Castles II: Siege & Conquest
Fun game that brings back a lot of great memories! However, right now the game is broken. Whenever I try to “design” a castle, the screen goes black and it locks up. I can’t find anything about how to fix this, so I guess I’m out of luck :-(
The only reason I don’t recommend this game is for this reason.
EDIT: Discovered how to get around the crash. Save a castle or make your own and then load them all out from the saves. Haven’t had a crash since! Changing my recommendation.
– Real player with 347.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical Building Games.
This is the first video game I can remember playing as a young kid, it was great to take a trip down nostalgia lane. Castles 2 is a game where you must balance resource accumulation, military advancement, build castles to prevent peasant revolts, please the pope with indulgences, and increase your stake for the title of King of France. I enjoy this game because I grew up with it, Castles 2 is older and does not have a tutorial to take your hand and explain the game, however after a few play throughs the game mechanics and strategy is easy. I do want to warn people that my opinion of this game is biased largely by nostalgia. I do think for its time it is an excellent strategy game but compared to contemporary games in its genre is simplistic and lacks intricacies that strategy game buffs come to expect for exciting gameplay. I recommend this game, but if you are on the fence about it, I would wait for the price to come down, I argue that 10$ for this game is too high. Also hold down the right mouse button to speed up gameplay.
– Real player with 109.2 hrs in game
Ancestors Legacy
Overview:
Ancestor’s Legacy is a hybrid game of RTS and Real-Time Tactics(RTT) Gameplay, though it likes to side a bit more with the RTT genre.While this game has base building, it isn’t in the typical sense. The player is given a main base camp that has a build menu. After clicking the button to build a structure, the structure is built by peasants at a location predetermined by the game. The base camp is also not the main place the player will get resources. A variety of villages of different sizes are scattered around each map with resource points attached to them. Each faction has different specialties. Units can be leveled up and be given armor to increase their power. The squad limit is set at 10. The game uses a Rock-Paper-Scissors style system to make some armies great at defeating others, but each factions version of the army has their own individual stats. The graphics are phenomenal, the sound design is great, and the campaign is excellent.
– Real player with 35.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical RTS Games.
These people nailed what a limited base building unit capped RTS should be. There are choke points, open fields, water that slows you as you move through it (including swamps), trap building, terrain elevations & weather effecting line of sight (and fire), special traits per unit per factions that still feels balanced.
It executes exceptionally well on limited base building RTS with unit creation and replenishment and rewards well thought out RTT gameplay as all units level and can be upgraded thus rewarding teamwork and unit specialization with the population cap, traps, and size of the map encouraging strategy whilst limiting unit production to the starting base and permitting unit replenishment at any captured (ally) village for a nominal fee.
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
WAR PARTY
I’m always looking for new RTS games since they are a rare thing these days. However, Im often very dissapointed by what I find.
Well, that is NOT the case with war party !!!
This game is only on early access but it’s impressive how good it is ! it’s easy to understand as it possesses a lot of classical RTS mechanics but also some new stuff that make the game deep, fun and challenging.
The + :
- cool and unusual universe (caveman x dinos x vaudou) : You can produce some T-rex ans some mounted velociraptor or go with some witch doctor and zombies
– Real player with 390.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical RTS Games.
As a long time supporter going back all the way back to the alpha, here are my thoughts about the game as of launch.
The strengths:
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3 asymmetric, visually distinct factions.
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Will have a campaign in the full release.
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Dedicated servers are near-flawless. Forget about desyncs, laggy gameplay due to peer to peer etc.
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League-rank system just like in Starcraft 2.
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Excellent matchmaking that expands search, starting at your ELO. This makes for close games once you stabilize your ELO.
– Real player with 77.0 hrs in game
Earth 2160
Earth 2160 is a somewhat unappreciated RTS with a number of nice features mixed in with a truckload of bland. It will provide some decent entertainment in the here and now but it will never be remembered for anything.
Earth 2160 sets you in the future, corporations fight for control over the Solar System’s dwindling resources as a new discovery rocks the power structure and sets the game’s events in motion. As you start out you get to play as either a generic male dominated corporation or the curiously female dominated Mars corporation. They both, not surprisingly, turn out to be evil rather quickly into the campaign and you eventually get to play as the “good” faction, a generic robot corporation that really has no personality and eventually, a menacing alien horde.
– Real player with 67.0 hrs in game
I finally got down and finished the game all the way through, after nearly completing it some 12 years ago, and then not-even-close to finishing it some 5 years ago, so I’m naturally biased with nostalgia, but I think it’s an overall great rts, but sadly with a few shortcomings that can ruin the experience if you can’t or can’t be arsed to learn to avoid them.
