Annals of Rome
As with others here, I played this intensively when it originally came out. Back then the interface was nothing particularly unusual, and even today it isn’t difficult, just clumsy - it takes about 5 minutes to get used to it. There are certainly a few issues with it, primarily related to the display of information at appropriate times - it’s hard to play without making any separate notes (you pretty much have to keep track of the loyalty values of your available commanders, as that is only visible on the screen before you make decisions about who to assign where). But that isn’t anywhere near enough to outweigh the cleverness of the design and the fun value of trying to shepherd your Republic through dictatorship and the inevitable empire, trying to keep it alive through the ups and downs of barbarian migrations and rival nations waxing and waning. An amazing game considering the technical limitations it was created under.
– Real player with 51.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Political Games.
Great classic game!
– Real player with 10.0 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
Read More: Best Classic Multiplayer 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
Cossacks: Back to War
I still remember when I got the game, it was an accident…
My friend gave me a demo cd with a bunch of games on it and cossacks: back to war was one of em.
I kept play that one demo mission again and again…
I think STILL this is the best strategy game of all time, it amazes me how you can control thousands, big cities and navy fleets.
And it takes hundreds of hours to finish the game because there is so much missions in it and of course an editor too.
And this strategy game is unique because the game mechanics are so different than most of the other strategy games, you dont have to rush for resources, there is always a few mine places around you where you can get the resources from.
– Real player with 260.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Multiplayer Games.
12 years ago, I had an interesting 2v2 battle (online PVP).
It lasted 9 hours.
9 FRICKING HOURS.
Had to call in sick just to finish the game.
–– EDITED + CONTINUATION STORY, 10 Sept 2019 —-
So what happened?
Well, in that particular PVP match, my friend and I had lost a large-scale engagement after a mis-timed assault, resulting in me losing most of my infantry, mercenaries, and cavalry.
Sensing the end the match, our opponents gleefully taunted us (in-game text chat) and relentlessly fobbed themselves over an easy victory.
– Real player with 184.5 hrs in game
Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
I am nominating Rise of Nations – Extended Edition {RoN-EE} for the 2020 “Labor of Love” award.
RoN-EE is the 2014 update of the “old” RTS from 2003,
when it won several GOTY awards for Big HUGE Games.
Despite its age, RoN has held up well, especially when I am in the mood for a quick Strategic War. A full-scale 1 v 3-or-4 game typically will run 60 minutes {game-time} or less.
Using ** pause /pause **can effectively make RoN-EE a TBS.
– Real player with 4981.4 hrs in game
Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
The game from my childhood and the only strategy that I love to play even now. This is a remastered version of the game from 2003 and one of the most popular strategic games. Extended Edition contains the full contents with the addition of Thrones and Patriots. Rise of Nations offers a lot of nice campaign where our goal is to lead our nation to dominate the world. During the game you have to take care not to be destroyed by other nations but also develop a number of aspects such as economy, science, technology, diplomacy and military power. Each of these aspects will give you the opportunity to develop troops, build new buildings and to develop new opportunities in old buildings, but also move to a new era. With each progression of the game is changing the look and statistics buildings, military units and other things. Each nation has its own unique army as long as the nation still exists. In the game to expand, we have to use wood, stone, food, science, and oil at a later stage of the game, not forgetting that each of these resources can run out of. There is also an advanced diplomacy through which you can contain very beneficial agreement with other nation. In the game you can also play scenarios and multiplayer, but only with friends because no one plays. The game in terms of gameplay has hardly changed, improved graphics and added more resolution size. I like this production and do not regret a single hour spent at the game. Great soundtrack, an old but still nice graphics and a lot of things to do while playing the game. In my opinion this is the best strategy game I’ve ever played, many hours of fun for me. The game I am able to recommend, however, the game also has a bug that irritated me at first because I could not change my resolution because the game was crashing. However, it was manageable change in a text file.
– Real player with 371.5 hrs in game
SHOGUN: Total War™ - Collection
This was a ground breaking game when it first came out. And in many ways it holds its own against the newer revisions. But like most games, the AI is both good, but also full of holes. AI is just plain hard to write and the devs did a good job on it. But you see the holes after you have played a lot and thus start to pay attention to certain details. Eventually you figure out the game loopholes and rediculous exploits and the game looses its luster. You can currently get a Steam Key for the Gold Edition from Humble for a buck which is quite a deal. The Gold edition has a few bugs in it but nothing that inhibits gameplay.
– Real player with 2524.2 hrs in game
I love this game.
