Strategy / RPG games

chickenhed

Hello! I was wondering if anyone here could recommend a good strategy / rpg? I'm looking for a strategy game with rpg elements. To give a LIGHT example, the Dawn of War series is an rts/rpg in that you actually have heroes you level up while playing in an rts environment. I'm looking for games that have "hero" characters to level up and choose skills for (aka classic rpg elements) but in a strategy gamen (or rts or turn-based) environment. Another example would be Age of wonders series.

Any thoughts?

Imperator

X-COM: Enemy Unknown? You control a small team of soldiers through missions and improve them, their gear and your base. And it has turn-based combat.

chickenhed

Good call. I keep meaning to grab that and try it.

Sily

Xenonauts - the "hardcore" version of "XCOM", inspired by old X-COM: Ufo Defense

http://www.xenonauts.com/

The game puts much more focus on tactics and strategy than RPG elements, but they are there in background. Also, the depth of the game and the micromanaging is -divine-.


For tactical RPG combat, I would actually suggest The Temple of Elemental Evil. Best D&D adaptation to PC up to date, with all the small rules and actions what you can take in combat. But if you do touch this, I heavily suggest getting the modpack "Circle of Eight" and all the patches.

chickenhed

Xenonauts, eh..... Looks very interesting. I think I remember them doing a kickstarter a while back. Will have to look into it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Cheesebelly

Heroes of Might and Magic, King's Bounty, Disciple series all come in mind. They all are turn-based however.

Berserk_Alucard

Warcraft III (The last Warcraft game I liked =p) pretty much fits what you were looking for. This was the game that spawned all of those MOBA games...well, a mod for this game.
Dungeon Keeper (to get it to run, probably head over to GOG.com)
Dungeon Keeper II (a bit newer and shinier, but I thought it felt a lot more limited than the first one)

Me and my brothers played a lot of the Dungeon Keeper games back when they came out. Such good games!

Berserk_Alucard

@Cheesebelly - Nice, how did I forget Heroes of Might and Magic... The 3rd one is amazing!

Sorry, I should have edited and not double posted >_<

Zafiro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYpCurjIxV0

ajwz

Try Disgaea

darthchair

@chickenhed

Faster Than Light - Some RPG elements. More like one of those rogue-like games. Simple style.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/faster_than_light


Defenders Quest - Tower Defense RPG. It's pretty addictive and has it's charm. Simple style.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/defenders_quest

Fallout Tactics - Seriously...how come no one has mentioned this? Great post apocalyptic roleplaying/strategy action. Maybe not as canon as some would have liked...but still a great game.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/fallout_tactics

Jagged Alliance 2 - One of the best mercenary rpg/tactical games. There is a more modernized reboot version, but I don't really suggest it. This one is the best.

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/jagged_alliance_2

chickenhed

@darthchair Great suggestions. Jagged Alliance 1 and JA2 are, quite literally, in my top 3 games of all time. I utterly adore them. Defenders quest looks neat. Will have to look into that. I also agree with Fallout Tactics. I really enjoyed it. The bad rap was unjustified.

@cheesebelly I'm actually playing King's Bounty right now! What a gem!

LadyEibhilinRhett

Hm. My favorites are Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics, and the Fire Emblem series.

darthchair

Oh! I almost forgot!

Freedom Force and Freedom Force: Vs the Third Reich! A nice turn-based super hero strategy/rpg mix. You not only get to create your own super hero, but you get to deal with a bunch of other classic character archetypes as well. The modding community was huge on this one. I remember at one time having downloaded nearly the entire marvel cast of characters. I would create freeform battles between all the characters and see what happened. So much win.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1662/

ARKdeEREH

I recommend that you try "Heroes of Might and Magic 3." There were also a Heroes 4 and 5, but they aren't as fun in my opinion.

In the Heroes games you have up to 8 characters called "heroes." Your hero can level up, increase "primary skills" such as attack and defense which affect how much damage your non-magical attacks will cause and how much you can take and knowledge and spell power, which affect how many spells you can cast and how much magical damage they'll do. You can also get "secondary skills" which are things like necromancy, navigation, earth magic, archery, and other skills that determine your character's class and what they can do. You start at level 1 and gain XP that causes you to level up. The highest level you can attain is level 99, but I've never heard of anyone getting that high. I've been playing Heroes 3 for over 10 years and the highest level I've ever had was 64.

Your hero is essentially like a general leading an army. You control towns and win by conquering everyone else's towns. You recruit troops in your town and in the other towns that you take over. Soldiers are various kinds of mythical creatures and there are several different races/nations of characters that each have their own distinctive type of town. Since you can have up to 8 heroes at a time, that means that you can have 8 armies traveling around the map trying to conquer your enemies.

There are magical items called "artifacts" scattered around the world that are usually guarded by creatures. If you defeat these creatures you can get the artifacts and use them to improve your hero's skills. In "Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete," you can assemble a few very powerful artifacts by putting together multiple specific artifacts in much the same way that you can create Crom Faeyre in Baldur's Gate II by acquiring the Hammer of Thunderbolts and the other items that compose it.

BelgarathMTH

Heroes of Might and Magic IV has leveling heroes that get to choose skill builds and move on the battlefield with the army. A lot of people didn't like that, because no other version of HOMM was like it - all the rest had one hero per army unit who stayed static on the field and could not attack or be attacked, and would retreat to a castle recruiting station if all his army died.

