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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!

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

Advance Wars game-boy-advance

Advance Wars is a tactical turn-based strategy game that was first released on September 10, 2001, for the Game Boy Advance. Developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo, the game was designed by Kentaro Nishimura.

Year: 2001 Genre: Strategy

cartoon strategy tactics tank turn-based strategy versus war

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings windows

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a historical real-time strategy game created by Ensemble Studios. It was published by Microsoft in 1999 for Windows and Macintosh. As you can...

Year: 1999 Genre: Strategy

europe historical battle isometric medieval middle east real-time rts strategy

Traders: The Intergalactic Trading Game amiga

Traders: The Intergalactic Trading Game is a turn-based multiplayer game released in 1992 for PC and Amiga. It was developed and published by Linel. The game is a M.U.L.E. clone ...

Year: 1991 Genre: Strategy

business simulation competitive management multiplayer strategy trading

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 freeware science fiction space star trek strategy turn-based strategy wargame

Celtic Legends amiga

Celtic Legends is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements created by Ubisoft exclusively for the Amiga. It was released in 1991. The game allows you to challenge the computer ...

Year: 1991 Genre: Strategy

2 players amiga original game fantasy isometric strategy strategy-rpg turn-based strategy

Moonbase amiga

Moonbase: Lunar Colony Simulator is a strategy/simulation game created by Wesson International in 1990 for MS-DOS. It was later ported to Amiga and Macintosh. As you can imagine fr...

Year: 1991 Genre: Strategy

city building management science fiction simulation space space exploration strategy

Special Forces amiga

Special Forces is a tactical action game with stealth elements created by MicroProse and released in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS. It's the sequel of Airborne Ranger, an 8-bit game released five years earlier.

Year: 1992 Genre: Strategy

action strategy military multi-directional squad management stealth strategy top-down

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition amiga

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is an enhanced version of Balance of Power, a strategy game developed by Chris Crawford originally for Macintosh in 1985. The new version was published five years later by Mindscape.

Year: 1989 Genre: Strategy

2 players cold war coverdisk map-based historical political strategy turn-based strategy war

Steel Empire amiga

Steel Empire is an action-strategy game created by Silicon Knights for the Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS, released in 1992. Denis Dyack and Rick Goertz designed this title. It's the ...

Year: 1992 Genre: Strategy

action strategy hotseat mecha multiplayer science fiction strategy tactics top-down

Roadwar Europa amiga

Roadwar Europa is a futuristic turn-based strategy game designed by Jeff Johnson and developed for the Apple II and Commodore 64. It was released initially in 1986 and published by Strategic Simulations Inc.

Year: 1987 Genre: Strategy

apple 2 original game post-apocalyptic science fiction strategy turn-based strategy wargame

The Lords of Midnight commodore-64

The Lords of Midnight is a mix of strategy and adventure games created in 1984 by Mike Singleton for the ZX Spectrum. In the following years, the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC versions were also released.

Year: 1985 Genre: Strategy

adventure-strategy fantasy strategy zx spectrum

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines windows

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines is the first chapter of a famous tactical game series created by the Spanish studio Pyro and published by Eidos. This first game, designed by Gonzalo ...

Year: 1998 Genre: Strategy

europe historical battle military rts squad management stealth strategy tactics war ww2

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