A warnign ahaead. People who kknow me will know that I talk a lot when I tell about games I like. If you you find me annoying, just skip the entire post and simply tell me what strategy games you like. If you are still interested, you can read below.
I'm not including AI War for obvious reasons. It deserves a place int his list but there is a whole forum about this game here, so I don't need to talk about it.
Earth 2150 series
Actually three games (Escape from the Blue Planet, The Moon Project, Lost Souls). The story of Earth 2150 is that after a big nuclear war, the earth left its orbit and races towards the sun. The three factions that live on earth are now faced with their imminent death. The only hope for survival are ark ships that transport humanity to mars.However, because of previous wars, mainly the big war in 2140, resources are rare on earth and there isn't enough metal left to save everyone, so each faction fights over the leftovers.
You play as oen of the three factions and each faction has a different play style and different units. The Eurasian Dynasty (ED) can be described as the common modern army faction of europe. They have little technological advancement and their units are basic helicopters, tanks and jeeps like they are today. However, later in the game they get some very strong weapons with the development of lasers and ion cannons that can kill units without directly damaging them. they also have soem of the most tankiest units int he game, making it hard to kill them.
The United Civilised States are the succesor of the USA. After the USA failed and collapsed, they created a new state under the direction of artificial intelligences, GOLAN and NEO, the first serves as military tactician and the second as politicial adviser. The president in the UCS is not voted but elected from a lottery and serves only a very short time. The UCS uses mechs in different shapes, bipedal or spider-like. They have very strong weapons already in the early game wit plasma cannons being a threat the entire game.
The Lunar Corportation lives actually on the moon and not Mars and are a feminist commune that hates violence and war. But because of the upcoming destruction of earth they have no other choice but to koin the war. Because they aren't interested in war, they have very poor units with almost no fighting power. However, their units can regenerate health over time and are the only units in the entire game to do so. They have also very fast units and all units can hover over water unlike the other factions, making them usable in multiple situations. They also have the unique ability not to rely on builder units but instead you can build where you have vision and units nearby. The buildings get send down directly from moon (where the LC actually resides).
What I liek about the game is the unit builder. You can use the chassis and weapon for every unit on your own, deciding what you need in what situation. You can even combine multiple weapons on some of the stronger units. The main camapign of the game features many different missions and most of the time is your goal to collect a specific amoutn of resources fot the space ship. You can always decide to use resources on a mission either for the overall end goal and send it to your space ship or you use it directly on the mission map for units in order to defeat your opponent and get his resources as well. If you defeat your opponent fast enough, there are still enough resources left for you to send to your base. There is also an overall time limit that ticks down in every mission. If you cannot complete the ship before it reaches zero, you loose the game. On the brigth side, you don't have to win every single mission int he game, only some very important missions have to be won. However, you loose the benfits if loosing a mission, for example you loose a new prototype that you should've rescued, so you cannot build this new unit in later missions.
Thandor
A german sci-fi strategy game that wasn't very popular outside of Germany. The story isn't very clever btu the gameplay itelf is good. In the future humanity has expanded it reaches among multiple planets and deep into space but eventually discovered the alien race "Golraths" who fought mankind mercilessly. The only chance was for all factions of mankind to unite and build the "Alliance". They won the war but soon after it the factions break up again and do their own thing. With the return of the Golraths, the remains of the Alliance have no other choice but to force the other factions back into the alliance, even if it means to fight them. The missions feature battles against each of the different factions (each reresented by a different color) until they decide to join you again for the final mission against the black Golraths. Unlike Earth 2150, this game uses the same units for every faction, they are only represented by color. Common units are jeeps, mechs, ships, tanks and later hovering units. In order to gain access to new units and weapons you have to research it in different research facilities that you can build. The game uses two resources, xenit and tritium. Xenit is basically metall and can be extratced on specific spots with a mine. Tritium are radioactive hydrogen atoms that are extratced from specific water spots with special pumps. Unlike other rts games, there is no limit on how much you can extract from one spot (as far as I remember) but you can only build one mine/pump at the spot because multiple mines won't improve the production. You can however upgrade mines and pumps for more extraction. For more you simply need a new spot where you can build. Xenit is used for building units and buildings, tritium is used as energy resource in power plants. A special rule int he game is, that you can only build near your headquarter and other buildings you have built. To expand your reach, you have to build more or use a special "settler" unit that acts as minituarized, mobile headquarter and will transform into a building once used up. The goal in every mission is to destroy the enemy headquarter. I really like the concept of the game and how the different units work and itneract. Tanks for an example are very strong armored and hard to kill, but also the slowest unit in the game with short weapon range. It's not easy to kill them but you can outrun them. Walkers are bipedal mechs and can mount multiple weapons but are a little expansive and the earlier models are squishy. Jeeps/cars are the cheapest unit sin the game but can mount only weak weapons and are easy to destroy, they serve as scouts or early harassing method. Glider are, despite being an hovering unit, very slow, but can mount the strongest weapons in the game. They are the ultimate end game unit. Therer are also some minor sea units but there aren't many maps with water and the ones that have water don't rely on sea dominance.
