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What are the best Strategy games on Steam?

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377

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Aug 8, 2023

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The 3 must play gamesWhy?

Best Strategy games on Steam	Price	Genre	Platform
93 Europa Universalis IV	$39.99	Grand Strategy	Windows, macOS, SteamOS + Linux
92 Factorio	$20.00	Realtime Strategy (RTS)	-
92 Age of Empires 2	$19.99	RTS	-
-- Supreme Commander	$14.99	RTS	-
-- Cities: Skylines	$29.99	City Simulation	-

Europa Universalis IV

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Top Pro

Pausable/adjustable speed RTS

Play straight through on real-time, or pause for as much micro-management as is needed. No rapid attacks and the key here, it is pausable even though it can be a real time system. Basically time can be slowed, sped up and paused with most gameplay taking place somewhere in between. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

When you start out, it can be overwhelming. You have a country and three thousand infantrymen -- what can you do? You decide to attack your neighbor -- and they cut you down like reeds. You start over as a bigger country and attack a smaller neighbor -- and suddenly you're in a war against several large countries at once. You start again and this time you find a weak neighbor with no allies. You crush them and bring them under your control -- and suddenly you find revolutions popping up everywhere. Even after you've learned the basics, you'll still find yourself wondering: if I declare a holy war, will it cost me diplomatic power to annex territory or not? And it's often hard -- certainly in ironman mode -- to undo decisions, so small mistakes and misclicks can end up costing you a lot. The game does give you guidance in the form of alert bubbles in the upper left of the screen, informing you of the things it thinks are most relevant, and paying attention to those can at least show you what you might want to think about. In the later patches, the user interface has been improving to help reduce surprises -- and the game mechanics as well. For instance, rebel uprising progress can be tracked easily -- you won't be surprised by a sudden uprising of Najdi nationalists, and when you're in for a long-term peasant revolt, the game will tell you why it's happening, how to prevent it, and how to get out of it once it happens. But simply finding all these parts of the user interface takes time playing. Determining what's important takes experience. You can pause the game at any time and find all the data you can handle, but if you're not just extracting the important parts, the deluge won't help. Your best bet is to find videos of people playing the game with a bit more skill than you. Streaming is best -- you can ask questions, and most streamers will answer. See More

Gamer's Experience

It's very fun getting to learn the game, it takes quite a while to learn it. Took me about a month to learn the basics, not even in the nitty gritty yet. Even though it can be overwhelming to a beginner, it is a very rich game full of many different things you can explore. See More

Specs

Genre:Grand Strategy

Co-Op:12 Player Online / 32 LAN

Controller Support:No

Top Pro

Lots of depth

EUIV is a simulation of global politics and war. There is a relatively limited set of choices you can make under normal circumstances: hiring advisors to improve your capabilities, hiring troops, about two dozen diplomatic actions in peace, and a number of different peace deal options when terminating a war. However, these interact to produce a large number of interesting decisions that affect your outcomes. If you want to annex a neighbor, do you declare a holy war on them, or do you fabricate claims on their territory and demand that they "return" this land to you? Do you ally a much larger nation that might try to force you to be their vassal? Conversely, do you try to improve relations with a much smaller neighbor in order to become their suzerain overlord, or do you attempt to conquer them directly and risk pulling their larger allies into a war? On top of that, there are hundreds of events that can occur once certain preconditions are met. Some of them are specific to which country you're playing as. Some require you to hire the right set of advisors. And if you don't keep your country's internal affairs in order, you may find yourself on the wrong end of a peasant's war or facing other national disasters. See More

Top Con

Games can take a very long time

Due to the in depth, meticulous gameplay mechanics, the games can take weeks to finish which some people may not have the patience for. See More

CompassionateAchilles's Experience

playing for years See More

Top Pro

Game features pausing and adjustable speeds

Europa Universalis IV allows you to play straight through in real-time, or pause the game for as much micro-management as needed. With this system in place, everyone can play at their own pace without need for rapid play styles or quick rushing attacks to achieve victory, thus giving players freedom to tackle missions at their own, preferred speed. See More

Top Con

The game is getting too old

Instead of more DLC fixes, there should be a new game version that addresses fundamental changes like Trade. See More

