The best and deepest strategy or strategy/rpg-hybrid games

[Nightmare798]

wondering why not xcom enemy unknown

EDIT: have anyone mentioned silent storm?

[EponiCo]

I second Fallen Enchantress. Probably better get Legendary Heroes though (= same + expansion). And CK2 is quite recommendable, too.
Also, you may want to find a copy of the (quite old) Sacrifice.

[War_Ferret]

This game has great potential and would be one of my favorite games if it was not the absolute worst optimized game ever made. It gets so goddamn laggy and twitchy with barely even half and army let alone a full army.

That aside I would say Crusader Kings 2 is really in depth. Game is nothing but you making choices on all kings of levels. Who to attack, who to marry, what kids to pay attention to, what generals to evolve, the list goes on for days. And even with those points there is a hell of a lot of depth with just them. Tons of character traits that can either benefit you and the next generation of your family or hurt them.

My top rts games of all time (in no particular order) that I can think of off the top of my head would be:

Total war series
Warhammer series
Age of Empires series
Kessen series
Command and Conquer series
Sid Meier's Pirates (rts/rpg hybrid kinda)
And Starcraft 2 even though it was only a trial version a got to play a couple levels for a few hours and was still fun.

C&C, AoE, TA, Dark Reign, Warcraft, Starcraft, Seven Kingdoms, Stronghold etc. were all fun and fresh back in the day.
However, most of my fascination with conventional RTS games died sometime in the early 2000s. Although there have been some exceptionally good ones like CoH 1 and Supreme Commander 1.

[War_Ferret]

wondering why not xcom enemy unknown

X-Com: Apocalypse may well be my all-time favourite game. It definitely would be, if its development hadn't been rushed in the end, leaving some parts of the game somewhat unfinished, and the rest a little unbalanced. Other than that, it combines so many good elements in a really good way and uses simulation over scripting.
Do I really want to play a remake of the series with 90% of the gameplay streamlined out of it, so it is "more accessible to a wider audience"? Also, as far as I know the remake has pretty much dumped most of the open-ended simulation aspects of the originals, and has replaced "emergent gameplay" with a story-driven scripting fest.
Nah, I liked the UFO series, although they weren't as good as X-Com. Xenonauts may also become a good game, but I don't care about EU. Played the demo - looked like a typical case of style over substance.

[War_Ferret]

Dwarf Fortress

If ASCII graphics bothers you (it bothers me) there are at least three tilesets that turn DF into something watchable. I don't think there are many more complex games than this. Also, dwarves.

Apart from that:
Black&White 1+2
Dungeon Keepers

Black & White are ok, original and slow-paced. One or two weeks ago I tried to replay Keeper 2, but I found it too boring and easy (although still a great game in my memory ;)).

[War_Ferret]

I second Fallen Enchantress. Probably better get Legendary Heroes though (= same + expansion). And CK2 is quite recommendable, too.
Also, you may want to find a copy of the (quite old) Sacrifice.

I bought Sacrifice on release (although apparently nobody else did ) and now I got it on Steam as well. I already replayed it 3 times (Stratos, Persephone, Charnel). It's really good, but I wouldn't call it deep. The fun things about it are all the creativity and fantasy in it, and how you can play and shape the story from five different angles (or a mixture of these).

[Tibe]

Supreme commander 1 was fucking insane, but hilarious at times. When most RTS games have like 1 or 2 superweapons to bomb the enemy with, then SC had like bloody 50 or something. 1 faction could make like 5 nukes that destroyed entire bases, 5 giant cannons that devasted with insane firepower from the other side of the giant map, build a giant plane that threw a giant nuke that was as strong as 3 regular nukes, giant death robots that could take on atleast 100 of anybodies regular units solo...etc. I mean jesus. Thats just damn stupid. I mean generally the point in RTS-s is you have to consentrate your fire to eliminate the other persons superweapon and prevent its use. But when the map is filled with superweapons, making regular units and preparing tactics turns into a completely pointless foreplay. None the less, the game still had a lot of charm and made it stand out.

[Clockworkkiller]

Galatic civilzations 2

OH and King Arthur: the role playing wargame
 perfect mix of strategy and rpg

[zagibu]

X-Com: Apocalypse may well be my all-time favourite game. It definitely would be, if its development hadn't been rushed in the end, leaving some parts of the game somewhat unfinished, and the rest a little unbalanced. Other than that, it combines so many good elements in a really good way and uses simulation over scripting.
Do I really want to play a remake of the series with 90% of the gameplay streamlined out of it, so it is "more accessible to a wider audience"? Also, as far as I know the remake has pretty much dumped most of the open-ended simulation aspects of the originals, and has replaced "emergent gameplay" with a story-driven scripting fest.
Nah, I liked the UFO series, although they weren't as good as X-Com. Xenonauts may also become a good game, but I don't care about EU. Played the demo - looked like a typical case of style over substance.