It’s purest expression of ‘Risk for computers’ in the Total War series. In later games, the strategy map is cluttered with elements that defeat true turn-based play. This one is delightfully abstracted. No walking avatars, no silly animations, no ships, just chesspieces. You see the results of your decisions immediately. It’s compelling enough that I play most campaigns without ever leading a battalion, flying through 150 turns in less than an hour.
The only limiting factor on replayability is the AI. Oh, for this game to have better AI. It’s weak enough that I tend to start in 1580 so they’ve got enough pre-existing infrastructure to have a chance.
– Real player with 650.0 hrs in game
Sword of the Samurai
Today I’m reviewing the 1989 release of the “Sword of the Samurai” by Microprose.
My father originally bought this game back in the 90s, which is thirtysome years ago! As with any game from that time, the graphics aren’t the best and the AI is as dumb as a slug. That said, this game excels as a samurai role-playing game, and the re-playability of this game is practically endless!
You first start off by choosing a name (or not!), a difficulty level, and a starting province which will impact the 2nd phase of the game when you become Daimyo for your clan. Until then however, you start at the bottom as a samurai serving a hatamoto with only a handful of retainers to defend your lord’s lands.
– Real player with 108.7 hrs in game
Sword of the Samurai is an unbelievably deep and charming game. The ancient graphics hardly distract from the incredibly solid mechanics, especially since retropixel style is all the rage these days. Sword of the Samurai offers essentially three minigames under an umbrella of casual strategy roleplaying. The one-on-one duels, one-on-many melees, and full-scale battles all have their charms, but by far the most satisfying (and difficult) play experience is to be found in the melees.
Sometimes you’ll be minding your own business when you come across a band of uppity ronin whose heads need to part ways from their necks. Sometimes you’ll be stealing into your lord’s mansion in the dead of night to stab your way to a promotion when a tripped alarm turns your stealth mission into Kill Bill Volume 1. Sometimes your psychotic father-in-law keeps breaking into your house to kidnap your son. It’s delightful!
– Real player with 26.1 hrs in game
Pharaoh + Cleopatra
First of all, please understand that I have no nostalgic attachment to this game. I did not play it as a kid, I did not even know about it until last month when i did a search on steam for any Egypt themed games (because I love Egypt.)
This game is fantastic. It’s so fun to be able to build an ancient city from scratch, and see it go from a few slums to a bustling paradise. I easily spend multiple hours playing this game without realising it.
There are many levels to play, each with different city goals. My favourite part is adding plazas, garden, and different statues to my city to make it look really stunning. The graphics are loving crafted and look beautiful. I also like that there are only minimal military gameplay in this, that was always my least favourite part of any society- building game like Civ or Age of Empires. Just leave me and my city in peace!!
– Real player with 196.7 hrs in game
This is of course a cult classic.
Compared to Caesar 3:
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too toxic colors, liked Caesar 3 much more
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buildings also less beautiful in my opinion
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significantly refined mechanics allowing clearer gameplay (water walker, bazaar lady capacity and many more)
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more difficulty (mainly in more space constraints)
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great monuments
And now how to make it playable:
0. Check out the HD patch guide in the hub and use it.
1. Use WinXPSP2 compability, Reduced color to 16 bit, Disable fullscreen optimizations, Run as admin, Program DPI, High DPI override. Not sure that everything is needed though.
– Real player with 147.9 hrs in game
Praetorians
Praetorians is a game I’ve been playing a lot lately, going through the single player campaign on hard. While the story in the campaign isn’t incredibly memorable (most of the missions are different points in roman history I believe) the gameplay itself as well as the challenge is just incredibly addicting and fun. The scenarios (especially the later ones) are challenging but fair, requiring you to think, take good positions, scout when possible. It’s a very tactical squad based rts with no worrying about gathering resources nor worrying about building up bases. It’s a game where hills and forests can either be your best friends, or worst enemies (as units that are on or in these things can’t be seen by enemy units that are not on or in these things).
– Real player with 26.1 hrs in game
I played this game growing up as a boy who loved to emerse myself in the idea of Romans, mainly due to the two nostalgic titles of The settlers IV and Rome total war. So when my Dad brought this game home I found it hard not to fall in love as the game portrays what Romans are remembered for in many little and major aspects of the game.
This game will seem overwelming at first and the fact that it is old and pretty harsh graphics to look at won’t help, especially if your new to the RTS genre. The personel management of troops is the main feature of this game as well as supplying new troops from villages that have either a barbarian or eastern theme. This works well but could be seriously expanded on. For example the only way to select troops is a drag box method. This is also fine but gets annoying when troops move indepedantly due to any stimuli. For example the troops will move out the way for a catapult and when I return to them they are somewhere else and have alerted the enemy. So some polish and rethink of coding and game aspects is needed.
