Strategy game like chess?

Agricola

GO is a fantastic game. Slay the spire is a card game with some interesting strategy components. You can get it on steam.

Ahh, I missed Go. I learned Go and played it and liked the complexity with all this simplistic rules, but it's not my game...

Oh, you're into chess? What's your rating? I was playing on FICS for awhile and just recently got hooked on chess.com. It's hard to step away from it.

Risk. There are some generic computer versions that are okay.

AOE and CNC are the checkers of video gaming. Try “Hearts of Iron IV” (HOI4) or “Stellaris,” which are “Grand Strategy” games. If you’re looking specifically for more RTS games like AOE or CNC, I recommend Warzone 2100, which is an old but good RTS which can now be downloaded for free.

I like backgammon or Ur. Card games are spades and hearts. I never got into bridge.

Try Birth of the Empires which is a free space game across a galaxy. It's flawed but fun. The flaw is you can easily be crushed by espionage as it's not actively being updated, so it's unbalanced.

You set the game essentially to a "sandbox" mode by only turning on one empire or turn on 2 (yourself plus another) and set the galaxy on maximum size. Then turn the minor alien races to maximum.

Then the game is largely about exploration and your empire conquering the minor races who have space faring capability.

It works across multiple platforms...100% free...no ads.

Do a search of "Birth of the Empires by Blotunga".

There are several similar games, but this has an android version and it's probably the best android free yet complex game.

go

stratego is a classic

I've heard Go is but I've never played. Chess is my game

risk

What he/she said.

I always enjoyed board games like Risk, Axis and Allies, Line in the Sand, Harpoon.

Most space strategy games mess up by trying to have RTS elements and you have 800 space ships plus 800 troops, that is just cumbersom. So in the Birth of the Empires you build fleets and send combat troops in a transport to do a boots on the ground invasion. So the tactical elements of war are taken out, just as they are in chess. It's 100% strategy then.

If you want a game that involves tactics and strategy, then you have to control every single unit, which is impossible on a tablet.

So for computer game, you could try Medieval 2 Total War Kingdoms which is a decade old and so dirt cheap. That game especially with mods is for military strategists and tacticians and without peer. It's the paragon in every way and unlikely to ever be surpassed.

The old GalCiv2 games are unique as they have space strategy and tactical elements as the battle plays out in an animation. A mod for it puts Star Trek races versus Star Wars empires...and that is a lot of fun. That game should be dirt cheap too as it's ancient like 16+ years old.

Settlers 4! Can't stop playing all the new creative maps people are uploading.

Of course there is no game like chess.

I prefer to play it on a real board...

Playing Birth of the Empires on a maxed out galaxy array is like playing 50 chess games as the same time. It's a galactic scale and you not only have moves but have to time getting troops and spaceships there so mustered based on the speed of the ships and the logistics of transporting troops to the battlefront.

That is exponentially more difficult than chess.

axis and allies boardgame by hasbro.

the old Gamemaster (board game series), by avalon hill/milton bradley

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Tabletop wargames were invented for veterans to wage famous battles and take terrain movement rates and have modifiers based on types of terrain.

Space has no terrain but immense distance so lightspeed variations then matter.

Both of which are significantly more complex than mere chess or GO or anything similar like backgammon.

Even consider Civ2 or Civ3 which is better. With the latter you have armies comprised of multiple units fighting in battlefields versus fortified city sieges. Most people would highly enjoy Civ3 mods using famous units from history and against famous empires on accurate maps

Surpringly Civ3 holds up even today and I think it was released in 1997? And the various modtypes then keep it fresh. Mods are available at civfanatics.

There is a Civ6 clone that is free called unCiv that works on tablets and can be found at the Google Playstore. It's not as pretty but perfectly fine and entertaining.

The joy of a strategy game is the mental challenge across hundreds of turns, but 95% are not true military simulations.

Medieval 2 Kingdoms is rather famous as it's so moddable that the generals or the city commanders get attributes based on what they do in the field or what they build. Thus those attributes then play a role to modify the percentage chance of winning battles.

Imagine a tactical chess where a chess piece increases in leadership so it's not just movement rates, but a strength variation and in Medieval 2 then your have cavalry able to flank and pin. Or you have ancient Roman tactics of hurling pilums and then engaging in unit combat. Medieval 2 is in a class by itself. Nothing even comes close due to how easily it can be endlessly modified.

There even are folks who made the Lord of the Rings moddifications or even a WW1 or a samurai version.

games workshop games - old or new. boardgames and the computer game variants. gog dot com sells some old ones. i like final liberation warhammer epic 40,000. master of magic, master of orion, settlers, are good ones.

like warhammer / warhammer 40k, space marine/epic 40k was great, necromunda, blood bowl, man of war.

heroquest, or the games workshop variant warhammer quest.

or you could get into some board wargames, hex and counter/chit. gmtgames has a website.

check kickstarter
fantasy flight games does some

or total war games by creative asembly/sega, they do 2 warhammer games. look on steam.

matrixgames / slitherine - do more pc wargames.

hps simulations - do some turn based and wego pc wargames. john tiller games is an offshoot.

steam / steampowered - they are an online game reseller - lots of stuf on there. humble bundle dot com have steam bundles.

poxnora and similar games play like chess but more complicated. its a trading card game. another card game is mtgo magic the gathering online.

for rts, command and conquer all past up to lastest. including dune 2, dune 2000, emporer. a new game unrelated is rusted warfare.

i second warzone.

battle for wesnoth
triplea
ufo enemy unknown / xcom terror from the deep etc
warcraft orcs vs humans, 1,2,3 etc they turned into moba genre

tribal wars and similair, illyriad, browser games

civilization, 2 and up to present.

battlemaster - browser game

Your average gamer has no idea whatsoever how to wage war. Since about 2005, game companies have dumbed down wargames to appeal to buttonmasher arcade players.

Medieval 2 Total War Kingdoms cannot be won that way. You can autoresolve battles, but battles are not won by numbers alone, but by cunning, subterfuge, ambushes, terrain advantage, time of day, surprise, and most importantly charismatic leadership that can raise morale. Counless actual battles were won when the opponent even had better armor and better technology.

That is why Medieval 2 is about as close you will ever get to a true war simulation.

Without actual rts tactics, then every strategy is about number crunching. if number crunching alone was war, the Afghanistan would have been won in a month. Yet Afghanistan is the longest war in US history. What does that tell you? You can't just win by superior strength, technology, and mass bombardment. It's futile.

I mean, you could just nuke 'em, but poison the planet.

paradox / paradox interactive? / paradox plaza? - i think they make hoi and the others, im not really a fan of them but the complxity is enormous if thats what you are looking for.

check out 1C company on steam.

Try xiangqi (sounds like "jyan-gei", in Cantonese anyway) if you like international chess. It's the Chinese variant. Literally "elephant chess" and It's a blast. Development takes place quickly with two cannon that move move into action immediately...

Highly recommended.


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It's 100% guaranteed failure if we teach budding military strategists that war can be won by superior forces alone. It's foolish to think war is just logistics getting superior forces to overwhelm understrength units poorly mustered.

War is complex because human beings are complex and can be rallied by certain individuals who defy the odds because they understand battlefield tactics and can raise morale.

Don't be misled by strategy game mechanics. Ain't realistic.

You might like a online card game called magic the gathering. Its kind of like chess + d&d and its free on steam.