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
Read More: Best Classic Historical Games.
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
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
Read More: Best Classic Historical Games.
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
Lux Delux
Risking it All
Lux Delux is a Risk game where you play on technically an infinite variety of maps and control various “pieces” as you attempt to defeat your opponents. This plays very much like a board game with very little strategy to it. You’re going to find yourself just build doom stacks of units and then plowing through enemy territory. At the same time, there is immense satisfaction as you finally plow through enemy stacks and make the entire board your color. The unique boards you can play with that users created can range from plain to superb and complex. Despite having the exact same mechanics every time, seeing these new environments and moving your units throughout them makes you feel like you’re conquering completely new areas. Even the hex-based maps that seem to be abundant have their own unique flair to them. This game is not particularly hard, even on hard AI so I recommend at least playing on medium even if you’re a more casual gamer.
– Real player with 77.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Multiplayer Games.
Game Summary:
I’m sure there are several different board games this would be similar to, but when I look at it, it reminds me of Risk. Risk isn’t as notorious as Monopoly is for being a relationship-ruining, hours-long game, but from the times I’ve played Risk it does tend to take a while. Plus, there can be some contention as to what rules or style to base the game off of, as randomly drawing cards can set someone up and screw other people. However, getting to select where to start also has some drawbacks as it can develop an immediate rivalry between two players whilst another can dodge the conflict and conspire against both. This rendition of the game offers the benefits of strategy and territory-conquering board games, without the need for physical space. It also would probably be faster since it’s pretty easy to set up different rules and situations without much effort.
– Real player with 16.7 hrs in game
Sid Meier’s Civilization® V
I played as the Iroquis, befriended the Incans, Aztecs, and Shoshone and then destroyed America, Spain, France, and England.
10/10 game the only historical game where I can undo white people crimes
– Real player with 842.6 hrs in game
It’s old…but, awesome….been playing this game off and on for well over 10 years…
– Real player with 655.3 hrs in game
Pax Nova
To be honest, this game really didn’t cross my radar until a couple of weeks ago when I saw an article on it and the combined planetary + space layers made me think of Emperor of the Fading Suns. It was on sale for launch and I picked it up. I was a bit soured to the experience initially due to bugs and some UI problems but it seemed like the devs were working on patches so I held off reviewing it. Since there’s been an update I figured I’d go ahead with the review.
Since I posted this review, there’s be a ton of tweaks, bug fixes, and content pushed out by the devs so I’m updating the review to reflect the current state. While there are still some bugs present, the devs have crushed so many of the major ones that I’ve moved the entry to the “Meh” section
– Real player with 265.1 hrs in game
I’ve been sitting on that review for a longer while, but I feel like with latest updates I can finally recommend it, just not for everyone.
You know that sentence, “wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle”? Well, Pax Nova is like that. Just not in the negative way, in my opinion. It’s a casual, simple Empire Builder/4X, that lets you just sit back and relax, something to occupy part of your brain not with a challenge, but heightened activity. Basically a sudoku of strategy games.
Each playthrough there will be multiple planets to explore, each with own map of different size, different strategic resources and with one of few different tilesets (though devs managed to utilize lighting to make two planets with single tileset to look quite different), and above that is vast space, enough for your starships to take turns of travel, despite systems touching elbows with each other. All of those have enviromental dangers, resource nodes for mining and anomalies to explore, all the stuff you expect from a game like that.
– Real player with 111.8 hrs in game