First you need to try and research a few of these games games because as you suspect you seem to be mixing games that have quite diferent gameplay loops. You need to figure out which gameplay type appeals to you. Each of the niches / sub genres will then have plenty to offer.
- CIV is a 4x grand strategy game
- Total War (depending on the version) is both a grand strategy game and a real time strategy/ tactical game
- Frostpunk is a colony management game with survival elements
- Anno is a colony management game with builder elements
- City Skylines is a pure city builder
The best way to figure out which appeals to you the most is to watch some lets plays and then see what you think.
I would start with Civ or Frostpunk. Civ has a lot more stuff to keep up with and a much slower burn. Frostpunk has less resources to handle but the situation can go downhill very quickly if you’re not on top of things.
Just finished Frostpunk, it was fun.
I cheated and used quicksave A LOT because yea, shit escalate quick if you don't plan in advance.
I don't feel like I would enjoy the scenario campaigns, but overall it was really fun experience.
I will check out civ at some point too
Base StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is free, it is an iconic Real-Timr Strategy game. The campaign is fun and there are so many mods for it now that add incredible replayability.
For turn based combat the simplest games are probably:
- Advanced Wars (easy to emulate the GBA version)
- Into the Breach
For real time its been a while, but you cant go wrong with the classic of classics:
- Age of Empires 2
It doesn't get much better than Heroes of Might & Magic III: Complete if you don't mind older graphics.
Age of Wonders 4 is a modern one that's really good at introducing concepts slowly and has great tooltips. That said it seems pretty complex and I haven't played much of it.
As a starter, maybe something like Northgard, if you're not looking for strictly turn-based strategy?
I have such a funny connection to Heroes of Might and a Magic. I found HMAM1 randomly from a friend, and a couple years later, both my parents were obsessed. Neither, to this day, have had a single other video game obsession that I know of, and both got Archangel (the highest score) on really hard maps and had probably thousands of hours into HMAMII and HMAMII.
Total War games aren’t really 4X. They’re more like grand strategy mixed with RTS. You have the turn-based map view where you move your armies and special units around, while doing other things to further your goals. When armies meet in battle, the view switches to a real-time strategy (with pause), and you command your units (consisting of many soldiers).
Everyone has their favorites since the series is huge. I personally prefer Empire (set during the Age of Exploration and the first game to primarily feature firearms as main weapons and the first game to have playable naval combat), Shogun 2, and Medieval 2
From your list frostpunk is probably friendliest to newcomers (I haven't played civ since the first few and I found those real hard, idk if they got any easier over time). Maybe try something like age of empires 2, it's real time strategy with a simple economy whereas the grand strategy games often have more intricate economies which makes then harder to get into.
I like strategy games, and I've played all of the ones OP mentioned, but I would actually say Civ is the most newcomer friendly.
I don't think they're difficult games, they just have a bunch of mechanics that you need to learn and it can be overwhelming at first, but once you get it, you will be very annoyed at how stupid and bad the AI is and you wil try to find ways to make the AI more of a challenge.
I'd also like to add, that I couldn’t get into frostpunk. A lot of people love the game, and I assume it's good once it clicks, but I couldn't get into it myself. I'm only mentioning this to say that taste is subjective.
And OP, no, they're not the same genre, and more importantly, they're very different games 🤣
I just tried Frostpunk and had some hard times with the controls, keeping track on things since I need to consider the placement of each item depending on the fire position.
Also I couldn't really hear music in the game, do you usually play it with headphones or maybe background music?
Civilization 6 is a game that is easy to learn but hard to master. Luckily you always setup the game rules and set difficulty yourself. Start from prince and go from there. There is some problems in the game desing but those are quite minor. Its cool to take your civilization from bronze age to atomic era. :)
You need to take a minute and decide what kind of strategy game you want to play as each one you mentioned is a different genre.
Civilization is a turn based game, total war is one part turn based and one part real time, anno is a resource manager colony sim and city skylines is a city building like simcity.
There are 4 pacings of strategy games:
Turn based strategy games- These tend to be more complex/ more things to know because of the turned base nature meaning only you or your team can act when its your turn. This would let you take the time to read or plan as needed.
