Stratedgy games

And with all the tabletop factions present, you can experiment with countless fleet configurations and play with all sorts of weird weapons. Viking-themed RTS Northgard pays dues to Settlers and Age of Empires, but challenged us with its smart expansion systems that force you to plan your growth into new territories carefully. Weather is important, too.

You need to prepare for winter carefully, but if you tech up using 'lore' you might have better warm weather gear than your enemies, giving you a strategic advantage. Skip through the dull story, enjoy the well-designed campaign missions and then start the real fight in the skirmish mode. Mechanically, Homeworld is a phenomenal three-dimensional strategy game, among the first to successfully detach the RTS from a single plane. If you liked the Battlestar Galactica reboot, or just fancy a good yarn in your RTS, you should play this.

Thanks to the Homeworld Remastered Collection , it's aged very well. The remasters maintain Homeworld and its sequel's incredible atmosphere, along with all the other great bits, but with updated art, textures, audio, UI—the lot. Everything is in keeping with the spirit of the original, but it just looks and sounds better.

The different factions are so distinct, and have more personality than they did in the original game—hence Soviet squids and Allied dolphins. They found the right tonal balance between self-awareness and sincerity in the cutscenes, as well—they're played for laughs, but still entertain and engage. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak sounded almost sacrilegious at first. Over a decade since the last Homeworld game, it was going to take a game remembered for its spaceships and 3D movement and turn it into a ground-based RTS with tanks?

And it was a prequel? Yet in spite of all the ways this could have gone horribly wrong, Deserts of Kharak succeeds on almost every count.

It's not only a terrific RTS that sets itself apart from the rest of the genre's recent games, but it's also an excellent Homeworld game that reinvents the series while also recapturing its magic. Only Total War can compete with the scale of Supreme Commander 's real-time battles. In addition to being the preeminent competitive strategy game of the last decade, StarCraft 2 deserves credit for rethinking how a traditional RTS campaign is structured. Heart of the Swarm is a good example of this, but the human-centric Wings of Liberty instalment is the place to start: an inventive adventure that mixes up the familiar formula at every stage.

In , Blizzard finally decided to wind down development on StarCraft 2 , announcing that no new additions would be coming, aside from things like balance fixes. The competitive scene is still very much alive, however, and you'll still find few singleplayer campaigns as good as these ones.

Most notable today for being the point of origin for the entire MOBA genre, Warcraft III is also an inventive, ambitious strategy game in its own right, which took the genre beyond anonymous little sprites and into the realm of cinematic fantasy. The pioneering inclusion of RPG elements in the form of heroes and neutral monsters adds a degree of unitspecific depth not present in its sci-fi stablemate, and the sprawling campaign delivers a fantasy story that—if not quite novel—is thorough and exciting in its execution.

Shame about Warcraft 3: Reforged , it's not-so-great remake. Some games would try to step away from the emotional aspect of a war that happened in living memory.

Not Company of Heroes. Age of Empires gave us the chance to encompass centuries of military progress in half-hour battles, but Rise of Nations does it better, and smartly introduces elements from turn-based strategy games like Civ. When borders collide civs race through the ages and try to out-tech each other in a hidden war for influence, all while trying to deliver a knockout military blow with javelins and jets.

It was tempting to put the excellent first Dawn of War on the list, but the box-select, right-click to kill formula is well represented. In combat you micromanage these empowered special forces, timing the flying attack of your Assault Marines and the sniping power of your Scouts with efficient heavy machine gun cover to undo the Ork hordes.

The co-operative Last Stand mode is also immense. If you need a 40K fix, we've also ranked every Warhammer 40, game. Like an adaptation of the tabletop game crossed with the XCOM design template, BattleTech is a deep and complex turn-based game with an impressive campaign system. You control a group of mercenaries, trying to keep the books balanced and upgrading your suite of mechwarriors and battlemechs in the game's strategy layer.

In battle, you target specific parts of enemy mechs, taking into account armor, angle, speed and the surrounding environment, then make difficult choices when the fight isn't going your way. It can initially be overwhelming and it's undeniably a dense game, but if that's what you want from your strategy games or you love this universe, it's a great pick. A beautifully designed, near-perfect slice of tactical mech action from the creators of FTL.

Into the Breach challenges you to fend off waves of Vek monsters on eight-by-eight grids populated by tower blocks and a variety of sub objectives. Obviously you want to wipe out the Vek using mech-punches and artillery strikes, but much of the game is about using the impact of your blows to push enemies around the map and divert their attacks away from your precious buildings.

Civilian buildings provide power, which serves as a health bar for your campaign. Every time a civilian building takes a hit, you're a step closer to losing the war.

Once your power is depleted your team travels back through time to try and save the world again. It's challenging, bite-sized, and dynamic. As you unlock new types of mechs and mech upgrades you gain inventive new ways to toy with your enemies.

The game cleverly uses scarcity of opportunity to force you into difficult dilemmas. At any one time you might have only six possible scan sites, while combat encounters are largely meted out by the game, but what you choose to do with this narrow range of options matters enormously.

Shorties's Kingdom 2 Flash. Battleship HTML5. Strikeforce Kitty: Last Stand Flash. Offensive Defensive Flash. Battle Tank WebGL. Connect 4 Unity 3D. Draughts HTML5. Heroes of War WebGL. House Of Wolves Flash. Throne Defender WebGL. Zombie Trailer Park Flash. World Wars 3 Flash. Uno Flash.

Battle Towers WebGL. This is a daunting title to get into but there's a reason it's so popular. Taking a break from forging lineages, Cold War soldiers, deals with gods or mighty academic arts, maybe you need to just need to build a factory. This logistics simulator of sorts has you trapped on an alien world, needing to build defenses. To get those defenses, you'll need a factory. Not just any factory, a mighty, automated, mass production facility the likes of which Vanderbilt and Carnagie could never have dreamed up.

It's incredibly complicated but even more satisfying. While it was built for console gamepads, Halo Wars 2 works well on PC and is a great diversion away from the usual Halo shooters. It also supports cross-play, so you can play with your friends across Xbox and PC. Check out our full Halo Wars 2 review. StarCraft 2 unleashes the Terran, Zerg and Protoss forces across three campaigns — Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void — as well as co-op commander missions and the extensive multiplayer.

It's easily one of the most iconic RTS games to date and while the skill ceiling is certainly high, the barrier to entry has never been lower. Stellaris is to galactic conquest what Crusader Kings 3 is to medieval kingdoms and no wonder, since both games are developed by Paradox Interactive.

This empire simulator lets you reach out and make your mark amidst the stars in whatever you see fit. Forge careful alliances and trade agreements to create a federation that stands for equal rights? You can do that. Rule a tyrannical cyborg race that liquefies your foes?

Shakes and Fidget. Northern Tale 3. Ancient Rome. Island Tribe 4. Viking Saga: New World. When in Rome. Funny Hell. Call of War: Island Tribe 3. Heroic Dungeon. All My Gods. Be a King 2. Arkheim - Realms at War. Moai 3: Trade Mission. The Chronicles of Confucius' Journey. Weather Lord: The Successor's Path. Rose Riddle: The Fairytale Detective. Claws and Feathers 3. Deluxe Rating 4. Time Management. City Building.