What strategy game has the best/deepest NON TACTICAl combat. I don't like tactical combat since it a) gives too much advantage to the player and b) takes too much time. But i would still like it to be a little more than biggest number wins. Basically like CK3 where there is some strategy in the setup but is still two numbers clashing in the end
Pick up any good operational computer wargame. not goi4.
i don't mean tactical in the sense of scale, but tactical in the amount of involvement the player has to do. So wargames are kind of the opposite of what I'd like
That's what I was going to suggest but it seems OP wants a game where you don't micromanage? If so, I don't know - Pooptoria 3? Distant Worlds? Graviteam Tactics?
should also try Wh40k Gladius much simpler to get into than Shadow Empire and has great combat.
Ideally it'd be a a 4x like game where the focus is more on the economy and you can win in other ways than war. By micromanagment i simply mean that I don't want to have to tell each individual unit to attack and instead use an entire army/stack. Like earlier civ games. I do really like the idea of vic 3 but the execution seems botched.
I have played it and really enjoy it but again, it is a wargame where you order each unit individually. The reason I ask for this isn't that I don't enjoy wargames but I want to know if there are any 4x ish games that strike a good balance between having engaging combat without centering the entire game around controlling it
in OP you asked for non tactical strategy game, when people gave examples you ask for something some tactical lmao, you dont know wtf you want yourself. Try age of wonders 3/4 and planetfall, master of orion 2, master of magic, Endless Legend, HoMM3 or XCOMs, maybe something will stick.
Is this really so hard to understand? When people say a strategy game has tactical combat they usually refer to a seperate gamemode/instance that you play when two armies clash like total war or age of wonders. This is what i DONT WANT. Even if it isn't a seperate instance but you still move around every unit like civ 5 this has the same level of micromanagement Im not looking for. So when people suggest wargames i say they don't fit because whether im moving around 10 soldiers or 10 brigades it is the same kind of decisionmaking. I even gave cK3 as a perfect example but I just think ck3 is pretty bad at beEing a strategy game as a whole.
To put it as simply as possible: I'd like a game where the interesting decisions come from setting up/designing your army rather than managing the battles themselves. Maybe it doesn't exist but if this board is good for anything it's finding niche titles no ones heard about.
Auto resolve is basically what im looking for but games like TW that were designed for tactical combat tend to have autoresolve algorithms that are either too obtuse or easy to exploit
Dominions actually looks promising though
you order your armies around the map in dominions and give strict orders for the first 5 turns, in practice very often micromanaging thugs or mages you recruit every turn
if you discard wargames then you're looking for a game that doesn't exist because the magic comes from actually having the ability to manage your armies, what you're describing resembles economy game or an autobattler like tft/underlords far more than it should
so maybe look for victoria 3 which is infamous for how bad their """strategic""" combat is (zero micromanaging, pure stats, AI is dumb as a boot and statistically superior armies lose far more often than they should)
jesus fricking christ this board is a magnet for morons
Dont get so worked up smart guy. I like war games as well. in fact i PREFER dedicated tactics/wargames because it avoids the problem I have by using predefined scenarios balanced to offer a fun challenge. My problem was that since the AI is bad at battle tactics you need to be outnumbered to be challenged, but since the AI is ALSO bad at strategic economy managment you never are after the early game. You basically get the worst of both worlds with city bulders beeing more fun for economics and wargames beeing more fun for combat. I was just thinking to myself how you could solve that problem without removing either element and My idea was something like you and others have said: the combat of an autobattler(i guess) and the economics of a 4x. I figured i'd ask here if such a game exists otherwise i'll have to make it myself or something idk
.
The AI is bad at strategic economy management because the economics of a 4x are shitty. You need a game that isn't just rerolling the map until you get a bunch of resources, minmaxing your output, and then steamrolling opponents.
Strategic Command WW2 or it's other flavors, Hegemony, Fields of Glory, Imperator(it's hard to get into but it's not that bad), HoI3.
There are some old games from the late 90s early 2000s that fit the bill but for the life of me I can't name them. Stuff similar to Legion gold.
Planetfall has one of the best tactical combat systems in the genre but I think OP wants minimal direct army management
Endless Space 1-2, Stellar Monarch 1-2, Distant Worlds first one more so than second, Dominions in its entirety, Majesty, Total War WH if you are fine with clicking autoresolve on every combat
Maybe something like the AGEOD games?