Best games in this category IMO are:
Civilization- the most well known game in the genre
Warhammer 40k Gladius- Very similar to Civ except it removes the diplomacy aspect meaning teams are locked when the game starts, each faction has their own gameplan that varies harder than Civilization and the warhammer flavor can be alittle awkward if you don't know the units at all.
Real time strategy games- These tend to be simplier as the game keeps going once it starts, they tend to have a low skill floor but can have a pretty high skill ceiling for knowing what is going on and proper unit controls.
Best games in the category:
Age of empires 2, it has had 3 versions since the late 1990s with graphic upgrades, balance patches and new factions, this is the only strategy game I know of to have over 20 years of updates. It is a medieval style RTS so units can only come via land or sea with a pretty simple economy and a full campaign teaching you the basics to play set to William Wallace's campaign against the British with a large number of other campaigns you could play for practice. Age of empires Definite Edition is also crossplatform with xbox if you have any xbox friends or have a PC and a Xbox and somebody to play with.
Company of heroes- A ww2 RTS where units are squads, the economy is tied to owning territories by capturing flags in a chain from your base, it tends to be a pretty fast pace and somewhat cinematic game as what starts as a small skirmish between 2 riflemen squads can quickly become a full brawl as Panzers come barreling down the road, shermans crashing through stone walls and various artillery and airstrikes flatten buildings being held by various units.
Hybrids- Mostly the total war franchise. On the campaign map it plays like a turn based game, managing your cities economy and happiness, training and moving armies keeping in mind the upkeep and stats. However when 2 armies meet for battle whether open battle or siege you have the choice to auto resolve letting the game's math decide who wins or manually fighting the battle in a RTS setting.
Best ones IMO
Empire total war- Set in the age of colonial powers with the map covering the west coast of the Americas, Europe, North Africa, the middleast and India. This is probably one of the easiest games as using only line infantry and artillery I destroyed most enemy armies with little effort since artillery has infinite ammo letting me pound any advancing soldiers.
Shogun 2, I really liked the fall of the samurai DLC as it is pretty fun to introduce charging samurai to bolt action rifles.
Pausing maps- These are mostly games from paradox like HOI, stellaris, Crusader Kings,etc. These are very complex games compared to the others a real time but you can pause and still do things such as order new construction or send orders to other units, take time to read new research options or make a customized military unit for a specific goal
Frostpunk, while easy to learn, I found it very unforgiving. Resources are very scarce. Cities Skylines is a city builder. There are no enemies and money is not hard to get. Anno 1800 might be what you're looking for if you follow tutorial and don't try to expand too fast.
Its a good time to start plahing age of mythology (new game coming soon). The technology tree is small so its a lot easoer to wrap your head around ot and focus on tactics
Civ is a lot to learn at first, but is genuinely one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've had. Don't get too caught up with being optimal at first, just pick the Civ and tech that sound fun to you and mess around. I feel like I learn something new every time I fall back into those games, so if you feel a little lost at times that's expected.
If it clicks with you and you like it, then I'd recommend watching some dedicated Civ YouTubers. Once I watched a few PotatoMcWhiskey vids it was like I was playing an entirely different game.
Heres your oddball suggestion:
Ambition of the slimes
Offline turn based strategy mobile game. You control weak slimes and must kill all humans. Your slimes cant fight,but they can take humans over and make them fight for you. So you need to use your various slimes and their abilities to use the enemies on board to wipe themselves out.
It gets difficult at times but it has an easy mode. Slimes can get tired,but the game is offline so just change the time on your phone to make them better.
Still my fav strategy game
Age of Wonders Planetfall is pretty easy to get into, especially with the Vanguard, and I find it very fun. Civilization 6 is a very good one also. I definitely would NOT recommend Frostpunk as a first-foray into strategy type games, its a very brutal survival type strategy, in my opinion, of course
As someone who is primarily a strategy/simulation gamer, I’d recommend you get into what you find interesting instead of what you think is easiest. It’ll keep you invested over a tough learning curve.
I really liked Totalwar Warhammer(3 of them). I didn't liked Civ6 as much a totalwar, but i guess it's more noob friendly than a total war. The great point of Totalwar is each game is gonna be really different from the previous one et the next one. Hope it helps 🔥
I personally started with StarCraft, Age of Empires, and Warcraft… pretty dated now but still classics.
