OT) Best Turn Based Game: Fantasy or Space or War

Baron Munchausen · #1 March 18th, 2003, 11:55 PM

Hmm, if you mean 'best game of ALL' that's nearly impossible to determine. No single game can be best at everything.

In Fantasy I think Master of Magic was (and IS) the best to date. I hope they update it some day. The DOS Version from 1995 is buggy as hell and can leave you with an unfinishable game (crashing when you try to go on to the next turn...) The game design is fantastic, it's just rather poorly coded.

Of 'Space' games I'd say SE IV comes pretty close to being the best in Category. The MOO series were great in their time but are quite limited in scope. Even MOO 2 with access to 'protected mode' DOS and so able to have megabytes of memory only had a max or 80 stars or so? And the development possibilities of planets is very rigidly limited.
SE IV exceeds all of these limits and more. The one area where it falls down, other than AI where all games fall down, is where MOO shines. Tactical combat. The tactical combat system in MOO 2 is fantastic. If it were only on a somewhat larger scale (so you didn't START in range of enemy weapons) it would be just about perfect for a turn based combat system. Hopefully SE V will have turn-based combat with 'impulse/initiative' to break down turns into sub-turns and reduce or eliminate the one disadvantage of this system.

Now war games in general is a really big question. There are so many of them and so many variations in theme that I really cant't make a decent guess. Ancient, Medieval, or modern warfare? Strategic or tactical? Air? Sea? Land? Etc... it's just hopeless to sift through all the air, sea, and land combat games and try to pick one. And even then I've only played a small selection of them. TILT...

[ March 18, 2003, 21:57: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

bostonrpgmania · #2 March 19th, 2003, 08:03 AM

Thank you for your opinion
Hmm
Master of magic.. I tried to learn it but with my limited computer knowledge, I failed to run the game under windows system..

Every body talks about master of magic...Is it that good? How it compares to, say, age of wonders two?

How about heroes of might and magic? or operational art of war?

I am just curious what kind of turn based game my friend here in this forum likes to play (other than SE IV)

Are you playing any other game at the moment? any genre?

Fyron · #3 March 19th, 2003, 08:21 AM

Once you get it working, MoM is a most excellent game.

bostonrpgmania · #4 March 19th, 2003, 08:27 AM

Hi Fyron
What is BOTF you mentioned in the previous post?

Hmm Why master of magic is so special?
Customization?

oleg · #5 March 19th, 2003, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bostonrpgmania:
Hi Fyron
What is BOTF you mentioned in the previous post?

Hmm Why master of magic is so special?
Customization?

Hard to tell. It is just a very immersive game, you simply like to play it for no good reason

Pax · #6 March 20th, 2003, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bostonrpgmania:
[QB]Hi Fyron
What is BOTF you mentioned in the previous post?[QB]

BOTF or BotF = "Birth of the Federation" a MOO2-esque Star Trek game.

It's got a lot of good features -- the interface customises to which race you're playing, for example.

But IMO it's also a deeply flawed game.

To start, no self-designed ships; you get a given ship at a specified mixture of technology levels, and that's it, that partiicular ship class is locked in at those stats.

Next, defense early on is a matter of lining outPosts along the border. Even a basic outpost, against a half-dozen early cruisers ... you'll win, with a moderately damaged outpost, 9 times out of 10.

Later on, it's a "no hope" issue, as starships grossly outgun starbases at later technology ... some of the later ships have better sHIELDS, per ship, than the later-tech starbases! Two or three of those, and the best starbase around is gone before it can even get far (if at all) past one of the attacker's shielding.

For three ... the maps, even the big ones, feel ... claustrophobic, to me.

klausD · #7 March 19th, 2003, 03:34 PM

Oh, MOO2 had really the best tactical combat I ever experienced in a 4x game. Formidable.

I hope too that SEV has a similar sytem, but I dont think so. Aaron is more tending to a real time tactical game (similar to his present game project) - not my taste at all. In this case I stay with SEIV gold the next years.

It seems there are no other interesting purely turnbased 4x space games in the works. (except maybe Space Ward ho 6.0 for windows in 2 years)

BTW: MoM was great. Now there are at least 3 turnbased fantasy games in the works. One is "MOM2" from Firaxis (yes Sid does it again) the second is "Elementals" from Stardock and the third is Warlords IV from I2. (former SSG)

KlausD

[ March 19, 2003, 13:36: Message edited by: klausD ]