Top Pro

You can set your own goals

While there are a lot of achievements for doing certain things in Iron Man mode, which runs can be tailored towards, and there is a points system allowing you to focus on becoming the "best" in the world, there is no definitive win condition and therefore a lot of players decide their own target for the campaign and focus on that, whether direct conquest or a trade empire or "playing tall" - highly developing a small nation without expanding geographically. See More

Top Pro

You get to chose how to play

You can either expand with colonies, martial might or be peaceful and attempt to ally neighbouring nations. See More

Factorio

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Endless solutions

With proper planning users can "code" together very precise ways to create all the things needed for the game, some in very inventive ways that can differ quite a bit. This allows for tons of replayability. See More

Top Con

Can become rather repetitive

There's really little payoff for being able to build really long chains of automation, it usually results in being able to open a new tech tree which allows the player to continue the process of building automation chains ad infinitum, which, admittedly can become rather boring after a while. See More

Conar McVicker's Experience

SUPER MODABLE See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Genre:Realtime Strategy (RTS)

Co-Op:16+ Player Online (100+ has been done)

Top Pro

Charming old school graphics

While not the most technically advanced graphics the look of the game is much like a game from the 90s but seeing it in action when an assembly line starts moving there is an impressiveness to it that suits the game quite well. See More

Top Con

Still in Alpha

The game is still in Alpha which means there will be bugs as well as missing features. See More

Top Pro

Cooperative or PvP building

Factorio also supports multiplayer, allowing many players to cooperate and assist each other, or work against each other in PvP. By default, multiplayer games run the CO-OP freeplay scenario where all players work together to launch a rocket with a satellite into space. See More

Top Pro

Under active development

The game is still in Alpha which means endless future possibilities. See More

Top Pro

Massive and infinite procedurally generated world

The playing world is as large as you want to explore, it automatically generates it as you explore more areas. See More

Top Pro

Near endless gameplay development

Always something new needing attention, different ways of doing things, very easy to clock up a lot of hours playing See More

Age of Empires 2

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Runs on very old computers

This game will run on old PC's/laptops without a problem as the game itself is quite old. It can therefore run on hardware that is mostly seen as low spec. So pretty much anyone can run this game as it will even work on integrated graphics on modern CPUs. See More

Top Con

Outdated

As it was originally released in 1999, Age of Empires 2 shows its age, particularly in terms of the UI and graphics. See More

Specs

Controller Support:No

Top Pro

Awesome ambiance with a great finish

While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished. See More

Top Con

Little variance between factions

In graphics and game mechanics, factions have few differences between them, making this a symmetrical and naturally balanced game, but arguably making it dull and not serving the game's theme. See More

Top Pro

Facilitates the user's preferred pace

This game neither gives the impression of being thrown to the wolves nor that of being left stranded on an island. Whether you want to move slowing and steadily through the game or take things at a more heightened pace, Age of Empires 2 will allow for both (with some minor planning). See More

46 Other Games Considered

Cities: Skylines

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Top Con

Can be difficult to glean what one has done wrong in game

Cities: Skylines has difficulty letting the player know what they have done wrong, which results in a lot of head scratching. See More

Top Pro

Large scale

At a total of 36 square kilometers of area to use (compared to Sim Cities 4), there is quite a bit of room to build and play. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:City Simulation

Top Pro

Depth of field

There is a depth of field effect that will blur distant buildings, which mimics Sim City's diorama effect. It can of course be adjusted with a slider as to how much or little to use. See More

Top Pro

Steady stream of new content via DLCs

DLCs are optional, they do go one sale. Plus when a new DLC is released a bit of the content is released into the base game. See More

XCOM 2

Top Pro

It's fun to upgrade and manage your squad

As you progress through the game you can train and promote your soldiers to make them more effective in combat, unlock new abilities and upgrade their weapons armor. The interesting part of it is if a member gets injured (which is really easy to happen on the harder difficulties) they are not available for the following missions until they heal. So if you only upgrade one solider and he/she gets injured, you're in a really tough spot. The weapons, abilities, items and armor you can unlock are varied and interesting enough to make it really fun to progress through the game and build a custom squad based around how you like to go about your missions. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

XCOM 2 is not just about managing a squad of soldiers, you also have to manage your base and operations on a global scale. This includes managing your resources, identifying which missions you should prioritize, and allocating research for new technologies. It might take a while to learn everything needed to fully enjoy this game, especially on higher difficulties. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Turn-based Tactical RPG

