Empire Deluxe Combined Edition
Having played the Empire series since the late 80’s, I put off buying this game because I was afraid that I was going to be disappointed. I was afraid that it was going to be not much more than the same game with a new UI and I my fears were not far from the mark. It feels like to me that the game has been dumbed down as happens with so many games these days. Things like the Command Queue and the Processing Queue were two things that I found very useful in the earlier iterations of the game and I do not enjoy playing without them. While the developer feels he has streamlined the game I feel as if it has been made more cumbersome. Multiple commands to a battle unit were instrumental to me in keeping the game moving at a quick pace. Having to enter a second command to make a unit attack a city is not a streamlined effect at all. It might not sound like much that adds up to THOUSANDS of extra commands on a sizeable map per game. While there are some aspects of the new interface that I find useful I do not find them to be a fair trade off for the things that I liked being lost. Hopefully there will be some future patches to make this game as enjoyable as I had hoped it would be. EDIT: Oh, and good luck trying to have the game build you an all land map. You will almost 100% of the time get an island start which is the exact opposite of what you were going for and if you should decide to play the map (don’t) when you finally encounter the AI you’ll find the island cities of the AI haven’t even expanded at all. So you wasted all those turns.
– Real player with 271.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Indie Games.
I’ve played this turn-based game since DOS and enjoy it. Nice that Steam has it available. I tried the Enhanced Edition and didn’t care for it so I found a way to run my original Windows 3 version and have been playing that. This Combined version is nice as it will most likely be easier to grow into the new EE version capabilities.
Update: I have played Empire Deluxe Combined for several weeks now. I LOVE playing this game. It is a turned-based game and so you can step away from the game at anytime without negative impact. Not too many games that fit that category anymore…..spouse/kid/pet friendly to the max.
– Real player with 234.2 hrs in game
Imperium Galactica II
One of the most addictive games I’ve ever played. On one level I hate this game because of the amount of hours I’ve sat glued to it, getting my a_s_s kicked over and over again (my actual playtime is higher since I played this before it came on Steam). I’d say if you have problems with losing all sense of time when you play games, and might lose an entire week, then tread carefully with this one.
The good:
Overall a very compelling simulation.
The game is filled with interesting choices and trade-offs…
– Real player with 411.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
I have finished the game. In Steam version.
There are bugs that I encountered these:
-While you are in enemy planet ground battle , if you see a construction state of any Defense Tower, ground units wont listen you and attack it automatically.
-Sometimes ordering Fleet to attack to somewhere doesnt work, You need to press Alt or Ctrl , Reason is , It is a move command setbind and stucks randomly
Review:
This game maybe have not graphics but THE CREATIVITY is the best thing in this game
You can play in Ground and in Space
– Real player with 177.7 hrs in game
Imperium Galactica
You can add about another 150hrs to that total from the early 2000s when I played a massive game conquering every single planet due to me not realising I was meant to unite all the races in an alliance against the Dargslan lol.
Imperium Galactica 1, the first amazing 3 in 1 game (Master of Orion, Sim City and C&C/Dune style gameplays) that started it all. Well okay, not quite for me as admittedly I didn’t play it until after playing its sequel IG2! However that didn’t make me love it any less, in fact there are parts of IG1 that I love even more than IG2.
– Real player with 102.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best 4X Strategy Games.
An Oldie but Goldie.
Advice for early on: Build a Colony Hub ASAP, Focus on Building your Economics (largely leave taxes “Moderate” and make the Planets attractive(High Morale) with Churches, Bars, Recreation Centers, and Police), then work on commerce (Trader Spaceports, Banks) and when you are able to Weapons and Research. A good Offence is the Best Defense (just remember that most fleets are faster than you so you may only get 1 space/fleet battle to before you have to defend your planet.)
– Real player with 96.9 hrs in game
Master of Orion 1
I played this game when it first came out kids. That’s right. I played on DOS. My CPU was so slow in late game you’d hit ‘next turn’ and go grab lunch and PRAY it was done when you got back. Games took a while.
Back then you kept your games on a shelf, in boxes like freakin' board games. Back then you went to a physical store and walked around trying to decide what to buy because the gaming magazines with reviews lagged behind the release of games so you had to decide what was good by the box art.
