Did you play Sid Meier's Civilization or Colonization back in the 90's?
Were you a fan of Master of Orion, Transport Tycoon, Alpha Centauri and Panzer General?
If you enjoy solid games like Europa Universalis, Trevor Chan's Capitalism, Hearts of Iron or even
heavy and advanced simulators, you've come to the right place!

This is where we namedrop, praise and recommend all our favorites and classics as well as upcoming titles.
Also. Feel free to discuss games like Mount & Blade, Sid Meier's Pirates, Total War etc..

My Recommendations:

-Elite
-Machiavelli: The Prince
-North & South :P

Epic "Strategy Companies":

-Microprose
-Firaxis
-Paradox Entertainment

2009 will be a good year for us core strategy gamers.  Cheers :D

I've just sunk many an hour into Civ4 lately, played it for the first time. I think I like it. It's a lot different to Civ 3, more so than the difference between 3 and 2. I like all the new features, but the 3dness gets in the way of a simple user interface. I do like the extra details like being able to see what buildings are in a city from the main map.

Anyway, I probably won't be getting any 2009 TBS games, because they have to either run on a Mac, or on a very basic XP laptop

I love hard strategy games like those. Big Civ fan. But always thought that they were a litle too simple. have yet to get the expansions os EU3.

yep, I still play Civ4 (only FFH2 though) and Europa Universalis 3, but I won't lie and say I play them well :P in fact, I have never played Europa Universalis 3 with big civilizations because I always think there will be too many provinces to manage and I will stop playing as soon as I start. what's worse, I have only started 2 games of Europa Universalis 3 since I bought it, both times playing as Genoa but not achieving much. and the worst of all, I have clocked 37 hours already, without conquering any province in both games. all I did was help the Papal States steal a province that I wanted from Savoy. one day I'll take the time and REALLY play it though, maybe with a german state or something like that.

and I cannot leave this topic without mentioning and recommending Fall from Heaven 2, the best mod ever, for Civ4 Beyond the Sword :)

Man, the easiest country to play EU3 is England. You can´t go wrong. Isollated you are able to invest in yourself and forget about the world. I usually take over Scotland and Walles, which grants me a lot of enemies, but can simply avoid that and invest on colonization. Otherwise you´ll hardly go anywhere.
And i´m not reconizing this mod, how it is?

Hearts of Iron 3 is coming out this year!

way too much time into EU3 lately. read and learned a lot of history as a result of playing the game. or should i say, my excuse for keep going back to play it. but i'm finally a bit sick of it now.

among the civs, i still like civ2 the best. civ3 and civ4 don't really add too much to the core experience, but the cultural assimilation part is kind of fun. alpha centauri i never got into it. i liked historically-based technologies and units. kind of silly otherwise.

imperialism II is another one i used to play a lot. that was great i thought. relatively simple, but just enough to keep you totally hooked. combat tactics i thought was very well thought-out and balanced.

what strategy games are coming out 2009?

Indeed. England is easy. In EU2 it was possible to simply "walk over" the english channel and invade england.
In EU3 you have to build cogs and sail armies over across the channel. England's fleet is a bitch this time around.

In my opinion, the easiest country to play in EU3 is France. Ally Burgundy. They'll watch your back while you conquer Aragon. Use the territory as a base for invading Castille before the two countries unite and form Spain. Then crush Portugal. In this position you will be able to take on England. You'll end up as the only Atlantic naval power. This means that you will be the only colonial power (early in the game).

Country recommendations:

-The Teutonic Order, Mecklemburg or Prussia (form Germany)
-The Byzantine Empire (defend against the Ottoman muslim hordes)
-Holland (defend against France and unite all the Netherlands)
-Denmark or Sweden (convert Europe to Protestantism)
-Novgorod (defend against the Goldern Horde and unite Russia)

Thnx for the recommendation salaminizer. I'll have to install the FFH2 mod as soon as possible.
Civ 4 FTMFW!

Agreed. Civ 2 is great.

-Empire: Total War (this week?)
-Hearts of Iron 3 (as ManusJustus pointed out)

..among other games.

hmm I'll check them out then, thanks for the tips.

by the way, GamingChartz, in CivFanatics there are a lot of mods that you might want to check out. I don't like the mash-up mods, and there are a ton there, but there's also a cool new mod about "the history of the three kingdoms", the classic Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (which comes with BTS) and even one shot at trying to "remake" Alpha Centauri. personally, I would like more "fantasy" style mods, but apparently (from what I see) there are still a lot of people in Civ3 and the interest is bigger in "total" mods (I bet that having to create 3D models is also another difficulty)

and this year there's also Elemental: War of Magic from Stardock

I love strategy games: EU 2 and HoI 2 are one of my favourite games of all time, i was dissapointed with EU 3 because that game have become non-historic and made playing every nation too similar.

Victoria i think is still the best game in the series, especially with VIP mod which makes it even more advanced and complicated.o

Panzer General series anyone? the 1st one was an absolutely amazing hardcore game