I’d like one that’s more fantasy-ish, though. I have a hunger for empire-building, but nothing too deep into the tiny details.
Real-time or turn-based? If real-time is fine, then the Age of Empires series suggests itself.
Hmm, I haven’t looked into it. I’ll check it out. A game similar to Disciples: Liberation would be good too. It’s a “strategy RPG with turn-based combat. “
Turn-based:
Those both look good, too. I’ll see if I can run them when I’m home.
I haven’t played the remake (yet) but I played the hell out of the original when it was new. Either one should be right up your alley.
Warlock: Master of the Arcane looks and initially feels like a fantasy version of Civ V. It’s more troop/battle oriented though and shallower on the city builder aspects. Currently $6.25 for the complete edition on sale. Game is from 2012 and so should run on most computers still running in 2023.
Age of Wonders. The newest one (AoW4)is pretty damn good.
Yes, this.
I’m interested in this topic.
Anybody who hasn’t played the original Master of Magic should spend the three bucks and give it a shot. It’s one of the all-time greats.
The remake of Master of Magic is pretty great (the original is too but is very dated and the remake does basically everything it did).
Endless Legend is a pretty great 4x fantasy game similar to Civ, although slightly leaning more into combat (there’s optional unit customization, but that’s not really necessary.) It came out in 2014, so should be pretty cheap to pick up in sales, and wil lrun on most anything. If you’re a fan of the Civ 6 style of “build the city on the world map” style of 4x, then it’s for you.
I’d rec any of the iterations of Age of Wonders, with IV out this year, but it seems like a perfect example of Incremental Game Design, and when I went back to III in the spring, even with some good mods I still got a same old, same old kind of vibe. YMMV of course.
Upon looking at my Steam library, it looks like I already have it, but I uninstalled it for some reason. I should take another look. I’m certainly going to look at all of these suggestions!
I think I was actually looking for/trying to remember Endless when I came across Warlock.
Warlock was a lot of fun, too. Much simpler, but I didn’t feel the pull towards playing more games after the first, which is one of the big pulls of Civ type games. One more turn, one more game… oh, God! it’s 4:30AM?!?
Age of Wonders 3 and/or 4 I’d say, with Warlock and its sequel as a close second.
I actually started playing Warlock last night, and these Fire Elementals are kicking my butt.