The Best Strategy Game of All Time

[Niccolo]

My fellow strategists, I have found a game better than Advance Wars. Better than Fire Emblem. Better than FFTA. For I have discovered Dai Senryaku VII. It's like Advance wars, except with bigger maps, more facility types, 400+ real units, hexes instead of tiles, more advanced controlls, the ability to gain campain maps after you beat them, 8 real armies (my personal favorite is Israel) and better graphics. Oh, and might I add, It costs $20 and it's new. Superior strategy on a butget. My dream has come true.

[GamerMan]

there is better, and no one ever said advance wars was the best strategy game ever, and FF:TA bairly even counts as a strategy game. But I will got with M:TW, AoE, or CtPII NE day

[Niccolo]

The problem with RTSs is that they requirw literally no strategy. Thake a hundred troops or so, march/boat/fly em' into a base, demolish the base, move on to next base, repeat. This works for literally all RTSs, an makes them just real-time mass battles instead of true strategy games. Real strategy usually involves some deal of planning. In Dai Senryaku, should you be so dumb to try a massed attack on a large map, the brilliant AI will outmanouver youand crush your gigantic army in one fell swoop, usually with more powerful units, artillery and attack aircraft.

[Niccolo]

And PC, I believe.

[GamerMan]

thats weird, try the just mass then charge startegy online on NE of those 3 games, and ohh whats that :-O YOU DIE... and thanx to cheating AI and or custom AI, both of which are easy to get, the mass thing, ohh whats that, NEVER WORKS!!! In fact to claim that the one large army feature is teh key to victory shows just how little you have given an RTS a chance, in fact the strategy that is over used in almost all of them is teh rush, not the one mass attack... the mass attack is practcally the worst thing you could do.

But how about your game... hmm the abilities and unit characteristics, true variety (not just modifications off of a base) is very slight, the graphics do not reward those amply for their successes to get the non-strategy oriented player interested...one very annoying soundtrack on auto loop, the AI has easy to exploit bugs... ohh and broken multiplayer... hmm where you see depth, I see lack of replayability, and depth is built in playing and replaying a game... which with this game, may never happen enough.

[Niccolo]

Ive played RTS' for several long years of my life before I found something better (i.e. Dai Senryaku), and believe me, no strategy is involved. (ever played online? Try strategy there, see how far that'll get ya) Furthermore, graphics are less of a concern for me than playability, and for $20, what do you expect? Also, unit abilities are quite varied according to armies, calling for different strategys with each. (example: russia's assult ships need little protection to drop their cargo, as they are quite hevily armed and armored, not to mention fast. japan's main assult ship, however, is devoid of weapons and as slow as a pregnant cow, but it has superior copter carrying ability to nearly all other dropships. another example: all isreli tanks have 60mm mortars, and as sucth, a group can lay down a hail of indirect fire on any other country's MBTs, which have no such thing.) Also, holes in the AI my ass, if you've ever played, it must have been on easy difficulty. And as for the soundtrack, its not that annoying if you choose the right BGM. And besides, it's BACKROUND MUSIC, not a symphonically arranged score. As for replayability, I often will replay a map often on many different difficulties and with different countries to approach it from different angles or spot my tactical flaws.

[actionjackson]

Warcraft focuses on smaller armies.

As for my vote, it wud be R:TW. While it is no doubt a good game, I still have yet to try my hand at MTW or STW. As PC games go, this is a favorite of mine.

I found AW 1 & 2 to be very enjoyable. A good combination of tactics and logistics, but easy to learn even for the noobs, which wat I basically was before AW came to me. These games have seen hours on my gameboys, and many more to come.

As with most debates of this nature, there is no clear "best." It just comes to personal preference.

[GamerMan]

who were you playing online, a compleat n00b. Or perhaps you were playing a game such as warcraft, one where strategy doesn't matter. Try playing one game against Matty or Shiva on Age of Kings/Mythology, or 1 game against Robert Hwong or "gangus" in age of empires 1, and you will see strategy going, plus who were you playing that would let, and be destroyed by, a mass attack... There is no skeem worse than mass attack in any decent game other than a directionless one.

RTS's do reward microskill and such a little more than they should, but there is definetly strategy.

And you didn't notice AI holes in your game? must have not been looking very hard, or at all, or you saw them and ignored them, because they were pretty vibrant.

[Niccolo]

Have you even played DS7?

[GamerMan]

yes, after you posted this I hunted the game down, got my hands on it, played it, was unimpressed, and gave my analysis.

[Niccolo]

Hmmm....well, to each his own, I suppose.

[GamerMan]

wow, its only $20, I didn't know that, that makes the game seem better... still annoying music, and lack of human opponents, but its a game worth buying for 20 (i just thought it was 40).

esspecially if trash your first 2 turns to make it harder, then it starts to get interesting


FF: TA is a game, much like fire emblem, except lacking strategy for the most part. Basicly an RPG that pretends to be a strategy game.

[Niccolo]

Still pretty fun, though. (nu mou rock!)

[Azan]

Yeah that game was pretty fun, it would have been better though had it not had all that crap about it being the real world at the beggining, and how all of the people were children, and the music was a bit kiddyish, but other than that great game

[bad-monkey]

well I thought that FF10 needed a lot of strategie. I didn't know that it would be extremely beneficial to use all of the people so I got to a pt. where I couldn't do anything. I wasn't good enough. I think you need strategie to figure out crap and of the like. fun game.