Hexonomy
Hexonomy is a game of strategy and economics. Choose from hundreds of different businesses to build and use the resources at your disposal to create the largest economic empire before time runs out. Be sure to keep your eyes open for any weaknesses in your opponents business strategy, placing the right business, at the right time, in the right place, could mean the end of it all for your opponent.
GAMEPLAY
Start with a blank slate. You begin by creating Resource nodes on the map. These will set the basis of the game. Where you place your first resources could affect the outcome of the entire game. All businesses derive from a resources in some shape or form.
From there, you advance into Tiers. Each Tier requires a business from the Tier below it. For example, a Tier 12 business requires a Tier 1 supplier. A Tier 6 supplier requires a Tier 5 supplier. And Tier 1 suppliers always require Resources. The higher the Tier, the bigger the risk, and the bigger the reward. Higher tiers will requires a wider variety of supplies from multiple businesses, so you have to be sure that all the suppliers are met. For each supplier on the map that supplies your business, you get a boost to efficiency, which results in more money for you.
If you own the supplier to your business, you get a HUGE discount on supplies. Meaning, chaining the suppliers and business makes great economical sense when possible. But that may not always be the case.
THE CATCH
There can only ever be ONE of any business. Which means if you need birch wood, and your opponent owns the only tree farm, you HAVE to buy from him. You cannot decline to buy from a supplier. If the supplier is available, you have to buy from them, and you have to pay their price. Meaning, if you know your opponent needs Gold in the future for their Jewelry brokerage, it would be wise to put down a Gold mine if they haven’t already. You would profit tremendously selling to your opponent, they wouldn’t get a discount, and that means leverage by trying to hike the price up as much as possible.
However, they can do the same to you, so its wise to be careful about leaving any vulnerabilities in your supply chain. These vulnerabilities sometimes may be unavoidable, since the higher Tier business may already require resources that your opponent bought early in the game. This is where prediction and smart calculations will win you the game.
TACTICS
Businesses location and information varies as well. Certain business only do well in certain time of the year (the time of the game is calculated in a 12 month system, using economic quarters and sprints). Some businesses have higher shipping costs than others. Some require a higher amount of resources to produce their product. Other business may have to be placed next to other tiles. Some business cant be within x amount of tiles of another business.
These placement restrictions and variables make it a little harder to create good economic chains. However, they can also be used to your advantage in order to put your opponent in a tough spot. If you know what their strategy is, you can restrict certain businesses from being built by creating others that counter those businesses. Knowing the supply and demand will help you overcome this as you learn about the Hexonomy.
UPGRADES
Once you have businesses placed, you can start thinking about how to upgrade. There are many types of modifiers in the game. Ones that apply to the whole board, ones that apply to all your businesses only, some that affect an area, and some that affect a single business. You can purchase these modifiers for Capital. By doing this, it will effectively cost you Net Worth, but in the long run, may help generate significantly more income. Spend wisely.
WINNING AND LOSING
As the game goes on, you are constantly trying to increase your company’s Net Worth. The more property you own, and the more successful businesses you have, and the more Capital your businesses earned you, the higher your company’s value. The player with the highest Net Worth at the end of time is the winner.
Create the empire you want! You can choose a hundred different paths to victory, as long as you have a great strategic and economical mind!
Read More: Best RTS Real Time Tactics Games.
Espiocracy
Disclaimer: Trailer & screenshots are early work in progress
GRAND ESPIONAGE STRATEGY
Choose one of 102 countries and guide character-driven national intelligence agency through rough seas of the Cold War. From Soviet KGB and American CIA, up to Israeli Mossad and British MI6, expect different approaches to grand strategy gameplay.
INNOVATIVE MECHANICS
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Espionage finally made as it should be
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Precise modelling of views & ideologies
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Direct links between causes and effects
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System of geopolitically active actors
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Emergent multipolar simulation
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Operation plans, campaigns, and opportunities
MEANINGFUL DECISIONS
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Prioritize grand scale and leave micro to your operatives
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Establish contacts, threaten, exploit, and trade
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Manipulate public opinion, support and establish political factions
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Launch coups and proxy wars, falsify casus belli
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Hunt spies and terrorists, protect internal stability
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Form alliances, prepare all-out attacks, break rules
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Advise country leader on critical decisions such as military interventions
DANGEROUS TIDES OF HISTORY
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Nuclear race: first atom bombs, thermonuclear revolution, mutually assured destruction
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Huge progress in technology, simulated in the game with Kuhn’s paradigm shifts
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After-war poverty, civil wars, controversial past
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Configurable balance between alternate history and determinism
Read More: Best RTS Cold War Games.
Rome: Total War™ - Alexander
Oliver Stone’s Alexander Revisited being one of my favorite sword and sandal epics, I was looking forward to playing this standalone expansion after having finished Rome: Total War.
Big mistake; should have played Alexander before Rome’s Grand Gampaign, as this feels like another tutotial campaign with many limitations compared to the Grand Campaign.
