Alea Jacta Est
Alea Jacta Est (hence AJE) simulates Roman-era warfare at a strategic level, and it is probably the best one on Steam.
As any good strategy game, AJE is a game of informations, and its brilliance shines the most in how these informations are acquired: unlike other “arcade” games (e.g. Rome Total War 1/2) the map does not show true data, but just a patchwork of rumors, whose reliabililty depends on factors under the player’s control (e.g. own army composition, scouting), factors out of control (e.g. subordinates' skill, or lack of it), and enemy’s actions.
– Real player with 153.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Replay Value Multiplayer Games.
Sooner or later, when playing Rome Total War, you start getting this uncomfortable feeling that what you’re doing on the strategic map is just a stage prop for pixel soldiers to run around in pretty period costumes.
Alea Jacta Est, though very nice to look at, is not about eye candy.
Instead, it gives you a very detailed strategic and operational view of what the opposing sides were dealing with. When battles or skirmishes take place they are resolved abstractly, though the abstraction gives a pretty detailed depiction of the tactical characteristics that were likely to be in play.
– Real player with 85.7 hrs in game
Pride of Nations
I’ve had this game for a long time, and have recently started playing it again. I still really like it. Yes, it is complicated, has a steep learning curve and takes some time to learn, unless you are familiar with AGEODs other fantastic strategy/simulation games. If you enjoy historical simulations/strategy games then you will enjoy playing this game, as long as you are prepared to learn how to play the game. The tutorials will teach you the basics, and there are some videos on Youtube that could also help you out.
– Real player with 252.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Replay Value Multiplayer Games.
There is simply no consistency in PoN. Could’ve been a Victoria II beater, but trips over its two left feet far too often: from the poor examples of translation presumably from french, “instaured” etc. to the diabolically slow map scrolling (loading in and out 3 trillion png files), from the many typos and inconsistencies (Devonport Naval Yard should be Devonport Dockyard, as in RL) to the bewilderment of the diploderp screen, “We, African nation X, hate you Piedmontese because of your (pre-placed) military at Europe’s borders! (-what do you do, unilaterally disarm to get a trade favour?) to the uncertainty whether the Grand Campaign is on rails despite the sandbox feel, to the almost singularly useless technology screen (1 option exists: add 50 quid to research, per arbitrary project, per percentage point) to the manual which has a strategy guide for:
– Real player with 190.5 hrs in game
Rise of Prussia Gold
My first ever Ageod game. Not for the faint of heart! But if you are a hardcore gamer, and willing to put some time on it, you will be rewarded by the best strategic/tactical games out there. If you are a student of military history, you will get totally addicted to Ageod games. I barely play anything else. Also by far the best gamers community out there. Friendly, polite, and very welcoming to new unexperienced players. What can I say? If you want to experience what decisions a commander had to take back then, my suggestion is to give these games a go. Totally addicted to this company’s games. I started with Alea Jacta Est, then Rise of prussia, then Revolution under siege and American Civil War II and never looked back. AGEOD in my opinion makes the best military games out there. Can be a bit daunting to start with (first time I got AJE I couln’t figure out what the hell was going on) but if you are willing to put some time into it (the AGEOD forums are absolutely amazing for beginners tips!) you will be rewarded by the absolutely best PG wargame experience out there. I especially recommend Narwhal and Loki’s AAR as well as the excellent Charles Cummings and Gilmer youtube tutorials. Totally addicted to this games, as a passionate student of history, I can’t play anything else these days!
– Real player with 324.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Replay Value Multiplayer Games.
Deeply complex game where player controls armies and plan for victory. One false move can cost the campaign, be that a bad positioned column, a fool charge into superior enemy force or as simply as forgetting to couple one’s force to its supply detachment left behind last turn to speed up the march. As this is my first AGEOD game, I remember all so well the feeling when Saxons invaded mainland Prussia, Berlin almost captured because I put my “Home Front” troops at a wrong place while the main army was still campaigning in Bohemia. Graphic wise, not much to write about. The player gets a 2D map of Central Europe and an option between 2D army stacks or 3D ones. Personally, I prefer the former, as coupling with the map, it is quite charming. The game is truly easy to learn. Orders and movements are pretty simple but to dwell more into it, one will discover the complexity of the game’s mechanics. New players are encouraged to read the manual and do more research on AGEOD’s forum as there is a wealth of information regarding how to play ROP effectively while still enjoying the immersive experience it provides. Overall, for a fairly old game and game style, it deserves a 9/10. My complain is there are still to few AGEOD games on Steam.