The graphics in the game are often complimented, and at times they’re really amazing for 2005, but it kinda depends where you look. What I’m most impressed with though, is that each of the four factions has a COMPLETELY different gameplay. Literally every mechanic is altered: completely different vehicles with completely different types weapons, different ways to harvest resources (which require very different planning and sometimes microcontrol), different ways to set up bases and interconnect buildings, different defence systems (which require completely different base layout), etc. It’s literally a different game depending on what faction you play with, which is incredibly enjoyable. Crucially, the factions are all really well balanced, so that every faction has a fair chance against every other. Together with expansive unit customisation and cool base expansion options, it makes for tremendously fun gameplay once you get a hold of the basic faction mechanics. On top of that, the soundtrack is wicked!
– Real player with 39.6 hrs in game
Trains of the Orient
This game is a combination of adventure capitalist and a building game. It takes a long time to play. It is a game that you play for a while and then stop and go back to at your leisure. You you want an instant gratification game, it is not for you. It can be tedious at times. So before you buy, understand the game for what it is and is not. I took a chance on the game in spite of the negative posts. I like train games and it was a cheap game to buy. Think of the game this way. It is a puzzle with many pieces that you can go back to at your leisure. Also, you have the ability to start the game over again and try a different strategy.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
I’m glad I got this game at 50% off. Because, honestly, this game is the quality of a free-to-play mobile game.
It is an interesting concept, and as a fan of OpenTTD, I thought this sort of game would be fun. But you get to see very little action in this game, and what’s more, it gets glitchy when your rail network is big.
– Real player with 4.7 hrs in game
Ancestors Legacy Free Peasant Edition
**First and foremost ,**big thanks to the dev team for the Open Beta. Allow me to cover a few things
Communication
Activity levels in the discussion thread has been consistent ·Users are having their questions answers from technical ,bug splatting ,historical accuracies ,feature requests ·Kudos!
MP Potential
I am glad to be part of the Open Beta phase and test out this game at its infancy ·From my experience ,this game would be the next title to sink thousands of hours into ·The recent successful community driven tournament run ,garnered ~250 participants which I am taken aback by the response ·Introduced the title to my friends and had matches against bots ,the reception was positive
– Real player with 104.6 hrs in game
An other squad tactical game. Players start all around the map and there is villages in the center of the map.
You have to take and hold thoses villages to have ressources and improve your army. In that kind of game, victory is exponential so everything is played in the first minutes of the games. A balanced game play with counter units and the possibility to trick your opponent would allow a come back. But for now the beta doesn’t offer much this possibily. I’m also afraid that, the way this game is made, the final version doesn’t allow it also. Something else that waste the gameplay in this beta is that maps are not balanced at all. Some sides of maps are totally bad for a team. In the “Autumn rise”, 3v3 map, the team that spawn south have difficult access to the villages and when they loose it, because they will, they are surrounded by moutain and narrow way that the ennemies will block with 3 little squads that will be in position to kill 6 - 8 squad. The south team litterally spawn down the cliffs when the north team is up the cliffs. In the same map, this south team also spawn near only 1 food gathering village when north spawn are near 3. And food is what you need to maintain any army. Gameplay also need big improvement in the civilization balance. For exemple it’s impossible to play the anglo-saxons, archer civ. Because their attack are so ridiculous that 3 squad archer can’t kill 1 squad of infantry in open area. Even with run & hit and shooting by behind. Archers are really, really bad in this game. The result is that anglo-saxons are not played at all because you can’t win with that archer bonus civ if you play against any decent player. So people keep massing infantry, because it’s the strongest units of the game. Infantry is better than cavalry too. They usually make 8-9 squad of infantry and 1 or 2 squad of archer and cavalry for harassment and to force the ennemy to engage the fight when it’s not his advantage to. Vikings, infantry civ also have better archers than anglo-saxons. Thoses vikings archers shoot from a farther range than longbow Dafuq? Lacking point of the interface, is statistics of the units for let you know what is interesting to do or not. There is games that doesn’t show and I’m afraid that the final version will be one of them.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Realpolitiks
I have owned Realpolitks for a week now, so far I love it. It is a very good Grand Strategy Game, many people don’t like it and I see why, however here are the pros and cons in my opinion.
PROS
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You can play as every country in the world, minus a few very small countries (e.g Figi).
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You can start in the years 2020, 2050 and 2222, which all have different countries and starting points.
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Very good starter game for anyone wishing to get into the Grand Strategy Genre, not to many aspects to learn, quite minimal.