Top Pro

Excellent suspense

You're always against the clock in one way or another. Globally your enemies are moving forward with their plans and unless you actively work towards countering them, they will win. You'll be short on cash, manpower, and will have to work with inferior tech. On the field most missions have turn limits forcing you to act aggressively. This scrambling for resources, making with what you can, racing against the clock creates great suspense that makes it all the more satisfying to win an important mission. See More

Top Con

Performance could be better

Even when using well above the recommended hardware the game does show some performance issues as it is difficult to hold 60fps. While not the biggest problem thanks to this being a turn based game it would have been nice to see better performance and a constant 60fps when using what the developers recommended for best performance. See More

Top Pro

Makes you feel more for your characters than most character driven games

One of the more fun parts about this game is managing your squad. You can customize the looks, voices, and even names of your soldiers. As you take your soldiers on missions you'll get attached to them. This will create a lot of tense moments when your soldiers are about to die and you desperately try to save them. If you decide to input the names of your friends or family, multiply the tension by ten. See More

Crusader Kings 2

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Freedom to play how you like

The game allows for one to make their own choices with there being many "win" conditions in that you can choose to progress how you like. Want to take over all of Europe, that is possible, want to create a successful lineage of family that keeps to themselves, this is also possible. See More

Top Con

Extremely complicated

Crusader King II is a very complicated game that seems overly complex at first and may take a while to really learn as there are quite a lot of things to not only balance in the game but also figure out how to do either through in game tutorials or reading online. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Grand Strategy

Top Pro

Massive online multiplayer

Crusader Kings II has a whopping 32 player online multiplayer mode. Something not often found in games of this sort which can make for a very intense and strategic gameplay session. See More

Prison Architect

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Amazing depth

The game consists of a wide variety of overlapping systems that work together to create excellent depth. You have to figure out the layout of your prison, how to manage the needs of your inmates, how to earn enough money to expand and hire new staff, what to do in the case of a natural disaster, a riot or attempted escape and so on. Every decision you make will impact all other elements of the game. For example, instituting regular shakedowns will help prevent prisoners from carrying banned items like forks taken from cafeterias that can be used to dig tunnels, but will also make the inmates more angry and thus more likely to riot. You can decide to instead use tunnel-sniffing dogs set to patrol around the perimeter, but that will cost more money and if the inmates pick up on the patrolling patterns they will tunnel around them. Or you may decide to check each inmate individually to see who's tired from staying up late to dig while everyone else has been sleeping though that approach may not scale. See More

Top Con

Gameplay is poorly explained

The game does a poor job of explaining all the mechanics to the player when they begin the main game which leaves the player guessing as to what they need to do in order to be successful. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Simulation

Top Pro

Lots of mods available

A wide variety of user-created modifications to the game are available including mods that change the theme of the game, look of the game, add new objects, grants, programs, scenarios and new mechanics. They're listed in the game's wiki, here. See More

Top Pro

Great freedom of playstyle

You can run the prison in the way that you see fit. You can put the wellbeing of prisoners at the top of the priority list by making sure their living spaces are comfortable, that they're well-fed, have the opportunity to educate themselves and often get to go outside in the yard to socialize and exercise or you can run the prison with an iron fist by instituting regular shakedowns, putting CCTVs, metal detectors, K-9 units and armed guards in every corner. Whichever play-style you choose, the game will offer challenges that will keep the game interesting. See More

Top Pro

Works great for both long and short play sessions

The gameplay lends itself well to both doing a couple of things around the prison every once in a while or setting up elaborate systems that can take hours upon hours of time. The game can be saved at any time so you don't have to make commitments in one way or another. See More

Top Pro

Relaxing to play

Building your prison is almost zen like. There are periods of stress when there are riots or things going wrong, but you can always pause to take your time and figure out a good solution. See More

Top Pro

Developers are releasing free updates and additions to the game

Developers have been updating the game almost every month with new content, improvements and tweaks to the game. See More

Sid Meier's Civilization VI

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Great turn-based, strategic combat