Not only is the world map smaller (in the sense that there is only Asia to conquer but this is something we all expected), no, even the Asia part is SMALLER than its size in the regular Grand Campaign of Rome Total War!
– Real player with 37.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best RTS Turn-Based Strategy Games.
I finally got around to playing this 2006 expansion (11 years old) to a 2004 game (13 years ago) that at the time was a true gamechanger and a “game of the year” level historical RTS game. The age is important to note because from my experience, the lack of recent patches has made the game buggy on, say, Windows 10. There was a particular bug which sometimes (maybe 33%?) led to game crashes in the transition from the battlefield back to the world map. What that meant (and because the battlefield can take a while) is that I had to do frequently crazy saves (some 2-3 minutes apart). And that’s because there’s nothing quite as annoying as pulling off a brilliant battlefield win (that you easily could have lost)… and then have to do it all over again !
– Real player with 37.0 hrs in game
Carrier Command 2 VR
I have only played a brief little bit, but so far I have been able to control my units, drive the carrier, and do the first island mission without any problems in VR, but I am using Valve Index Controllers so I do not know how it will work on other types.
My only concern is that the carrier’s main camera looks a little funky as it is like a big circular 2D screen inside a glass sphere that you are standing in and for a few moments I didn’t know what I was looking at or why the screen was in my way. Once I started moving the camera and zooming in it all made sense and I was able to use it no problem. It does look weird though and makes you wonder where you are and what happened the first time you use it.
– Real player with 30.9 hrs in game
Yes, now I can recommend this game since the latest update allows all functions to work with my Odyssey+, even though the devs don’t officially support WMR. (I’m hoping they will later, however.) I did have to use a community-made set of bindings, but everything works with the only exception being the air/sea radar, where I can’t seem to increase or decrease the scan range. Fortunately, the default value of 1250m still works just fine, so it’s not a game-breaking issue. I haven’t tried modifying the bindings, so it’s possible that I could still find out the fix for it. I spent about 2 hours capturing 3 islands and I had no trouble using all the same tactics that I would in pancake mode, although it took me the first 30 minutes just figuring out what all the controller buttons did. But once I did, I was bounding between screens and stations, giving orders to units, operating gimbal cameras, manipulating maps, and driving the carrier with ease. The only really hard part was doing it all standing up… I need to get a chair next time, as my feet were starting to hurt by the 3rd island captured.
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
Hearts of Iron 2 Complete
Hearts of Iron II is one of the best Grand Strategy games I have ever played. It’s deep and detailed yet easy enough to learn. Keep in mind though, when I say easy, I mean easy for a Grand Strategy game, for the usual RTS player it still is quite a hill to climb.
The big strategic elements are well made and fulfilling with lots to do in building your country up, fine tuning your army and position it just so. The expansions add tons to that with an expanded diplomacy system and a espionage system both of which, although not as good as the actual warfare, works fairly well.
– Real player with 496.2 hrs in game
This game was released 16 years ago and it is still the best of Paradox’s entire catalogue. Yes, you need to run it on 16-bit compatibility mode, and yes it does not support HD, let alone 4K but the immersion is incomparable to any other historical strategy game. Think about this, there are hundreds (thousands?) of real life generals accompanied with their real life photographs that you can promote, remove from command, or to send into a suicide mission in Cambodia. I remember reading about El Campesino and Lister Forjan in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and imagine the excitement of 13 year old me when I got to see their faces and even got to command them in Hearts of Iron 2.
– Real player with 365.1 hrs in game
Knights of Honor II: Sovereign
Become the King and wrestle over control of Europe in this fresh take on medieval real-time grand strategy.
Sovereign includes all the depth players desire while being the gate-way game to the grand strategy genre, presenting the world as a
living, breathing miniature, alive and ripe for the taking. Choose your royal court carefully and determine the destiny of your people,
be it riches, conquest, intrigue, trade, or defeat! Raise armies to defend your lands or take war to the enemy - even jump into
battle directly in action-packed RTS combat. The path is open: become the true Sovereign of your people.
Features
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Accessible Grand Strategy - All the depth of religion, diplomacy, city development, and more, with none of the confusion
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Real-Time Gameplay - Medieval Europe comes alive, no turns needed
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Royal Court - Appoint Marshalls, Clerics, Merchants, Diplomats, and Spies to exert your will across the land
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RTS Battles - Lead your armies directly in riveting RTS engagements
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Robust Multiplayer - Join with multiple friends to take on the challenges of medieval Europe
Knights of Honor
Knights of Honor is a classic grand strategy game, quite different from any other in the genre. Everything happens in real time, including the battles that can be fought manually and the campaign map really feels alive as a lot of things are happening at the same time.
There are a few things to manage, like your town construction, your royal court, armies and diplomacy. These things are fairly simplistic (compared to the modern games) and are easy to learn, but very fun to play with once you understand them. While the manual battles can be fun and dynamic, they aren’t the strong part of Knights of Honor. The actions on the campaign map are definitely where the main entertainment comes from.
