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

[War_Ferret]

I am talking about those epic sandboxy kind of games that combine all kinds of elements and where one game takes days to finish - the ones that are so good, you have to replay them every few years.
I like to believe I know all the good ones, but maybe someone can recommend another one like these favorites of mine:

Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic
Civilization series
Jagged Alliance 2
Mount&Blade (obviously...)
Total War series
X-Com series (up to Apocalypse)

Not quite as great, but worth mentioning:

Ascendancy
Disciples II
Dominions 3
Heroes of M&M 3
Master of Orion 2
Space Empires 4/5
UFO series

It doesn't matter how old, if they're good.
The most recent one I tried was Eador: Broken World, but it's very one-sided and repetitive.
I was wondering if Fallen Enchantress is any good.
Also, Crusader Kings 2 looks kinda interesting.

Opinions?

[[ptx]]

Fallen Enchantress is pretty fun, worth at least trying.

Of "sandboxy" strategy games, i would recommend Sword of the Stars, probably all the Paradox grand strategy games, Populous (third game, especially) and Lords of Magic, maybe.

[War_Ferret]

I played all the populous games. They were fun, but not exactly deep or epic. Lords of Magic was ok. Gonna take a look at Sword of the Stars.

[Kafein]

Try paradox grand strategy (mainly CK, EU, HOI and Victoria, there are dozens of spin-offs, stand-alone mods and the like around too) like ptx said. I can also recommend SOTS even though I never had the time to play that a lot. Try the X series if you either like economic sims or space combat. Anno 2070 is pretty good. The Guild games are nice but buggy. Patrician 3 is cool, I don't know about the others. If you want something really deep, go for Dwarf Fortress and never look back (or, stop after 20 minutes to go cry in a corner).

[War_Ferret]

I used to play X2 and X3 a lot - good games. If only there had been something to do with all your stations, ships and money, once you had it all. Guild 1 is pretty good, too - better than Guild 2. I watched some videos about Dwarf Fortress... I mean I don't mind dated graphics, but ASCII? Maybe I'll have another look. Of the paradox games, I think I might give CK2 a try sometime.

[okiN]

Silent Storm and its Sentinels expansion, the only really worthy JA2 successors.

Dominions 3 is great, it needs more love. We should try a game on here some time, there were at least a couple other players.

[War_Ferret]

Yeah those were incredible. Most amazing physics and destructible environment in any game of that kind ever. Shame there wasn't any kind of meta-game on top of it, like in JA2 or X-Com.

edit: Have you tried Conquest of Elysium? Is it as good as Dominions 3?

[Havoco]

King Arthur: the role playing strategy game is decent. Though it gets pretty frustrating sometimes.

[chadz]

Earth 2150 (never played the prequel or sequel)

It's nice to have a campaign where all your choices matter forever, not just for the mission you're in. IIRC, you have to gather X amount of resources to escape from earth over your campaign, but you have to invest those resources as well into troops and buildings etc.

[War_Ferret]

Earth 2150 is the one with the Moon Project stand-alone, right? That's pretty good for an RTS. I liked how you could customize your units.

I bought King Arthur at a discount on Steam years ago, but somehow I never got into it. Made two attempts and never kept playing for more than 1 or 2 hours. Don't know why. I should have liked a TW kinda game with magic and fantasy. Maybe I was too alienated by everyone being left-handed in that game ;)

[okiN]

Yeah those were incredible. Most amazing physics and destructible environment in any game of that kind ever. Shame there wasn't any kind of meta-game on top of it, like in JA2 or X-Com.

Yep, and I guess there never will be. Fingers crossed for the Jagged Alliance kickstarter I guess.

edit: Have you tried Conquest of Elysium? Is it as good as Dominions 3?

I haven't, no. I've heard those games weren't quite as interesting though.

[War_Ferret]

Nice, I didn't know there was a JA kickstarter. And it's funded, too. The only major change I'm hoping for is that your mercs don't die so easily. A strategy game should be playable without having to reload when things go badly imo. So either units have to be replacable like in the X-Com games or they should die only in rare cases. Maybe making them go unconscious without bleeding to death, and taken prisoner when the whole team is down, would be a good solution. IIRC that's basically how it was in JA2, only once a merc was badly wounded (and if he wasn't killed right away), it was only a matter of a few turns until he died.

I will definitely read all the info about the project later.

[Tom Cruise]

King Arthur: the role playing strategy game is decent. Though it gets pretty frustrating sometimes.

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)
Supreme Commander 2
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.

[Tot.]

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

[Nightmare798]

wondering why not xcom enemy unknown