Civilization VI utilizes a hexagonal grid for movement and combat. Each tile has six sides that connect to another tile, and units have a certain movement speed that is always depicted in tiles, which can be utilized in different ways. You can create stronger, slower units like catapults and pikemen, or decide to overwhelm and surround your enemies with faster units like cavalry. This adds a level of depth to the game that other turn-based strategies simply fall short of. There's a limit of one unit per tile, which really makes you take the strategic aspects into mind. Ranged units can often shoot over melee units, but not always. You'll have to figure out a few interactions like that in order to be the best commander you can be, but the good news is that it's very intuitive and easy to learn. Each leader has their own turn. Generally, the player goes first, then the computer players. This makes it much easier to plan your strategy, and you can take all the time you need. See More

Top Con

Most victories won by timed or military victory

It can be pretty difficult to win by diplomacy, culture, or religion, which does add some challenge to the game but it can get tiresome if one keeps winning by only military or timed victories. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Available for free on the Epic Game Store at the moment (needs Epic Games launcher to be installed) https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/sid-meiers-civilization-vi/home See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Endless scenarios and replayability

Sid Meier's Civilization VI has a large assortment of nation leaders to choose from that have an even bigger assortment of scenarios that are able to play out for said leaders. Each game can be quite unique in this way as each leader allows for a different nation to be controlled. See More

Top Pro

The gameplay stays true to the Civilization series

Civilization VI is a turn-based game where players will vie over resources and land. In order to do this, each player starts with a settler to create their capitol city with, and the game progresses from that point on. While it can be a little daunting because there's so much to do and learn, a few minutes of reading through the suggestions of your in-game advisers (which are AIs) and experimenting with the user interface will cut that feeling of dread out and replace it with fun. There are several different types of resources on the map, and they usually yield food, gold, or production. Players can devote turns to training a worker from their city in order to "work" these tiles, letting you reap whatever benefits they may bestow. Getting yourself more food allows you to grow your city faster because you are able to work more tiles, and it just keeps getting bigger from there. Gold allows you to buy various units (like workers and settlers) or even buildings (which will provide even more food, gold, and production). Production allows you to produce units and buildings faster, which can be another way to instigate your city's growth. There are also strategic and luxury resources. Strategic resources like horses, iron, or oil, allow you to create different units and buildings that would otherwise be unavailable to you. Luxury resources provide "amenities" to your cities, which also helps to make them grow. Amenities represent how happy your citizens are with your rule. While you're building your cities, you are also simultaneously researching different technologies which allow you to build new buildings or improve different resources. The point of the game is taking as many resources as you can get your hands on, and then building your cities to amplify those gains so that you can achieve victory, which can be done in one of 5 ways. Culture, Domination, Religious, Science, and Time/Score victories are all possible win conditions. To attain a Culture victory, players have to attract tourists by generating high amounts of culture and tourism. A Domination victory happens when you capture the capital of every other civilization. A religious victory comes when more than 50% of the world follows your religion. A Science victory is done by achieving 3 things: you must first launch a satellite, then land a human on the Moon, then establish a Martian colony. Last is the Time/Score victory: you can set a number of turns for the game to run, and at the end of that turn the game is over. If you desire that type of victory, you will want to control many wonders (unique buildings that only one player can build) and research high levels of technology. See More

Top Pro

A ton of fun because it's so fast-paced

The computer opponents in this game are much more aggressive than they have been in the past iterations of Civilization (and in fact, more aggressive than in most turn-based games), which makes the game more fun all around. Because the AI is so bloodthirsty, you've got to make moves to solidify your position (or take theirs!), which leads to you amassing an army and numerous cities rather quickly. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful graphics

From the players cities and armies to the lush landscape, Civilization is an astonishingly gorgeous game for those with systems powerful enough to push the graphics to the limit. However, even when on lower graphical settings the game still looks great and is well animated. Unlike the previous games, Civilization VI has more of a cartoon-like feel to the environment, and that adds a more fun, less serious attribute to the game. It makes great use of colors and different landscapes in order to draw you into the game. It's also added background animations, for example, if you have a worker build an iron mine, then you'll actually see the mine being worked for the rest of the game. It certainly adds flavor to the game, and makes it feel more alive. See More

Civilization V

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Endless scenarios and replayability

Civilization V has a large assortment of nation leaders to choose from that have an even bigger assortment of scenarios that are able to play out for said leaders. Each game can be quite unique in this way as each leader allows for a different nation to be controlled. See More

Top Con

No steam workshop support on Linux

The Linux port currently does not support steam workshop, and as the mac port made by the same developers has not received workshop support despite having been out for several years, it is unlikely that it ever will. Though there are unofficial workarounds to get the mods working. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Co-Op:2 to 21 Player Online / LAN

