Looking for Wargame Advice

[Azazel]

I'm looking for a wargame of some sort to play, to occupy my mind since my brother passed away a few weeks ago, since the games we used to play together are too painful to contemplate playing again right now. (he was the one who showed me this forum)

Since I'm looking for a good game to play, I'm hoping I can get some advice here. I'm not too fussed about the platform, as I have a PC/PS2/XBox/GC.

I do have a few criteria though. I'm looking for something I can sit down and think about and enjoy playing. I'm trying to occupy my mind, not twitch, so based on that, no RTS games, sorry, most of them piss me off at the best of times, and I just finished Dawn of War (I'll get the expansion eventually).

I enjoyed FF:Tactics on the PS1 a few years ago, and had a play with the GBA version when it came out, that kind of game is also fun. If anyone remembers Perfect General for the Amiga years ago, something like that would be fine. Something like FF:Tactics, Laser Squad, X-Com, that kind of thing. Squad based is fine, as is unit based and army based. I used to play a fair bit of Warhammer 40k/Necromunda/etc, so squad-sized skirmish is aslso good.

I rented Dynasty Tactics 2, but the overwhelming abount of bullshit in it, delivered one short sentence at a time, made me want to frisbee the disc across the street.

Given my current circumstances, the old SSI type wargames are probably more complex than I'm after. Not to mention hard to get hold of..

any suggestions?

thanks,

[Mr. Right]

 Gladius(ps2) is a good tactical RPG.  There's some grinding but the harder match actualy require strategy to win.

[stray]

Agreed. Cool game that kind of caught me by surprise. Probably pretty cheap nowadays too.

[Mr. Right]

Yep, got it for 19$ at my local EB.

[Trippy]

PC: Rome - Total War (you can let the comp resolve the battles for you)
PS2: Disgaea

[Krakrok]

I second Rome Total War. You can pick it up plus the two previous versions of it for $40. Total War: Collectors Edition. Civ 4 comes out the 25th. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri can be had for $10.

[Jain Zar]

Well, as a lover of turn based, I have plenty of suggestions.

Some will require ebaying to get, others a little extra hardware, but if you want the goodness, you need to earn it, believe it! :)
(Plus the hunt can be almost as mind consuming as the play.  My sympathies on your loss.)

Stuff you can run RIGHT NOW.

PC
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Complete: Conquer the world styled game.  Recruit heroes, explore the world, build your cities and have the heroes lead your troops to victory.  Multiple races, hero types, and multiple scenarios and persistant campaign modes to play with including campaign and map makers.  Its long OOP, but runs wonderfully under Windows XP.  Should be able to get it cheap on Ebay.  I recently reinstalled it and its enthralling me.

Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares:  Space conquer the galaxy game.  Create your own starships and have massive fleet battles.  Huge diplomacy and tech trees to play with.   Long OOP, but really common, and last time I checked it runs great on XP.  A classic one can't really ever get tired of.

X Box
Dai Senryaku: Modern Millitary Tactics: Hex based beer and pretzels styled wargame.  Multiple scenarios and units to unlock for multiplayer and free play.  Command modern army units and blow stuff up.  A niche game published at a budget price, its really cool, but might be tricky to find.

If you are willing to add a Gameboy player to your Gamecube, you would have access to Rebelstar Tactical Command, an X Com Light game made by the X Com guys, and the 2 godly Advance Wars games.

[HRose]

Lum would suggest Hearts of Iron 2.

[Moaner]

Lum would suggest Hearts of Iron 2.

So would I.  It's one of my favorites.

[Rodent]

Pretty much any of the games from Paradox really. I still fire up Europa Universalis II from time to time. That reminds me, I need to pick up Diplomacy soon.

[Tmon]

Battle Front makes/publishes some good traditional and other type wargames.  The Combat Mission line is especially good.  www.battlefront.com

[schild]

Anything from Nippon Ichi. Trippy mentioned Disgaea - there's also La Pucelle Tactics, Makai Kingdom, and Phantom Brave. Disgaea may be hard to track down (Makai Kingdom maybe also). But the other two are readily available.

Despite my inability to stick with Dai Senryaku, I also recommend it. There's something about modern/non-stylized vehicles and warfare that bores me pretty quickly.

[Lum]

I'd actually suggest Europa Universalis 2 before Hearts of Iron 2, it's much more accessible.

Hearts of Iron 2 is great once you've spent 2 years playing EU2, but it's not terribly friendly for the novice.

If you're looking at consoles, the Kingdom under Fire series is actually surprisingly good. Like Dynasty Warriors, but with strategy. The interface for controlling units and setting waypoints is pretty intuitive and the game rewards things like using terrain and flanking.

[Comstar]

Strat based Space : Galactic Civilaztions

Old School retro: Empire Deluxe Internet Edition

Table Top Wargame not a RTS: Combat misson and its sequals.

[schild]

If you're looking at consoles, the Kingdom under Fire series is actually surprisingly good. Like Dynasty Warriors, but with strategy. The interface for controlling units and setting waypoints is pretty intuitive and the game rewards things like using terrain and flanking.