– Real player with 59.7 hrs in game
太平洋之嵐6 ～ 史上最大的激戰諾曼第攻防戰! Pacific Storm 6 - Battle for Normandy
Only Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) and Japanese support, as far as I can tell. No English, despite what the Steam page says. Too bad, I was very disappointed.
While I was playing around for the required 5 minutes to submit a review, I chose the Japanese option for language, as I can at least recognize some of the characters. The voiceover text seemed to be in Japanese, and as far as I can tell most of the interface remained in Japanese as well. However, it looks like the unit description (?) page is only Chinese text . I could be mistaken.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Crusader Kings II
If you care about the amount of gameplay you get for your money at all, this game probably rates higher than any other game. (Last I read, the average player had over 500 hours on this game.)
Crusader Kings II is a strategic game where you spend most of your time looking at a big map of Europe cut into little counties, but it is drastically different from a game like Medieval II: Total War. Whereas in those games, every nation had rigid boundaries and an entire nation was a distinct, unified entity, Crusader Kings II focuses upon the feudal system of governance, and especially its hereditary system of succession.
– Real player with 2025.1 hrs in game
Crusader Kings II is one of the most deep, fascinating and replayable strategy games I have ever played. In brief, you play as a family in the middle ages, anywhere between Mali and Mongolia, or from Bengal to Britain. You try to secure advantageous alliances and strategic marriages, and build up a small realm, either as a vassal of a greater power or striking out independently. There is no real win condition, though I love taking people who lost out historically, and helping push them to greatness.
– Real player with 1862.2 hrs in game
Imperiums: Greek Wars
So, I have been playing this game for about near 40 hours at the time of this review.
Imperiums, focus' on the Greek Wars time era. And the developers do a very good job in portraying accurate history, in my opinion. The game keeps trying to ‘curb’ you back toward history. However; you can fight against that, and go your own way. However it requires more effort or ‘elbow grease’ to get there. Basically, to ‘go against’ history; the game feels harder! Usually. Usually when trying to go against history. I really like this aspect of the game.
– Real player with 323.7 hrs in game
As a strategy game Imperiums is one of a kind. Designed from scratched with pen and paper by a passionate developer and now released as the second entry in a hopefully long lasting series of strategy games.
Over the years the game is shaped and finetuned by the help of a small, but very dedicated playerbase who can discuss with the developer in forums on Steam and Discord.
Hundreds of players already mentioned their complains and wishes for the game and the developer keeps a list with urgent must have features and nice to have features for the future.
– Real player with 158.9 hrs in game
Revolution Under Siege Gold
My armies stumble accross the steppes, battered and broken from months of freezing winter, lack of supplies and food. The Bolshevik armies have driven me away to the last bastion of sanity and civilization in Russia, Rostov. For a moment, all seems lost to me, Tuchachevsky and Trotsky are advancing on Rostov against my pitiful army and any reinforcements are months away. I fortify Rostov and hope for the best, retreat not being an option, except Suddenly Tuchachevsky is called to another area, and Trotsky is distracted by Anarchists, leaving subpar bolshevik officers in command, giving me a glimmer of hope. Im severely outnumbered as they begin their final assault, wave after wave of bolsheviks smashing against the walls of Rostov, until suddenly, a nearby corps I had forgotten about reinforces me, and suddenly the Bolsheviks seem to be driven back. Suddenly, a great light explodes accross the horizon, blinding all soldiers. A tank rolls over the battlefield, and a man, beautiful and immaculate, with an impecabble mustache and fashion sense emerges, Stalin himself has decided to reinforce this battle and thunders “Helo where are the socialisms :DDDDDDDDDDDD” My armies instantly surrender due to Stains immense charisma, and my generals all convert to Bolshevism, before being willingly purged by Stalin.
– Real player with 670.6 hrs in game
My favorite game by Ageod. Reminds me of the game Red Star, White Star by SSI back in my boardgaming years. The game is a difficult struggle for the Whites and also the Reds. There are actually 3 playable factions: The Reds, the Siberian Whites, and Southern Whites. There is also a developer mod on the Ageod forums for playing Ukraine. Minor factions are the Greens, the Anarchists (black), the Baltic and Caucausus states, Finland, and Poland, not to mention the Foreign powers intervening (including the US!).