Controller Support:Steam Controller Officallly supported

Top Pro

Fantastic tactical combat

Civilization V has a great combat system that feels very tactical over previous versions as there is no stacking of troops, but with the new hexagonal grid players can surround enemies as well as allow for better tactics when planning attacks. See More

Top Con

One unit per tile

Civ 5 restricts you to having one unit per tile, but has an AI unable to handle that restriction well, and doesn't even have decent pathing for units. Late game becomes a slog of ordering each unit individually due to poor pathing. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful graphics

From the players cities and armies to the lush landscape, Civilization is quite a beautiful game for those with systems powerful enough to push the graphics to the limit. Even when on lower graphical settings the game looks lush and well animated. See More

Top Con

No stats on other Civ attitudes

Unlike past Civilization games there are no longer stats on the attitudes of the players surrounding Civilizations. This allowed one to see how each other nation felt about the player, but now that it is gone one has to guess, which is definitely not as helpful. See More

Top Pro

Customization through policies

Policies are used as a tool to gain a variety of customizations that benefit ones society. There is a branching tree of policies that will allow the user to pick certain aspects that will suit them best such as adding law or religion to ones society which will give gains in certain aspects. See More

Top Con

Most victories won by timed or military victory

It can be pretty difficult to win by diplomacy or culture which does add some challenge to the game but it can get tiresome if one keeps winning by only military or timed victories. See More

Endless Legend

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As good as Civ, if not better in some areas

Tends to have more nuance to the way you play it, especially with different factions. Strategy and diplomacy also have larger roles in Endless Legend, helping to round out how one can play. See More

Top Con

Can get difficult sometimes

The gameplay can be difficult and may be a turn off to some gamers, but apparently there are mods to remove or tone down all of the annoying features (such as winters). For those that are willing to install mods to make the game easier or more palatable. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Fantasy 4X game

If you're into a more fantasy settings, this is the game to go to as there are few fantasy set 4X games. See More

Stronghold Crusader HD

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Top Pro

Deep yet intuitive interface

Many options are available in the game along with good tutorials that introduce the player to these. While not all options are necessary the inclusion of them is welcome for those that would like to take advantage of them. See More

Top Con

Lacks polish in some areas

Things like buttons on the bottom of the screen that are not intuitively placed as well as notifications that can not be filtered to the more important. This can detract from the gameplay as it is immersion breaking to have to rifle through inconvenient button placement as well as notifications looking for what you need at the time. See More

Specs

Genre:Real-Time Strategy

Top Pro

Great for RTS beginners

Easy to learn mechanics of economy, castle building and army production. Does not overwhelm players with choices. See More

Age of Empires III

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Top Pro

Good selection of areas to play in

There are 8 different nations that the player can choose to lead to victory, each with their own different looking areas to explore. This makes for a good mix of differentiation of play depending on what the player chooses to use. See More

Top Con

Could use better sound cues

Keeping track of ones units can become a difficult job (but a fun one) and having audio cues of when something is happening to your units could greatly help in this area, sadly there is very little of this in the game and could have been utilized better. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Card-based upgrades and reinforcements add more to each match

Age of Empires III features a new and unique card-based system that allows for you to deploy additional units and resources from your Town Hall. By eliminating enemy units and buildings, you are awarded experience, which not only goes toward your City Level (allowing you to purchase more cards out-of-match), but allows you to activate a card in-game. These cards can grant you additional soldiers, increase gathering speed of Banks and Workers, or even a fort that you can deploy anywhere in the map. See More

Top Con

Strategy is highly lacking

Especially in multi player, AO3 rapidly becomes a game of "build a maximum army and face the enemies maximum army, then start over". There are some things to try to make the game more strategic, but nothing much. For example, terain does nothing exept determine what types of units can pass, so placing you units on higher ground does not affect there range, and forests do not decrease accuracy and vision range/detectability. See More

Top Pro

Wide selection of missions

Players will see many different missions ranging from rescue missions to defensive missions. What is even better is that many of these types of missions will be mixed together into one, so there is a varying structure to each making for a different feeling to each. See More

Distant Worlds: Universe

Top Pro

Great Tech Tree and Ship Building

Top Con

Requires a time commitment

This is not a game that one can jump into with no prior knowledge, there is a high learning curve that will take many trial sessions in order to get the hang of the full aspects of the game. See More

