GamesNostalgia

Retro games, abandonware, freeware and classic games for PC and Mac

iten

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!

Mad News dos

Mad News is a business simulation created by Ikarion Software and released in 1994 for Amiga and MS-DOS. It's the unofficial sequel of Mad TV. In this simulation, available in Ge...

Year: 1994 Genre: Strategy

business simulation german only games management simulation strategy

Pirates! Gold dosamigagenesis

Pirates! Gold is the remake of Sid Meier's award-winning Pirates! and was developed by MPS Labs and published by MicroProse in 1993. After the initial release for PC and SEGA Genes...

Year: 1993 Genre: Strategy

amiga cd32 caribbean history naval open world pirates real-time strategy

Sid Meier's Civilization dosamiga

Sid Meier's Civilization is one of the most popular strategy games of all time. It was created by Bruce Shelley and Sid Meier alongside MicroProse. The game was released in September 1991 for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST.

Year: 1991 Genre: Strategy

4x history management strategy top-down turn-based strategy

Centerbase amiga

Centerbase is a strategy and simulation game developed by reLINE and released in 1992, exclusively for the Amiga. The game, also known as Centerbase: Science-Fiction Simulation, w...

Year: 1992 Genre: Simulation

amiga original game management science fiction simulation strategy

Burntime amiga

Burntime is a strategy-RPG game developed and published by Max Design for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1993 for Europe and 1994 in North America. Max Design was founded in Austria by the brothers Albert and Martin Lasser and Wilfried Reiter.

Year: 1993 Genre: Strategy

adventure-strategy aga post-apocalyptic rpg elements strategy wasteland

Stronghold dos

Stronghold is a real-time strategy game developed by Stormfront Studios and published by Strategic Simulations Inc. in 1993. This game is set in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy univ...

Year: 1993 Genre: Strategy

business simulation city building fantasy management real-time strategy

Warlords dosamiga

Warlords is a fantasy strategy/rpg series created by Steve Fawkner. The first game in the series was published in 1990 by SSG for Amiga and MS-DOS. It featured eight different clan...

Year: 1990 Genre: Strategy

fantasy hotseat map-based historical multiplayer rpg elements strategy turn-based strategy wargame

Syndicate: American Revolt dosamiga

Syndicate: American Revolt is an expansion of the original action strategy game created by Bullfrog. It was released in 1993 for MS-DOS and one year later for the Amiga. The data d...

Year: 1994 Genre: Strategy

action strategy cyberpunk dystopia real-time science fiction squad management strategy

War Planets: Age of Chaos dos

War Planets: Age of Chaos is a sci-fi real-time strategy game set in the War Planets universe created by the toy company Trendmasters. The game, created by Trendmasters itself, was...

Year: 1997 Genre: Strategy

aliens licensed real-time rts science fiction strategy war

Wing Commander: Armada dos

Wing Commander: Armada is a turn-based 3d strategy game set in the universe of Wing Commander. It was created by Origin Systems and released in 1994 for PC MS-DOS. It's the first Wing Commander game to feature a multiplayer mode.

Year: 1994 Genre: Strategy

science fiction space flight strategy turn-based strategy

X-COM: Apocalypse dos

X-COM Apocalypse is the third entry into the X-COM series, developed by Mythos Games and published by MicroProse for DOS and Windows in 1997. Apocalypse utilizes the same Cityscape...

Year: 1997 Genre: Strategy

aliens real-time science fiction squad management strategy tactical-rpg turn-based strategy

Genesia dosamiga

Genesia (the US version was called Ultimate Domain) is a strategy game developed and published by Microids for the Amiga in 1993. The game was later picked up by Software Toolworks and ported out to the IBM PC.

Year: 1993 Genre: Strategy

amiga original game amos business simulation fantasy hotseat isometric management multiplayer strategy

Warlords II dos

Warlords II is the successor to the original Warlords, and it was developed and published by Strategic Studies Group in 1993 for DOS. It later made its way onto Mac and then eventually Windows Mobile.

Year: 1993 Genre: Strategy

fantasy rpg elements strategy turn-based strategy wargame

The Settlers II dos

The Settlers II: Veni, Vidi, Vici is the second chapter of the popular series of city building real time strategy games created by Blue Byte software. It was published by Blue Byte...

Year: 1997 Genre: Strategy

business simulation city building classical antiquity real-time strategy