– Real player with 225.6 hrs in game
Gary Grigsby’s War in the East
Revised when WIE 2 is about to come (26 march 2021) :
I played it far more before it arrived on Steam (totalizing may be 3000 hours). I’ve been waiting for its finalization for a long time and at the moment we are talking about version 2 I think I can make my judgment.
It could have been a very good game, but it has some major flaws while taking into account the price.
++++++ POSITIVE ASPECTS ++++++
It has no animations and explosions… this is a real wargame in turn by turn with Hexs and Zones of Control.
– Real player with 1312.8 hrs in game
If you are a wargamer and don’t already have this game, you’re doing it wrong.
I got into the hobby way back in the paper maps and cardboard counters era, and one of the things that always was a pain and made it extremely difficult to get to play these “monster games” as we called them was the sheer amount of free space and time needed to even get the game going, much less actually play it to the end. Not to mention the unending amount of bookkeeping involved. If you want to simulate manpower, replacement rates, supply etc., and you DO if you want any sort of realism in a wargame, you’re going to have bookkeeping. Computers do all of that PLUS you don’t have to have a spare garage to keep those giant maps and thousands of counters lying around for months while you play it. IF you can find somebody to play it WITH.
– Real player with 484.0 hrs in game
Rogue State Revolution
Let me start by saying that this has the potential of being a great game, but this game is far from being ready for release. Consider this game an early access.
Here’re some warnings if you wanna purchase:
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Update 1.2 introduces a lot of CTDs, every few turns.
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Game mechanics is only partly there. For example, there’s still no building to help boost a province’s security score. Dev is also still working on mid-to-late game progression issues such as running out of imported resources.
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Many QoL changes needed. Ffs let me look at my current exports every time my neighbor asks me to increase export!
– Real player with 29.9 hrs in game
Rogue State Revolution is a resource management game with a novel theme and deary indie production values, but falls into to the typical issue of initial hump of difficulty after which you are free to explore and express regardless of difficulty. (Mind I’m a bit sadistic with difficulty on these games.)
After setting up your economy and surviving the initial diplomatic/societal/environmental challenges the game throws at you, one slowly but surely is on top of the wave. This is where the game suffers from bad pacing and/or balancing. I found myself having way too many actions while not having enough favors and/or money. There are several stretches like this in the game and it seems the team tried to introduce mechanics into the game that one can sink extra resources into (civilians & space missions & casino), but all of these will be exhausted relatively quickly leaving you, again, just passing the turn waiting for something to happen.
– Real player with 29.4 hrs in game
Strategy & Tactics: Wargame Collection
To start off I wanna say this isn’t a game of high quality. In fact, I found one of the games in this collection as a mobile game for my phone first (the WW2 Sandbox one) and it was pretty fun, but had all the ads and in-app-purchases that you see with mobile games. I definitely suggest that as a mobile game because it was free and pretty in-depth compared to most strategy games on mobile. On computer, meh. It was incredibly cheap, and even cheaper on sale, which was the main reason I bothered getting it. The deal was pretty good, because this is a 3-pack of games. They all play basically the same, so once you learn one, you learn all of them. As far as strategy games go, it’s simple compared to other games like it, and the mechanics become second nature within half an hour to an hour. The tutorials are pretty trashy, and don’t cover anything more complicated than basic movement and attacking, which means it’s up to you to really explore how combat and movement work. The AI is actually pretty good, but can be predicted and outsmarted with some practice. So why am I recommending this? This may not be a great game, but it’s cheap and simple. If you’re new to strategy games, or just enjoy casually playing them and don’t like diving heavily into grand-strategy games, this is a good choice for you. There’s also a mobile version, which I suggest for anyone. If you really like the complicated and in-depth mechanics that you find in games like Hearts of Iron and Victoria 2, though, stay away from this game on PC. There’s quite a bit of content, but you’ll get bored pretty fast, and personally I would take Hearts of Iron IV any day over these 3 games.
– Real player with 37.3 hrs in game
Ok, here’s my take on the game. I’m used to playing Axis and Allies, both the Milton Bradley board games as well as the old Nova Games, which was the best…I also play the triplea version, which is excellent. This game is much more in line with the Milton Bradley games. A relatively simple game, simple mechanics. That being said, there are some very nice features that I enjoy. You can plot out moves in a step by step fashion. Moving infantry to take the first territory, then “relocating” mech units into the newly taken territory, and then launching an attack with them into the next. You are not required to to plan out every move for all your troops, they can be executed one at a time. This is definately a “beer and pretzels” kind of game.
– Real player with 35.1 hrs in game