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Best strategy games on GamesNostalgia

Strategy games have a long history; ancient games of intellect like Chess have paved the way for modern masterpieces like Starcraft. Imagine the thrill of outwitting opponents, envisioning every move before it is made, and strategically maneuvering your way to victory. From old titles like Hammurabi to Sid Meier's Civilization, strategy games have transcended time and culture.

The first strategy computer games were primarily based on resource management, like Super Star Trek or Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio. Over the years, many ports of classic games were released, like Risk or The Chessmaster 2000, but many other sub-genres were created. The revolutionary Defender of the Crown was one of the first medieval strategy games, while one of the first historical trading games was Ports of Call in 1987. The god games genre started with Populous in 1989 by Peter Molyneux. The same year Julian Gollop created one of the first squad management games with Laser Squad, a sort of predecessor of the famous UFO: Enemy Unknown.

None of these titles had a success comparable to the historical turn-based strategy game Sid Meier's Civilization, released in 1991. This inspired many other games, like Master of Magic, but also Master of Orion in 1993, one of the first 4x strategy games (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate). But there are other space games that became cult, like Star Control II.

Real-time strategy games (RTS) started with Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis in 1992, but after that, we saw many other titles, like WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, Command & Conquer in 1995, not to mention the famous Age of Empires. And let's not forget city building games like Caesar and Pharaoh.

This category has so many essential titles that it's impossible to mention them all. Just browse the list or select one of the sub-genres and choose the preferred titles. Just remember: they create addition!

Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War windowsdos

Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War is a historic real-time strategy game developed by Stainless Steel Studios and Midway Games and published in 2006. In 2008 a free version of the game was released supported by the US Air Force.

Year: 2006 Genre: Strategy

classical antiquity fantasy freeware historical battle history real-time strategy

Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis dosamiga

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (a.k.a. Dune II: Battle for Arrakis) is the second entry in the Dune series and it's one of the most influential video games of all time. It was ...

Year: 1992 Genre: Strategy

movies real-time rts science fiction strategy war

Sid Meier's Civilization II windows

Civilization II, or simply Civ2, is the second chapter of the most famous turn-based strategy video game ever created: Sid Meier's Civilization. The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time".

Year: 1996 Genre: Strategy

4x history strategy turn-based strategy

UFO: Alien Invasion windows

UFO: Alien Invasion is an entirely free and open-source game inspired by the X-COM video game series. The year is 2084, and you control a secret organization tasked with defending Earth from an alien invasion.

Year: 2006 Genre: Strategy

strategy

Super Star Trek 1978 meets 25th Anniversary mac-osxwindows

Super Star Trek 1978 meets 25th Anniversary is a fangame/remake of the famous text-only strategy game Super Star Trek. Unlike many other remakes of this strategy game, this one fea...

Year: 2023 Genre: Strategy

aliens enhanced remakes science fiction space star trek strategy turn-based strategy wargame

Command & Conquer: Red Alert dos

Command & Conquer: Red Alert is a real-time strategy game created by Westwood Studios and published by Virgin in 1996 for MS-DOS and Windows 95. It was later ported to PlayStation.

Year: 1996 Genre: Strategy

europe real-time rts science fiction strategy war

Civilization II: Test of Time windows

Civilization II: Test of Time is an enhanced version of Civilization II, created by MPS Labs and released in 1999 for PC. As we know, the first Sid Meier's Civilization, the turn...

Year: 1999 Genre: Strategy

4x history isometric strategy turn-based strategy

Homeworld windows

Homeworld is a sci-fi real-time strategy/simulation game created by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra in 1999 for Windows PC. The game concept is very straightforward: ta...

Year: 1999 Genre: Strategy

3d real-time rts science fiction simulation space management space sim strategy

The Settlers dosamiga

The Settlers is a medieval city-building simulation game by Blue Byte Software, first released in 1993 for Commodore Amiga and in 1995 for MS-DOS. In America, it was published as Serf City: Life Is Feudal.

Year: 1993 Genre: Strategy

2 players amiga original game business simulation city building real-time strategy

Command & Conquer dos

Command & Conquer is a real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios (creators of Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis), and published by Virgin Interactive in 1995 for MS-DOS and other platforms.

Year: 1995 Genre: Strategy

europe freeware real-time rts science fiction strategy war

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Firestorm windows

Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun is a real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios, published by Electronic Arts and released for Windows in 1999. The expansion Firestorm...

Year: 2000 Genre: Strategy

freeware mission real-time science fiction strategy

North & South amiga

North & South is an action/strategy game based on the comic books "The Blue Jackets", released in 1989 for Amiga and Atari ST and ported later for DOS, ZX Spectrum and other platforms.

Year: 1989 Genre: Strategy

2 players american civil war comics historical battle history strategy war wargame

Arsenal Taste the Power dos

A.R.S.E.N.A.L Taste the Power is a real-time strategy game created by Tactical Software for MS-DOS and released as shareware in 1997. The game is clearly inspired by other RTS hits, especially Command & Conquer.

Year: 1997 Genre: Strategy

real-time rts shareware strategy top-down

Defender of the Crown amiga

Defender of the Crown is a strategy game designed by Kellyn Beck and it's one of the first and most influential Amiga games. It was Cinemaware's first game, and was originally rele...

Year: 1986 Genre: Strategy

amiga original game europe fantasy historical battle history map-based historical medieval mythology robin hood strategy