The Game Box

I am hugely in love with and addicted to the Europa Universalis series. I cannot get enough. Who's with me?

In this thread we can discuss Grand Strategy Games (or, GSGs as they are known elsewhere), post screenshots/AARs/DARs of your current/old games, talk about new and upcoming games (Hearts of Iron 4), or just about anything else that relates to GSGs for a personal computer.

I have other Paradox Interactive games: Victoria 2, Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 3, but the learning curve for those is so much higher than EU3 or EU4. One day...

EDIT: It doesn't have to be historical GSGs either. Games like Galactic Civilizations are just fine.

EDIT: Changed to just Strategy PC Games to open up the thread a bit.

I like most of the paradox titles, but yeah, HOI is too much for me.

I think my favorite EU is 2. The historical grounding was really rich with
some mods. EU3 changed the paradigm, and any historical mod feels like
a betrayal of that design switch.

Played a lot of the original Vicky and CK, but couldn't get into the later versions.


One much older PC game that I loved was Medieval Lords (SSI I think). It was basically
empires of the middle ages on computer.

I would like to try out EU2 sometime because I have read similar things (Eu2 being the most historical).

Medieval Lords huh? I wonder if GOG has it.

They don't.

But is available on abandonware: http://www.myabandonware.com/game/medieval-lords-soldier-kings-of-europe-17e (http://www.myabandonware.com/game/medieval-lords-soldier-kings-of-europe-17e)

(http://www.myabandonware.com/media/captures/M/medieval-lords-soldier-kings-of-europe/medieval-lords-soldier-kings-of-europe_10.gif)

Awesome.

Yep. I was really happy to get a copy of it again.

I still have the manual somewhere.

I really miss SSI. 

I guess Paradox sort of took over that strategy game genre for a number of years, though, producing titles on lots of obscure eras and conflicts.

I have a copy of Pride of Nations, and the Franco-Prussian War expansion, which I got for cheap during a Steam sale, but still haven't played it.

I'm with Enrico. EU2 all the way. Played around with EU3 a bit, but was turned off by the (unnecessary) 3D graphics. I really liked Victoria too - I should get back into that. HOI is just too goofy - I think they stretched it too far when porting the engine to WW2.

I've got HOI, EU2, and Victoria and I find HOI the easiest to get my head around!  I've struggled with EU2 (and haven't really tried Viccy yet).  It's not that I don't like it - I want to like it - it really looks good.  It's just I'm having a hard time locking down the rules into my walnut-sized brain. Maybe I should go back and give it another shot...

I've also got a number of games by John Tiller particularly from his Squad Battles series - sort of hex and counter video games.

I had a good time with X-COM, both the older PC version and the newer XBox versions. I bought the first edition of HoI when it came out and it had so many bugs it was a disaster. Kept me from buying any other follow-ups. Guess they fixed them all. 

I played the crap out of the original X-COM from Microprose. Perhaps the best computer game ever made. I recently tried the newer version that came out on the iPad, but I lost interest in it quickly - although it's slicker, it seems more dumbed down compared to the original.

What I'm playing now is 'Master of Magic', which I picked up from Gog.com for something like $1.50. Really primitive graphics, but oh, the gameplay!!

I'm not playing too much computer stuff nowadays, but I do dabble occasionally. Its fun to get my kids hooked on the old classics.

I loved Civ I/II, Master of Orion I/II, Master of Magic back in the day.

I liked EUIII alot. I've played around with CKII.

Cool! I played that 20 years ago and loved it.  Glad to know it's available again.  I wish someone would re-issue it with updated graphics.

I adjusted to the graphics pretty quickly. After all, I used to play games like that heavily in the 90s anyway.   ;D

MoM was great.

Still is!

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4)

I used to be obsessed with Civ 2 back in the day. It was the first strategy title that really grabbed me.

Ultimate General: Gettysburg - http://store.steampowered.com/app/306660/ (http://store.steampowered.com/app/306660/)

Its in Early Access, but it looks very interesting. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

John Tiller has started putting out demos within the past year or so.

You can grab them from the Tiller site.

I also have them at my own site -and this also includes the Ancient Warfare series by Paul Bruffell and published by HPS Simulations.

http://hist-sdc.com/demo/index.php


Edited to add: Just to clarify, these are not the ones published by Talonsoft.

Yeah, I always enjoyed Tiller's old Talonsoft titles - all of his Civil War battles were well done.

My PC strategy gaming obsession started with Railroad Tycoon (which I think came out before Civilization?  I may be wrong there) and Civilization.  I really loved turn-based strategy, and was pretty disappointed with turn-based PC strategy games were largely abandoned in favor of real-time strategy.  I put my time in with Europa Universalis and still enjoyed it, but it was never quite the same for me.  Fortunately, Civilization continued to evolve - though my fondest memories are still of the first two Civ games.  But maybe there's also an element of pining for my lost youth in there, too.   ;D

Railroad Tycoon was awesome! My ex called it Rail Creep, because it ate up so many of our early days together.

I've been having a lot of fun with Commander: The Great War. It's pretty light hex stuff, kind of a grand panzer general type game for WW1. I believe the ipad version is nearing release.

Also Unity of Command is well worth a look, can be had very cheap and on sale quite often.

I've been playing some Civ 5 recently.  I really like it with the expansions.

I haven't played Fallen Enchantress in awhile, but that's another one I've enjoyed.

I should sit down and get some EU4 time in.  I end up playing some and then stopping, then forgetting what was going on, so I restart.