– Real player with 215.7 hrs in game
Realpolitiks Review
Nostalgia Goggles Factor: None
Crash Factor: Crashless
Bug Factor: High
A Polish-made Grand Strategy game set in our Information age. Starting in 2020.
The Good
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3 starting dates; 2020, being similar to our world today, 2050, a post-apocalyptic setting and 2222, where nearly every province is it’s own country.
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Play as any country.
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Every start date has it’s own time limit, 2020 ends in 2100, for example. When the end date is reached, the country with the highest score will be the winner. However, it can be much more fun to simply ignore the score game and just play it like a sandbox, setting your own goals. You can play past the end date.
– Real player with 152.9 hrs in game
The Last Express Gold Edition
I think this may well be the greatest game ever made. Yes, the controls are clunky as all get out. Yes, for people used to today’s games the ultra-high-tech-for-1997-digital-rotoscoping technique looks extremely antiquated. Yes, you’re dropped into the game with no idea what to do, and you’re going to fail. A lot. But at the same time “The Last Express” includes:
- Probably the best-developed characters in any adventure game I’ve yet played (the weakest is arguably Robert Cath, who the player controls, but even he has an intriguing and irritatingly-largely-unrevealed-due-to-lack-of-a-sequel backstory). By the end of the game you know what they want and what makes most of them tick, and since certain bad things are more or less guaranteed to happen to a number of them the result is the equivalent of an emotional shovel to the face.
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
Ahead of its time but stuck in the past
First read about this game way back when it came out, in a magazine I still have, where the reviewer was left in complete awe because of unique design for an adventure game. Ever since it occupied a small cluster of neurons in the back of my head, waiting for me to play it and its moment to shine. I should say I never played the original so my review will only address this 2013 port, with some inferior exceptions others have noticed.
It plays like Myst, from 1st person perspective with static scenes as you move around, but is set in realistic environment of an vintage luxury passenger train called Orient Express. The whole game takes place in the same 4-5 vagon carts with beautifully rendered backgrounds. You move by clicking edges of screen with mouse cursor that contextually changes functions to forward, backward and left or right turn, with interaction prompts for opening doors and object/NPC interaction.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
Save One More
Save One More:
One of the many honourable serviceman on the battlefield is the one with the role of the Medic. These individuals are exposing themselves to the same dangers and fears as any other soldiers in battle. Not only do they have to dodge bullets and upcoming bomb shells, just like any other warrior, but their primary job is to get to their wounded comrades as fast as possible, without thinking twice about their own life. They definitely have a super sense of hearing to be able to make out the call, “Medic,” between explosive shells and whistling bullets. What courage these men must have in such chaotic situations, motivated by the thought, “I must save one more.”
*– [Real player with 5.7 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198003030375)*
6/10
A nice twist on war gaming
Short good game. I quite like art style.
A few tweaks would make a huge difference:
Firstly:
cut scenes should be skipable.
secondly:
the game displays wounded/saves/dead if one soldier goes down 5 times and you save it 4 times before it dies score would be 5/4/1\. when your dealing with groups of 20 or 30 soldiers its very hard to tell how many units are currently down. Quite a few times I though I'd revived all wounded only to have the dead count surprise me by going up.
*– [Real player with 5.0 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198873542904)*
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## Sudden Strike 4
Hi all,
I played the original Sudden Strike.
Though only the demo map that was released at that time, what seems now so long ago.. :)
But the title always stuck with me.
I see here allot of die hard fans who give very disapointing reviews and to some point I can definately understand as compared to the original I can remember that the game qua single player was more difficult, bigger (just that demo map was already imense), some units had more options and the missing of the binoculars from the officer seems also a big deal. ^^
*– [Real player with 822.2 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197987276093)*
I stumbled across Sudden Strike 4 on EA Origin. I didn't quite know what to make of SS4 at first, but I eventually ended up playing ~~200~~ 150+34 (so far) hours of the base game there! I finally decided I wanted to own - not just rent - SS4 here on Steam. Just as importantly, I wanted to directly support the developers and get the DLC.
I've been gaming since the days of the original Nintendo. This is the first military RTS game I've ever owned* and put simply, it's one of the best games I've ever played, hands down! It's readily apparent that an experienced dev team put some real thought and effort into Sudden Strike 4\. The graphics and performance are excellent, and the re-playability makes it a superb value for the money. This game is basically a combined-arms tactical combat simulator that uses units up to company size. There are a wide variety of mission types, the complexity of which are further multiplied by the different doctrines available (Infantry, armor and logistical). The well-done AI and relative historical and geographical accuracy are also appreciable.
*– [Real player with 185.1 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198860677408)*
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