Burned Land
Burned Land is a niche game, and a little gem to me.
At first sight it might seem a little bit empty and obscure. Then it will seem very hard, even unfair. But if you push forward, you will discover a game with a very original approach, very rich and permissive in the ways you want to shape your kingdom and face the gods.
In this game, you not only build units and facilities, you will also “monitor” your population (literacy, devotion, nobility, sedentary, etc.), so they will provide you what you need and when you need it.
– Real player with 31.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Indie Games.
It is a pretty rough game, both in terms of UI and difficulty. The UI will hopefully get some polish from this one-man dev team, and perhaps the difficulty as well, but the difficulty certainly needs the polish a lot less. The dev is still pushing out regular updates, thus my recommendation for this Early Access game.
I made it to Turn 194, after narrowly dodging a very early game defeat. The early game near-defeat came about as my village almost starved due to a famine brought on by the gods. The entire point of this game is that the larger you grow, the more interest the gods have in stopping you from growing.
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
Dominium Mundi
I only played the game for 5 minutes, but I left the game running for 3 hours as I was doing christmassy stuff with my cats. So in short, I know very little of this game so far. The UI and map are excellent, I’m excited to go back and look at it more. I only took over one single city and explored over half of the map thus far, but it feels good to play.
If you consider yourself a fan of something, you deserve to something something good review.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Procedural Generation Games.
Save your money. I like simple strategy games at times when I want to take a break from too much intense thinking, but this is overly basic. You get bored of it after playing once or twice; it looks far more interesting than it truly is. Perhaps prices at $0.99 it may be worth considering - do not spend more than that on it.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
Age of Wonders: Planetfall
This game is easily one of the best newer strategy games (i.e. 4X style game) currently available for single player in my opinion, period. I’ve had a lot of time to try several of these sorts of games that are considered the top games in the category lately. Civ, Total War games, Stellaris, Endless Legend, the list goes on, but I always come back to this one.
NOTE: Many of the reviews for this game were from when the game was released, since then they did a massive update that re-balanced the game and overhauled several mechanics. A lot of the comments in negative reviews were from a year+ ago using the old mechanics. This game is being actively improved / patched as of Oct 2020 from what I’ve seen and they’re still releasing an expansion.
– Real player with 1901.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Sci-fi Games.
As the game is now, I do not recommend it.
I played the entire series extensively, over 4.000 hours over all titles of the series, for me personally, they changed things that were good about the game, and kept things that were bad about it.
City Siege
The first thing that is really noticeable and changes the dynamic of sieges entirely, they removed gates from city walls, those were replaced by militias and defensive towers, however these militias don’t have mods, and you can’t aim the towers, so any other troop that attacks the city will be stronger.
– Real player with 1383.1 hrs in game
Alliance of the Sacred Suns
A thousand years in the future, humanity’s last empire stands on the brink of collapse. Noble Great Houses compete for control over the decaying feudal state, while the lives of ordinary people have already begun the descent into an interstellar dark age.
You are the young emperor or empress, preparing to ascend the throne. You carry the last glimmer of hope for a brighter future among the stars.
Alliance of the Sacred Suns immerses you fully in the role of ruler. You will create your character, selecting from a variety of backgrounds and abilities. You will engage in conversations and develop relationships with your officials. You will make hard choices in illustrated narrative events, some threatening the stability of your fragile reign, others shining the faintest hope of a new dawn for your dying empire.
Your empire’s long decline means that you begin as ruler in name only. The nobility has coalesced into a handful of Great Houses, and their power has been growing for generations at the expense of imperial control. Members of the Great Houses dominate the imperial bureaucracy and complicate your rule. Yet, the strength of the Great Houses also provides critical support to your empire. A council of nobles serves as a check on your authority, but also a chance to build consensus for your policies.
You cannot micromanage the daily affairs of each planet in your empire, and you do not have omnipotent control of the economy or military. Instead you can only wield your authority as a real emperor or empress would, by managing relationships and politics to rule through appointed officials. Some serve as your governors, ruling planets and star systems in your name.
