Forgotten Strategy Games

[Abelian]

I've remembered another old strategy game: Fantasy General by SSI (I know a lot of codexers are fans of their Gold Box games). It was made in 1995 and it was a turn-based game on a hex-grid map. I've only tried it out a little bit, as by the time I discovered it, I was hooked on the HoMM series.

 

[panzertoter]

Fantasy General is not forgotten! Star General maybe, but not FG.

 

[HobGoblin42]

Rings of Medusa (1989)

A very interesting mixture of RPG, strategical and economical game elements. Music and artwork were also pretty amazing for that time.

 

[m_s0]

King's Bounty (original)? Majesty (original)? Great games IMO. Don't know how forgotten they really are, but I didn't see them mentioned, so... There were other mentions that I don't consider forgotten too.

Majesty got an HD makeover some time ago (and they even fixed the two bonus missions broken in the expansion which is nice), not to mention the crappy sequel, so it's hardly forgotten. King's Bounty isn't forgotten either. It's just that no one really plays it anymore.

 

[laclongquan]

I remember Imperial Glory is slightly alike to Knights and Merchants so pretty excited when it's out. Then the media blitz of that other game came about and I just plump forgot about it.

 

[BreakerOfOaths]

I remember Imperial Glory is slightly alike to Knights and Merchants so pretty excited when it's out. Then the media blitz of that other game came about and I just plump forgot about it.

The same developer (Pyro Studios) created another strategy game called Praetorians. But those two games are mostly forgotten, as is the developer.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

There was this polish/other potato RTS about robots or something in the late 90's. Anyone remember that? Fuck I can't recall the name.

Edit: There's Mayday Conflict Earth, but I'm thinking about yet another one. It was 3d if I remember correctly.

Edit2: The name was Robot Rumble, early 3D game with some interesting ideas that set it apart at that time.

 

[sser]

Here's one I thought of the other day. Some might not have heard about it because it's actually on the Sega Genesis, believe it or not.

It's called General Chaos. My cousin is actually the one who owned it. With a multipad adapter, I think 4 or more players could play at once.

Fairly basic gameplay upfront: real-time action wherein you tell your guys where to go and who fight. The game had "classes" like gunners, grenadiers, flamethrowers, etc. It was more about humor than strategy, but it was a pretty fun game for the time.

 

[m_s0]

There was this polish/other potato RTS about robots or something in the late 90's. Anyone remember that? Fuck I can't recall the name.

Edit: There's Mayday Conflict Earth, but I'm thinking about yet another one. It was 3d if I remember correctly.

Edit2: The name was Robot Rumble, early 3D game with some interesting ideas that set it apart at that time.

Yup, read the previous page.

Here's one I thought of the other day. Some might not have heard about it because it's actually on the Sega Genesis, believe it or not.

It's called General Chaos. My cousin is actually the one who owned it. With a multipad adapter, I think 4 or more players could play at once.

Fairly basic gameplay upfront: real-time action wherein you tell your guys where to go and who fight. The game had "classes" like gunners, grenadiers, flamethrowers, etc. It was more about humor than strategy, but it was a pretty fun game for the time.

I've actually heard about it fairly recently but didn't get around to checking it out yet.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I've remembered another old strategy game: Fantasy General by SSI (I know a lot of codexers are fans of their Gold Box games). It was made in 1995 and it was a turn-based game on a hex-grid map. I've only tried it out a little bit, as by the time I discovered it, I was hooked on the HoMM series.

There's a recent take on Fantasy General called Fantasy Wars (http://www.mobygames.com/game/fantasy-wars), it's actually pretty good, also there was a sequel called Elven Legacy ([URL]http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/elven-legacy[/URL]) which was also a good game. I'd definitely recommend them if you were interested at all in the original SSI game.

 

[Abelian]

I've remembered another old strategy game: Fantasy General by SSI (I know a lot of codexers are fans of their Gold Box games). It was made in 1995 and it was a turn-based game on a hex-grid map. I've only tried it out a little bit, as by the time I discovered it, I was hooked on the HoMM series.

There's a recent take on Fantasy General called Fantasy Wars (http://www.mobygames.com/game/fantasy-wars), it's actually pretty good, also there was a sequel called Elven Legacy (http://www.mobygames.com/game/fantasy-wars) which was also a good game. I'd definitely recommend them if you were interested at all in the original SSI game.

I see they're both made my the Russian developer 1C, the guys that now hold the rights to the King's Bounty name. I bought the first two games in the relaunched King's Bounty series during a Steam sale, but never played them. If they turn out good, I'll give these ones a chance. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[tuluse]

Here's one I thought of the other day. Some might not have heard about it because it's actually on the Sega Genesis, believe it or not.

It's called General Chaos. My cousin is actually the one who owned it. With a multipad adapter, I think 4 or more players could play at once.

Fairly basic gameplay upfront: real-time action wherein you tell your guys where to go and who fight. The game had "classes" like gunners, grenadiers, flamethrowers, etc. It was more about humor than strategy, but it was a pretty fun game for the time.

