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!

Earth 2140 dos

Earth 2140 is a real-time strategy game released in 1997 for MS-DOS and later Windows. It was developed by Polish studio Reality Pump (then known as TopWare’s in-house team "Trans Fiction").

Year: 1997 Genre: Strategy

dystopia real-time rts science fiction strategy

Romance of the Three Kingdoms msxdos

Romance of the Three Kingdoms by KOEI is a foundational title in the world of historical strategy games. First released in Japan in 1985 for the PC-88, it was one of the earliest a...

Year: 1986 Genre: Strategy

china historical battle resource management strategy turn-based strategy

Sid Meier's Gettysburg! windows

Sid Meier's Gettysburg! is a wargame released in 1997 for Windows by Firaxis Games. Sid Meier and Jeff Briggs founded the studio after they departed from MicroProse. It marked a si...

Year: 1997 Genre: Strategy

historical battle military north america strategy tactics war

Eastern Front atari-8-bit

Chris Crawford’s Eastern Front (1941) is a wargame released in 1981 for the Atari 8-bit family. It is widely recognized as one of the earliest examples of a truly sophisticated computer wargame for home systems.

Year: 1981 Genre: Strategy

atari 8-bit europe historical battle map-based historical simulation strategy turn-based strategy war wargame

The Settlers III windows

The Settlers III is the third chapter of the famous real-time/city-building strategy game by Blue Byte. It was released in 1998 for Windows. This third chapter stands as one of th...

Year: 1998 Genre: Strategy

ancient egypt business simulation city building classical antiquity isometric real-time rts strategy

Death Or Glory: The Battle Of Morgan amiga

Death or Glory: The Battle of Morgan is a strategic-rpg fantasy game released by Software 2000 for the Amiga and DOS. The game stands out in the early 90s as a refined blend of tac...

Year: 1994 Genre: Strategy

amiga original game german only games strategy sword and sorcery turn-based strategy

Warrior of Rome II genesis

Warrior of Rome II is a real-time strategy game developed by Micronet and released in 1992 for the SEGA Genesis. It is the direct sequel to Warrior of Rome, released a year earli...

Year: 1992 Genre: Strategy

classical antiquity europe isometric real-time strategy tactics

Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire windows

Sid Meier’s Alien Crossfire, released in 1999 as an expansion to Alpha Centauri, is a turn-based strategy game developed by Firaxis Games. While it carries Sid Meier's name, the ...

Year: 1999 Genre: Strategy

4x city building hotseat isometric science fiction strategy turn-based strategy

Mech Brigade commodore-64dos

Mech Brigade is a wargame published by Strategic Simulations Inc. (SSI) in 1985, initially for the Apple II and Commodore 64. The game is a landmark in tactical war simulation and ...

Year: 1985 Genre: Strategy

apple 2 original game cold war strategy tank top-down turn-based strategy wargame

Hollywood Pictures dos

Hollywood Pictures is a strategy game released in 1995 by Starbyte for MS-DOS and Amiga. Released in 1995, this quirky business simulation game let you live out your dreams of runn...

Year: 1995 Genre: Strategy

amiga original game business simulation german only games management movies simulation 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

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

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