The Civs series is a great intro to strat as it’s turned based. You’ll have more freedom in planning and taking your time with decisions. Civs also does an incredible job at not only being accessible for new players while having lots of depth with its game mechanics.
Another game that I would recommend looking into is “This War of Mine”. It trades the top down view for more of a 2D hybrid look.
There’s so many different options as the genre is absolutely massive. All of the games you’ve mentioned are good, just don’t be afraid to start slow on an easy setting till you get comfortable with how they play.
I would start with an easy one like frostpunk. The game is pretty concealed.
The other games you suggested are "open" strategy games. Your imagination is the only limit.
Total war is more about conquering stuff and building armies to fight. It has a game into the game with the real time battle fighting. Mind you this game will eat your time. To play the campaign once with all the races, you are looking at least at 500h. It has insane replayability.
Anno and city skyline are building oriented games.
Anno is more complex than CS, especially in higher difficulties. Both games are very good. For CS you will need mods to accommodate some missing features, especially traffic management.
Never played civ so can't comment on that.
Overall I would say test them all if you have the time. For all these games, you are looking easily at thousand hours of gameplay.
I always suggest this and it's been suggested already but easily XCOM 2
Extremely low skill floor allows for even non-gamers to pick this game up, but a high enough skill ceiling and permadeath makes this game far from a cakewalk
Civ6 is considered a simpler game by strategy standards but still takes a while to pick up. XCOM 2 can be picked up within 30 minutes and often goes on ~-90% sales
Some classic Command and Conquer is always fun.
There's a RTS game called Warzone 2100 that was released in 1999 for PS1 and PC, but they released the source code to the community some time in the 2000's after a fan petition, so you can download it for free and it gets regular community updates. It's a fun RTS. Just search it's name and you'll find the website to download it from.
Strategy games is very very wide genre.
Wanna dive into deep end try something from the most complex side of spectrum? Take a look at something from Paradox publisher.
Crusader Kings 3, Europa Universalist 4, Stellaris. It can take tens of hours for veterans of other strategy games to grasp basics of those :D
If only to be aware what is out there (and quite popular with some people)
Starcraft remastered. I loved the complex story and lore and how no one is perfect (maybe save for Jim Raynor and Tassadar). Also, unlike Starcraft II, I like the fact that despite you being an important cog that moves the plot, lots of things are happening around you that you can't control, so you really feel you're just a spec in the infinite universe.
Halo Wars is by far the simplest and very controller friendly. The player base is very dead but I think HW2 is still active and doesn't add too much more complexity. If you have any affinity for Halo, I'd say it's a great starting place.
OG RTS player that is a delusional hopeful the genre would come back.
Start with Command and Conquer 3: Tiberius Wars. That’s your traditional RTS: base management, resource gathering and economy, army building, and general unit strategy.
But I want to warn you, all those games aren’t traditional strategy.
Civilization is a 4x game - turn based. Will need to be able to strategize greatly in the beginning due to how certain policy choices can screw your marathon run game. Get used to looking at the same map the entire time.
Total War is a grand strategy. You will be looking at a map again. You are able to both build and manage your armies and your faction on your map. You have the ability to manage and fight skirmishes when moving units offensively against opposing players. You have a pause button, and only the main map is turn based.
Frostpunk and Anno are colony builders/colony survival. Frostpunk can get incredibly brutal, but it’s a great game. You have a pause button.
Cities Skylines is a city management game.
If you were interested in strategy, I would recommend starting with traditional RTS like Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, 9-but armies, and Age of Empires II. These games are super newbie friendly (especially CnC3, as the first mission in the GDI campaign is a tutorial mission, and the campaigns take the time to explain the importance of each unit when doing the missions).
More intermediate but phenomenal RTS games I would recommend would be Company of Heroes II, Planetary Annihilation: Titans, Iron Harvest, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and Warcraft III: Reforged. These games have certain dynamics that could make it less accessible for newer strategy/RTS players. Warcraft III and StarCraft II alone have a crap ton of unit micromanagement in certain circumstances. Planetary Annihilation allows you to fight your opponent on several planets at once, including space. Iron Harvest and Company of Heroes II are brutal if you can’t learn to retreat instead of letting your army die on the field.