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
Rome: Total War™ - Collection
RTW has an epic feel.
As of today, this game is nearly eleven years old. So, the battle graphics are not as crisp as newer titles, the historicity of some units is sketchy (or just made up), and it seems that multiplayer is not smooth in Steam. Fortunately, none of these mean a thing to me. The heart of the game is in the grand strategy and the personal narrative.
With over a hundred regions in which to play, the strategic game is where RTW shines. You need to plan where you will expand and where you will defend… and then be ready to adapt when the AI does not do what you expect. You may be the pawn of the Senate and serve at their beck and call. You might try to expand against the weak. You can follow the trade routes to gain riches through conquest. You will find yourself occupying regions merely to stymie your enemies (and your allies). Or you might work your way towards all seven Wonders to reap their benefits.
– Real player with 1982.0 hrs in game
Classic game, it uses a realistic battle engine which simulates battles down to minute details, in a way no longer found in newer engines which depend apon flashy graphics to generate interest. The sheer effort put into this game really tells you its creators cared about it they were not just throwing something flashy out there to get as much money as possible. The game makes up for its old and ancient graphics with interesting game mechanics that you just DONT get in the newer RTS games with intricate tactical aspects in addition to intriacate strategic ones. since so much attention has been given to FPS games in recent years. The game is well made and it shows. In modern total wars and other RTS games, troops getting into 1v1 cinimatic fights where thy slide around on the map rather than recreating actual formation dynamics and combat in a believeable way as Rome 1 does. In Rome 1 TW you don’t just have static groups of people fighting in one spot like other games, your troop formations collide and dudes go flying, people get knocked down. The larger force slowly pushes the smaller one back while its formation fluxuates, troops arrange sheilds to defend against attackers leaving weakspots open to well positioned archers. Every part of the strategic map is mapped out into battle maps that mirror that place on the stratiegic map. I am not talking you get a different set of cookie cutter template battle maps depending on your region NO!!! I mean the battle map is an EXACT copy of the terrain on the stategic map. You see a hill on the over all map and move your army to it so the enemy will attack you on ground you choose that hill is on the battle map valleys mountain you name it the battle is in that spot not a faximally of that spot THAT SPOT. The same goes for citys, each is unique and grows in unique ways and this shows on the siege map. Build something in a city and its on the battle map, if a saboteur destroys something it is destroyed on the battle map, Your family members/ generals grow as a result of the situations you put them in becoming complex individuals, put them in a big city with librarys and academys and they may become a soft person but a good organizer, or maybe if the city is a religious center he may become pious or slowly go insane, or become blood thirsty if you constantly send him into battle and he gets kills in said battles (yes even what he does in the battles matters). Another really cool mechanic is that when you recruit units the men are taken from the local populus and when disbanded the men generally resettle in that region! and city level is determined by population so recruit to many from a populas and the city will grow slowly while inversely you can move your populus around to level up citys. Another difference from newer games is the factions, they are few in number compared to the scores of factions in newer games but each faction in very unique, with some factions sharing cultures and others with similar but different cultures. Each culture has a unique city style ect.
– Real player with 1183.0 hrs in game
Medieval: Total War™ - Collection
If I were stranded on a desert island, but inexplicably provided with a gaming PC and allowed only a single game, this would certainly be it. A lot of titles have come and gone over my life, but there is something magical about this game that maintains a hold over me, even now.
Fans familiar with the franchise will recognise the game’s format. At its heart, it’s a turn based strategy game, composed of two arenas.
In the first, you pore over the campaign map to manage your provinces, generals and armies on the macroscopic level. You control your economy by tweaking taxes, maintaining a trade network and constructing improvements to your provinces. You recruit troops and agents to fight for supremacy through martial power or subterfuge. You plot, scheme and strategise to guide your faction to victory.
– Real player with 663.8 hrs in game
The Total War franchise has become massive and the games now are nearly unrecognisable from Shogun 1 and Medieval 1. The format changed from this first pair, but perhaps lost a little bit of the magic that only exists in Medieval Total War (MTW) 1.
Graphics-wise, the campaign map doesn’t really look too bad; it’s only in the battles that the age of the game is more apparent, as square seagulls fly over your soldiers.
In terms of game-play, it’s solid, It probably feels pretty slow compared to everything from Rome 1, as units get fatigued and enter slow-motion. Battles can lose that dynamic feel as you chase a unit of horse archers around with your infantry and knackered cavalry… But the campaign map, building tiers, etc, is all super-addictive and always keeps me coming back for more.
– Real player with 316.6 hrs in game