Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Player’s Edition
This is an excellent game that combines playability with a design philosophy that rewards authentic gameplay. You give your subordinates broad directives and waypoints, which they will carry out to the best of their abilities. The game abstracts the busywork and assumes that your subordinates are handling their own responsibilities. Fire support can be automated in case plotting artillery targets becomes tedious. Battle command becomes the player’s main concern over micromanagement. It’s very easy to plot out a battalion or brigade-size action and coordinate timings between the component units.
– Real player with 1271.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Cold War Games.
A very strange beast of a game, aiming to tackle myriad of unique aspects that are rarely represented in games of similar nature. Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is not only a treat for fans of turn based strategy games, but also a must have for ‘Cold War-turned hot’ scenario fans, meaning those who liked Tom Clancy’s most famous book about same topic will feel ultimately at home with this game.
FC:RS gives us a plethora of operations and separate missions, which we can play against the AI, from any angle, or in multiplayer with hotseat mode as an option. Be warned though, it’s a hefty game, meaning battles may last hours of real time, and despite it being a sort of old school tile/hex based strategy, it very much aims to simulate the outcomes rather then entertain you as a ‘game’ in it’s strict sense. That said the simulation itself sets of to tackle so many aspects of modern warfare it still amazes me to no end how many features are being calculated over span of a turn.
– Real player with 295.6 hrs in game
Legends of Callasia
Hail lords and Ladies
This game is amazing and I encourage you all to install the demo play through the campaigns and then get in on some multiplayer fun.
At first glimse it looks and feels mostly like playing Risk with more depth. At first the learning curve may appear to be overwhelming but trust me if you take the time to play through the free demo you will soon get the jist of things fairly fast.
There is alot of really good things to say about this game and its definately a step forward for those strategy game lovers who are wanting something casual but competitive at the same time.
– Real player with 545.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Multiplayer Games.
With some games, we tend to concentrate on all sorts of factors that seem important, and overlook the one that’s the most important of all - fun! This game is just great fun to play! I kind of enjoyed the free version, and figured it was worth the punt at what’s a pretty reasonable price. I have quite a few digital board games in my library so I was just expecting this to be another to come back to from time to time, but I was pleasantly surprised that it immediately became my new favourite game.
– Real player with 312.9 hrs in game
Pike and Shot : Campaigns
Some of the negative comments about this game that I remember seeing are about one thing or another that seemed unrealistic or un-historical to the reviewer. The reviewers may have had slightly too rigid notions of what might happen in a real war, but for the most part I do not disagree with their comments. My defense of Pike & Shot regarding these objections is that the developers have done a fantastic job of balancing realism with playability and balance. In fact, I feel that the game is incredibly good that way. In my opinion, fixing small realism issues is not worth the risk of reducing the playability and balance. The progression of the difficulty levels is good. It has been a lot of work to get good at the game, but very rewarding. Easy enough to get started, a lot of work to get better, but a ton of fun getting there. And still a lot of fun to keep playing even though I have recently reached a plateau in my mastery. And you can see how many hours it took me, although you should divide the number by 2 or 3 because I don’t think that the hours played is sensitive to inactive periods.
– Real player with 707.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Strategy Historical Games.
I really want to like this game. As can be seen by my hours spent in it. It’s so close to the kind of old school, tactically challening game I’d love to like. But it simply doesn’t work.
This is a mechanically interesting game, but the developer isn’t good enough at writing code to make the dense “under the hood” rules work consistently or even fairly. There are also a number of bad decisions on how campaigns are handled that makes the game an exercise in frustration, even after you get good at it. As can be seen I’ve given it hundreds of hours, because it it’s fascinating and deep tactically but its many flaws really drags it down.
– Real player with 626.7 hrs in game
Colonial Conquest
First off, yes, this is a rather simplistic Strategy game and will not appeal to some. That said, you have to take into account that this game is a remake of a 1985 classic SSI game of the same title. I played that game ALOT and it was always a lot of fun back them.
If you do not have the time to sink into a massively complex game and still want the satisfaction of crushing those who oppose you, this will be a fun game.
If you want to micro manage your forces every move and take days playing, this will not be the game for you.
