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What was your first love TBS game?

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What was your first love TBS game?

from Stardock Forums
Given the "How old are you?" post showed some people of my generation I wondered if anyone else fell in love with "Lords of Midnight" by Mike Singleton on the ZX Spectrum.


It was a brilliant game with a format that has never really been mimiced.
I even got a spectrum emulator to play it years later on the PC.


As TBS goes it was a simple concept of a 1st person perspective strategy game. You'd start completely on the back foot as you had 4 characters to try to get enough force together to withstand a huge invasion. It used to frighten the life out of me at times. When you'd press next turn and the screen would clear see thousands of enemies in front of you. Hold on they might not be enemies after all... better go check. Argh... there are 1000 soldiers of someone who may be your ally (if you had the right character talk to them) and they are surrounded by 10,000 bad guys. Do you try to salvage their army or just run away.


Mike Singleton tried a couple of other titles but he just kept making the game worse rather than better. Anyway, what was the first TBS game you loved?
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Reply #51 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First love was Ascendency.

Just for experimenting not for fighting. I know the AI wasn't 'good'.

But the possibility to see your population grow displayed by a 'growing plant' was supurb. Same for the industry not hammers but an industry complex. It was not displayed in numbers but in a fotopicture of a growing industrycomplex. You have to see it to understand it. Same for the music supurb.

The desinign of spaceships the different alliens the posibility to trow a ship back in to a spacelane. Just the tip of the Iceberg. You could shoot back from a planet to destroy a spaceship. You could cloak and shield your planet.

Only the micromanagement.   

The best way of to describe ascendency is 'gamedesign' 'lessons' forgotten.
In no other game the tech tree was in 3d and It was possible to see the thing you want to get and turn the tech tree 360. I know it is hard to describe those things it's just that most of the good things of ascendency were visual. No eye candy just visuals to help you to understand the game.


The most 'complete' TBS game.

Sid MEIER'S ALPHA CENTAURI

a.k.a (SMAC) Created by Brian Rennolds.

It is perfect. Every faction play's different. Good story. The possibility to change and desingn your units. The ability to change your game world in every possible way. And a lot more things I don't mention. If you change your ettics you change the way the game react on you. (More polution, Money, enz)

The only sad thing is that CIV 4 isn't so perfect. I would pay for a remake of the graphics of SMAC. Not for the gameplay or gamemechanics because those are already perfect. Just Smac in a CIV 4 engine.

Te most fun is to hear when your netwerk node is finished. Remember an army peleton singing 'You just got a network node'. Immersion

I played SMAC the sad thing is when I play CIV 4 I miss some features of SMAC in Civ 4.

Civ 4 is just no SMAC.
Reply #52 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My first TBS was Outpost by Sierra. I still remember it fondly. Earth was destroyed by an asteroid and you had to take the remaining survivors into space and set up a colony on a distant planet. You had to send probes to scan for planets. Then pick a planet decide how many people you were taking and what resources. Then you build your colony, research new techs to be able to upgrade your buildings and keep your people happy. defend against space plague, mine resources and more.
CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #53 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
GC I actually. I was more of a RPG type. Favorite game of all time though is still Smash TV (Arcade) and Shadow Run (Sega Genesis).
Reply #54 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Colonization was my first -- still enjoy it a couple times a year

Others I have enjoyed and still play : SMAC, Civ2, Imperiallism2, MOO2, Second Conflict, Korsun Pocket

Quite a few votes for AC.

I missed it at the time... Young family and all.

Would anyone recommend me getting a copy even now?
Or will I just think it hopelessly out of date?


It's still a great game and the roleplay for a 4X TBS is awesome.
I suggest downloading the short story at the website and reading it before playing the game.
There is another short story that you get while playing thru the game that is good also.
Enjoy


Reply #55 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My first TBS addiction was probably the P.T.O. series on Genesis and later Saturn, but I did have one I played alot back on a 386. Can't remember the name, but Advance Wars on GBA reminds me of it.

Great to see another Shadowrun Fan Fuels Chief. That's one of my all time favorites, still play it with an emulator on PC and still have the cartridge.
Reply #56 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Global Conquest, by Dan/Danielle Bunten. A quirky version of Empire, really. I loved that game. I think its being remastered just like Empire Deluxe had been by Killer Bee Software. The Perfect General I and II were also great, but I think of them more as Turn-based tactics rather than strategy.
Reply #57 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Reach for the Stars (I still have it, I could play it if I had a Hercules or CGA graphics card)

Ultima II, III, IV

Deathlord

Civilization

Spaceward Ho

Axis and Allies
Reply #58 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1st one: "Tigers in the Snow" by SSI on the C64.

