Editing Video games (section)

==Strategy Games ==
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* Simulation/Sandbox
** '''Black & White''' Classic god games in which you play as a nameless god trying to achieve supremacy over the world of Eden. A great combination of settlement management, magic casting and pet care (said pet being a giant furry demigod with surprisingly deep ai for the time). The sequel adds full-on city management and rts warfare ON TOP of the aforementioned elements.
** '''Caesar I,II,III,IV''' Simcity but in Roman empire with an ''extreme'' emphasis on delivery and logistics. Build your Roman province but handle every aspect of infrastructure, then start crying and delete it. Despite retarded delivery person AI it became a crazy cult classic, and a mod, AUGUSTUS, is made to compensate with roadblocks and monuments from the later games. So cult that Ancient Egypt(Pharaoh), Ancient Greece(Zeus/Poseidon), and eventually Ancient China(Emperor) Spinoffs were made by the same company. It's so addictive that even a Sumerian spinoff was made recently: Nebuchadnezzar. 
** '''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''' The legend, the lamentation, the...fun.
** '''Aurora 4X, a.k.a Dwarf Fortress in space with MUCH more complicated details'''
** '''Factorio''', a process building game. The player is stuck on an alien world and trying to build a spaceship to get off said world, but the enormous industrial activity necessary to build a spaceship provokes the local wildlife to attack, necessitating more industry to fight them off. Considered the [[Forge World#Planet|Forge World]] (Not [[Forge World#Company|that one]]) simulator by many fa/tg/uys.
** '''Dyson Sphere Program''': Factorio's fully 3D, multi-planet galactic version on meth made by a Chinese company(of 4 kids). It's crazy as it sounds. Remove combat, add multiple planets and literal Dyson swarm and/or Dyson Sphere building over the ages.
** '''Satisfactory''', the other 3D Factorio. Exploit an alien planet for your corporate overlords, polluting and irradiating it as you go.
** '''From The Depths'''
** '''[[Frostpunk]]''': A grimdark city building survival game where you have to protect and maintain a city that is dependent on a massive steam engine to survive.
** '''Kerbal Space Program''' A aerospace engineer is you, build space vehicles, manage your own space agency and conduct missions kerbaled and automated across a simulated solar system. Bear in mind, this game involves actual rocket science; you're going to have to learn about things like Delta-V and slingshot maneuvers if you're going to plot a course that won't end with your rocket crashing into the ocean and if you try to build your favorite sci-fi ship you'll crash, no exceptions.
** '''Space Engineers''' Build space ships, stations and bases.
*** '''Medieval Engineers''' Build castles, villages and siege equipment. Unfortunately abandonware since Space Engineers above is/was ''way'' more popular than it and the devs therefore scrapped plans for ME to focus on their moneymaker.
** '''[[Minecraft]]''', for some odd reason.
** '''[[Terraria]]''', for the same odd reason.
** '''Mount and Blade''', it's expandalone Warband, and the new Bannerlord 2. A sandbox medieval setting, you go around either being a bandit or uniting the scattered kingdoms into a grand empire or whatever in a 1st or third person RPG/Action hybrid with heavy emphasis on mounted medieval combat. Enormous modding community means finding something thematically different if you want, including Warhammer and historical mods. In fact, the mods are a selling point of the whole thing, given there is one for just about '''any''' setting you can think about.
** '''Rimworld''', Dwarf Fortress ''IN SPEHSS'' except dumbed down for the casuals, [[skub|which may or may not be a good thing.]]
** '''[[Space Station 13]]:''' Dwarf Fortress except you play as the dwarves. Has been completely fucking ruined by goons leaking into every other version of the game.
** '''Subnautica''', Minecraft but in an ocean world and lots of wondrous aquatic vistas and water effects. Not for thalassophobics.
** '''Barotrauma''', Space Station 13 but in an ocean world, contrasting Subnautica by being grimdark as hell. Abominations of the Europan deep scare even non-thalassophobics in this one.
** '''[[Tabletop Simulator]]''', a virtual tabletop for playing Card Games, Board Games, RPGs, etc. online with friends. The game has multiple built-in tools for creating custom games, and the Steam Workshop has thousands of add-ons; a popular choice for playing WH40K online thanks to ripped assets from Dawn of War.
