I've been playing Syndicate wars & Elven Legacy Collection while Elemental gets sorted out, i highly recommend both.

Yeah ToEE is my favourite cRPG as well...and I agree...it has the best tactical battle system as well.

I saw those released on Steam recently.  So you liked the games?

Well most of the big names have already been mentioned but I have been going through my collection for inspiration, these will be a mix of the major subgenres (4X, TBS, TBT, RTS, RTT, and wargame) as I do not have the will to sort them out right now and I will ignore most of the Warcraft type games though there are many of those as well:

My first recommendation in an older series of real time tactical games for PC called Myth. The games were developed by Bungie before the whole Halo thing (someone mentioned Bungie elsewhere on the forum and I realised how much I missed the Myth games) and are set in a world that shifts between a thousand years of darkness and a thousand years of light. The player is given a fixed number of units to see them through each mission and on the higher difficulties the game can require alot of tactical skill (I remember multiplayer being quite fun). I do not know if it is even available anymore but it is a definate classic, it is a fantasy setting that avoids many of the stock fantasy races and has a very unique feel. The best two are the first two; Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter.

If that is not what you are looking for other games worth consideration include (these vary considerably is age, graphic quality, difficulty and ease of use but I can remeber having fun with each):

On PC:

MOM of course

Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire (if I am going to list a bunch of other games I had better mention Stardock's first )

 Age of Wonders series (great fun these; fundamental as far as I am concerned)

Dominions 3 already mentioned many times but always worth a look

Disciples series

HOMM series, King's Bounty series

Civilization Series

FFH mod for Civ

Elven Legacy series/Fantasy Wars (reasonably tough TBT games)

Settlers series (emphasis on the early ones)

warlords series (again emphasis on the earlier ones)

Seven Kingdoms I and II (avoid Seven Kingdoms: Conquest I am not sure if it is still the horrible game I remember...)

the Total War series (particularly Rome Total War and Medieval Total War I and II)

the mods for the Total War series, there are dozens of quality mods for these games from EB or RTR to Warhammer and Tolkien mods

Romance of the Three Kingdoms series (based on the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history; also available on console)

the Lords series, particularly Lords of Magic if you want a fantasy setting (I have been thinking about replaying this one actually)

Age of Empires/Mythology (most of these are quite fun, there is more emphasis on construction/research than in the warcraft series)

Celtic Kings/Nemesis of the Roman Empire

Dungeon Keeper series (a fairly unique set of games worth a look at least, particularly the first one, it is great fun being truly evil)

the Stronghold series is a castle builder and strategy game in one and is worth a look

the old city builders by Impressions Games (Zeus, Caesar, etc) also have basic strategic combat if I remember correctly (but at that point we are getting into simulation territory)

Blood Bowl (but I would wait fot the expanded edition that is coming out)

you could always try Dwarf Fortress

On the consoles/ or by emulator depending on age and legal status (many of these are quite expensive to find in a hard copy):

Most of the following have tactical battles but no city building:

Fire Emblem series; already mentioned so we might as well start here

Shining series (not all the games are tactical however); the early games are classics Shining Force I, II, and III on particular (though they are fairly easy) and new titles are still released in Japan

Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Tactics series (similar inspiration and structure, the original Ogre Tactics is probably the least forgiving of the set)

Ogre Battle series (similar to the earlier disciples playstyle)

Front Mission series(giant robots in a slightly futureistic setting)

Vanguard Bandits (giant robots in a fantasy setting, interesting RPG elements, party loyalty, multiple endings)

Brigandine (reasonably fun tactical battles and a RPG format, some kingdom management but minimal)

Kingdom Under Fire series (the first is a mix of diablo and warcraft but the others are more RTT than RTS and are quite fun; COD is a dungeon crawler so avoid it if you are not into those types ofgames)

Warhammer Shadow of the Horned Rat and Warhammer Dark Omens (think Total War series with a horrible interface). SotHR in particular is a wonderfully difficult game, you play as a mercenary commander in the Old World (Games Workshop's fantasy setting) and have to win the battles while taking minimal casualties(sometimes 10% is too much) and you have to balance your budget at the same time to avoid going bankrupt. I know Dark Omens is available on PC at the very least.

Gemfire; an old  title has kingdom management and tactical combat elements

Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth; similar to Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT)

 Vandal Hearts series (similar to FFT with an interesting simultaneous movement mechanism; however it becomes quite easy to outsmart to game)

Gladius (a FFT style tactical game with celtic, roman, steppe nomad and desert fantasy cultures)

Suikoden Tactics (well it was better than Suikoden 4...)