The problem with Kingdom Under FIre is the difficulty curve. It switches from easy to SUPER FREAKING HARD halfway through the game. That's just bad design.

Also, in that vein - Kessen II for the PS2. Devil Kings comes out this week as well (PS2 only).

If you have an xbox and are looking for something a little different, try out Wrath Unleashed. If you want to throw the wargame part completely out the window, Culdcept for the PS2 rocks total ass as well. But that's really just Monopoly + Magic: The Gathering. Also on the PS2 is Stella Deus and Front Mission 4.

I think that just about covers consoles. Oh, and Fire Emblem comes out in a few weeks for the Gamecube.

I'd actually suggest Europa Universalis 2 before Hearts of Iron 2, it's much more accessible.

Do not challenge the HRose. It's a safe bet he knows more about you than you do.

[Lum]

Leaving aside HRose's peering into the inky darkness of my soul, KUF's difficulty level (especially for the latest game) is totally insane, agreed. But it's still a pretty nifty game system. It's what Dynasty Warriors SHOULD have been. The whole control scheme is the best I've seen for an RTS on consoles. Plus there are cheese tactics you can use that will even the odds. Develop an officer with level 15+ Kaleidoflamma (the AOE fire attack) and you can rout any unit you run into in seconds. Very, very cheesy but given that you're frequently tossing back 20-1 odds it's only fair, really. 

The REALLY difficult parts (that I haven't gotten past yet) are the campaigns that START throwing insaneness at you, before you can develop workable cheese. Leinhardt's first mission - come on, you just threw 4 wyvern units at a level 10 archer whiich just got through surviving an ambush, how is that remotely fair? That's when you remember - yep, it's a Korean game after all!

[HRose]

Actually I found HoI2 easier to toy with than EU2. There's a lot more stuff to do, so you are always messing with something.

Instead there are fewer things to manage and break on EU2 so I pass time trying to figure out what I am "supposed" to do while the game cycles go on with me just staring at the screen.

[HaemishM]

Late, but I'm going to second or third any of the Total War games. The real-time part isn't really all that real-time (more like a tabletop mini wargame than most things I've seen), and the strategy side is deep.

Also, Combat Mission is the win.

[naum]

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/

[Yegolev]

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/

Hotseat and PBEM?  Neat.  I thought people had forgotten how to make games.

Also, damn you for giving me another game to play, assuming it holds up.

[Murgos]

Dom2 has gameplay in spades.  Graphics, not so much.

My current favorite Wargame is War in the Pacific good luck getting through a PBEM in less than 6 months though.  If you wan't to see how it plays go the forums and read the after-action reports there.  There are some threads of people fighting out the whole WWII campaign that have been going for over a year.  Some of it is very interesting.

[Tale]

Battle Front makes/publishes some good traditional and other type wargames.  The Combat Mission line is especially good.  www.battlefront.com

I second this. From reading the original post, I think the only thing that will satisfy you is Combat Mission or its sequels.

You give orders like in a turn-based game, but the other side has its turn at the same time. When you have both finished giving orders, the next minute of the battle occurs based on your orders (plus good AI reactions for things like morale and being shelled). The graphics are not terrible, but it's definitely gameplay first, graphics second.

The demo for their original game Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord is a few years old, but has a lot of gameplay in it (the village battle has a lot of possibilities): http://www.battlefront.com/downloads.html - the more recent demos are a bit thinner.

[Azazel]

Thanks to all of you for all the replies.

I've started messing around with Fallout Tactics, which I started playing back when it was new, but a good old HDD crash ended.

I also borrowed a copy of Rome: Total War, but found it annoying that you can;t save during the tutorial. (I dont have 4 hours to spend doing multiple missions all at once to learn. I'd rather do it a bit at a time.. and since the gam,e has such a decent turotial mode, I'd rather learn as I go then RTFM.

I installed my copy of Combat Mission 2. I'd bought it ages ago, during one of EB's many sales and picked it up for like au$25 and had a bit of a play. (I have CM1 and CM:Afrika as well). Good move was losing my manuals for both CM1 and 2  since I was moving them around the house reading them, (ok, scanning through them) though at least I know they'll turn up soon.

Reinstalled Civ3, started a couple of games, got the shits with them both times. I'll start another one soon. Though I was half-tempted to reinstall Civ2 again. Going through my Brother's PC a couple of nights ago, I found his latest/last Civ2 save, which looks to have been done just a few hours before he passed. So maybe I won't reinstall it after all. Civ 4 might be ok. I'll wait for the reviews, hopefully they won't release Multiplayer as some kind of seperate bullshit add-on like they did with Civ 3.

Started playing Dungeon Seige w/Legends of Aranna, which I'd purchased for him last year and he'd never installed (too busy with EQ1, Diablo 2, Desert Combat and Civ2, I guess. Started a character with his ranger's name and played through it for awhile. Can you say "flailing?".