** '''[[VASSAL Game Engine|VASSAL Engine]]'''
* 4X/Grand Strategy
** '''Age of Wonders''' - Take ''Master of Magic'', then make it good and from the guys who made Overlord no less. The most approved is 2nd game (especially Shadow Magic) as it strikes balance between being its own unique thing, having good campaign and not sacrificing gameplay in the process. That being said AoW1 and AoW3 have their merits with the former being more relaxed and easier to get into while the latter is the most complex out of the bunch, so take your pick.
** '''[[Alpha Centauri|Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'''. Despite starting out as "Civ 2: SPACE EDITION", SMAC became one of the more iconic games of the 90s. In the late 21st century Earth goes to sh*t and a colony ship is dispatched to Alpha Centauri to give humanity a new lease on life. Instead, we start fighting before we even get there and the whole thing eventually spirals off into a free-for all (with aliens joining the fun too!) with transcendence to virtual godhood as the ultimate prize. The game was a great joy to play due to gameplay and strategic depth, an interesting array of futuristic techs mostly rooted in semi-hard science and a plethora of interesting factions and various lore blurbs. Game is so tightly written, people discuss its content to this day. When SJGames released a setting book for GURPS 3e, they didn't have to make up anything at all to get 130 pages of lore.
** '''Civilization I-IV''' - Civilization actually was based on a board game and in a case of coming full circle, ended up creating it's own board game. Civ IV in particular happens to have a highly active modding scene to this very day, and many of those mods are total overhauls with fantasy settings. One of those is a ''Fall from Heaven'' mod, or rather a series of mods with shared setting. Neat stuff.
*** Note: Civs V and VI have design issues that make them difficult to recommend in this list, and are thus explicitly not included--that being said, this exclusion is more on the basis of them being [[Skub]]ish--some people love V and/or VI, while some people hate them.
** '''[[Disciples]]''' (series) - Heroes of Might and Magic made [[Grimdark]].
** '''Distant Worlds''' Imagine Master of Orion on LSD/Meth cocktail. Entire Galaxy with every stellar object is colonizable/destructible and the galaxy is full of the aftermath of a massive war.
** '''[[Dominions]]''' - Civilization's and Dwarf Fortress' beautiful love child. Enjoy [[Lovecraft]]'s Father Dagon square up against Ravana from India's Ramayana as they fight for the glory of their respective gods (you and whatever other [[neckbeards]] you are playing with). 
** '''Endless Space 1&2''' The first game is ok and free to play, but the second one is where it's at as it does everything the original did better and then some. 
** '''[[Endless Legend]]'''
** '''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]''' - Turn based strategy of over six main games and expansions where you control a fantasy hero and their legion of men/elves/dwarves/creatures/etc. Special mention goes to second and especially third installments.
**'''Master of Magic''': Take Sid Meier's Civilization. Add fantasy races with their own units, magic in the form of spells and summons, heroes and a very basic isometric battlefield when armies clash, and give dozens of abilities to units according to their species, situation and metal they are armed with (Yes, the metal used can be mithril or adamantite if the building city has any). That's Master of Magic. Still great for when you need to scratch that 'wizard with no sense of right or wrong bent on conquering the world' itch.  
** '''Master of Orion''': Master of Magic's less flexible, more Sci-Fi brother. Several races in space expand and want to control an ancient homeworld guarded by a giant ancient spaceship. 
** Paradox series: This is the go-to company for nation-ruling Grand Strategy games for different eras such as '''[[Crusader Kings]]''' 800's-1400's, '''[[Europa Universalis]]''' 1400's-1800's, '''[[Victoria]]''' 1820's-1936,  or '''[[Hearts of Iron]]''' 1936-1950's.
*** [https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/warhammer-geheimnisnacht-mod.902/ Warhammer: Geheimnisnacht], a Warhammer Fantasy conversion for Crusader Kings II. Setting predates Winds of Chaos & End Times.
** '''Sengoku Rance''': [[Weeaboo|Hentai game spinoff]] that parodies the long-running ''Nobunaga's Ambition'' series. You play as Rance, [[Slaanesh]]'s very own [[Kharn|fun guy to be around,]] as he unifies Warring States-era Japan under his mighty [[Anal circumference|"hyperweapon."]] Despite the utterly ludicrous premise it's a solid grand strategy game, to the point that the porn is more of a reward for playing well than an end in itself. Comparing this game to Total War was a common troll on /gsg/ when Shogun II was released.
** '''Sins of a Solar Empire''' Proto-Stellaris with all the open-ended random generated universe but with defined factions and a juicy story that is teased but not spelt out for you, partially to give you more freedom. Still looks amazing over 10 years later and has a sequel in the works.