It had a few different modes of play. There was also a co-op vs computer mode. If there were 2 people on one side, you didn't have a cursor. Instead you just switched between the two guys you controlled. This also reduced the team size from 5 to 4. Co-op was super fun. I never had a friend with a 4 way play, so I never got to see 2 vs 2.

 

[Destroid]

Here's one I thought of the other day. Some might not have heard about it because it's actually on the Sega Genesis, believe it or not.

It's called General Chaos. My cousin is actually the one who owned it. With a multipad adapter, I think 4 or more players could play at once.

Fairly basic gameplay upfront: real-time action wherein you tell your guys where to go and who fight. The game had "classes" like gunners, grenadiers, flamethrowers, etc. It was more about humor than strategy, but it was a pretty fun game for the time.

So forgotten they barely made 10% of their kickstarter funding goal for a sequel.

 

[Jarpie]

Isn't Lords of Chaos pretty much forgotten? I remember playing it for hours, hours and more hours on C64 and Amiga.

 

[Infinitron]

Whisky There's a bunch of obscure strategy games on sale on GOG now, 70% off. Take a look!

 

[Zeriel]

Tzar. This shit was good. It's basically a very pretty Warcraft 2 set in a quasi-medieval setting with culture shock.

There were a lot of random games I played in the late 90's early 00's due to waaaaarez that are now forgotten, could be fun to dig some of them up. My guess is most of them would be a pain in the ass to get to work though, earlier Windows stuff is ironically much harder to get working than DOS games.

 

[JarlFrank]

Hah, I just wanted to mention Tzar because nobody had mentioned it yet and it's already page 4 of the thread.

Tzar is fucking awesome.

 

[Abelian]

It's basically a very pretty Warcraft 2 set in a quasi-medieval setting with culture shock.

I played one game by Haemimont Games, and that was Celtic Kings. It was made in 2002 and featured the heroes can get levels mechanic, like Warcraft 3 (I think I'm seeing a pattern).
The game art was good, as well as the premise: Celtic warriors in Gaul fighting against Roman invaders. It was a pretty fun game.

 

[Zeriel]

It's basically a very pretty Warcraft 2 set in a quasi-medieval setting with culture shock.

I played one game by Haemimont Games, and that was Celtic Kings. It was made in 2002 and featured the heroes can get levels mechanic, like Warcraft 3 (I think I'm seeing a pattern).
The game art was good, as well as the premise: Celtic warriors in Gaul fighting against Roman invaders. It was a pretty fun game.

They actually invented unit XP in RTSes before Warcraft 3 came out, with Tzar.

 

[Abelian]

I stand corrected . I did check to see if Celtic Kings was released before Warcraft 3 because I wanted to give credit where credit is due, but found Celtic Kings came later that same year.

 

[Mastermind]

Netstorm. Very atmostpheric abandonware that's still supported by a very devoted fanbase. You can grab it here:

http://www.netstormhq.com/news.php

The game is odd in that aside from a transporters all your units are stationary towers. It also involves building bridges (you attach units on their edges) which is probably the most important skill you can develop against the AI, who frequently has a very unfair advantage.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

They actually invented unit XP in RTSes before Warcraft 3 came out, with Tzar.

There was a game who had it even before, Rival Realms, sort of a Warcraft clone with the difference that units could gain XP and every one of them could carry items (whether potions, artifacts or whatever).

It was as unbalanced as fuck though, especially in the campaign mode where you could before every mission hire your experienced units which could eventually grow to be ridiculously powerful, I remember in the Orc campaign I started the first mission with some orc grunt ( I think his name was Bladefist or something) and as the campaign went by he was so powerful he could decimate armies/enemy bases all by himself, basically you just hired him for the mission and you couldn't lose.

Man, I miss that game.

 

[catfood]

Netstorm. Very atmostpheric abandonware that's still supported by a very devoted fanbase. You can grab it here:

http://www.netstormhq.com/news.php

The game is odd in that aside from a transporters all your units are stationary towers. It also involves building bridges (you attach units on their edges) which is probably the most important skill you can develop against the AI, who frequently has a very unfair advantage.

Also if anyone is curious about it they should check my sig. :D

 

[Abelian]

I haven't played this one a lot, but it had an interesting premise. The name of the game is Enemy Nations and it was based on a space colonization race between different alien civilizations, and each race had it own advantages and disadvantages (all of them used the same buildings and units, though). One interesting mechanic was the fact that vehicles consumed fuel when moving.

The developer, Windward Studios, switched to writing enterprise reporting software. The source code was released in 2006.

 

[Stompa]

Paradise Cracked, probably only remembered as "that fucking game with TB mode you can't turn off" and its prequel, Cops 2170: Power of Law. Both games were very athmospheric cyberpunk squad-level tactics, with PC being more Gibson-ish where you start from the lowest of lows, underground slums of the metropolitan city and end up in the orbital station, while Cops were more GITSy, with your character serving the police first and foremost. Gameplay had a lot of nice features like in-combat hacking, vehicle driving, destructible objects, grenades affected by physics, armor covering different spots on your body differently, called shots, etc. I heard it had less than stellar translation, so maybe some stuff got lost in the process. Shame Mist-Land South went to shit.