– Real player with 4370.9 hrs in game
Minimal micro-managing. Multiple choices: play one of 10 species; 1-5 opponents; 4 “galaxy” sizes; 4-5 levels of difficulty; up to 15 random events, positive or negative that may or may not occur. There is usually more than 1 choice, often 2-4 of next level of technology to focus research on (computer, construction, force field, planetology, propulsion, weapons) and options via sliding bars to apportion research points among categories; likewise choices @ ea planet to apportion among shipbuilding, missile bases, industry, ecology, tech. You have shipbuilding choice features (size/ propusion/weapons/special features); espionage/sabotage/limited interactive communication choices; ship/fleet combat. Graphics limited (2D). If you want to spend less time learning the game and just playing, this is an easy game to learn and can readily be made more challenging by your selection of species, level of difficulty and size of star domain. If current tech-graphics and very detailed management are more to your liking, you will want a more modern version of MOO or one of the more recently developed similar themed games.
– Real player with 1154.0 hrs in game
Conquest of the New World
This is an old game I firt bought around 20 years ago. I enjoyed it a lot then and still enjoy it. The controls are very basic and the graphics are poor by today’s standards but it is still fun to play and does take strategy to conquer the new world. For $10 I’m very happy with my purchase, I’m only irritated that I had to purchase the game a second time because my current machines don’t support the old software.
– Real player with 1783.2 hrs in game
This game is an old favorite of mine from many years ago. Although its graphics are now very dated, and it is a turn-based game in an era when most people seem to prefer real time (at least, the people who sell games seem to think so!), I have always found it to be a very well conceived, highly playable, and unusually entertaining game. It might very well have become one of my all-time favorite games if not for one fatal flaw: It contains a number of bugs which, in extended play, render it literally unplayable! The most annoying of these is that, in battles between large armies, the game hangs in the middle of the battle, and is unrecoverable. The only solution to this I have ever been able to find is to save your game before the start of each turn so that you have a fall-back position if you hang. Note that you must save under a new name, exit your game, and restart under the original name each time you do this (in other words, there is no “Quick Save” option as in so many other games). This makes it such a nuisance that you are not likely to do it. But even if you do, what’s the point? In order to not hang, you must choose not to have the battle. But without large battles, this game holds little interest for me. So when I saw that Steam was offering Conquest on their platform, I was excited to think that they might be offering a playable version, and I immediately bought a copy (at full price). Unfortunately, once I got well into the game (about Turn 120), the same old problem occurred. When playing on my own computer I was sometimes able to resolve the hangup by force-closing the hung game and rebooting the computer. Obviously rebooting the Steam server which supports this game is not an option. So here I am, having invested about a week in playing Conquest (actually 24.1 hours of play time according to Steam), and my game can neither be continued nor reverted to an earlier position – not that going back would necessarily help, anyway. I’m sure you can imagine my frustration level, and my disappointment that Steam did nothing to fix this potentially classic game before offering it for sale.
– Real player with 838.7 hrs in game
Master of Orion 2
This is probably the game I’ve played most of. The game’s difficulty relies on how you choose your race, or your race traits. It takes foresight and decision making calculation (skill) to become an effective leader. Noted, it is still possible for the most skilled players to loose on the ‘impossible’ difficulty.
Best 4X game i’ve played thus far.
Big (+)’s
-Music is good (excluding variety in it though)
-AI play their set difficulty level
-Custom race traits are resolute and have sensible outcomes
– Real player with 155.6 hrs in game
I’ve received this game from a friend.
How one can rate masterpiece? Masterpiece is a game that is complex, with many possibilities, allowing experimentation on one hand, but on the other it has easy GUI, navigation and is not overloaded with too many statistics, options, etc. (this is where MOO3 failed). Such game also should have good music and good graphic with nice effects (this game also had this when it was published). Many games tried to copy from this game, but most failed.
At the beginning I strongly recommend to tweak dosbox settings, the default Steam window setting is barely playable. Edit the dosboxMOO2.conf file, change the lines to:
– Real player with 96.7 hrs in game
Master of Magic Classic
The best game of my life came to Steam.
I’ve been playing Master of Magic since it first came out in ‘94. I was in middle school back then, I think my dad mail ordered the game for me and my brother as a gift. I played it over and over. I played it even after I got the Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, PS 2, 3, 4, signed up for WoW classic, BC, FT, got the Elder Scrolls series, and until last year, after I learned about the Caster of Magic mod.