This is hardly an exhaustive list but it is a good start; incidently this thread is pushing 10 pages; maybe we should compile a list of the best strategy games past and present, it would serve as a useful resource for curious gamers or as inspiration for development and modding of elemental.

regards,

ct

I can't believe after all these posts about MOM AOW HOMM blah blah blah everyone failed to mention the all time greatest Fantasy Wargame of them all. There were even 3 or 4 books written about it. For shame for shame. Well I suppose I must be the leader here and let you in on the greatest of them all. Ta da da dat da daaaaaaah: "WAR OF THE LANCE"!

This game has one of the best AI's and best simplistic gameplay ever made. It will thrash you and bash you on normal level of difficulty. It plays differently and goes after different goals in different order and dosen't become easily recognizable in the path it will take. It will wipe out your puny little nations of elves and dwarves. It will demand you play professionally and strategically. It has one of the best diplomacy features in ANY game ever. It comes with nailbiting combat since there isn't any tactical battling for the human player to exploit the ai. It's all about "thinking ahead" almost a perfect chesslike game of strategy from start to finish and the end game is such a nailbiter as well, just when you think you've got it in the bag....surprise....but I won't tell you what happens.

So you can ewww and ahhhhh over your MOM's and AOW's and HOMM's and the rest but until you've played and WON a game of War of the Lance you haven't played a real fantasy WARGAME.

You bring an interesting point, as this game seems to have been overlooked.

Though I'd have to say, the way you present it makes me somehow doubtfull, because it feels more like "fanboyist" than simply "fan wishing to share his passion".

And also it's based on Dragonlance, which is a bad case of fail right from the start

Seriously though, I'll have a look, if only for objectivity sake.

Well this one is flash but it's so awesome, if you like fantasy, loot, skills, tower defence blah blah

http://www.kongregate.com/games/undefined/protector-iv?gamereferral=protector-iv

just check it out, you won't regret it

Hot damn, loving it already.

I've completed EL and now working through the ranger expansion. Its not as good as the voice acting is missing and i prefer playing with the Elves then the Humans, but i am only four missions in so i'll stick it out. The gameplay and attention to detail is what i really like about this game. I think i might even redo EL and go the alternative routes before i continue on with ranger. Only thing missing from this game is a random map generator, There are single missions and vs A.I skirmish but a RMG would have made this game almost perfect for me. But the great thing about campaign is that you get to se your units grow and earn abilites and items/spells.

BTW Steam was charging £15 plus £9 per expansion (3), but Amazon have got EL Collection for £15. I only took the plunge because it was so cheap and i am glad i did. Once again Amazon have pocketed my money due to their cheap prices lol.

Still waiting on Spellforce 2 : Faith in Destiny Expansion though.

Time wasted: 15H

Still couldn't unlock some scroll talents tho, they are missing in the shops it seems.

Oh wow...I never heard about this one. I gotta try out this ancient gem. Thanks for the info!

I remember War of the Lance and it is a fantastic fantasy wargame. If you read the Dragonlance Saga's you can relate to it pretty well. It has all the characters from the book although most of them are in some abstract adventure while you are playing the game. As the months pass they discover new items for you to use like Dragon Orbs and Dragon Lances of course and some gnome gimmick item that might or might not work if you use it during battles. About all you get to do with the characters of the story is decide what they or the whole party should do if they get "hurt or captured". If some of the main ones die it slows down your progress of aquiring those special items that you'll surely need to win this game.

I do agree the diplomacy feature is pretty well thought out and I liked it a lot. Each game you could go after different factions that you might not have gotten in other games or at least keep them from the Highlords. In a multiplayer game you can play the Highlord but unfortunately in the single player game you can only play the Whiteside which I can understand really because of the Highlords units in the early game it would be easy to overrun the ai.

There are so many factions to play with also from Ogres to Minotaurs to elves and dwarves, griffons, fleets and of course men, kinders and pegasi and wizards and dragons, and a couple of secret units I won't tell you about so I won't spoil the endgame for those that haven't played it.

If you haven't played this then you should find it and do so as it still remains at the top of my list of great fantasy wargames.

