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Micro-or-Mini Management PC Strategy Game?

Posted by simoniker on from the little-napoleon dept.

darth_MALL writes "I've been looking high and low for the ultimate (could even be free!) single-player PC strategy game that offers detailed troop/battle management. I've met a few contenders that fit the bill: Medieval: Total War is a primo candidate, but Europe just ain't enough! I hate to say, the magic is gone - what I really want is to conquer the known universe from top to bottom. I checked out Ferion, as per another /.'ers suggestion, but it wasn't quite the same thrill as M:TW. What is a bloodthirsty, single player tyrant to do?"

8 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Freeciv by nickos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's free and you can get it here

  2. Oldie but a goodie! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1995's Master of Magic!! Should be able to find a copy for free on the abandonware sites.

    1. Re:Oldie but a goodie! by timbur · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Master of Magic was very fun. Too bad it was so buggy that if you did anything in DOS after running it, it scrambled your FAT. (I ran all my SIM-TEX games in my "SIMTEXSUX" partition.)

      If you like Master of Magic, try Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic.

  3. Myth by Have+Blue · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's all troop management and zero resource gathering. It's fairly old by now, but there are third party patches available to make it compatible with OS X or Windows XP.

  4. Civ3 by hsoft · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Each time I make the mistake of reinstalling that game, I waste countless hours playing it. This is one of the best games, although a things annoys me a lot, and fixing it would probably make it a perfect game for me:

    Technology's going too fast. One of the only way to win when you play at higher difficulties is to have the best techs, so you can have the most powerful units. However, by the time you build an army to attack, your units are already obsolete, and upgrading is quite expensive. Thus, the only time where there is real war is when everybody has the modern tanks and ICMBs and stealth jets. Thus, all the other units are in case you get attacked.

    This is of course if you don't annihilate your ennemy at the start of the game. So, that's either at the start, or at the end of the technology tree that things move.

    I wonder if there is a mod that makes technologies MUCH more expensive ( I think of something like 3X or 4X more expensive ). I guess it would make the game much more enjoyable, and would make it *necessary* to trade technologies in order to reach the 4th age before 2050, and even if everybody still is at 2nd age at 2050, that would have been a cool game :)

    --
    perception is reality
  5. X-COM? by Apreche · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You manage everything from way up high with a map of the earth down to exactly how many bullets a soldier carries and how many steps they take. Does it get more detailed than that?

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
  6. Combat Mission by Colazar · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's not a strategic-level game, but the various flavors of Combat Mission, which you can get over at battlefront.com might fit be something you enjoy. It's WW2 squad-level combat, with the different versions being different fronts of the war.

    It's sort of turn-based. You give instructions to all of your units that are in-command (yes, it takes communication between units into account) and then it executes 10 seconds worth of time (which you can view from any vantage point that is in your area of control), and then you repeat. It is extremely historically accurate, and the most detailed *tactical* computer game I have ever seen. It has the feel of a miniatures game that has been translated over to computer, but done extremely well.

    Most of their games also have Mac versions (unfortunately OS9 only -- and don't work in Classic). Their newest Combat Mission game is going to be OSX, but I can't remember if that's out yet.

    --
    He decided to just watch the government, and kind of scale it down to size, and run his life that way. --Laurie Anderson
  7. Dominions II by baalz · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Dominions II is a mind bogglingly complex turn based strategy game I've recently discovered. It has so many elements in it that make you go "why hasn't anybody done this before?". The detail level is insane, from the 400+ spells to the mind boggling variety of units, its as deep as it is wide. Not only do they have practically every type of fantasy unit you can imagine, each one has all the stats of a typical RPG character and gains not only experience and skills, but battle afflictions like losing an eye or gaining a limp, and thats not even counting the hero units. The creativity is amazingly refreshing. Instead of the typical elves/orcs/dwarves there are elvish-flavored vikings, giant-spider-riding africans, lava men, and a dozen other equally fresh playable races. The distinct difference of picking one of dozens of gods(that you actually walk around and kick ass with), one of 17(?I think?) races, and ballancing 8 paths of magic make the replayability of this game more than any I've ever played.

    On the downside, the initial learning curve is a bit steep. Check out the demo but believe me, even the veteran gamer will want to take a run through the fan created tutorial