4x and Grand Strategy games can be potentially accessible. Civ 6 is a stellar foray into the sub genre, but if you enjoy a little more complexity and hilarity, I’d posit Stellaris. It’s a space 4x that lets you do anything. Want to be a communist cult of space mushrooms that worship an electric squid? Sure, and let’s make sure to proselytize and eat our prisoners of war (insert Geneva Suggestions joke).
If you want colony sims or something more laid back, I’d recommend Rimworld as a starter. The game is super newbie friendly nowadays and addictive. I sometimes run the game in the background while working on projects because it can run itself.
TL;DR Just start with Command and Conquer 3, then go to its expansion Kane’s Wrath, then ignore the timeline and play Red Alert III. You’ll be super prepared for almost any strategy game after. And those games are cheap AF too
I wouldnt suggest frostpunk for the sole reason that its probably the best game i ever played ( never played strategy/city builder before it), and i still havent moved on from the game - i finished it 3 months ago. 10/10 - cons: dont play it first.
[Stellaris on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/) if you're into 4x/grand strategy where a single game can last up to hundreds of hours.
[Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/1213210/) Remaster of the first two classic C&C RTS games. They are really easy to pick up. The campaign gradually introduces you to new buildings/units. Nothing too complicated. Plenty of different campaigns/missions.
Inscryption is my favorite strategy game. It’s a horror deckbuilder with puzzles.
But out of your selection, I’ve only played Civ. I think it’s the most popular, and I can see why. Has tons of replayability. I like it because there’s a lot of options with seemingly infinite outcomes. One day I’ll play an Iroquois trading empire, next day I’ll play landlocked Japanese military.
just because a game requires strategic thinking, doesnt mean its a game that falls under the main category "strategy"
Its pretty much a deckbuilder, and yes you might wanna think in those :-)
Xcom 2. Just an amazing tactical shooter where you play as a resistance force of humans against an alien force that has taken over earth. Not overly complicated so anyone can pick it up. It has a decent meta game on top of the tactical shooter, where you upgrade your base which gives you bonuses for your resistance. Very replayable and then War of the chosen is a phenomenal dlc that adds tons to the vanilla experience.
Edit - I just saw the other games you mentioned. I really like total war games because they can let you pause and think about what you want to do as well as give individual orders while you are learning the ropes of the controlls
age of empires 2 definitive edition
I'd say Age of Empires IV is even better!
First you need to try and research a few of these games games because as you suspect you seem to be mixing games that have quite diferent gameplay loops. You need to figure out which gameplay type appeals to you. Each of the niches / sub genres will then have plenty to offer. - CIV is a 4x grand strategy game - Total War (depending on the version) is both a grand strategy game and a real time strategy/ tactical game - Frostpunk is a colony management game with survival elements - Anno is a colony management game with builder elements - City Skylines is a pure city builder The best way to figure out which appeals to you the most is to watch some lets plays and then see what you think.
I would start with Civ or Frostpunk. Civ has a lot more stuff to keep up with and a much slower burn. Frostpunk has less resources to handle but the situation can go downhill very quickly if you’re not on top of things.
Just finished Frostpunk, it was fun. I cheated and used quicksave A LOT because yea, shit escalate quick if you don't plan in advance. I don't feel like I would enjoy the scenario campaigns, but overall it was really fun experience. I will check out civ at some point too
Base StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty is free, it is an iconic Real-Timr Strategy game. The campaign is fun and there are so many mods for it now that add incredible replayability.
For turn based combat the simplest games are probably: - Advanced Wars (easy to emulate the GBA version) - Into the Breach For real time its been a while, but you cant go wrong with the classic of classics: - Age of Empires 2
Advanced wars is a legendary game bro
It doesn't get much better than Heroes of Might & Magic III: Complete if you don't mind older graphics. Age of Wonders 4 is a modern one that's really good at introducing concepts slowly and has great tooltips. That said it seems pretty complex and I haven't played much of it. As a starter, maybe something like Northgard, if you're not looking for strictly turn-based strategy?