I also like Apocalypse a lot, and you are right, the new one is a completely different experience. It IS dumbed down and streamlined as you described it, but I still enjoyed it for what it was. The unit classes actually help to make the tactical combat more interesting (because let's face it, in the originals, and even in Apoc, in the end you usually just equipped everyone with heavy plasma, or with devastator cannons, maybe 1 or 2 launchers, and be done with it). But yeah, the strategy part was pretty meh.

Supreme commander 1 was fucking insane, but hilarious at times. When most RTS games have like 1 or 2 superweapons to bomb the enemy with, then SC had like bloody 50 or something. 1 faction could make like 5 nukes that destroyed entire bases, 5 giant cannons that devasted with insane firepower from the other side of the giant map, build a giant plane that threw a giant nuke that was as strong as 3 regular nukes, giant death robots that could take on atleast 100 of anybodies regular units solo...etc. I mean jesus. Thats just damn stupid. I mean generally the point in RTS-s is you have to consentrate your fire to eliminate the other persons superweapon and prevent its use. But when the map is filled with superweapons, making regular units and preparing tactics turns into a completely pointless foreplay. None the less, the game still had a lot of charm and made it stand out.

If players of ANY skill play SupCom, there won't be any superweapons in the game. SupCom is known for the superweapons (a.k.a. "experimentals"), but it's also a very good strategy game at its core. There are just so many different vectors of attack that scouting becomes your prime job and basically makes the difference between an overwhelming win and a devastating loss. It's always fun to sneak up behind a noob's base with an engineer and build a couple t2 tactical launchers, then simply destroy his commander with a couple of missiles. Most don't even notice what's going on until it makes KABOOOM right in the middle of their base.

Too bad the campaign was pretty lackluster, else it would easily have become the most played strategy game of its time. The core gameplay is ten times better than any C&C or Warcraft crap. But then there came SupCom 2 and destroyed any hopes of SupCom fans.

BTW I realize this is about strategy/rpg, but if you are interested in tactical combat as well, you might want to give Wargame: European Escalation a try. It's a pretty authentic modern war experience, with lots of scouting, hundreds of somewhat realistic units and no base building.

[Tom Cruise]

Supreme commander 1 was fucking insane, but hilarious at times. When most RTS games have like 1 or 2 superweapons to bomb the enemy with, then SC had like bloody 50 or something. 1 faction could make like 5 nukes that destroyed entire bases, 5 giant cannons that devasted with insane firepower from the other side of the giant map, build a giant plane that threw a giant nuke that was as strong as 3 regular nukes, giant death robots that could take on atleast 100 of anybodies regular units solo...etc. I mean jesus. Thats just damn stupid. I mean generally the point in RTS-s is you have to consentrate your fire to eliminate the other persons superweapon and prevent its use. But when the map is filled with superweapons, making regular units and preparing tactics turns into a completely pointless foreplay. None the less, the game still had a lot of charm and made it stand out.

Shit I forgot about that one. I must update my list now! I remember it being hilarious when all I did with my base was set up a shit ton of artillery and they would just keep bombarding the hell out of something even though I couldnt see anything, a lot of the times being their base. Just a constant barrage of death, even shields couldnt stop it. So when It got to actually sending forces to their base their wasnt a whole lot left since the rest of it got blown to hell XD

[Turboflex]

Fallen enchantress is good

Conquest of Elysium is not, it's missing like 75% of the stuff Dom 3 has,  shallow and boring.

[Bulzur]

King Arthur and King Arthur II are, unfortunately, pretty dumbed down. AI is pretty bad, if not terrible, and it's quite easy.
I've finished both of them, and Magic is really 70% of the battles. 20% is ranged and 10% is tactics. 3 heroes, 6 stacks of archers, 2 scout cavs, 2 heavy cav, and regulmar infantry to hold and pown the mob, and you'll stick with that till the end...

Fallen Enchantress : Legendary Heroes, was a great find. Combining a bit of Civilisation, with RPG elements, and pretty well. There's a nice modding community, and all the heroes and regular units that you "design" can be used by the AI later. Play with a challenging AI at least though.
Can be frustrating when Wildlands and monsters destroy your outposts/cities, while the AI have dozens of monsters roaming in their lands, but only get their troops, sometimes, attacked. Pretty fun game.

[Overdriven]

Keeper 2, but I found it too boring and easy (although still a great game in my memory ;)).

Yeah I have to say I found the same. They were harder when I was a kid. Looking forward to the 'remake' though 

Sid Meier's Pirates (rts/rpg hybrid kinda)

Actually an awesome game. I had it on the original Xbox and played it for hours multiple times through. Very cartoonish but a good laugh.

[Clockworkkiller]

oh yea, both dawn of war games

i really liked the second game more, but it was completely different than the first

[Nightmare798]

to be honest dawn of war games seem a bit overrated to me. it practically plays like warcraft 3 with much better graphics and guns, along with few gameplay upgrades.
had load more fun with supreme commander.