You manage composition of armies, move them around, but the battles are automatic
>Ideally it'd be a a 4x like game where the focus is more on the economy and you can win in other ways than war.
Military engagements in Stellaris, Distant Worlds Universe/2, Imperator Rome, Endless Space 1/2 are basically auto-resolves that are determined by economic factors (production and tech level) while still having some strategic depth (Fleet/Legion Doctrine, what ships/units you use, loadouts and weapon types, etc)
Forgot to mention. I think i bought DWU on a sale but haven't played it yet so maybe I'l check that out
OP's request is kind of silly since the moment you add detail to the combat is when you also add micromanagement and tactics. Even if you don't get to directly control the units like in Dominions you're going to have to think about tactics and spend time preparing the combat if you want to be optimal.
RTS combat is always heavy on direct player involvement unless the combat is so streamlined that only superior numbers matter. If you have the time to sit around to watch the explosions, then you have the time to micro harder.
in today's episode of /vst/ not actually playing strategy games and not understanding the term
Stellaris in MP
CK2 with HIP in MP
So what you want is not a war game, but an economy simulator or RPG game, where war is another action you can just choose to do, but it resolves itself by what you've put in and how you arranged it without your input, like a match in Football manager?
Pretty much this. Of course it is a spectrum. I dont mind moving the army as a whole manually, i just dont want to tell every cavalry unit when to charge, what to attack, when to retreat etc.
That sounds like autobattler territory, where it's all about putting the right units in the right places. I played Hero's Hour (it was so-so), and I know some anons enjoyed Mechabellum (before an upgrade made it suck).
Well, I would go more into "Shop manager" game territory, because those usually introduce some mechanics for waging battles or contests or other shit, just to have another field of progression, but since it's not you but the "people you hire" it usually either a hands-off mission or a minigame that improves your outcome very slightly.
Political simulators without actual combat and various "princess-makers" also tend to interact with combat this way when they're not using your most bogstandard Risk and RPG basic styles of combat respectively.
Well pretty much you have to actively avoid combat related strategy games to get something you'd actually like.
Besides Vic3, currently Stellaris has combat that depends the most on your setup instead of micro, I'd risk saying even more so than vic3 if you count that you can swing the battles with naval invasions and Generals reshuffling their posts(which is essentialy possible in Stellaris but barely effective more than just having admirals in the places they're supposed to be.) more than with most stuff you can do with your fleet in Stellaris
Dominions
Who's this sex goddess incarnate?
no source on 3 websites so i'm assuming it's aislop
doesnt look like AI
a lot of flaws but those flaws can only be done by hand.
Check the ears
>1024x1024
>right ring finger growing out of middle finger
right shoulder is also horribly dislocated
>doesnt look like AI
Yes it does, you blind porn addict.
>a lot of flaws but those flaws can only be done by hand.
Such as her having freckles on her knuckles and the inside of her hands?
>doesnt look like AI
That's very clearly generated by Bing's Dall-E 3 implementation. Once you know what to look for it's unmistakable.
it looked like AI from the thumbnail from before I even opened it lmao. I can recognize artists from the thumbnails, let alone AI
Risk
Sins of a Solar Empire
you can micro in theory, but in practice it doesn't help because spaceships are slow so a good strategy, formation, and thinking ahead wins fights more reliably. Plus, you do a bunch of diplomacy ingame too, so again you gotta strategically plan ahead to reap the most benefits.
You can micro against planetary defenses though.
Dominions.
It's like Diplomacy the board game, where on the big map you give orders to your armies, and then all orders resolve at the same time, but unlike the boardgame there's a lot of videogamey things, like army is made out of individual unitsx each army needs a commander to move the units, and so on. If two stacks of units from different teams collide, they fight. All combat is resolved automatically, with you being able to give armies a basic order like "wait 2 turns then target enemy backline" or "just shoot whoever's closest", and commanders having 5 scripting slots so you can tell a wizard "go cast these buffs for the first two turns and then cast kill spells" and more. But you have to input the army orders before you confirm the end of turn, so maybe you won't even get to fight, or maybe some other army you forgot to script will get ambushed by a stealthy enemy army.
There's a lot of game in Dominions and getting a grasp of it might be daunting, but once you understand the basics, weaving the rest into your strategy is not only easy, but essential.
Seconding dominions. Join us over at /domg/ of you want to join some pick up games, since the multiplayer scene outside is pretty dead