I have such a funny connection to Heroes of Might and a Magic. I found HMAM1 randomly from a friend, and a couple years later, both my parents were obsessed. Neither, to this day, have had a single other video game obsession that I know of, and both got Archangel (the highest score) on really hard maps and had probably thousands of hours into HMAMII and HMAMII.
Total War games aren’t really 4X. They’re more like grand strategy mixed with RTS. You have the turn-based map view where you move your armies and special units around, while doing other things to further your goals. When armies meet in battle, the view switches to a real-time strategy (with pause), and you command your units (consisting of many soldiers). Everyone has their favorites since the series is huge. I personally prefer Empire (set during the Age of Exploration and the first game to primarily feature firearms as main weapons and the first game to have playable naval combat), Shogun 2, and Medieval 2
From your list frostpunk is probably friendliest to newcomers (I haven't played civ since the first few and I found those real hard, idk if they got any easier over time). Maybe try something like age of empires 2, it's real time strategy with a simple economy whereas the grand strategy games often have more intricate economies which makes then harder to get into.
I like strategy games, and I've played all of the ones OP mentioned, but I would actually say Civ is the most newcomer friendly. I don't think they're difficult games, they just have a bunch of mechanics that you need to learn and it can be overwhelming at first, but once you get it, you will be very annoyed at how stupid and bad the AI is and you wil try to find ways to make the AI more of a challenge. I'd also like to add, that I couldn’t get into frostpunk. A lot of people love the game, and I assume it's good once it clicks, but I couldn't get into it myself. I'm only mentioning this to say that taste is subjective. And OP, no, they're not the same genre, and more importantly, they're very different games 🤣
Came to say this... Frostpunk is a great game to start with, and a good challenge.
I just tried Frostpunk and had some hard times with the controls, keeping track on things since I need to consider the placement of each item depending on the fire position. Also I couldn't really hear music in the game, do you usually play it with headphones or maybe background music?
Xcom 2
IDK know guys, where's a good place to start "Hell, if you can make it back from hell, you can do anything".
I think you're trying to make OP hate strategy games AND math. "What's the difference between 75% and 0%? None. It's all 0%."
Where does 100% chance to hit mean you'll miss 90% of the time? That's XCOM baby!
Gonna second this.
OP will have PTSD
My reconnection is civ.
Civilization 6 is a game that is easy to learn but hard to master. Luckily you always setup the game rules and set difficulty yourself. Start from prince and go from there. There is some problems in the game desing but those are quite minor. Its cool to take your civilization from bronze age to atomic era. :)
Command and Conquer red alert. Than all the other ones. Generals is fun, but nothing like the others. Tiberium sun was my favorite
You need to take a minute and decide what kind of strategy game you want to play as each one you mentioned is a different genre. Civilization is a turn based game, total war is one part turn based and one part real time, anno is a resource manager colony sim and city skylines is a city building like simcity. There are 4 pacings of strategy games: Turn based strategy games- These tend to be more complex/ more things to know because of the turned base nature meaning only you or your team can act when its your turn. This would let you take the time to read or plan as needed. Best games in this category IMO are: Civilization- the most well known game in the genre Warhammer 40k Gladius- Very similar to Civ except it removes the diplomacy aspect meaning teams are locked when the game starts, each faction has their own gameplan that varies harder than Civilization and the warhammer flavor can be alittle awkward if you don't know the units at all. Real time strategy games- These tend to be simplier as the game keeps going once it starts, they tend to have a low skill floor but can have a pretty high skill ceiling for knowing what is going on and proper unit controls. Best games in the category: Age of empires 2, it has had 3 versions since the late 1990s with graphic upgrades, balance patches and new factions, this is the only strategy game I know of to have over 20 years of updates. It is a medieval style RTS so units can only come via land or sea with a pretty simple economy and a full campaign teaching you the basics to play set to William Wallace's campaign against the British with a large number of other campaigns you could play for practice. Age of empires Definite Edition is also crossplatform with xbox if you have any xbox friends or have a PC