American Patriots: Boston Tea Party
I started wargaming in the 80’s, when a flood of small, inexpensive games hit the market. Metagaming and SPI were among the first to offer a whole game for just three or four dollars. Pretty soon TSR was churning them out as well. This is very much that sort of game- hexboard, attack/defensive-move. Nothing revolutionary here (irony). But it is the sort of thing you’ll like if you like that sort of thing.
A note on the simple graphics- simple does not always mean bad. The bare-bones graphics add a lot of class and atmosphere to the game. The map is a hex grid laid over a vintage sepia map- very pretty.
– Real player with 25.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Board Game Historical Games.
Highly Recommend! For what this game is it is an absolute gem.
I bought this game and its Civil War themed sequel for only $1. I already love these games, and I haven’t even tried any of the multi player modes yet. This game’s not without a couple of forgivable flaws. If your mouse has a high DPI rate, you might want to use keyboard controls to navigate.
These games eliminate the biggest downside to table top war games. Most games take a long time to set up, and even longer to get past the “Opening Game” phase where you move toward engaging the enemy. For true fans of tactical board games this game would be a bargain even at a cost of several dollars. If the devs wanted to, they could easily add a few simple features like more maps that would make this game a great value even at a cost of $5 or more.
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Chickamauga Battles
Nice to see another HexWar game!
Very nice and easy to pick up and play turn based strategy game
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Board Game Strategy Games.
Covers the Chickamauga campaign of the American Civil War. Gameplay is as most HexWars games. Decent array of scenarios. If you are comfortable with HexWars style, recommended.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Blood Rage: Digital Edition
To start off I absolutely love the physical boardgame and play it often which had me looking forward to this game.
Logging into this as soon as it went live was disheartening from the get go as you are confronted with a menu screen that looks like it could have been ripped from an old newgrounds flash game. While it is visually appalling the real problems start once you attempt to play it.
Cons:
-out of an attempted 12 multiplayer games that I hosted 9 froze during the first god’s gift phase, one froze during the second age god’s gift phase, and another froze as soon as the last province was pillaged in the 3rd age, leaving me with only one multiplayer game that was able to be played through fully.(Don’t comment on your lack of frozen games if you are only playing single player, multiplayer functionality is near nonexistant.)
– Real player with 57.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Board Game Strategy Games.
First of all, I have the board game with a few expansions. And joined the kickstarter, so I’m actually a backer of this digital project.
-The beta period lasted for 3 weeks. Finished right at the beginning of the lockdown.
-The project was then abandoned till the Ankh kickstarter finished. We did not have any news for months, but 24h after the Ankh kickstarter finished, we got news.
-This digital Blood rage was expected to be released in December 2019. It’s been almost 6 months.
-The game was launched on May 27th and everyone got access but we - the backers - had to wait for hours to get access.
– Real player with 35.0 hrs in game
Reiner Knizia Yellow & Yangtze
Strong “Yes” recommendation. 1-4 players.
I’ve played a bunch of games solo and 2 online.
The game is great; levels of complexity in strategy without being difficult to play. Once of my favorite game categories is “deceptively simple”. :-)
I’ve never played the board game, but this port seems authentic and there haven’t been any glitches so far. I can’t comment on the AI since I’m new to the game, but I didn’t see anything dumb and it plays quickly and smoothly.
Seems like this is the kind of game that feels very different depending on the number of players.
– Real player with 192.0 hrs in game
This game feels ideal for just getting started with online play with few pieces to manipulate and lots of careful strategy to consider. The game is won and lost by very subtle nuances of balance between all leaders. If any faction gets too bloated or carried away with one influence the others suffer and the scoring mechanic is rare, much like Knizia’s earlier Samurai. I like how this game has been rendered, with the building and falling pagodas adding a sense of action to an otherwise pacific game. Also that scoring is so visible and tallied automatically makes gameplay faster than IRL. The mouseover of details of each card are appreciated, but I would also like some hint of the special abilities of farmers to tear pagodas down. This is a case of the online game encouraging cardboard sales because I would buy this box.
– Real player with 86.7 hrs in game
RISK: Global Domination
This game is very well thought out and could be fun to play. I’ve been looking for a long time to play Risk with others online. I started playing Risk in 1968, when the game still had wooden pieces. I’ve played this 1968 game hundreds of times with my friends over the last 50+ years. This online game is nice, too, because it has other variations of play - other maps and settings, etc. This keeps the game from getting boring from everybody always trying to take Australia at the beginning of the game. But I found much to my DISMAY that the dice are RIGGED in favor of players who seem to have played the game here longer than me. I’m an accountant by trade, so I’m an expert in probabilities. Over and over again (4 out of 5 times), I’m either the fifth or sixth player out of six to get my first turn. Almost never am I first or second to start. Even worse, many times (too many to count) I have overwhelming odds of capturing a crucial country from an opponent (i.e. 9 armies to 1, or 12 armies to 2, etc.), and I lose ALL my armies, and the opponent comes through completely unscathed. The game program tells you the odds of capturing the country that you’re attacking - 75%, 80%, 90% & 95% - but dozens of times I EAT IT and I LOSE EVERYTHING just trying to take that one country. The game even claims that the program evens out the odds somewhat so these big losses can’t happen. But constantly I have the odds overwhelming in my favor, but it doesn’t work out that way at all. After playing the old board game with REAL DICE hundreds of times, losing 9 armies to 1 only happened ONCE, way back in 1974 (I remember it to this day, I was so P/O’ed), but I estimate this has happened to me 150 times so far with THIS game, out of playing 200 games. This really sucks, and its made me so mad I’ve considered deleting this game from my library! Maybe though, if I keep playing it the odds for my dice rolling will improve. We’ll see…
– Real player with 126.7 hrs in game
I feeled the need to make a review because this game get too much hate for what it is.
