solo turn based empire builder

[parone]

olm, was that the first age of wonders? god i loved that game. always played the big map, and had to have played in 200+ hours. i gog AOWII but was underwhelmed.

as far as COE, is that basically a dominions built for single player? i know it was a precursor to Dom. those things, by the way, are pluses for me.

[Olm]

Originally Posted by parone

olm, was that the first age of wonders? god i loved that game. always played the big map, and had to have played in 200+ hours. i gog AOWII but was underwhelmed.

No, it was planned as an expansion to AOWII, but then came out as a standalone game. It's often referred to as AOW 2,5.

I played AOWI and remember that there was one single thing that ruined the game for me: Heroes were much to strong. After some training they would crush every army.

In SM that is much better balanced. I do not remember having played AOW II, I guess I advanced to SM immediately.
Well, all I can say is: It's great, and there is much community content (great scenarios!!) for it. You can probably get it for small coin and should give it a try.

[ghoul31]

The civilization series was probably the deepest empire builder.

I spent many years playing civ 2

[Olm]

Originally Posted by ghoul31

The civilization series was probably the deepest empire builder.

I spent many years playing civ 2

Oh yes, Civ 2 was great. Never played one of the later thoroughly, but I still sometimes start a Civ 2 (really Freeciv) game.
What it misses ist battle tactics.

[curtadams]

Civ 4 is a big improvements over earlier Civs in terms of depth because much more effort has been put into balancing strategies. Expansion in particular is no longer an unmitigated good. It's also highly mod-able and there are fantasy versions if you are playing on a PC (not on a Mac due to OS-dependent advanced modding).

Civ 5 supposedly has tactics but this is offset by the fact the computer doesn't do tactics well. My computer doesn't support it so I can't say from experience.