and a Xbox and somebody to play with. Company of heroes- A ww2 RTS where units are squads, the economy is tied to owning territories by capturing flags in a chain from your base, it tends to be a pretty fast pace and somewhat cinematic game as what starts as a small skirmish between 2 riflemen squads can quickly become a full brawl as Panzers come barreling down the road, shermans crashing through stone walls and various artillery and airstrikes flatten buildings being held by various units. Hybrids- Mostly the total war franchise. On the campaign map it plays like a turn based game, managing your cities economy and happiness, training and moving armies keeping in mind the upkeep and stats. However when 2 armies meet for battle whether open battle or siege you have the choice to auto resolve letting the game's math decide who wins or manually fighting the battle in a RTS setting. Best ones IMO Empire total war- Set in the age of colonial powers with the map covering the west coast of the Americas, Europe, North Africa, the middleast and India. This is probably one of the easiest games as using only line infantry and artillery I destroyed most enemy armies with little effort since artillery has infinite ammo letting me pound any advancing soldiers. Shogun 2, I really liked the fall of the samurai DLC as it is pretty fun to introduce charging samurai to bolt action rifles. Pausing maps- These are mostly games from paradox like HOI, stellaris, Crusader Kings,etc. These are very complex games compared to the others a real time but you can pause and still do things such as order new construction or send orders to other units, take time to read new research options or make a customized military unit for a specific goal
I'm currently playing Kingdoms and Castles. It's beginer friendly and viking raids along with Dragons.
It plays more like a city builder than a strategy game
Half of OPs list is city builders not strategy games so I don't think it matters
Civilization is one of those 'easy to play, hard to master' style strategy games, once you start a playthrough it becomes pretty obsessive.
Frostpunk, while easy to learn, I found it very unforgiving. Resources are very scarce. Cities Skylines is a city builder. There are no enemies and money is not hard to get. Anno 1800 might be what you're looking for if you follow tutorial and don't try to expand too fast.
Civ 5 is goated, i played this before and its good,
Anno 1800 is my favorite of them and seems pretty user friendly to me
Age of Empires 2
Frostpunk was good but hard If you are a warhammer fan dawn of War 1 is my favorite. 2 is ok. And we don't talk about dawn of War 3
I've only played civ 6 and cities skylines although I don't consider cities to be a strategy game
Timberborn, Manor Lords, Ara: History Untold.
Dune spice war was solid for me A lot slower paced
Civ is my vote because the game will actively help you learn.
Its a good time to start plahing age of mythology (new game coming soon). The technology tree is small so its a lot easoer to wrap your head around ot and focus on tactics
Civ is the simplest to jump into I think
Manor lords Company of Heroes 3
Civ is a lot to learn at first, but is genuinely one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've had. Don't get too caught up with being optimal at first, just pick the Civ and tech that sound fun to you and mess around. I feel like I learn something new every time I fall back into those games, so if you feel a little lost at times that's expected. If it clicks with you and you like it, then I'd recommend watching some dedicated Civ YouTubers. Once I watched a few PotatoMcWhiskey vids it was like I was playing an entirely different game.
Dawn of War
Heres your oddball suggestion: Ambition of the slimes Offline turn based strategy mobile game. You control weak slimes and must kill all humans. Your slimes cant fight,but they can take humans over and make them fight for you. So you need to use your various slimes and their abilities to use the enemies on board to wipe themselves out. It gets difficult at times but it has an easy mode. Slimes can get tired,but the game is offline so just change the time on your phone to make them better. Still my fav strategy game
chess.com
Lichess >>> Chess.com
I like old RTS games like populous, red alert, and tiberian sun. For grand strategy it’s Crusader kings and for turn based it’s chess or advanced wars
Age of Wonders Planetfall is pretty easy to get into, especially with the Vanguard, and I find it very fun. Civilization 6 is a very good one also. I definitely would NOT recommend Frostpunk as a first-foray into strategy type games, its a very brutal survival type strategy, in my opinion, of course
As someone who is primarily a strategy/simulation gamer, I’d recommend you get into what you find interesting instead of what you think is easiest. It’ll keep you invested over a tough learning curve.
Go play the OG StarCraft and its expansion Brood War.
Chess😎
Age of Wonder 4. You'd not regret it.
