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Best Newish Tacticool Games

Kaivokz

Arcane
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
1,499
On Battle Brothers, much of the fun is learning to fight different enemies, and the risk/reward of coming from nothing and building up a squad of well armed veterans. There’s a very good sense of progression.

Too many tips would spoil the game, but I’ll give you one that helped a lot when I first started: Knives have a move that pierces armor. Give all your guys knives at the beginning, get the enemy down to one guy with good armor, then surround him and pierce with dagger. You’re more likely to get items with higher durability as loot.

That will really help your progression early game.

I highly recommend Battle Brothers.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,232
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Sanctus Reach is indeed much better, but I had no attachment to my units with their weird system and lack of roster, and it is pretty important to me
I didn't think this would be a factor in a strategy game.
 

PorkaMorka

Arcane
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
5,090
Sanctus Reach is indeed much better, but I had no attachment to my units with their weird system and lack of roster, and it is pretty important to me
I didn't think this would be a factor in a strategy game.

In Panzer General type war games it is common for core units to have the ability to gain experience and come with you from map to map. Sometimes they can be upgraded. They can also die permanently.

A lot of fans of that genre demand this feature. I can see pros and cons to this feature, but it's kind of a risk for a developer to leave it out, as it helps keep the campaign from feeling like a disconnected series of skirmish maps.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,269
Location
Massachusettes
My guilty secret is that I never played the original or even any nu(openx)-xcom but I really want to. Oh, I played a few minutes of the beginning of the MS-DOS or amiga versions over the tears but never got past the beginning "world" screen where you have to place your starting position. I'm assuming that that Piratez mod for openX is absolutely not newbie friendly and i probably shouldn't start there. I saw a german guy on YT today attempting a playthrough of Piratez and at first he was full of piss and vinegar and really excited talking about how he was going to do a Piratez series of playthoughs for his channel. But by the end of the video he was despondent and was like, "nein, I'm not gonna do a series of this after all. It's too haaaard!" I should probably take baby steps and play Laser Squad on my C64 emulator first. It's not a genre I have much expertise or aptitude for. But if anyone wants to suggest a good one that I can ease myself into, please go ahead.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Sanctus Reach is indeed much better, but I had no attachment to my units with their weird system and lack of roster, and it is pretty important to me
I didn't think this would be a factor in a strategy game.
I think tactical games work better with long term consequences of losing units. In Sanctus Reach and Battlesector, I think it doesn't matter enough to keep your units alive.

My guilty secret is that I never played the original or even any nu(openx)-xcom but I really want to. Oh, I played a few minutes of the beginning of the MS-DOS or amiga versions over the tears but never got past the beginning "world" screen where you have to place your starting position. I'm assuming that that Piratez mod for openX is absolutely not newbie friendly and i probably shouldn't start there. I saw a german guy on YT today attempting a playthrough of Piratez and at first he was full of piss and vinegar and really excited talking about how he was going to do a Piratez series of playthoughs for his channel. But by the end of the video he was despondent and was like, "nein, I'm not gonna do a series of this after all. It's too haaaard!" I should probably take baby steps and play Laser Squad on my C64 emulator first. It's not a genre I have much expertise or aptitude for. But if anyone wants to suggest a good one that I can ease myself into, please go ahead.
I think you should start with vanilla openX-COM.
It is true that the beginning is intimidating, as you have a base to manage waiting for the first alien to show up, without any clue, but you should probably read some guide to get started.
NU-XCOM is easier to get into, but I strongly recommend starting with OG X-COM, because its more spartan interface may make it harder to play after, even though the feel is pretty different (OG X-COM is about leading a team of disposable soldiers in a long campaign, and Nu XCOM is about leading precious rockstars that should get kept out of harm's way), and the experience of sending rookies into the meat grinder is just unique.
 
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Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
It is true that the 40K games have a much better system than Regalia and Storm Guard, but Mechanicus suffers from requiring you to fiddle with all the difficulty settings if you don't want an effortless, or almost impossible challenge.

I just jammed the game to Ironman. Default difficulty is very doable on a blind ironman run, and ironman is quite suited to games with low chance of death, as you don't actually want to die often, you just need a constant pervasive threat of death.

Sanctus Reach is indeed much better, but I had no attachment to my units with their weird system and lack of roster, and it is pretty important to me.

Having point buy army building before every mission and a perk based level up system that carries over between missions alleviated much of that for me. I sure felt enough attachment to my units, especially to my three land speeders in the space marine campaign. I always took all three, since a fragile glass cannon unit with ultra high mobility is OP against AI. One I specced into an infantry shredder with aoe damage and infantry armor penetration. One I specced into an anti caster assassin with no range penalty and heavy armor, allowing him to dive enemy lines, kill the weirdboy, and usually survive. The third I tried to build into a tank shredder, but got bad perks and the units ended up being kinda shit.
The unit building and roster management felt on par with Warbanners, not good and certainly not a draw of the game, but not bad enough to lower the enjoyment of the game either.

In Panzer General type war games it is common for core units to have the ability to gain experience and come with you from map to map. Sometimes they can be upgraded. They can also die permanently.

A lot of fans of that genre demand this feature. I can see pros and cons to this feature, but it's kind of a risk for a developer to leave it out, as it helps keep the campaign from feeling like a disconnected series of skirmish maps.

Yeah Sanctus Reach got quite a lot of flak from Panzer General fans for not having Ironman modes and no unit progression. Both were patched in eventually. It leaves the game in a bit of an awkward state with the early campaigns however. On max difficulty but no ironman they are quite easy, as upgrading your units until level 4 gives your army a ton of more firepower and tactical options. The AI gets torn to shreds by tangle grenades and smokes you get from perks. On Ironman the campaigns can be insanely cruel however. Sanctus Reach could have been the best modern tacticool if it was developed as a Panzer General clone from day one, being made closer to Panzer General later made it better, but also introduced other issues.