I've always been into the strategy game genra whether PC or boardgame. I assume you mean PC strategy games since RTS (real time strategy) is different from TB (turn-based). There's not that many turn based games in general anymore, the most famous being Civ. Top recent fantasy strategy games are this one & Dominions III which you mentioned, but I also enjoyed Age of Mythology, try it on the large map with 12 nations, it's fun. I don't think are are so many fantasy genra strategy games in comparison to RPG (Roll playing games) of which WOW and everquest are probably among the most well known.

I might add that railroad type games are very good strategy games since they focus on an element of strategy that differs from 4x: efficiency. Typical 4x games you want to build a large empire by sending out a whole slew of colonists or colony ships. But, in RR strategy games, the more track you lay down the larger cost you incrue as well as increasing wear & tear on train engines & time/distance between profit. Having to worry about the AI buying you out "stock" wise is usually a hallmark of a good RR game' AI too. 

I love the concept of marrying RPG & strategy in this paricular game, just wish it had worked out better or they fix things. 

Railroad games are so easy to beat. All you have to do is float bonds till you get a nice rail line an income then buy all the open stock as the player and then have the railroad buy back all the bonds. When you buy that last bond your stock will skyrocket and you will go so far into the lead nobody will ever catch up especially the AI because it never counters this method by buying at least 1 bond of your railroad. I used to do this in Sid Meier's Railroad and Rails West (hah does anyone remember that great C64 railroad game?) and Rail's Across America. It works in every single one of them because the AI is too stupid to buy 1 stinking bond of my railroad lmao.

The AI stinks in so many games & game types that it's not even funny anymore. It would probably be best just to list strategy games that have a good AI. There are a couple of them floating around in space & time.

It's disappointing at the low quality of AI of PC games in general, which is probably the main underlying factor in the success of MMPOLG (or whatever the hell that acronym is) type games & the decline of strategy PC games since the early 90s.

Civ4 and GalCiv 2 are the only two that spring spontaneously to my mind.

Dominions_3

Heroes_3

AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic

Master of Magic

War of the Lance was a great game. I spent many hours playing it. If it were updated and re-released I would buy it in a heartbeat. But the game is twenty-one years old and looks and feels it. It would be too big a chore to play today. Perhaps Stardock would consider updating it. *hint* *hint*

And say what you will about Master of Magic, Age of Wonders, and Heroes of Might and Magic. At least they have mouse support.

I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but I found the Warlords series to be highly entertaining. Particularly the first two and Warlords III: Darklords Rising.

Disciples II is an old favorite of mine, and--along with MoM, AoW:SM, HoMM2 and HoMM3--is currently installed on my Vista PC. Those are fun and easy to play.

If you want a challenge, I'd recommend Fantasy Wars and Elven Legacy.

Late to the topic but what the hell....

I'll only list what I myself want to play nowadays.

Singleplayer - Skirmish

• None - They're not good enough. There are a few candidates but ultimately their flaws are far too serious for me to have fun with them

Singleplayer - Campaign

• Heroes V
• Kings Bounty

Multiplayer

• Age of Wonders II: Shadow Magic

If you wonder why game x or game y isn't on my list then it's because of the following

• No tactical combat <--- That is an instant kill
• Bad gamemechanics
• Bad A.I

Well in all fairness when War of the Lance came out it had JOYSTICK support. haha But, yes a 21 year old game will require you to play using the KEYBOARD (oh my sacreligious one has to use the keyboard to play a game). I grew up using keyboard only or joystick and keyboard so it's no issue for me. But, todays gamer is a LAZY gamer and doesn't want to use the keyboard anymore except for hotkeys and all be told I'd bet many would rather not use it for that.

I also still find the graphics appealing on my Vista 64 for a 21 year old game. Of course it looked the greatest on an Amiga 500 and Commodore 64.

The main thing is it is one of the best challenging fantasy strategy wargames made ever. It will challenge you today tomorrow and forever it is just that good. And if you do happen to beat normal difficulty just ramp it up a notch and you'll spend the rest of your life trying to beat it. lol

Honestly ... I'd prefer the tile-based combat of the Civ series to the bollox of HoMM V "tactical combat"

Edit: yes, I'm saying that the combat in HoMM is more abstracted than Civ

Then you're just flatout wrong. HoMM battles are more concrete then Civs since you play them out. In Civ you can't....

You really sound stupid here.

Well HOMM combat is more like chess using rock paper scissors method and Civ combat is like checkers and too much luck factors. I still remember those days when spearmen from caveman age took out tanks and archers took out battleships. That has to be the worst combat engine around.

well not as stupid as you.