seem to be available in the UK Original game is pretty cheap @ £5.99 del & then I would have to download Dark Avatar from Stardock's site, same with Sins of the Solar Empire !!!

Got CivIV & Expansions - IMHO Best Game Ever

Thanks, thought it would be something like that.

 

Can anybody confirm that the universe at war MP population is non-existent? I'd like to buy the game, but not if no one plays MP.

 

Its not non-existant, you will be able to find a game without much trouble.

The online service is terrible though as you will have to pay $50 extra to get full online functionality.

I personally boycotted the game, and so did many others, because M$ was trying to make us pay to play a PC RTS game online.

 

ebay is your friend. This seller ships worldwide.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Galactic-Civili...VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

 

Found a couple of international Ebay sellers with the retail box version myself, the cheapest one was from Aus...Though it still works out more expensive with shipping than buying the 1st game & downloading Dark Avatar. Does the Gold Edition contain any extras that I wouldnt get with by Downloading the 2nd ?

 

What do you mean 50 dollars extra? I thought it was a monthly fee? Either way, im not paying extra to play an RTS online.

 

Also check craigslist

 

I don't think so as Stardock usually makes any extra goodies for their games free of charge on their website.

I purchased Galactic Civilization II Limited Edition when it first came out and it contained some cool little extras. A couple of months after it's release they posted them on their website free of charge.

I wasn't too upset because both the regular version and Limited Edition sold for the same price.

 

I've played WiC and Company of Heroes. World in Conflict was great. It had a pretty good storyline and it looked beautiful, even on my ancient desktop on all low settings. It also wasn't too hard/intense like some games are.

Company of Heroes is excellent. It's unlike pretty much any other RTS that I've ever played with its squad-based gameplay. This one can get pretty hard sometimes, though. There is a lot of micro-managing. It's worth it, however.

I've also played Rome: Total war, which is pretty similar to Medieval: Total War, I think. It's one of those "one more turn" games, in that you'll keep telling yourself that you're only going to play one more turn. It's very addictive and very fun. If you try the game and like it, keep an eye out for Empire: Total War. It's set in the 18th-19th centuries, and it looks great.

When I get my new computer, I'm gonna try out Sins of a Solar Empire and SupCom. Sins looks pretty interesting, but SupCom looks almost too big for me.

 

Keep in mind that the integrated benchmarking tool benchmarks in the worse possible condition: 100% zoom with camera following units/shaking/following TAs/3rd person view while in game you usually keep zoom at 0% with aerial view like in any other RTS

EDIT: Just for comparison:
Medium 2xAA 4xAF


High 2xAA 4xAF


MAX (not very high, everything maxed), 0xAA 0xAF


On picture, medium & max look pretty much the same, the differences mainly lie in physics & special effects, thus the CPU-bound features. I can't take prt scrn + paint pictures under DX10 for whatever reason but it's:
Min 7
AVG 10
Max: 16

at MAX 0xAA 0xAF. It DOES look really better imho. Better shadow effects (smokes and cloud affecting brightness under them, progressive darkening of the battlefield rather than 1 shot), GOD RAYS (awesome with water reflection at 1024) )

 

C&C games
WIC
Sins of Solar Empire

 

Red Alert original
Dawn of War
Company of Heroes

My staple strategy diet since I was about 11.

 

Maybe I'm a bit of a fanboy, but I believe one of the greatest RTS's of all times is being forgotten right now:

Warcraft 3.

point 1:blizzard (so you know the production values and balance are top-notch)
point 2:still has a huge online community, and mods are still being developed
point 3:graphics have aged quite gracefully, and has more charm than most modern-day rts's, which makes up for lack of pixel-shading, etc.
point 4:game+expansion can be had very little money (+-20€/$)

I've played all of the modern-day rts's (CoH, SupCom, C&C3, WiC, M2TW, Civ4) and imo the only ones which are comparable are CoH and Civ4.

 

I had just finished Crysis over the weekend and was going thru my backlog of PC games sitting on my shelves (yes, plural) to see what was next to install. I came across a couple of strat games I had completely forgotten about. These were a lot of fun and I think will still hold up well graphically. I think I may load them up again once done the two I decided on (in sig).

Age of Wonders (I & II)

AoW are fantasy turn-based games with lots of depth. Check them out if you can.

 

Tropico (pretty old, but just fantastic)
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (probably the best modern AoE Clone, great fun in Multiplayer)

 

World in Conflict
Red Alert 2
Warcraft 3
Command and Conquer 3

^^^^ WiC & RA2 the kings of the industry!!

All I can think of at the moment...

 

So what do you do when a nuke goes off. Wait for ages?

 

The total war series pwns. Seriously epic in quality. The civ series is great but what it lacks is exciting battles that you are in control over. The civ combat seemed to me to leave too much to chance. Kind of like risk. In the total war series you can totally overcome the odds by being skillfull in warfare and using your assets in creative ways on the battle field.

but man is it a time sink. its terrible that I got it right in time for final school projects. I just have to take the time to make the Danish pay for backstabbing me.

 

It drops to 5 FPS for 3-4 seconds

 

u forgot Battle for Middle Earth!!!!

 

I personally wouldn't call 16fps playable. Anything under 30fps is garbage.

That's for RTS's of course since split seconds don't count. I know a lot of people get severe headaches (myself included) playing a lagging sub 30 fps screen.

For FPS's 60 fps is what you're looking for.

Geeze, 16fps...I couldn't fathom playing with such a terrible machine.

 

Agree that 16 fps is terrible. However, the human eye cannot tell the difference between a (stable) 30fps and 60fps.

 

I've heard that too but it's false. It only applies to theatre and television.

Motion blur gives the human brain (through the eye) the illusion of high framerates. Motion blur does not exist in pc gaming, hence why you need higher framerates on your pc.

Here's a link that explains it pretty decent, though I think it's a bit dated since lcd's don't run at 72 hz, sounds like they're talking crt's.

http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_1.html

 

world in conflict, dawn of war, red alert tiberium war AND total war, be it rome or medieval playing on such a grand scale is awesome

 

I play on medium settings DX10 with 1440*900 resolution. This is my benchmark screenshot. It is with using the now very old 101.08 drivers which seem to work best for me.