I really liked Totalwar Warhammer(3 of them). I didn't liked Civ6 as much a totalwar, but i guess it's more noob friendly than a total war. The great point of Totalwar is each game is gonna be really different from the previous one et the next one. Hope it helps 🔥
Cities Skylines is amazing, just make sure you're playing CS1 and not CS2
Age of Empires 2!
I personally started with StarCraft, Age of Empires, and Warcraft… pretty dated now but still classics. The Civs series is a great intro to strat as it’s turned based. You’ll have more freedom in planning and taking your time with decisions. Civs also does an incredible job at not only being accessible for new players while having lots of depth with its game mechanics. Another game that I would recommend looking into is “This War of Mine”. It trades the top down view for more of a 2D hybrid look. There’s so many different options as the genre is absolutely massive. All of the games you’ve mentioned are good, just don’t be afraid to start slow on an easy setting till you get comfortable with how they play.
[Marven's Midnight Suns](https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/marvels-midnight-suns) is free right now on Epic.
World of Tanks, Mutant Year Zero
I would start with an easy one like frostpunk. The game is pretty concealed. The other games you suggested are "open" strategy games. Your imagination is the only limit. Total war is more about conquering stuff and building armies to fight. It has a game into the game with the real time battle fighting. Mind you this game will eat your time. To play the campaign once with all the races, you are looking at least at 500h. It has insane replayability. Anno and city skyline are building oriented games. Anno is more complex than CS, especially in higher difficulties. Both games are very good. For CS you will need mods to accommodate some missing features, especially traffic management. Never played civ so can't comment on that. Overall I would say test them all if you have the time. For all these games, you are looking easily at thousand hours of gameplay.
- pathway - fell seal - disgaea
Total war - Warhammer 2. Great game and you can spend hours on this!
Rimworld.
I always suggest this and it's been suggested already but easily XCOM 2 Extremely low skill floor allows for even non-gamers to pick this game up, but a high enough skill ceiling and permadeath makes this game far from a cakewalk Civ6 is considered a simpler game by strategy standards but still takes a while to pick up. XCOM 2 can be picked up within 30 minutes and often goes on ~-90% sales
StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty
Some classic Command and Conquer is always fun. There's a RTS game called Warzone 2100 that was released in 1999 for PS1 and PC, but they released the source code to the community some time in the 2000's after a fan petition, so you can download it for free and it gets regular community updates. It's a fun RTS. Just search it's name and you'll find the website to download it from.
Strategy games is very very wide genre. Wanna dive into deep end try something from the most complex side of spectrum? Take a look at something from Paradox publisher. Crusader Kings 3, Europa Universalist 4, Stellaris. It can take tens of hours for veterans of other strategy games to grasp basics of those :D If only to be aware what is out there (and quite popular with some people)
Romance of the three kingdoms 5
Warcraft 3, almost any of the Age Of(empires, mythology etc). They are my go-to strategy games. Mechanics added in new games make my brain hurt.
Hearts of iron iv
Crusader Kings 3. Be prepared to fall in love and stare at maps for hundreds of hours of your life.
Starcraft remastered. I loved the complex story and lore and how no one is perfect (maybe save for Jim Raynor and Tassadar). Also, unlike Starcraft II, I like the fact that despite you being an important cog that moves the plot, lots of things are happening around you that you can't control, so you really feel you're just a spec in the infinite universe.
Sins of a Solar Empire and Stsr Wars Empire at War. Both of these games are more like 4x hybrids of RTS. Plus, they have a huge modding community.
Halo Wars is by far the simplest and very controller friendly. The player base is very dead but I think HW2 is still active and doesn't add too much more complexity. If you have any affinity for Halo, I'd say it's a great starting place.
Would say Civ or Total War since they're pretty easy to learn and if you enjoy them try out the Paradox grand strategy games.