There are no build queues to micromanage. Instead, exercising wisdom in whom to entrust with official appointments will be critical to the development of planets within your empire. But you must tread carefully, and you cannot make appointments on merit alone. The scion of a powerful House may prove an incompetent governor, but stripping them of position may have consequences far worse than a badly run colony.
You too are a member of a Great House. Your House and those of the other noble families will each employ a unique playstyle. For example, Houses with a technocratic tradition will research advanced technologies to grow their power, while those with a mercantile culture strengthen their rule through economic growth and trade.
These factors will play out differently depending on which of several available scenarios you choose. Each scenario includes unique political situations and victory conditions.
Mods
Alliance of the Sacred Suns is built to support modding. Players can access much of the game mechanics and content through text and XML editing. We are excited to see what worlds modders will create using our politics-in-space framework.
Beard of Stone
Beard of Stone is a fantasy turn based 4x that tell the story of a world’s creation all the way to the twilight of the gods. Not exclusively a turn based strategy game, real time bidding mechanics keep everyone actively involved. Who is up for their next turn is constantly in contention! The game is fast paced and quick enough to be played in a single sitting.
Players take the role of Gods, bending the prophetic destiny of the world to their ends. Every event and action in the game is public information from the very first turn, displayed on the Prophecy Track. Players spend their Influence currency to gain control of these prophecies in real time. Anyone can bid and be outbid before a prophecy arrives as the current turn. Prophecies span a wide range of actions, from the creation of the continents of the world, the birth of all the various races, disasters, military campaigns and more.
As Gods, players are not playing as any specific race. They strive to make the warriors and nobles of the land believers in their faith. As the races expand and worship each God, the Influence invested is redistributed to the Gods to be bid on further prophecy turns. Having the most believers in the most prosperous races will lead to one of the Gods dominating the world and winning the game.
Best Election Simulator In Russia!
Who is your admiral general communist oligarch in the bright Russia of the future?
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Putin? And his aquadisco, pouring Novichok on everyone in the neighborhood?
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Or Lukashenka and a gang of security officials?
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Navalny and his swarm of drones and protesters?
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Or Trump on a posh aircraft carrier and his highly mobile rednecks on pickup trucks?
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Or with unique mechanics completely out of control George Floyd and his hordes of activists?
Explore and dominate on a generated map
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Loot and spend on strategically important buildings, or just buy a golden toilet brush for your luxury pirate yacht.
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Each faction has its own line of development, so bring women and electoral votes to the yacht to get new opportunities, glorious pirate!
For example, a couple of votes of friendly fellow citizens and Trump is already airstrikes enemies and bombing cities.
However, it is even easier for Putin: carry two women and you have a great personal bunker.
Unique cell mechanics
At the start of the game, all cells are closed like a card back.
Open them and get unexpected turns.
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Maybe it will be a nuclear rocket?
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Or garages with a gop-stop?
Unit characteristics
Each unit earns experience in the course of the game, whether it is killing, women, or collecting votes.
In the future, the player distributes points for new characteristics in the improvement tree.
Some traits can be obtained by examining undiscovered cells. For example, a university has a chance to give a “Red diploma”, which gives + 0.001% to damage.
But the characteristics are not always SUCH POSITIVE! A unit that has been imprisoned has a 50% chance of receiving the “Buggered” debuff.
Find cards and strengthen the regime
Examples of cards:
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“Legalization Of Prostitution”: 5% chance each turn that 3 random units will gain the characteristic “Prostitute” and start generating income when attacking.
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“Nepotism”: First and permanent income from oil + 100%.
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“Gopota Government Support”: 5% chance every turn that 2 loyal riot policemen will appear near the city.
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“A Feast In Time Of Plague”: 5% chance each turn that 1 random unit will become a cannibal and start supplying food to the city with each kill.
Beware of the indigenous people!
So, the traffic police inspector will bankrupt the rednecks in pickup trucks, which have a movement range of two cells.
And the gopota, when attacking, has a chance to take away a weapon or object, including the NUCLEAR!