** '''Starsector''' Basically Mount & Blade in space. An awesome space fleet management game with real-time battle and space exploration. Also a 4X-lite. Set in a [[Age of Strife|chaotic period]] after the sudden collapse of [[Dark Age of Technology|humanity's golden era under the Domain]], most factions [[Men of Iron|now regulate AI even more heavily than before (because 2 wars of apocalyptic scale will do that).]] The aforementioned factions fight among themselves for resources like [[drugs]] and [[rimworld|harvested organs]] without being able to consolidate enough strength to wipe each other out or enough influence to unite much of the sector. Known for having awesome space ship customization, solid space ship battles and a full-blown real-time market simulation. /tg/ mods this to capitalize on 40k prequel potential. Also, space jihad.
** '''[[Stellaris]]''' Paradox's attempt to fill the gap in the market between their Grand Strategy games and traditional 4X. You can run *any* science fiction staple idea and none would look out of place. A civilisation of individuals ranging from unique megacorporations to generic governments, hive-minded eusocial species, robots and anything in between each have unique playstyles. It also has endgame "crises" of galaxy threatening proportions which needs elaborate teamwork to stop. 
*** Excellent 40k mod for Stellaris: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/WarhammerTotalConversion
*** And yes, there's Star Trek and Star Wars mods. 
** '''[[XCOM#Terra_Invicta|Terra Invicta]]''', 25% [[Stellaris]], 25% [[Crusader Kings]], 25% [[XCOM]], 25% Twilight Struggle, all crazy fun. Aliens are spotted in outermost Kuiper Belt planetoids just when Russia declares on Ukraine in 2022. Notable for its highly asymmetrical gameplay, with each faction having wildly different playstyle and goals to achieve victory.
** '''[[Total War]]''' series: '''Rome Total War''', '''Medieval Total War''', '''Empire Total War''', '''Shogun Total War'''  and of course '''[[Total War: Warhammer]]'''
*** Rome 1 mods: '''Call to Arms: Warhammer''' and '''Fourth Age Total War''' and Medieval 2 mods: '''[[Call of Warhammer]]''', '''Third Age Total War'''

* Real-time Strategy
** '''Age of Empires''' series. Classic RTS with a more Command and Conquer vibe then a 4X, which is more common for historical settings, though pretty much every unit has multiple counters so it tends to be a more complex game then normal fast pace RTSs. 
*** There's the original which is a curiosity at best since it was developed when RTS as a genre was still getting it's feet wet. Has a HD remaster and Definitive Edition remake, 
*** The second game that is made of pure gold, with 42 civilizations to choose from, vibrant player base and ongoing developer support. Has HD remaster and Definitive Edition like the first one.
*** *** The third game is sadly little more than just Mythology with guns and Online which is F2P game and also dead-ish (unless you play Project Celeste, which is still getting updated by fans). Third one got remastered with medieval weapons given an edge(understandably since medieval muskets were hit-and-miss) and with exotic African and Asian Dynasties added, as well as Native American factions' [[/pol/|names and stereotypes]] fixed.
*** Mythology mixes up the formula well, being a surprisingly good leap into 3D and having a splendid campaign that spans some 30 missions that see you jump all over the ancient western world and some other places while on an epic quest. Had a single expansion - The Titans which added the Atlanteans as a faction and explored the aftermath of the first game. <s> We don't talk about the second expansion...</s>
*** The fourth installment is good but it is currently a victim of AoE2's seniority since the latter has so much content that the 4 seems quite barren in comparison, though a number of new civs are underway.
** '''Battlezone''', the strategy game not the arcade game. Mixture of real time strategy and hover tank combat while fighting commies on the moon. Clunky, and as balanced as a one legged hippo, but it's uniqueness, concept and immersion make it a classic. Got a second game that was tighter and better balanced but weaker plot and setting. Both got pretty decent HD remasters.
** '''[[Command and Conquer]]''', a franchise with more then four different series running at the time where you control varied forces trying to beat the crap out of each other.
** '''Company of Heroes''' and '''Men of War''' series which are basically RTSs based on the idea of commanding forces as if someone was playing a classic WW2 shooter. While there are hard counters in Company of Heroes it still focuses more on holding chokepoints, piecing defensive lines and utilizing sandbags and barbed wire. Men at War focuses on realistic damage and as such is more the ARMA to Company of Heroes Call of Duty 2.