– Real player with 60.8 hrs in game
The visuals are quite nice, with a lovely boardgame-like map to play on, and nice detailing and backgrounds on the menus. They certainly got their hands on a good artist. What you see in the screenshots is exactly what you get. Unfortunately that is the ONLY thing you get.
What the game promises, and what it delivers, are two very different things. The video on the store page suggests a cunning and strategic game of influence and military control over the uncivilized regions of the globe, but don’t be fooled: The game itself plays rather like a game of Risk where you can’t see your opponent’s pieces and every coastal territory is adjacent.
– Real player with 57.0 hrs in game
Cauldrons of War - Barbarossa
This is a highly abstract wargame where the abstractions combine elegantly to become more than the sum of its parts. For example, the game has a concept of command points each turn. Each area also has a number representing rail capacity. A rail capacity of 3 means 3 free supply points per turn. When rail capacity decreases in certain area of operations, you are forced to make decisions around prioritizing supply (via truck or horse, which is not always successful) vs. attack/movement. The player is thus forced to tradeoff meeting supply vs. achieving objectives which I think does a good job of conveying a decision that a general would actually need to make.
– Real player with 101.0 hrs in game
Cauldrons of War is brilliantly designed wargame that puts you in total command of either the Axis or Soviet forces from the German Invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941 until the Soviet Counter offensive in the Winter of 1942. It is one of the most tightly designed wargames on the market and yet its surprisingly complex. The game worries you primarily about issues that would worry a General In Chief, (Supply, Type of Operations, Force Composition of those Operations, how hard and far to push etc…) without worrying you about things a lot of wargames try to force on you, even if your rank doesn’t make that make much sense (micro-management) and in that sense this might be the closest experience to being a Field Marshall during the Second World War of anything that’s been released as a game. There are only a few things I’d change to make this game even better, 1. I’d like higher resolution maps, the games imagery does what it needs to do but it could be even better with an eye popping military style atlas with a great resolution. 2. The campaign needs to extend a bit further into 1942, playing as the Russian’s is nowhere near as fun as playing as the Germans because you’re the punching bag for the entire game and only have a few weeks at the very end of the game to counter strike, the game should extend a bit further, in line with the historical Soviet counter offensive in front of Moscow. 3. At times some key information about why certain tactics work and why later those same tactics don’t work, feels hidden. The game might benefit from displaying combat modifiers or other items that help inform the player why things are working and why they aren’t. Those are minor issues however, overall this is a brilliant game and for only $5, you can’t go wrong with it.
– Real player with 20.6 hrs in game
Civil War: 1863
It’s a nice game especially for the price. Its a simple fun little game. There is some thinking and strategy involved. The AI has actually beaten me a couple times on normal difficutly which is extremely rare. It has worked great on my computer and was easy to learn. It is a good edition to a library because sometimes you only have an hour to relax and play. I have other games much more in depth. Often the wife will say go play one game and dinner will be done in an hour. Most of my games take two weeks to finish so at least with this one I can make it down to dinner. Plus there just arent many Civil War games out there. I really liked, mid 1990’s, Civil War I and II by Sierra and Sid Meiers Gettysburg it would be great if Steam could sell these so I could play them again.
– Real player with 100.8 hrs in game
In my opinion, this game and others by this developer - Hexwar Games - got a bad rap from many reviewers. First of all, comparing it to a real time strategy game is apples and oranges. Ultimate General may just be a great game, but rts isn’t for everyone, or doesn’t have to be every time you want to play a game. I like turn based hex games!
Other games of this style and genre may be more historically accurate and more complex, but again, it’s apples and oranges. This game is a little on the casual side, and it definitely isn’t a real battle simulator. But sometimes I just want to charge those cannons or outflank that line, without feeling like I need a Ph.D. in military history just to play a game. Every tree may not be in the right place, but that’s OK with me.
– Real player with 53.2 hrs in game
Civil War: Battle of Petersburg
For the price, what’s the risk? BATTLE OF PETERSBERG will appeal to hisorical and strategy turn based gamers. Sure, there is room for improvement, especially with the hexagonal map, camera perspective and color scheme, which make it difficult to see terrain and to select units. And, I can’t speak to historical accuracy because I’m no expert. But you get an entire campaign providing several hours of gameplay through multiple battles. The gameplay is simple and no-frills that gives artillery a lot of power (they can move, condutct ranged attack, and destroy entire units, all in one turn). Your strategy will focus on using artillery to blast away entire sections of the enemy front line, followed up by infantry to clean up anything missed by the artillery, and cavalry to exploit the hole you’ve just punched. My recollection of the Petersburg campaign is that this is basically the strategy used. Recommended despite its problems.