– Real player with 124.6 hrs in game
Before I start, I want to mention one thing: this negative review is not about the game itself. Knights of Honor is a great RTS game, and you should definetly play it. My problem stems from the fact that this game is a prime example of a developer being lazy and just dumping the original game, unpatched and unoptimized to Steam for a price that seems very steep, considering the performance quality of this game. To first start off, this game’s major fault is the fact that it cannot boot into its default resolution properly. No matter what you do, it will only show 3/4s of the image (in some cases, the game will also force your monitor resolution to 640x480) that can only be fixed via the HD patch. The main issue with the HD patch is that for some people, it will not work. I have had friends who purchased this game and were unable to get the patch running, leaving them with a game that was a waste of money and time. The game also still has a major issue that I’ve experienced even on an old XP machine as a kid with an original (now lost) disc copy; Random crashes. These seemingly have no real trigger, they will happen often after 1-2 hours of play, and while not annoying due to the ability to set frequent autosaving, preventing loss of progress, its insulting that this issue still persists years later, with the developers never addressing it or releasing a patch. Overall, I don’t recommend the game due to the aforementioned HD patch issue some people I know have had, otherwise if you’re lucky enough to get it working, it is possibly one of the most addicting strategies out there.
– Real player with 115.8 hrs in game
Kwarn Armada Tactics
Kwarn Armada Tactics (aka KAT) is a unique mix of strategy and action.
KAT’s gameplay is focused on an ingenious system of units formations : each of your units has lines of action that can strengthen allied units or destroy opposing units. Place smartly your units to create powerful formations which will counter your opponent’s assaults !
Choose among 6 generals the one that will lead your troops on the battlefield. The general defines your armada’s general strategy : massive assaults or fast attacks, impenetrable defence, ruses or diversions, guerilla warfare or destabilization…Each of the 6 generals has 3 powers able to turn the battle to his advantage : powerful drones prototypes, opposing units capture, camouflage, speed or power boosts, etc.
Choose among 27 units the best combinaison according to your strategy ! Heavy units, equipped with shields, allow to crush a defence formation !
Light units are able to dodge enemy’s attacks and are perfect for harrying your opponent! Medium units are balanced and will form the core or your armada ! Transport units allow you to bring units to the heart of your opponent’s armada or to create a diversion !
Customize your units with equipment to caught your opponent by surprise and take advantage! Equipments can be installed on some of your drones and can be used at any time during the battle : the bomb transforms a unit into a suicide bomber, the teleporter transports a unit in the middle of the enemy defense, the virus sabotages the enemy defenses, the bastion turns a unit into a fortress, …
Fight your opponents in ruthless duels ! Each battlefield is full of surprises: whether it is a violent snowstorm that immobilizes your units, asteroid fields that threaten your troops, or pirates capable of capturing your units: each battle promises to be unique and surprising ! The AI of the game has been the object of a particular and constant work in order to make it redoutable : able to choose among dozens of tactics and hundreds of formations of units, the AI represents a real challenge and makes each general really different.
Finally, quick play allows you to set up an immediate battle through 14 game modes, against the AI or another player on the same device.
KAT’s visual aesthetics is inspired by comics and turns the gaming experience into a real journey into a dark and captivating science fiction universe.
Features :
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An absolutely unique, simple, tactical and nervous gameplay
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Large tactical possibilities : 6 generals, 27 drones and 10 equipments
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Long game length : a campaign mode , 14 game modes and quick play against a challenging AI or two players on the same device
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A unique and captivating universe told with a comic book style
Medieval Kingdom Wars
I like the game. In fact, I like it a lot. There are very few things I could personally complain about, in terms of gameplay mechanics, or graphics. If I wanted something different, I’d simply play something else, instead of asking for this game to be changed to the point it’s no longer the same game.
The reason for the negative review, would be that I’ve almost completely lost faith in the the developers, as well as any hope of improvement on what is currently something non-playable for me. And the reason I’ve lost faith in them, would be due to their approach on how they handle things.
– Real player with 142.0 hrs in game
Medieval Kingdom Wars is a Grand Strategy/RTS game that reminds me of a mix of a very simplified Paradox campaign map, with Total War elements, and then very Age of Empires style real time battles in a battle map. This game has a really cool concept, I’ve always wanted a game like this, and after reading the description apparently the 3 man Dev team always has as well, and they’ve made a pretty neat little game. What it lacks in complexity and depth it makes up for in pure fun, and it is fairly addictive as well. It’s not as immersive as a total war game or a paradox game, you won’t really feel Super in the 14th century, as many of the units are still fairly generic, but the devs are CONSTANTLY updating this game, and it’s always getting better with every update. Okay, lets do a quick rundown of it’s features and then some pros and cons:
– Real player with 54.3 hrs in game
Structura
This is a niche game intended for a small group of people that enjoy the concept of turning DOS into a game, and manually handling every aspect of base building and logistics through text commands - in lieu of having situational action buttons that figure what you are trying to do when you aim at x thing.
I am not one of those people. I don’t know any of those people.
But I do hope the devs find their audience.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game