Greetings to all! I’ve played Total War titles for years and enjoy building an empire. Now I would like to broaden my horizons and am looking for similar games that satisfy this itch.
To categorize: in TW, 99% of the time I’ve only played the overarching map. The battles themselves are not that important to me.
I am variable when it comes to the setting. I like Sci Fi very much, if there is something there!
Who has tips for me?
How in the hell have you not played a paradox game. Grab ck2 and go nuts. Stellaris might be what you want tho.
If you are into open source, give Remnants of the precursors a try, it’s a modern spiritual successor of the oldie Master of Orion.
I mean… Welcome to 4x! There’s so very much out there. Have you really played no sid Meier’s civilization? That’s just a half step up on the empire building complexity (and a quarter step down on combat, which you don’t have much interest in if I understand correctly.) there are a number of other civilization inspired games that are coming out right now, as well as some older ones that have a different spin on the civ framework (I don’t have a list in front of me). Galactic civilization 3 is another half step deeper into the empire building genre, Stellaris and sins of a solar empire are also rubbing elbows with greatness of space 4x (sins is a very slow rts which might be intriguing to you). Back on earth we go for the much more involved 4x, crusader Kings, Victoria, and Europa universallis, those are entries that will make creative assembly, and their total war series, look like children playing with blocks and a peg board.
Other people have mentioned Paradox several times, and they are unquestionably the big name of the grand strat genre. Their main games are:
- Hearts of Iron. WW2 setting, pretty much exclusively about war. If you want to flex your strategic skills, this is the one to get.
- Victoria. The 100 years before WW2. Primarily about industrialisation. Victoria games have by far the most in-depth economy systems.
- Europa Universalis. These ones are about the era of European colonialism, spanning three to four hundred years with the Napoleonic wars at the end. EU4 is pretty the most like a Total War campaign map in feel.
- Crusader Kings. 700 years of feudalism. The map in these ones is limited to Europe, the western half of Asia, and the north of Africa. Distinct in that you play as a dynasty rather than a country. These ones are the most roleplay-heavy
- Stellaris. This is the only one I haven’t played, so I’m afraid I can’t say much about it
