Hey guys, so you probably know that AI War was born out of my dad, my uncle, myself, and my uncle's colleague having a weekly strategy game play session, and us being frustrated at the other co-op offerings. We had been playing Supreme Commander 1 and really enjoying that, but exhausted the AI when playing us all against the AI -- either the framerate would be trashed or we would trash the AI (usually both).
AI War started simpler but grew more complex, and the four of us were there from the start. That said, I was still always kind of the general in the group, and they could thus focus on their own sub-empires and managing other things. At least for my dad and uncle, that's how it was. So playing co-op with me in AI War was less complex than it would have been playing it solo. Together we probably put 800ish hours into AI War, and I have well over 2,000 hours into the game. Since my son was born in 2010 I haven't had time for the weekly co-op sessions with them, and they've moved on to other titles, generally simpler ones.
Civ V was kind of a bust because of the turn-based nature being boring while waiting for my uncle with massive armies. They really liked Star Wars Galactic Empires II (I think that was the name) back in the day, but that was a long time ago. They've dabbled in other stuff. Starcraft II was not a hit for very long with them, though I'm not sure why. I think it's too rush-intensive, and they like to turtle and boom. They are various flavors of empire-builders at heart when it comes to their playstyles.
I'm looking for a game that would be reasonably lightweight for them, but still with sturdy enough AI options to keep them busy when it's the three of them playing co-op against something else. I've thought about Europa Universalis IV, it seems really cool to me, but it also seems like something that is pretty complex. I'd enjoy it, and enjoy catching them up to speed on the rules, but I won't be there to do that. My dad was remarking to me recently "why hasn't anybody just made another game like Supreme Commander?"
His birthday is coming up, and I wonder if anyone has any recommendations that you might point me in the right direction with? There are (happily) a lot more strategy games than there used to be, and I don't have a good feel of that level of strategy game at the moment because I don't pay attention to that part of the market anymore. Any ideas?