Yes there’s a premium mode that you can get for 10€ so you can play as long as you want.
So it’s not really a free to play but you can still play 2-3 games per day against other player and it’s unlimited against bots.
You have access to EVERY maps even if you don’t own them. You just need the DLC to HOST a game but you can still join someone who own theses maps.
It’s not a demo (people said this in some review) because you can play the entire game and even play to the DLC maps. The game is limited in a way that you can’t play as long as you want but hey… It was a mobile game so ofc things are not the same on mobile. There’s some change to be made are people can share their though about it (and they should) but this game is what it is supposed to be, it’s Risk. The devs seems to care about the opinion of the community and are trying to improve the game for the PC gamers we are.
– Real player with 121.4 hrs in game
Strategic Mind: The Pacific
I really wanted to like this game. I really liked the graphics initially and my initial impression on game play wasn’t that it wasn’t bad. But then I realized you get the same graphic if you bomb or torpedo a ship. I mean shouldn’t you use the time you spent making useless swimming sharks to make different graphics for each?
As far as game play goes, your planes die quickly and inflict the same or less damage as a destroyer. And Japanese planes seem to have nearly unlimited fuel. I destroyed all of the Japanese carriers in Midway and five turns later his planes are still attacking my ships and troops. But if I go more than three turns without landing I seem to run out of gas. Worst of all the AI turns take forever.
– Real player with 332.5 hrs in game
I have a rule of saying that if a game is fun, the other things are just the icing. Bad visuals? Corny sounds? Bad controls (note: non-real-time games only)? They can be overlooked.
I have found the game that is the exception to my own rule.
So, to get this out of the way first: This game is a turn-based-strategy game, with a point-buy system for your units, persistent-army mechanic, Hex-grid battlefield, and a basic system of “supply” for ammo, fuel, and repair to damaged units on a turn-by-turn basis.
– Real player with 104.9 hrs in game
The Bluecoats: North & South
The game is full of bugs, errors, AI should be improved a lot, keyboard commands are not always comfortable, the map is quite uncomfortable.
But it was my favorite game on the Amiga and that’s okay then
UPDATE
After 24 hours of gameplay the thing I find most annoying during the assault on the forts is the lack of footsteps in the enemies and the spawn behind them
– Real player with 37.8 hrs in game
Not bad, actually. I read the controls were not good originally but that an update fixed it, for me they were working with an American keyboard. The new 3D shooter fights are not bad but I miss the original jump’n’run environments.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Labyrinth: The War on Terror
Regarding the game itself, I can recommend this. I already had a lot of fun although there are plenty of bugs left. But the bugs are not game-breaking but just a bit annoying from time to time.
I like LWOT more that Twilight Struggle as it is a bit less luck dependent as there are many more rolls (This is not a contradiction as luck will equal out more over the course of a game compared to TS).
However, the game could use a lot more polishing and user-friendlyness. Which brings me to the problem of not having seen any updates and communication from the devs for multiple months, which is not satisfactory even taking account the attractive price of the game.
– Real player with 763.8 hrs in game
While still in early development and missing things like achievements, challenges and some polish on the zooming in/out of the board - this is a very true implementation of one of my very favorite board games.
Taking the design of the battle-deck standard, Twilight Struggle and making it even more asymmetrical to fit the theme, Labyrinth uses real, historical headlines and events to recreate this, one of the most complicated and dynamic wars in history. Playing games like these truly does help me to understand what was/is happening within these conflicts.
– Real player with 166.1 hrs in game
Hex Slayer
Fun and challenging. What seems like a simple basic strategy game gets satisfyingly complex pretty quickly without becoming overwhelming with too much going.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
First impressions are good.
The game starts very simply, but the complexity increases pretty quickly.
The core of the game is a hex map, with little towns. Towns gain income by owning the hexes adjacent to them. This can be bumped up by building a tower in one of those, though this is not something you can do right away.
You can build units, and they increase in strength as you combine them. They have an upkeep cost however, and you not only have to keep enough money to support them, but they are supported by the town that built them, so you have to keep a supply line open as well.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
Lux Alliance
This is a simple strategy boardgame, but that simplicity allows for a lot of interesting strategic game play. The combat system resembled the classic Axis And Allies board game rules, but with only two unit types – attack (armor, knight), and defense (infantry). Like that game, you can only build new units in your factory (or castle or city or whatever it gets called).
Unlike most board games (but like Diplomacy), all moves are simlutaneous. Every player issues orders to all units, then when all are complete they all execute at once. This makes attacking a risk, as you must move defending units off a territory in order to attack. Your opponent and you can actually exchange territories.
– Real player with 364.9 hrs in game
I’ve enjoyed this game when I had the regular PC version before as well. It’s something halfway between Risk, and Axis and Allies. There’s more than one kind of unit buuut only two kinds, lol. Additionally though you can also place a new production center. It' also simove, so you have to anticipate what the other powers will do. There are a variety of all against all and team scenarios as well difficulty levels. Within the difficulty levels there are a number of different AIs to play against. The variety of maps to play is fairly extensive - all different eras, themes, some areas, some point to point, some hex grids. I recommend it for those who like Risk level of strategy with a little extra.
– Real player with 72.4 hrs in game