Do not forget that it is possible to subdue these crooks by priests and oligarchs. By the way, send juggernaut bears to attack with RPG and nuke!
Combine faction, regime and cards wisely
For example, Putin’s milestones such as “Bunker”, “Resetting Presidential Terms”, and “Coronation”, which provide good bonuses, go well with the “Clone Sovereign” upgrade of the Monarchy regime.
Call to Power II
Old game, weird controls, but still fun.
Good thing you can rebind keys!!!
I did run across a bug or few, but no game breaking ones.
At start you are looking at a black screen, just click the mouse button to move on or be forever stuck there. Also need to turn off wonders movies.
This game has small maps and limited number of cities per government to throw you right into conflict.
When you found a city, it shows you the possible distance out that the border can be. I really missed that feature in modern games. Actually there are a few features I miss that this one has.
– Real player with 594.9 hrs in game
If you enjoy the civilization franchise this is a great one. It can be a little overwhelming at first but as you get more into it there is loads to focus on and customize from city buildings to governmental settings. It’s an older game so the AI isn’t perfect and some things can be frustrating but for the price and the ability to take your civ wayyyyy into the future, its pretty darn cool.
– Real player with 46.2 hrs in game
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
This is my favorite game since it came out, and my favorite version of Civ (I know Civ 1 through 5)
I won’t go into what Civ is specifically about. You should know.
Nor will I compare to other Civ games. It has been done.
This versions' depth is impressive, and the playability is… at least a few lifetimes.
Graphics are normal, but totally irrelevant!
The 4X strategy design and many (but not too many) balanced options make it something that will always be enjoyable.
Spock will still read your Scientific discoveries out loud! :P
– Real player with 1974.8 hrs in game
I’ll start by saying that this is not a game for casuals, if you want to have a game that is incredibly compelling and complex and rewarding to learn, this is your game. While Civ 3 remains a complete mystery to me, I can say I have played all the others, and this one is by far the best I’ve played. You might say “what about Civ 5?”, but I highly prefer it to Civ 5 for several reasons (unit stacking Figure out how to use collateral damage people, tech/espionage/culture slider, much more micromanagable empire, better system for unit and city maintenance, far superior espionage system, more interesting promotion dynamics with military units, unrestricted leaders, non gimmicky leader traits, non gimmicky religions, far superior map options, way less annoying barbarians, way less buggy multiplayer, etc etc etc…)
– Real player with 1765.2 hrs in game
Empire Takeover
This is a fun & amazing tower crush game! Crush enemy’s towers, take over the empire!
● Fight: Connect all your buildings together to grow them taller and then takeover the enemy’s buildings.
● Control: Simple drag controls from one building to another.
● Build: Build your empire, occupy more territory, crush your opponents.
● Heroes: Recruit legendary heroes.
● Special art style: Lowpoly Style Game.
● 3 Special Mode:
#1 Stage Maker Mode: design levels by yourself and share it to your family, your friends or all the worldwide players.
Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition
In a word: Addictive. Yes, addictive in that terrifying, inescapable, “just-one-more-turn” way. Galactic Civilizations II is what you get if you take Master of Orion II, expand it so that the galaxy, tech tree and ship customisation are roughly a hundred times as huge without ever becoming boring, bump the graphics up to a standard still respectable today for a TBS, give each civilization some serious make-or-break differences (hint: the Drengin and the Yor almost always end up dominating most of the galaxy that ISN’T YOU), and shove it out there to give almost every other space-based TBS a serious poke in the eye.
– Real player with 216.8 hrs in game
I decided to pick up a new 4x space game after pouring many hours into Endless Space. Endless Space lacked complexity and I searched for a more in depth game. Galactic Civilizations 2 fulfill that criteria. I started playing this in 2015 so I have no nostalgic feelings for it. The game is quite good and fun despite its age and limitations, in fact it is the best 4x space game I have played so far (other space 4x I’ve played are MOO2, Endless Space and Sword of the Stars). Take a good look at the pros and cons because some points might put you off.
– Real player with 196.7 hrs in game