I’ll just say that it fundamentally changed my life. I’ve developed a strong preference for fantasy themed games, novels and even board games and strategy games. I’ve read many fantasy novels and light novels, even wrote some, and went on to play fantasy-themed RPG’s and simulations like HOMM series and Baldur’s Gate series. But still, even after literally 25 years of challenge, Master of Magic is still the best game ever for me.
– Real player with 425.1 hrs in game
Unfortunately there have been severe changes to the base game. I will detail the changes I think are not in keeping with the spirit of the original game.
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Very little reward from claiming towers etc. Now all you get is mainly mana, money and some rubbish item.
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The AI can see everything and exploits that advantage whereas the player has to actually scout the terrain. The AI uses its unfair sight advantage to hunt down your units that it couldn’t possibly be able to see if it wasn’t cheating.
– Real player with 330.0 hrs in game
Sid Meier’s Civilization® III Complete
Here’s what I think of this game, I’ll compare it to Civ 5 since most people consider that to be the best Civ game.
Music: Both Civ 5 and Civ III have fantastic soundtracks as with pretty much all Civ games. CIV 5’s soundtrack is better, but that doesn’t mean this soundtrack isn’t worth listening to.
Diplomacy: The diplomacy here in Civ III, in my opinion is better. You can trade maps technologies, change how agressive the AI is. The AI does get quite a bit agressive once you get to medium agressiveness although.
– Real player with 328.3 hrs in game
I will start this review in two seperate forms, one for interested newcomers and then the Old Guard.
I will list off the pros first before the cons of this game, Civilization 3 is a different twist of the game than you may be familar with 4 and 5. Go in understanding this switch:
-Its an old game, if you can run the actual game, there should be no real issues.
-Graphically, it’s a sound experience and not many real issues, the modding community can find you bug fixes or new skins. Its pleasing regardless and you won’t really be let down by this game.
– Real player with 325.2 hrs in game
Master of Orion
One can fix the bugs, glitches and even contents with enough patches. However, one cannot fix bad gameplay design decisions no matter how much one can pour its money and time. The new Moo is the prime example of the latter.
I had been maintaining weapon mod list thread in the official Moo forum until I gave up on the game.
This game massively suffers in three areas: combat, content, and game design which is terrible.
I am not even going to talk about the tactical battle being real-time instead of turn-based, or staranes instead of free movements, because those issues are actually trivial issues compared to what I am going to discuss here.
– Real player with 277.8 hrs in game
Pretty but Dull.
Because of the fixed and predictable tech tree each game tends to unfolds the same way.
Your opponets don’t have any unique and destinctive tech, they have what you have, or will have or use to have. Hardly makes it woth spying on them.
Combat is dull:
You start over here, they start over there and you charge one another. As there is very little input from the player you end up being a spectator in your own game. yay
You don’t decide what to shoot or who to shoot at, the AI does that for you.
– Real player with 259.3 hrs in game
STAR WARS™ Rebellion
This is and will remain one of my favourite games of all time, I still play it now and the game time I have logged is a fraction as I’ve only had the it in my steam library for a 3-4mths, I’ve been playing it for years.
It costs less than a pint of beer, infact you could buy a copy for you and a mate for the price of a pint.
Is it for everyone, no.
People who want modern graphics, walk away. (for the old skool SW fans, you’ll see some unique artwork.)
People who want fast paced, walk away.
People who think their Jedi are going to be a super weapon, walk away.
– Real player with 224.0 hrs in game
Star Wars: Rebellion is a classic grand strategy game that’s almost as old as I am, and it shows. A word of warning; many of the negative reviews here (rightfully) deal with issues regarding graphics and loading the game, which can be resolved with a bit of tweaking.
I played this game to death as a kid, even though a lot of my success in it was the result of endless hours of trial and error; the learning curve is perhaps the steepest in video game history, there’s no tutorial, and everything that’s thrown at you can be overwhelming even for people who are familiar with grand strategy titles (a PDF scan of the old instruction booklet can be found in the folders, though). Likewise, while the graphics might have been cutting-edge in 1998, they’re… lackluster nowadays.
– Real player with 161.3 hrs in game