Still, quite excited for an eventual Sanctus Reach 2.

Also some more tictacs:



Games published by Chucklefish are very pretty, but lack meat on the bones when it comes to the depth. I enjoyed this one enough, but that was mostly attachment to the setting being basically Indiana Jones tactics. If the setting does nothing to you this is a safe skip.



This one is a good bit better, imo the best game published by Chucklefish. It is an Advance Wars clone, and a competent one at that. The only problem I see here is that while the factions have amazing visual identities they are almost completely identical in gameplay. Wether you have a Oak Giant or a Metal Golem makes no difference, both use the same statblock.
Still there is not much competition when it comes to Advance Wars esque games right now, and if you want a taste of that gameplay before the remasters are released this one is a nice deal..
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
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Joined
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Messages
28,232
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I think tactical games work better with long term consequences of losing units. In Sanctus Reach and Battlesector, I think it doesn't matter enough to keep your units alive
Hold up my good man, is Sanctus a tactical game or a strategic one?
 

3 others

Scholar
Joined
Aug 11, 2015
Messages
147
Into the Breach gets lost in the shuffle for some odd reason. It was made by the FTL devs and was nowhere near the titanic success of its more famous predecessor but it's just as great if not even better. I know I've spent more time in it and enjoyed it more. If you've been discouraged by the lack of hype, you've been misled, just as I was until last year.

There's a solid full length Codex review but in short Into the Breach is a very focused set of pseudo-random tactical puzzles. You're always playing defense. Your units' weapons and even their hitpoints are just tools to do your main job: protect civilian buildings that sustain a power grid keeping subterranean demon bugs at bay. There's only one advantage: you know beforehand what the enemies intend to do on their next turn. Everything is limited: your units, your enemies, the "game board", the number of turns, the hit points. Into the Breach is a similar kind of marvel as Invisible Inc. in that it creates tight, suspenseful, challenging encounters procedurally. I've lost count of the times I've spent minutes looking at a seemingly hopeless situation on the board when a sudden flash of insights solves the situation with minimal losses. "So I first move the tank to A4 and it shoots that bug there to neutralize it and the recoil moves the tank to A5 and then I use the judo mech (don't ask) to throw the other bug that way so that when it shoots, its acid attack is blocked by the tank which has enough hitpoints to sustain it and then I order an airstrike to..."

Sure, sometimes the randomness results in trivially easy encounters and sometimes (though way, way less often than you might imagine from internet chatter) it results in unwinnable ones, but in a good player's hands the latter ones become an exercise in minimizing damage in the grand scheme of things. The pacing is great - you can get through a campaign in an hour, the UI is an exceptional piece of design in the way it conveys information of enemy actions, the music is a good set of melancholy electroacoustic dirges, the weapons and tools at your disposal are inventive.

Go play it now. Then learn from the experience and play another round.
 

ValeVelKal

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,604
Avoid Pathways absolutely. Officially it is a pulp Renowned Explorers with a more traditional tactical combat. In practice it is a bad pulp Renowned Explorer with bland and repetitive combats.

On the other hand Renowned Explorers is still in my “favorite 5 games of all time” list.
 
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Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

Filthy Kalinite
Patron
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
19,109
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Bubbles In Memoria

Serus

Arcane
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Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,680
Location
Small but great planet of Potatohole
Avoid Pathways absolutely.

Did you play Halfway? I really liked it. Wonder how these two games compare...

I ll check it and report. I have been looking for a Renowned Explorer experience for a while now.

Halfway is closer to nuXCOM.

I've been thinking of buying Curious Expedition 2 to scratch that Renowned Explorers itch.

No, it really isn't exept in the most general sense. It is very simplistic and because of that it becomes repetitive very quickly. It isn't a terrible game, just a mediocre one. Not recommended. Take in mind that i played it a long time ago, my memory might be faulty.
 

Serus

Arcane
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Jul 16, 2005
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6,680
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Small but great planet of Potatohole
It is very simplistic and because of that it becomes repetitive very quickly.
Just like nuXCOM.
No, not like nuXCOM. Much, much more simple. On a different level of simple if you wish. XCOM1 (with expansion) is for me an ok game for one playthrough. Becomes very good one with Long War. This one, i recommend skipping it.
 

DakaSha ??th

Barely Literate
Joined
Jan 30, 2022
Messages
4
I hadn't heard of troubleshooter until reading this thread. It looks interesting, but it appears to not have any procedural mission generation? Or am I misreading.

Also hi Crispy
 

DakaSha ??th

Barely Literate
Joined
Jan 30, 2022
Messages
4
I hadn't heard of troubleshooter until reading this thread. It looks interesting, but it appears to not have any procedural mission generation? Or am I misreading.

Also hi Crispy

No procedural filler shit, only hand-made set piece encounters designed to be fun.

Not my cup of tea my dude. Emergent gameplay is fun to me

edit: Also i dont think 'das gay doe' warranted a delete
 

DakaSha ??th

Barely Literate
Joined
Jan 30, 2022
Messages
4
Emergent gameplay is cool, but procedural missions aren't really emergent... just random.

I'd say that depends on the game bro. May well be that whatever the game tries to do works better with handcrafted stuff, but generally speaking I can't be assed.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Did someone played Mech Armada yet?



It's still in EA but it looks interesting.

I kind of finished it. It is cool, with a lot of pieces to design your mechs with, but not all weapons and parts are equal, so depending on what you draw, you could end up with a very easy or almost unwinnable run.
That said, you can pick some of the pieces available at start.
 
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
260
Location
USA, NY
Good mentions here.

Trials of Fire wasn't mentioned. Very good card based party based tactics.
 

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