fish food carl:
Nowadays games might be very good but, try as I might I cannot think of anything that involves true tactics. But here's the thing... I'm not sure that there ever was. I miss games like AoE and things that allowed for you to think out a battle plan. Do any of you know of anything that I can use to test my ability not just to shoot and destroy but to think, to plan and use battle tactics. I miss them. Perhaps I'll go and play risk.

Any of the Total War games. You want a fight that requires tactics and a battle plan? You got it.

If you want strategy play some turn based strategy games, there's so much more of it in them than there is in RTS.

Well, there's always Chess. Chess is fun.

But in all seriousness, check out Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes, or KUF: Crusaders. There is plenty of tactics to be found there. Admittedly, there is always the option of charging in and killing everything yourself, but it rarely works.

RTS games exist and they allow for this. If you find yourself just balling through them with no real thought or effort then you are in a position of executing strategy on such a core level that you aren't even thinking about it.

There are few games, if any on the mainstream market that let you plan a battle naval admiral style and then leave it to the NPCs to follow orders. Fact is that does not offer a lot to players as far as perceivable awards are concerned and it separates them from the action of the game-play.

Almost all games have a combination of skill / strategy to the point where one will impact the other. If you are skilled enough to take on thirty shooters at once, you do not need to concern yourself with environment cover, different areas of approach, escape routes, pincer attacks, etc. It sounds like this is your problem.

Competitive play would be the solution. No matter how good you are there is always someone better, get out the StarCraft and Countertrike.

Stronghold, the AoE games

I know it's a little basic, but Multiwinia was just released on steam.

Check out any of the Total War games for a series that forces the player to take into account more issues than anything else I have ever seen. A good player using a clever plan can do everything from make his lines appear thinner than they are to cause a panic in the enemy by flanking them from a hidden position in a copse of trees. Smart players will do everything from force your armor-wearing Romans to march across the desert to do battle to double-encircle your flanks and then send in their reserve for a battle-ending attack. I remember winning one even-strength battle in Medieval II by trapping the enemy on a ridge and having my cannons slaughter anyone trying to climb down, losing 10 men to eliminate over a thousand.

If you understand the tactics and the enemy doesn't, you can win with half their strength or less. If you don't know what you're doing and use the usual RTS strategy of 'click on enemy unit with better unit', you'll be butchered.

I havent actually played it but i was looking at the back of the box in Gamestation today and Romance of the three kingdoms IX on pc might be your thing, its turn based and seems like it has a fairly high degree of strategy involved, and some degree of customisation as in you can make your own officers with abilities you choose.
Also the old kessen games on ps2, that involved quite a bit of strategy.
Hope I've been a little help.

Also the old Dynasty tactics games on ps2, i played them back when they first come out and they do require a fair bit of tactics if you want to chain together special moves and stuff, look it up.

I know where you're coming from here as I've found the same problem. Most RTS games have so many units on screen that you're two busy just getting them all to fight with any cohesion that you don't have time to think much in the way of tactics.

The Total War games combat tends to be glorified rock, paper, scissors with direction of attack occasionally helping out. Command and Conquer always ends up as who can build the most tanks fastest and then simply overwhelm the enemy. I was disappointed by World in Conflict too as they even took out any resource problems you may have had and replaced it with setting your tanks (it seems inevitable) in position and making sure they focus on one enemy at a time...

I like the Dawn of War games and Company of Heroes as (at least at the start of battles) what units you pick and what weapons you give them actually affect how you have to play. By the end it is usually just having maxed out your best units and running in though.

I loved the AoE games too but the tactics in those were usually an early rush or turtle and tech up.

If you want strategy that usally means the game needs to be based around giving you time to think (chess!), which means turn-based strategy. If that concept doesn't offend you (:P) I'd recommend having a look here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-based_strategy

I really enjoy the Fire Emblem games. There is nothing quite like struggling through the initial stages of the game with weaker characters and then witnessing your hard work pay off at the end.

Alternatively for your strategy fix you could always take up Go...

The commandos games? Small squad based tactical RTS. Probably not as free-form as you're looking for though. Commandos 3 is out for free on gametap, too.

I have a couple of friends who adore Commandos (especially Commandos 2) and I had a go at it recently. It isn't the most immediately intuitive game you'll ever play (ever letter on your keyboard has a command mapped to it xD) but if you are willing to memorise them and check the manual a lot you'll enjoy thinking up tactics.

Supreme Commander the battles are on hugh scales and as therefore leaves a massive number of stratgies open to you. But be warned, a single game can take a long time and the AI is a bastered.

Well, if you're a fan of strategy RPG's, I'd recommend any of the Disgaea games by Atlus. Aside from the great humour, there's a really deep strategy system built into battles, especially if you're going for combo kills and colour chains.

I'm going to add my fake chocolate 0.2$ here, and suggest the commandos series. The pure amount of options that exist in any given map are staggering (atleast at the middle/end game) and on harder difficulties, coming up with proper tactics and strategies are pretty much a must.

If you however want to play a more "proper" rts, or the like, i'd warmly suggest Romance of the three kingdoms ..uh. VIII for PS2. Absolutely amazing.