A friend of a friend who works at THQ is going to be getting me a copy of DoW: Winter Assault on the cheap. If I can convince a specific person or two to also purchase it, we'll have more to play online together besides BF2, since we're now in different cities.


I'd played Gladius (PS2) as a rental awhile ago, and this thread made me think "oh yeah, I should buy that, now that it should be cheap". So of course, it's now deleted here in Australia. No EB I have called have any copies, even secondhand. How much is it from the US? US$19? That's only about au$25. Maybe I'll mail order it if I can find someone willing to send it. My PS2 is modded to be import-friendly.

Dai Senryaku: Modern Millitary Tactics looks good, but is unavailable here in Australia, and my X-Box isn't modded to play imports. I was going to get the operation done to get MAME happening, especially since I just bought that PS2 15th Anniverssary stick, since my bro hated gamepads but was into the old-school arcade games (being pretty much the one who introduced me to them. I guess I'll still get it done sometime, but it's not the best choice for me for the moment, since I was half-getting it done so we could play them together.

I'll keep en eye oput for the others, but sadly, OOP games are hard to find here, and ebay.au is next to useless. ebay.com is full of people not willing to ship a $20 computer game outside the US.

HoI2/EU2 both look interesting, but they also look potentially over-complicated. I don't mind RTFM, but I hate needing to refer to it constantly just to play.

A GameBoy player might be an idea, if I could find one anymore, and if they cost less than buying a gamecube.. I have the first Advance Wars which I played a lot when travelling overseas a couple of years ago. I might even finish FF:T:A or whichever Zelda game I was on.. Link to the Past: 4 swords, I think. Or whatever it was called.

Kessen 2 - added to my "to rent" list.

Empire Deluxe Internet Edition - As in "Empire: Wargame of the Century" from the Amiga days? We used to hotseat that in MP. I had the fun of packing up all the old Amiga games from his shelves to put into storage, since I got the Amis and Ami stuff. Empire was one of the ones that went into the "special" box, along with Wings. Damn, that's a game I wish they'd remake, like they did Pirates!

I'll check out Dominions 2, I just downloaded Mount and Blade as well, when I get a chance, I'll install them.

[Comstar]

Empire Deluxe Internet Edition - As in "Empire: Wargame of the Century" from the Amiga days? We used to hotseat that in MP. I had the fun of packing up all the old Amiga games from his shelves to put into storage, since I got the Amis and Ami stuff. Empire was one of the ones that went into the "special" box, along with Wings. Damn, that's a game I wish they'd remake, like they did Pirates!

Yes as in  Empire:Wargame of the Century from the old Amiga Days. It's actulaly called Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition. Demo avilable. An original version that can be played by TCP/IP and a newer version with more units.

[Mortriden]

HoI2 is really quite fun.  Once you get the basics down you don't have to RFTM at all.  It's once you turn up the AI that the extra tidbits in there become more important.  It's downfall is short timespan.  The longest you have to work with is something like 12 years or so.  There are a few promising Mods that are in devolopment though.

[Yegolev]

I've started messing around with Fallout Tactics, which I started playing back when it was new, but a good old HDD crash ended.

I guess now is an OK time to admit that I like Fallout Tactics.

A GameBoy player might be an idea, if I could find one anymore, and if they cost less than buying a gamecube.

Nintendo of USA won't ship outside NA and Nintendo of Oz is sold out.  Retails for $99.95.  The unit itself is regionless, but the boot disc isn't IIRC.  Try ebay.com or, better yet, misspelledauctions.com and see what you can find.
http://www.nintendo.com.au/gamecube/accessories/index.php
http://www.nintendo.com.au/gamecube/accessories/gbplayer.php

[Azazel]

Found a Gameboy Player today, (ex-bundle stock) but brand new for $99, so I just picked that up now. Apparently they stopped selling them here about 2 years ago..

For Gladius - No luck whatsoever. EB.com has pre-owned ones for $14.99 plus $29.99 shipping to Australia.. I know a global priority envelope costs only $5 if you send CDs/DVDs flat with cover sans case. Maybe if I can find someone willing to let me PayPal them $20-25 to mail one over will be the only way I can get it..

[naum]

Dominions II: The Ascension Wars
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/

Hotseat and PBEM?  Neat.  I thought people had forgotten how to make games.

Also, damn you for giving me another game to play, assuming it holds up.

It's a deep strategy game, not for all, graphics suck, but there are hotkeys for handling your turn, and the map can zoom in and out.

- Forums where you can find MP games and strategy discussion … and the strategy is deep for this game with all the nation variants and God compositions…

- The maps that come with the game suck too, but you can download some here, the ones by Targa (Karan, Clash of the Titans) are really good. You can make your own too — all you need is a image editor (Gimp, Photoshop) capable of creating a .tga file. Then just remember to put a white pixel at the center of each province, and you can use the in game editor (or edit the file by hand) to create the corresponding map file.

- A decent walktrhu and strategy guide available, though they are dated now.