** '''Cossacks''' series, which covers 17th and 18th century, being the closest to /tg/'s desire to have "pike and shot setting". Most notable for ability to field absolutely gigantic armies of thousands upon thousands of soldiers.
*** '''American Conquest''' is an off-shot mini-series, expanding game mechanics from Cossacks and covering the period between Cortes conquest of Aztec Empire till American Revolutionary War. An expansion is dedicated to American Civil War.
** '''Cultures''' series, but most importantly first two games. You got Amazons, Pimmons (Blue standard humanoids) and Bugmen. Imagine Settlers but more emphasis on family buildings and rising consumer goods demands as tech levels go up.
** '''Dungeon Keeper''', where you play as an evil overlord defending against pesky adventurers and goodie-two-shoes trying to conquer your dungeon, and play it like Sims on crack.
** '''Homeworld''': THE iconic space video game of the early 00's.  Basically Battlestar Galactica if the Galactica was tall instead of long. Homeworld 2 vastly improved game play but the story was kinda crap. The pinnacle was Homeworld Cataclysm which has a truly epic narrative and extra grimdark. Borrows heavily from the artwork of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Foss Chris Foss].  
** '''Myth: the Fallen and Myth: Soulblighter''': Honorary Real Time Tactics equivalent to WHFB Mordheim. Lead a [[Grimdark]] human brigade of rag-tag men-at-arms in an Irish-expy low fantasy setting sprinkled with Vedic World Cycle myths. Humans are mostly Irish, Welsh and Scottish expies with a dash of Saxons fighting against undead led by monstrously powerful "fallen" leaders who were heroes in the last cycle, tragically doomed to return as evil beings. Revolutionary for its time for 3D arrow and grenade/explosive physics, as well as some limited magic and relatively large scale fantasy battles. Both games have hours of music videos between each level with pages out of an illustrated book read by the player character which *never* gets boring.
** '''Original War''', most notable for its unique mix of RPG and RTS elements, with each unit representing an individual character with own backstory, personality and set of skills.
** '''Patrician 3: Rise of the Hansa''' is pretty standard (and good) economic-transport sim, but it makes up with being related with the titular Hansa and the Baltic region during Late Medieval, which rarely show up as a setting despite being what is represented as '''the''' ISO Standard Medieval setting.
** '''Railroad Tycoon 2''' comes with absolutely amazing series of scenarios and an unique, fleshed out post-apo setting. No, not kidding. There are also dozens of fan-made maps further expanding on said setting.
** '''Rise of Nations''' and especially '''Rise of Legends''' which had a steampunk faction and a "totally not the baddies from Stargate" faction. Looks like Age of Empires, but instead of limited resource tokens, map has limitless resource "outputs" like building a lumberyard whose reach defines how much output capacity there is with strict arbitrary limits per city center. City centers define economic output, while military buildings are independent and can be built anywhere within faction borders defined with cultural reach.
** '''The Settlers''' series, especially the I-IV parts. This is less of a straight RTS and more a space-management game, where you're building the most efficient transport system for your settlement, particularly in first two games, with their iconic flag-and-road system. Plot-wise, S3 and 4 are great kitchen-sink settings and Amazons are hot.
** '''[[Starcraft]]''' and '''[[Warcraft]]''': [[Skub|40K and Fantasy rip-offs respectively]], although they were so successful that from video gamers' perspective <del>the jedi are evil</del> ''GW should be paying Blizzard''.
** '''Supreme Commander''', the closest thing to "modern" remake of ''Total Annihilation'' and of course "the endless war IN SPESS!" setting that everyone loves so much. Has the most streamlined RTS system in existence.
** '''Theocracy''', in which you control one of Mesoamerican tribes with a goal of unifying the region. Then the Spanish come in kicking.
** '''Total Annihilation''' The game that started it all when it it comes to 4X RTS. Not much of a story but it had great gameplay that laid the foundations for the stuff to come. There was also a fantasy sequel "Kingdoms" that had a great story and lore (rivaling that of Warcraft at the time) but abysmal gameplay.
** '''Transarctica''' A bizarre mix of an economic sim, adventure game and a railroad simulator. After an experiment to slow down global warming caused a new ice-age, there are only massive trains going through the ice wasteland between the handful of surviving cities and coal mines. Your task is to bring Sun back from beyond the thick clouds surrounding Earth. Very atypical gameplay. And while the premise sounds familiar, it has nothing to do with ''Snowpiercer'', insted being based on ''The Ice Company'' novels from the 80s.