– Real player with 11.0 hrs in game
In short - quick and easy to play, arcade game with strategic elements. Low price but also low content.
- Quick and easy to play
The game is far from being complex. You need only 1-2 minutes in menu to adjust all the graphic settings and the same amount of time spent using tutorial is more than enough to start first scenario. Simple rules of combat, relatively small maps as well as not much of a variety of units make the play fast and easy to finish even during eating dinner.
- Hot seat
It is always nice addition to the simple&short games. It could be strategic game but the truth is that you won’t make complicated plans and cunning strategies as this game lacks of any strategic depth. So there is no fear to play against each other using “hot seat” option as it suits such “strategic-arcade” game.
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Land Doctrine
At one point during play a gamebreaking bug happens in the design screen. It states that I need to add the engine gun and suspension and yet have all three, still the game won’t let new designs get built for this arbitrary stupidity, dear dev, I have no idea where exactly the code is wrong for this but please fix because it’s easily the best 5ish bucks I’ve spent
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
A small 5 dollar (or regional equivilant) game that has the player conquer every city on the map using researched and developed tanks and varying levels of trained infantry.
Building up your armies with the right equipment and soldier/tank ratio is important; large numbers of tanks are good for deserts, planes, and quick movement across the map, but will be slaughtered in cities. Large numbers of infantry and a tank battalion or two is great for assaulting and holding cities, but are slower to move on the map. Reasonably equal ratios of tank and infantry battalions are well-rounded, able to take on just about every environment, but won’t be as good as more specialised army groups.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game
Mare Nostrvm
Mare Nostrvm (Latin: “Our Sea”) is a turn-based hex grid naval battle wargame developed by Turnopia. Inspired by board wargames and ancient Mediterranean history, it is one of those games where a minimalist interface and plain graphics are a misleading cover for complex mechanics and a steep learning curve in gameplay.
Featuring a historically faithful single-player campaign and a robust skirmish generator in both single and multiplayer modes, Mare Nostrvm will appeal to either turn-based combat buffs or history buffs, but the former may not care much for the setting and the latter may be put off by the difficulty, which is non-negotiable.
– Real player with 23.6 hrs in game
So after trying the tutorial battle, then reading the manual(takes about 15 mins) and then replaying the tutorial, here are my thoughts:
This is a turn based(WEGO system, my favorite) “tabletop” style wargame, with utilitarian graphics. It is easy to get into but still feels challenging to play.
I would highly recommend this game to anyone who likes this period of history, likes TB wargames and doesn’t mind minimalist graphics. If you’re an RTS kind of gamer who needs state of the art “bells & whistles”, stay away from this one.
– Real player with 22.8 hrs in game
SGS Afrika Korps: Tunisia
SGS Afrika Korps: Tunisia:
The successful Anglo-American operation to invade the French colonies of Morocco and Algeria in November 1942, codenamed Operation Torch, was a massive steppingstone for the Allies in North Africa. From there, they had to conquer Tunisia to open a second front against the Axis and to disrupt their supply lines from Sicily to the ports of Tunis and Bizerte! And it also permitted the Allies to invade Sicily in July 1943\. So, who are you going to command for the battle of Tunisia? Will it be the Allies or the Axis? Either way, good luck to you, commander in SGS Afrika Korps: Tunisia.
*– [Real player with 10.6 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198003030375)*
I'm not an expert in turn-based games, but I'm interested in military history, WWII in particular, and that's why I tried this game. I actually won it, during a draw.
Overall I find it to be good, a mix of card-drawing, turn-based play, with dice roll and phases.
I like:
- the graphical representation of the units on the maps, which resemble those in Osprey's books
- the fact that there is no HEX, but rather regions
- you can move your units in different ways, not in a straight line
- events and historical places
*– [Real player with 8.9 hrs in game](http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198059484979)*
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