You might like HOMM IV, though, because you say you want leveling heroes mixed in with your army-building and strategy.

You might also want to check out the Elven Legacy games, if you want an extremely difficult strategic challenge that involves building and deploying very realistic fantasy armies. It was a little too intense and detailed for me, but you might like it.

darthchair

@chickenhed

I'm not sure if you're still active here or anything, but I wanted to let you know that Steam has Defender's Quest on sale (daily sale/today only) for $5.09.

chickenhed

@darthchair thanks for the heads up!

bbear

Try any final fantasy titles (except 14 cuz it sucks.) FF7 and FF8 are available in pc version too. Also, try Sid Meier's Pirates for rpg in the high sea...arrrr! Or civilizations for heavy strategy focus.

State_Lemming

This is more strategy than RPG but you might take a look at Total War: Shogun II. Samurai wars with the ability to develop generals and special agents, gives you an attachment to them in the same way people got emotionally invested in their X-COM soldiers.

chickenhed

State_Lemming said:

This is more strategy than RPG but you might take a look at Total War: Shogun II. Samurai wars with the ability to develop generals and special agents, gives you an attachment to them in the same way people got emotionally invested in their X-COM soldiers.

I've actually been looking into the total war series as of late. Good to see you like it.

Pantalion

If you don't mind the strictly neolithic graphics, I heartily recommend Master of Magic as the quintessential RPG/Strategy game.

chickenhed

Pantalion said:

If you don't mind the strictly neolithic graphics, I heartily recommend Master of Magic as the quintessential RPG/Strategy game.

Agree 100%. It was the first strategy game I ever played. I would always crank life magic and spam Paladins......

valky

Hmm, Spellforce 1 + 2 (&addons) crosses my mind. Typically centered completely on your heroes, but on some maps (or most of them) you can built up additional armies/buildings depending on the race, which is present there or hated enemies. But you can clear the game with only your heroes too
But the RTS part is funny too, specially once you unlock each races Titan or at least the better units

Was already mentioned but Fantasy Wars (predecessor) + Elven Legacy is extremely fun and played it more than once.
*thinking* Star Wolves III .. also RP character focus (or only) but is placed in space, includes ship upgrades and alike - and don't mind I & II, they were buggy beyond good & evil.

Guess you also played Warhammer March of Chaos/Battle march as your given example of 40k
The old and very first part of it was awesome, but I guess it won't work anymore...DOS game ^^ I think dosbox & co works but limited (if you are into really old stuff...)
edit: Warhammer - Dark Omen

Wiggles

Warlords and Warlords: Battlecry on gog.com

Drugar

valky said:

Guess you also played Warhammer March of Chaos/Battle march as your given example of 40k
The old and very first part of it was awesome, but I guess it won't work anymore...DOS game ^^ I think dosbox & co works but limited (if you are into really old stuff...)
edit: Warhammer - Dark Omen

I finished Mark of Chaos again not too long ago, not many people know about this game but I find it terrific.
It helps that you can play as psychotic steampunk ratmen in the Chaos campaign though.

Tighten warp coils!
*BRRRZZZAT*

Ahhh Warp Lightning Cannons....

valky

Drugar said:

I finished Mark of Chaos again not too long ago, not many people know about this game but I find it terrific.
It helps that you can play as psychotic steampunk ratmen in the Chaos campaign though.

Tighten warp coils!
*BRRRZZZAT*

Ahhh Warp Lightning Cannons....

I think the biggest problem of those games is the major focus on tactic a lot off ppl just don't agree with
They want to rush kill and destroy, but loosing a bunch of your units or unit-strength would make me cry and reload and replay til am satisfied.
40k was more simplified with uber-units, which are really hard to kill, but getting your Skaven charged by some fancy knights..oh boy! I always hated the mission, where your unexperienced Skaven were about to conquer the castle, it was for me one of the hardest missions just to try to keep my own casualties as low as possible. Luckily you had warp cannons :>
The best campaign for me was the Orc's in the addon...just freaking awesome!

Oh, found another Game which is more like 40k: Confrontation (it's rather unknown)

Illustair

I haven't read through all the posts...but this game is most likely not mentioned, "Ascension to the Throne". It's unrecognized, and may lack a little polishing. But overall, I really enjoyed it! Surely belongs to my top 10. I think the gameplay's comparable to Heroes Might and Magic

April

Warlock - master of the arcane is turn based strategy. One of the patches added hero units and all other units gain exp as well.

Ronin13

Some may not at first think of this as a strategy/rpg, but the stellar classic Star Control 2 has a surprising amount of those elements. If you're into Sci-Fi at all I'd highly recommend it. After 35 years of playing pc/videogames I still rank it as one of the best games ever made. You can pick up a retooled windows-compatible version at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ or buy Star Control 1&2 at GOG.com Graphically it's not impressive, but everything else about the game is top-notch.

Lemernis

I'm an Age of Empires II: the Conquerors fan (which I think is almost of the equivalent of BG for RTSs... not that I've played all that many, and this was a lot of years ago). I may actually have a go at the AoK mod Age of Middle Earth: an Age of Kings Total Conversion. I have no idea where you would purchase Age of Empires II and it's expansion the Conquerors at this point. I still have the disks after all these years.