Looking for TBS recommendations

[graddy]

Oxeren, sorry to be that annoying guy, but any Switch plans for Steam Tactics? Your game looks pretty rad. 

[04048]

Dungeon of the Endless?

[Cordeos]

I just started playing Space Hulk Ascension, so far I really like it. Sort of similar to Xcom but meaner

[Henke]

On 10/5/2017 at 10:32 PM, Nappi said:

Who would have thought a year ago that the game that ticks all the boxes of the initial question would be an Ubisoft-developed Mario game?

 

Hah, yes. I picked up Mario+Rabbids last week and I just beat Rabbid Kong this morning. It's wonderful, lighthearted turn based tactics fun. It's this year's Steamworld Heist.

 

For a decidedly less lighthearted TBS game I also picked up Vietnam '65 in a Steam sale recently, though I haven't gotten to it yet.

[gophergaming]

If you're looking for an older game,  I highly recommend of the XCOM games.  The director of the original is also making a new game.  It's called Phoenix Point I think.

[Henke]

I tried playing the demo of a X-Com game(or perhaps it was UFO) back in the mid-90's, but couldn't make heads or tails of it. I think the streamlined design of the newer games is much more my bag, but also not so much my bag, as my raging against XCOM2 in the opening post shows.

[Cordeos]

1 hour ago, Henke said:

I tried playing the demo of a X-Com game(or perhaps it was UFO) back in the mid-90's, but couldn't make heads or tails of it. I think the streamlined design of the newer games is much more my bag, but also not so much my bag, as my raging against XCOM2 in the opening post shows.

Have you checked out Xenonauts? Its a good compromise between the Original Xcom and the new ones.

[Henke]

I apparently own it on GOG! I'm probably not gonna play it tho.

 

Between Vietnam 65, which I still haven't played, and the soon-to-be-released Flotilla 2 and Valkyria Chronicles 4 I think I'm all set for TBS games for a while.

[Cbirdsong]

I assume you've probably checked out Into the Breach, which ticks all your boxes and is by the FTL devs. If not, do it.

[Henke]

Sure have! It was good, but I didn't get into it as much as FTL. Pretty much just finished it on Normal and never came back to it.

 

Also recently bought Flotilla 2, but due to a bug where it's only playable with the left Touch-controller on Oculus Rift I've been unable to enjoy it.  Chung tried to fix it, but to no avail. :|

 

However I am HYPED for Frozen Synapse 2 and Valkyria Chronicles 4 coming out over the next couple weeks!

[osmosisch]

I just dipped back into Card Hunter and it's still as good as ever, with a lot more build variety due to expansion cards.

[Henke]

IT'S THE QUARTERLY HENKE'S TBS GAMING UPDATE

 

Frozen Synapse 2

I played the singleplayer campaign for like 30 hours but got bored before the end. Didn't even get around to the MP. Eh... it was fine tho. I like a lot of what they've done with the open world structure, but it was also crazy complex and I had to look up a lot of stuff online that the game didn't tell me about. I don't know. If you haven't played Frozen Synapse, play the first one. If you've played FS1 and want more, yeah, check this out, but maybe wait for a sale. 

 

Valkyria Chronicles 4

Definitely on the easy end of the TBS games spectrum, and it's also got some quite annoying design decisions, with the menus and upgrade-trees taking way too long to do anything in. Despite that, I loved it. One of my fave games of last year. Even though it's easy, the story really manages to make you feel the struggle your squad is going through, and the characters are wonderful. 

 

Just started playing Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden, it's heavy on XCOM-style random-dice-rolley bullshit, so I'm playing on the lowest difficulty, and mostly managing to enjoy it without screaming at my computer too much.

[XGenGamer]

If you are looking for the strategy games then you must try PUBG or Apex legends. They are now trending all over the world and a huge number of gamers are attracted towards these two games. These games will surely test your close combat skills, snipping skills and strategy skills also.

[Roderick]

Surely!

[Gormongous]

The word "strategy" is clearly dead and needs to be buried.

[Roderick]

Listening to the 1994 retrospective by 3MA in their latest podcast, it struck me what a radically different gaming landscape we have now. RTSses were THE SHIT in the mid-90s. Unfathomable that they'd ever unceremoniously leave the scene. At the time, I thought TBS was so old-fashioned, but I've come around completely on this.

[clyde]

Kinda enjoying thinking about whether or not a strategy game could exist without the ability of one player to coordinate multiple units. I don't think so. I think that the "strategy"  that is being referenced is the unified efforts of multiple pieces by one player. But what if you developed some sort of decision-making system for multiple players who all control one piece? For instance if you had a game of Chess with 16 players per team and players could on one team could ping their next planned move; that would be somewhat similar to Apex Legends and possibly a strategy-game.

[osmosisch]

How are you distinguishing your hypothetical from already-existing party-combat games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 for example, where each player controls one character? There's plenty coordination required between characters/players for good strategy/tactics there.

[Gormongous]

I think the distinction between strategy and tactics is important here. Strategy is the overall plan to achieve a goal, tactics are the moment-to-moment decisions that execute that plan. I think Divinity: Original Sin 2 probably has a lot of tactics, but I can't imagine that it has that much strategy besides "go to this place and talk to/kill everyone."

[Cordeos]

I can't decide where Totally Accurate Battle Simulator fits in the world of strategy games. Its real time, but you have no control over your units once you hit start. All of your input takes place in terms of unit type and placement. I have gotten far enough in the campaign that its actually challenging not just a lark. Very enjoyable game

[clyde]

I see. So going for a science-win in Civilization would be a strategy. 

I wonder what is smaller scale than tactic. Like if it goes strategy>tactic>[...]

[Gormongous]

6 hours ago, clyde said:

I see. So going for a science-win in Civilization would be a strategy. 

I wonder what is smaller scale than tactic. Like if it goes strategy>tactic>[...]

 

"Maneuver" or "move," I guess?

[osmosisch]

On 4/8/2019 at 5:10 PM, Gormongous said:

I think the distinction between strategy and tactics is important here. Strategy is the overall plan to achieve a goal, tactics are the moment-to-moment decisions that execute that plan. I think Divinity: Original Sin 2 probably has a lot of tactics, but I can't imagine that it has that much strategy besides "go to this place and talk to/kill everyone."

I don't think the distinction is all that important to be honest, because there's a huge blurry area with stuff like setting up synergies between character builds in advance, choosing which direction each character engages from etc. Strategy's your high-level plan, at least as far as I loosely define it.

 

Anyway going back to Clyde's original question, you can even have strategy games where you control zero characters, e.g. Majesty, Auto Chess, various tower defence games, Settlers...

[clyde]

Strategy game

Tactics game

Action game

Idle game

[Gormongous]

9 hours ago, osmosisch said:

I don't think the distinction is all that important to be honest, because there's a huge blurry area with stuff like setting up synergies between character builds in advance, choosing which direction each character engages from etc. Strategy's your high-level plan, at least as far as I loosely define it.

 

Anyway going back to Clyde's original question, you can even have strategy games where you control zero characters, e.g. Majesty, Auto Chess, various tower defence games, Settlers...

 

Yes, but could you have a tactics game like XCOM where you control zero characters? I think that's the more instructive edge between the two terms.