Problem: I don't think your level of tactics can be found in manny strategy game campaings. The common Ai is just not komplex enough to play a game where it matters if you create a diversion and cut of the supplies.

Solution: Multiplayerfixes this probolem perfectly. It only depends on what "level" you play. What could be a problem is the micro managemend of units; In some games it becomes more importend than overall strategy. I suggest you look at some gameplay videos of the proffessional starcraft players, commeted ones found here: http://www.gomtv.net/
They have exelent micro gaming with an insane number of apm's (actions per minnute). They also have a very great macro game which is the strategy you seek, where spying that the enemy build the Forge before building the Gate results in a complete change of gamestyle just to counter the impact of the early cannon building ability of that player.

Supreme Comander is another game i suggest. The game practicly drowns you in differend options to engage your enemy including artillary that shoots from your base into the enemy stonghold or airdrops with entire armies.

Last suggestion if you still like to pull the trigger personaly play Opperation Flashpoint. Without tactics you won't survive any battle and since the Ki outnumbers your squad most of the times you don't need to play multiplayer to get a challenge. Drawback is the graphic but up to date no game has matches the flair of Operation Flashpoint.

Personally, I love strategy games. I've only ever played turn based, so I really can't say whether or not I prefer that over RTS (which is one of the many reasons that I'm eager to give Halo Wars a spin).

I've always liked the Fire Emblem games. Even though you can get your individual characters to be very strong on their own, you're still required to think. Even if your most bad ass character smashes through a bunch of enemies, that character will still be taken down if it doesn't have back-up. No matter how strong your individual soldiers are, they're not going to last long on their own. In this way, the focus is still on how strong your army is as a whole (especially on the harder difficulty levels).

EDIT: Could some one please explain the difference between the terms "strategy," and "Tactics," if there is one.

You could play Go online or a online chess game. All the RTS have a cheap unit/team that ruins stategy.

I've heard good things about Company of heroes, and the expansion pack, Opposing Fronts.

thest3alth:
I've heard good things about Company of heroes, and the expansion pack, Opposing Fronts.

Great games but to win you only need to use anti tank guns or spam Panzer IVs.

The problem these days I find is that when a game offers strategy, when it comes to two equally skilled players it always comes down to who can build the most of the cheapest units and get them to the front line quickest.

It is not intentional most of the time, it just gets to panicmode. You have no idea how many times on SoaSE I managed to push back an invasion by mass building small ships in a mild panic after my capitals went poof =/

Advance wars on the DS. It may look like a childish game but it plays like chess on steroids. I have wasted many hours on this game.

I'd recommend looking at Real-Time Tactics games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_real-time_tactics_video_games

Soldiers: Heroes of WWII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_game) and Stalingrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_game) are two of my favourites. As long as you play at an optimum difficulty (normal) then there's never really a chance of 'barging in' and coming out well.

Question: on higher difficulties, does the enemy get completely unfair bonuses in Total War games? I've only played them on normal, so I don't know. I ask this because I think the battles were little too easy on normal. Seriously, I don't have the slightest idea in how many battles I've killed hundreds of enemies but lost only couple of guys.

Rainbow Six vegas : 2 and Gears of war 2 will supposedly take stratagy.

The difference between strategy and tactics;

Tactics describe your plans during a single engagement. ie. what you are doing immediately during combat.

Strategy is more to do with global influence. The big picture. What you are doing in the war as opposed to a single battle I suppose.

I'm pretty sure everyone here is using them interchangably though.

I hope this was even remotely helpful xD

Tactics = battle, strategy = war

Tylandras:
The difference between strategy and tactics;

Tactics describe your plans during a single engagement. ie. what you are doing immediately during combat.

Strategy is more to do with global influence. The big picture. What you are doing in the war as opposed to a single battle I suppose.

I'm pretty sure everyone here is using them interchangably though.

I hope this was even remotely helpful xD

Tactics = battle, strategy = war

Thank you.

TF2, Starcraft.

Next question.

D_987:
Rainbow Six vegas : 2 and Gears of war 2 will supposedly take stratagy.

I dunno. Does being able to use strategy actually qualify it as strategic? Cause if so, nearly ever shooter is strategic.

Indigo_Dingo:

D_987:
Rainbow Six vegas : 2 and Gears of war 2 will supposedly take stratagy.

I dunno. Does being able to use strategy actually qualify it as strategic? Cause if so, nearly ever shooter is strategic.

I don't think so, I wouldn't call Halo strategic (or tatical, I believe shooters say they're that to mean strategic) even though me and my friends often do plan strategy.

djeeten:
Advance wars on the DS. It may look like a childish game but it plays like chess on steroids. I have wasted many hours on this game.

Same, I'm at about 60 hours on AW:DS.
Don't know about AW1 or AW2 though 'cause they didn't count the time.

Paradox are the masters of strategy. A game like Hearts of Iron 2, for instance, requires constant planning or else you won't be making it very far.

As for chess, go and other board games, there are plenty of places online that let you play it.