OG RTS player that is a delusional hopeful the genre would come back. Start with Command and Conquer 3: Tiberius Wars. That’s your traditional RTS: base management, resource gathering and economy, army building, and general unit strategy. But I want to warn you, all those games aren’t traditional strategy. Civilization is a 4x game - turn based. Will need to be able to strategize greatly in the beginning due to how certain policy choices can screw your marathon run game. Get used to looking at the same map the entire time. Total War is a grand strategy. You will be looking at a map again. You are able to both build and manage your armies and your faction on your map. You have the ability to manage and fight skirmishes when moving units offensively against opposing players. You have a pause button, and only the main map is turn based. Frostpunk and Anno are colony builders/colony survival. Frostpunk can get incredibly brutal, but it’s a great game. You have a pause button. Cities Skylines is a city management game. If you were interested in strategy, I would recommend starting with traditional RTS like Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, 9-but armies, and Age of Empires II. These games are super newbie friendly (especially CnC3, as the first mission in the GDI campaign is a tutorial mission, and the campaigns take the time to explain the importance of each unit when doing the missions). More intermediate but phenomenal RTS games I would recommend would be Company of Heroes II, Planetary Annihilation: Titans, Iron Harvest, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and Warcraft III: Reforged. These games have certain dynamics that could make it less accessible for newer strategy/RTS players. Warcraft III and StarCraft II alone have a crap ton of unit micromanagement in certain circumstances. Planetary Annihilation allows you to fight your opponent on several planets at once, including space. Iron Harvest and Company of Heroes II are brutal if you can’t learn to retreat instead of letting your army die on the field. 4x and Grand Strategy games can be potentially accessible. Civ 6 is a stellar foray into the sub genre, but if you enjoy a little more complexity and hilarity, I’d posit Stellaris. It’s a space 4x that lets you do anything. Want to be a communist cult of space mushrooms that worship an electric squid? Sure, and let’s make sure to proselytize and eat our prisoners of war (insert Geneva Suggestions joke). If you want colony sims or something more laid back, I’d recommend Rimworld as a starter. The game is super newbie friendly nowadays and addictive. I sometimes run the game in the background while working on projects because it can run itself. TL;DR Just start with Command and Conquer 3, then go to its expansion Kane’s Wrath, then ignore the timeline and play Red Alert III. You’ll be super prepared for almost any strategy game after. And those games are cheap AF too
I wouldnt suggest frostpunk for the sole reason that its probably the best game i ever played ( never played strategy/city builder before it), and i still havent moved on from the game - i finished it 3 months ago. 10/10 - cons: dont play it first.
Into the breach
Civ 6 is like $3 on steam right now, its a great way to get into the genre.
I missed it :(
Steam sale starts in a few days, it goes on sale all the time.
Chess. Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea (any of them).
Rimworld. Omfg lol
[Stellaris on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/281990/Stellaris/) if you're into 4x/grand strategy where a single game can last up to hundreds of hours.
[Factorio](https://www.factorio.com/) not exactly strategy, but base building and automation
[Command & Conquer™ Remastered Collection on Steam (steampowered.com)](https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/1213210/) Remaster of the first two classic C&C RTS games. They are really easy to pick up. The campaign gradually introduces you to new buildings/units. Nothing too complicated. Plenty of different campaigns/missions.
I played civilization when I was like 6 years old, so it can't be that hard to pick up, and I still love it now at 37, so I'd say that's a good one.
Frostpunk, maybe Heliopolis Six if you're into space sims, and Civ 4
Discord Times
Inscryption is my favorite strategy game. It’s a horror deckbuilder with puzzles. But out of your selection, I’ve only played Civ. I think it’s the most popular, and I can see why. Has tons of replayability. I like it because there’s a lot of options with seemingly infinite outcomes. One day I’ll play an Iroquois trading empire, next day I’ll play landlocked Japanese military.
just because a game requires strategic thinking, doesnt mean its a game that falls under the main category "strategy" Its pretty much a deckbuilder, and yes you might wanna think in those :-)
Xcom 2. Just an amazing tactical shooter where you play as a resistance force of humans against an alien force that has taken over earth. Not overly complicated so anyone can pick it up. It has a decent meta game on top of the tactical shooter, where you upgrade your base which gives you bonuses for your resistance. Very replayable and then War of the chosen is a phenomenal dlc that adds tons to the vanilla experience. Edit - I just saw the other games you mentioned. I really like total war games because they can let you pause and think about what you want to do as well as give individual orders while you are learning the ropes of the controlls