CleverLanCaihe's Experience

A little bit old but the level of depth and complexity more than makes up for it, it is far better than any newer 4X games See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

In-depth problem solving

Unlike games like Civ where solving a problem is a few clicks away, Distant Worlds has many layers of abstraction that will make problem solving a lot more difficult and more like a real living world. There may be many elements needed in order to solve a problem that the player will have to figure out on their own, making for a very immersive way to solve issues. See More

Top Pro

The universe is huge

With the possibility to simulate thousands of stars and tens of thousands of planets in realtime, the universe in Distant Worlds is truely vast. See More

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

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Top Pro

Gentle learning curve

The progress of the game is structured in a way that allows the player to get accustomed to the game gradually. The AI in the game is also not rushed so the player has time to thing of how they want to maneuver, so is a bit more relaxed than other RTS games. Overall this makes for an experience that could be seen as casual in some respects. See More

Top Con

Poor multiplayer balance

Due to the way multiplayer was designed there is no incentive to build up ones technologies, which means each game is just a rush of low level troops facing off against one another. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Long, entertaining campaign

There are quite a lot of missions in the game that have a varying degree of particular objectives, ranging from stealth to base destruction. There are quite a lot of secondary missions that allow for a good bit of replayability for those that want to complete everything. See More

Top Con

Pathfinding issues

The AI in the game has a few pathfinding issues where troops do not go where intended by the player. This can be frustrating in the heat of a battle. See More

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

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Top Con

Very long games

A game can last upwards of 4 hours for the medium/larger games. This can be a detriment for those that do not have the time to sit down and play a four hour game. See More

Top Pro

Diplomacy used in a smart way

Different factions will send you quests that may effect your relationship with other factions meaning you will have to choose who best to make a friend or make an enemy when taking these missions. This bit of strategy can greatly change the outcome of a game depending on how well you have chosen who to help and who to possibly make angry. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Leisurely real time combat

The large scale of the game controlling fleets in may solar systems allows for a leisurely pace to play, which makes for worthwhile way of controlling ones ships across multiple places. This makes for less stress in the game due to how intuitive and evenly paced the game is. See More

Company of Heroes 2

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Top Pro

Great multiplayer

The multiplayer of the game tends to be where the majority of fun can be seen. While single player is a worthwhile en-devour in the game, it just can not stand up against playing with real people. The included multiplayer has plenty of competitive maps as well as a section of co-op maps that are similar to the campaign mode (though not as plentiful). See More

Top Con

Poor cutscenes

The cutscenes, even though they are not animated with the in game engine look pretty abysmal. Why they are animated so poorly is unknown, but it definitely stands out. See More

Specs

Top Pro

More of a focus on smart planning over APM

Company of Heroes 2 is an RTS game that focuses more on smart decision making of micro unit control over macro control and actions per minute. This allows for a more deep strategy to the game as user will need to think aggressively and quickly. Strategy plays a big part as units can utilize cover with buildings as well as vehicles. The action on screen can often be slow which also allows for more micro management and planned out attacks. See More

Top Con

Flame weapons feel over powered

When facing off against units or vehicles that use flame weapons, the users troops can be killed a little too quickly. being that the weapons can often come out of nowhere, it can be frustrating as the level will most likely need to be replayed with the knowledge that flame weapons will be coming up. See More

Top Pro

Top of its class in graphics for an RTS

While not a huge improvement over the first game in the series (Company of Heroes), the graphics to be found in CoH2 are still quite astounding for an RTS. Being that the genre tends to have many moving parts in any given level, the graphics tend to take a backseat to gameplay, but CoH 2 decided to offer better graphics than most in a very rich and detailed environment as well as troops. There will be plenty of realistic explosions to watch, as well as smoke after the fact that looks quite real. The animations to be found are also quite good, troops run as you would expect real people to run, vehicles move exactly as expected as well. Just about anything in the graphics department for this game stands out with a ton of polish. See More

Top Con

Gameplay can be quite hectic

Some of the missions in the game can require the player to keep track of up to 135 units at once, on three different fronts at that , which can be difficult to manage. While not completely unmanageable, this is something to consider for those that want something a bit more simplistic out of their RTS. See More