Most addictive: got to be "Stars!" - still go back to it every so often, despite the graphics (or rather non-graphics). A real shame that Supernova Genesis never got completed.

SMAC comes a close second though!
Reply #59 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Genghis Kahn (Nintendo)


That wierd chinese game, Genghis Khan on the pc. Used to play it hot seat, 15 of us after roleplaying till some really sad time in the morning, drinking beer. Those were the days...



Is it the game "Genghis Khan" by "Koei"?

This was my first love, too!
Shortly after it was "Battle Isle"... maybe that's why I love hexes forever.


First obsessive love: Civilization 2

Greatest love ever: Master of Orion 2

Most recent love: Age of Wonders - Shadow Magic

Longest lasting love: Panzer General


The role of GalCivII is not yet determined. By now it has just been a little affair, but with DA it might become a true love...   
Reply #60 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Alpha Centauri and Civ2. Since I wasn't heavy into computers until I got "older" (I had the comp illiterate parents who thought that computers were just a "fad" and only good for games)my tastes were more along the "board game" TBS. Remember those? Squad Leader and Afrika Korps by Avalon Hill are the two big ones that come to mind. Man I'm feeling old now... Forgot to add Axis and Allies from MB. Oh, and props out to Panzer General, that was another fav, and still is when the WWII mood strikes.
Reply #61 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Squad Leader


Still got the original boxed game (+ Cross of Iron, + Crescendo of Doom, + GI: Anvil of Victory). They're all up in the loft somewhere with my 1st Ed AD&D stuff   

Now you've got me feeling old too!
Reply #62 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here's one only a few of you guys will remember. It's an old BBS game called Trade Wars, one of the very first online TBS multiplayer games. It was all text based. That was before computer games had hardware accelerated graphics and internet multiplayer. Used to spend endless hours playing that sucker on a, get this, DOS 8088 computer over a 1200 baud modem. Now that's old

Reply #63 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Someone mentioned the old VAX Star Trek game. I did some conversion work on that, from FORTRAN to Decsystem-10 Macro to speed up the terminal IO so that the university wouldn't shut it down as a major resource hog.

My first favorite TBS game was, ummm, chess. heh.
Reply #65 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My first TBS game, disregarding chess would be warlords. Warlords 2 was also good, and I really anjoyed ST: BOTF and Ascendancy, as mentioned by a few others here. and also the demo of imperium galactica 2.

My very first game of any sort was battle of britain, loaded by cassette on an old amstrad. i got a very early lesson on taking backups too - i always rewound the tape after loading, once i forgot to replace it when i went to save my game, no more battle of britain for me
Reply #66 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Master of Orion, Ascendancy, and CivII. I really wish GalCiv2 Had the same bombardment of Ascendancy.
Reply #67 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Empire by Interstel.

Though I played the text version earlier.

The newest version (about a year old) is worth checking out:

Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition (highly moddable--lots of new units)

http://killerbeesoftware.com/

Try the demo

Bryce


I still have have it on a 720 k 3.5 disk.

Great game, I still remember one game that took 1500 turns to finish at the cost of 50 battle ships over 3000 armies and who knows how many fighters, destroyers etc.

Reply #68 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
How about Telegard D&D? Where you had down in the dungeon and kill stuff as the impressive looking 'X' and the bad Creatures where scary "O"'s... Don't know if you could have called it a TBS, since if you waited to long the game would move... If I recall I think the basic command lines looked like this:

10 REM ***Command wait loop***
20 For I=30
30 Get a$
40 if a$ >< "" then 60
50 Next I

So after 30 operations if you hadn't hit a key the game would move... But back in the day, 30 operations was like 5-10 seconds... IF that doesn't count THEN it would have been GALACTIC LORDS- 1979 - Conquer the galaxy one planet at a time, order constructions of ships, and then send them to the planet you want to conquer. Hibernate for x years, wake up, enough ships are in orbit, so then you take the planet. Repeat... Man I loved that game...

Reply #69 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
First love was Ascendency.

Just for experimenting not for fighting. I know the AI wasn't 'good'.