** '''Warfront: Turning Point''': Command and Conquer Generals meets WW2, but everyone fielding experimental mecha, pulp super-weapons and other silly things. Notably, defense buildings come with FPS mode (and this can greatly increase their performance), while weather and terrain affect everything in variety of ways. Ironically the UI is centuries ahead of all C&C series.
** '''Warlords: Battlecry''': RTS with 9, 12, then 16(!!!) standard fantasy races with base building and 4 resources. Plenty fun, though always unbalanced. However, unique playstyles for all races along with very diverse set of customizable hero leaders makes it very enjoyable. The third game goes *entirely* to Warhammer Fantasy Battle territory with merchantile Empire humans fighting lizardmen in gold rich new continent, with a circular continent for elves to fight over.

* Turn-based Strategy
** '''[[Advance Wars|Advance Wars]]''' - It's like Panzer General but [[Anime]]. Except for '''Days of Ruin'''; that game is [[Grimdark]] and thus [[Fist of the North Star|manly]].
** '''[[Armoured Commander II]]''' - Roguelike tank warfare, taking you from 1939 to 1945, 500 tanks/vehicles and lots of by-year campaigns to choose from, along with taking many recognizable mechanics from [[Flames of War]].
** '''Battle Brothers''' - A WFRP-Warhammer Battle game, except without a loicense for that. You control an outfit of (unfit) mercenaries and randomly hired low-lifes, fighting all sorts of fantasy horrors and more mundane brigands in a tactical skirmish game. The world is just flat-out [[Border Princes|the Confederacy]]. It's a turn-based game, where you have to be careful about positioning, tactics, and equipment, or your men will die. They will probably die anyway. There's also a lot of randomness involved, so sometimes your best-laid plans will go to shit.
** '''[[Fire Emblem]]''' - Advance Wars' twin brother who likes swords and magic rather than guns and tanks. Fire Emblem has heavy RPG elements, tasking you with managing a stable of characters with limited EXP to go around and the specter of permadeath hanging overhead. ''Awakening'' and later installments are not approved for being [[Weeaboo|waifu delivery systems cleverly disguised as strategy games.]]
** '''Jagged Alliance I''' & '''II''', A PMC is you! First game lets you fight over special trees that give cancer cure and sell the sap on a single island, the sequel is far bigger. You got a tyrant queen in a Latin American gold-rich country so you run around and fight her forces, given a seed money by the exiled King, then finance the rest of the war yourself using gold mined. Imagine oldschool XCOM with realistic weapons and more ballistics.
** '''[[King of Dragon Pass]]'''
** '''Panzer General''' - The first decent "Tabletop WW2 meets PC" back in '94, it's the second inspiration for [[Nazi Equipment]] and is the Mecca of wehraboo'ism. Spawned an entire series of games.
*** Of note from that series: '''Fantasy General''', which is, other than some rather questionable AI balancing, a fairly fun "D&D Wargame" style affair.
** '''Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale''' a Japanese game about running a shop, which sells and buys items used by dungeon-crawling adventurers. Much more engaging than it sounds and full of cutting humour. Capitalism, ho!
** '''Valkyria Chronicles''' series - JRPG fantasy world version of World War II. Quite a bit of depth and a supporting cast of characters.  
** The '''UFO: After[X]''' series which is essentially an X-Com made grimdark. How grim? The ''bad'' ending of the first game, ''Aftermath'', is canon.
** The original '''[[X-Com|X-COM: UFO Defense]]'''
** The new '''[[X-Com|XCOM: Enemy Unknown]]''' and its sequel, '''XCOM 2'''.
*** XCOM and XCOM 2 mods: '''The Long War'''.  Both versions add dramatically to their respective games, transforming them from comparatively quick, light experiences to fatigue-worn wars.  Buckle up.  Plays a lot like Valkyria Chronicles except with destructible terrain and lots of chest-high walls.
** ''Templar Battleforce'' Do you want to play a Space Hulk game with all the serial numbers filed off, which expands into a much larger campaign dealing with a "tyranid" infestation, "imperial" corruption, and "Genestealer" cultists? Then you play this. A top-down, turn-based squad game, you control the titular "Templar Battleforce (Space Marine Company)" dealing with a Terrox infestation (Tyranid Splinter Fleet) which has attacked your Battle-Barge. After repelling the infestation, you chase the surviving Terrox down to the recently settled planet below.