Top Pro

Control large amount of units

Upped from the original game the player is able to control up to 135 units, which is quite a lot of micromanagement for those that are interested. See More

Top Pro

Tons of replayability thanks to DLC

While DLC has the potential to introduce imbalance, with purchased items that give advantage, so far CoH 2 has not had this issue. What it does offer through DLC is new campaigns and features such as Twitch support. This allows for more to be added to the game to do and see, which keeps players that enjoy the game coming back when purchasing these items. Other things such as cosmetics can also be purchased through DLC (really micro-transactions), which do not impact gameplay at all but offer a way to individualize oneself from the masses. See More

Men of War: Assault Squad

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Top Pro

Assuming direct control turns the game into a third-person shooter

There is a direct control setting where the player can control their troops actions in real time, which makes it more like a third person shooter over a RTS. See More

Top Con

Very steep learning curve

It will take a good bit of practice before you get used to the gameplay and all of its mechanics, so for those without the time to invest the learning curve may be a hurdle not worth getting over. See More

Top Pro

Takes a large amount of strategy

Unlike a lot of RTS games where you keep building troops to spam at the enemy. Assault Squad requires constant micromanagement where the player must plan meticulously who to send where and at what time. See More

Top Con

Campaign has no story

Campaign lacks a story. It's just 15 skirmish missions that the player chooses from with no over arching plot at all. This game is focused on the gameplay and has left the story to the wayside. See More

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation

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Top Pro

Focuses on positioning over micromanagement

The maps in this game are large, sometimes taking up as many as 20-30 zones in a single map. What this means is that the player will need to focus a lot more on position of their units over actually micromanaging every aspect of each unit (due to the vast size of maps and the amount of units on them). This allows for gameplay that has a broader scope in strategy, as it forces the player to plan out what is best to protect and the best position to hold of enemy attacks all while still trying to grow their army in order to overpower their enemy. See More

Top Con

Physics are unrealistic

Many of the units will pass right through each other, making for units that behave in an unrealistic way and can pull the player out of the immersion of the title. The units also all hover over the ground, which means they have no real weight to their actions, when combined with the unrealistic way they move makes for something that just does not looked polished. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Top Pro

Cool mechanic for controlling troops

There is a tool in the game that allows one to "lasso" their units together into an army. By making an army the player can then control that army as they would one troop unit, meaning that all micromanagement for a large group of troops is unnecessary as the game will deal with it in a more intuitive an easy manner. This can be done with as little or as many troops as the player want, which overall makes for an easy way to control the game when in the heat of battle. See More

Top Con

Demanding system requirements

The game requires a high end GPU as well as at-least a 4 core processor. This means the game is quite demanding and needs to take advantage of multi-cores in order to play smoothly at high graphical settings. So for those with a mid-range system, the game may play at lower frame-rates, which can be frustrating. See More

Top Pro

Pleasing graphics

The graphics stand out as polished and make for a really nice looking RTS. This is top of its class in graphics for an RTS in 2016. See More

Top Con

Lacking in options for factions and units

There are only two factions available in the game to play with, so makes for limited choice. On top of this each faction has only so many different units, which also shows a lack of choice. Combined, once the game has been experienced and both factions played with there will be little in surprise as to what the game has to offer. See More

Top Pro

Good mix of gameplay modes for any skill level

The game features a single player story mode, a story mode called Ascendancy that will walk the player though how to play the game and multiplayer modes that are ranked as well as custom multiplayer modes. Through the assortment of modes the game allows for any type of player to find gameplay that they may like, whether they are a seasoned RTS player or a newcomer to the genre. Whether playing locally in single player or online with friends or random people, there should be plenty on offer for any skill level. See More

Top Pro

Better framerate when ran in DX12

This game is DX12 compatible which allows for a higher frame rate over DX11. DX12 is only able to be taken advantage of on Windows 10, so that is something to consider, but for those that can take advantage, there is a slight gain to be had. See More

Top Pro

Easily allows the player to utilize specific info on their enemies

At all times the player can vies on a mini map how much their enemy has expanded and into what areas. There is also a thing called player power rating, which allows the player to know on a point scale what their enemies military and economic power level is. Which means you can get a sense of what fields your enemy is expanding into. Combining these tools allows for a quick way to know where the enemy is expanding and into what fields of tech they are concentrating on. This way the player can adjust their strategy accordingly, making for an even deeper level of strategy overall. See More

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