But the possibility to see your population grow displayed by a 'growing plant' was supurb. Same for the industry not hammers but an industry complex. It was not displayed in numbers but in a fotopicture of a growing industrycomplex. You have to see it to understand it. Same for the music supurb.

The desinign of spaceships the different alliens the posibility to trow a ship back in to a spacelane. Just the tip of the Iceberg. You could shoot back from a planet to destroy a spaceship. You could cloak and shield your planet.

Only the micromanagement.

The best way of to describe ascendency is 'gamedesign' 'lessons' forgotten.
In no other game the tech tree was in 3d and It was possible to see the thing you want to get and turn the tech tree 360. I know it is hard to describe those things it's just that most of the good things of ascendency were visual. No eye candy just visuals to help you to understand the game.

Ascendancy wasn't TBS (Turn-Based Strategy). It had variable time-flow, and was thus technically a Real-Time Strategy.

The same was true for another game that was among my first strategy games (it was pretty unique, too). It was called Millenium: Return to Earth. It involved starting out on the Moon and trying to expand out throughout the Sol System while seeking out a way to return Earth to a paradise, all the while fending off invaders. It was slow, it was painful at times... but it was interesting.

At the very start is perhaps the hardest part, because resources are so scarce and you need to find a way to get just enough resources to actually build a solar power plant for your moon base in order to power systems beyond what the auxiliary battery can support (which is practically nothing).

Anyway... I suppose BattleTech: Crescent Hawk's Inception is among my first TBS. I really can't remember too far back, but I have been playing games since I was able to. Apple IIc and Atari 2800 were my first computers, so make assumptions on first games based on that, as there's only so much I remember from then.
Reply #70 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Civilization was my first TBS. How I loved to play it. I must have been 10 or 11 at the time.

I still remember how my very first game played out. I played the English, and I founded London on the spot. I built 2 militia, and I lost one to some barbs froma nearby hut. The second in my city held them off. I was too scared to send units to explore, because I thought there may be more coming. I built half a dozen miltia, fortifying one on each land square around my city, and one inside. I couldn't produce anything else because all my resources were being eaten. I kept skipping the turn until the Indians found me and declared war. I was overrun by legions and chariots and died.

Those were the days. Although the game play in the sequels is smoother. None have grabbed me in the same way.
Reply #72 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ascendancy wasn't TBS (Turn-Based Strategy). It had variable time-flow, and was thus technically a Real-Time Strategy.


Not so much RTS as it was a TBS with an option to run through turns continuously until 'something interesting happens'.
Reply #73 from Stardock Forums Top
Man, what a trip down memory lane! At the risk of seriously dating myself,

Neglecting chess/checkers/and the myriad of card games I learned @ my mother's knee, (up to and including Pinochle and Canasta - Bridge came later) my first love TBS had to be the Avalon Hill wargames like Blitzkrieg, Panzer Blitz, Midway, D-Day, Jutland (MAJOR floor space needed for that one!), 1914 (the original - even tho replacing counters to reflect damaged units was a PITA), etc. Still remember having to set up and play down in the basement - for some reason my mother objected to having a game covering the dining room table a couple of days at a time    (was only able to play after school and weekends).

As far as computers, Star Trek was a major diverter of time in college (BASIC version on IBM 360 - I think I still have the deck of ~ 2000 cards with the program on it somewhere....)

When I finally got around to getting a PC for myself, I started in on the Microprose wargames like Panzer, Pacific and Space Generals. Still play Space General every once in a great while. Unfortuantely I lost the 1.1 patch and haven't had any luck finding it again....
Reply #74 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
X-Com: Enemy Unkown. That was the first game I fell in love with, I used to dream about it when I eventually fell asleep after player it for hours on end.
Reply #75 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
X-Com: Enemy Unkown. That was the first game I fell in love with, I used to dream about it when I eventually fell asleep after player it for hours on end.

X-Com owned all kinds of awesomeness. I'm still a major fan and wish for Atari to somehow revive it, and revive it properly - as they're the ones that currently own the licence, technically - even though it's been over 10 years since UFO Defence/Enemy Unknown (it's from '94/'95).
When I finally got around to getting a PC for myself, I started in on the Microprose wargames like Panzer, Pacific and Space Generals. Still play Space General every once in a great while. Unfortuantely I lost the 1.1 patch and haven't had any luck finding it again....

Don't you mean Strategic Simulations, Inc.?