If you are really nasty, you can use planes. Planes aren't directly controllable and reside in their specific airport. they are armed with special bombs and you can select a region that they shall bomb, travelling to the specific location after some time and dropping their package.
Space Colony
Combine Sims with space and aliensand you have a basic idea what this game is about. In Space Colony you control multiple colonists on a planet that work for a big and greedy trading company. Your mission is to collect resources on planets and create products to sell for your employer. Besides that you have also to maintain the well being of your colonits in best Sims manner. You have to feed them, wash them, make them happy, let them make friends with each other and so on. On some planets there are also aliens that attack your base and that you have to figth off with turrets and shields. Unlike Sims, all colonists are predesigned, everyone has specific traits and abilities. The campaign eventually branches into two paths, one militaristic where you fight aliens and another economy path where you have to make enough profit. You can always switch between the two paths when you have finished a mission.
Startopia
Many space games in this list. This is another one. Startopia is more of management game instead of a typical RTS. Your job is to maintain the space station "Startopia" which acts as entertainment ceter for bypassing aliens. You have to build up the needed facilities for snacks, health, resting and a lot of other stuff. In order to build stuff you need boxes with blueprints (and builder robots). At the start of the game you get blueprints for the most needed stuff but later you have to buy or trade with merchants for more. A special feature in the game is that energy acts both as resource and as currency. You need energy to maintain your buildings but you also need it to pruchase new stuff or pay your workers. Customers will of course pay you with energy. Additionally you can collect energy with solar collectors. Later in the game there is also some fighting but not much, the game is mostly about managing yur space station. Soemtimes you have to build prisons because there are criminals amoung the tourists, in some missions there is a rival builder and you have to open his section of the space station and take it over.
The game is really cool but I always failed the mission where you have to produce X amounts of medical supplies because I ran out of time.
Wiggles
Another german game, in other countries it was called "Diggles" instead. This time it's not about space, it's about dwarves. The godfather Odin has lost Fenrir, his pet dog, who escaped to the undergroudn world and goes on a rampage. Odin wants his dog back and tasks the dwarves ith the search for it. The dwarven king decides with a contest which of the different dwarven clans gets the privilege of the mission. The Wiggles clan wins and starts with the search. The game is similiar to Dwarf Fortress (but older) withtout the terrible UI. It also features side view instead of top down view, you view the entire mountain and underground world from the side. You control the dwarves and have to keep them happy with food, sleep, hobbies and other stuff but you also have to sarch for the lost rings of the chain that you need to capture Fenrir. There are a lot of enemies that you can encounter and you have to equip your wiggles with weapons and armor and train them in combat. You can also build traps for the stronger enemies like trolls. Every dwarf has multiple stats(skills he can learn, for cooking, capentry, masonry and other stuff. They train these stats by fulfilling specifics taks, for example cooking a meal or chopping down a mushroom (because trees are too big for the tiny dwarves). You also have to dig out caves otherwise you cannot build new furniture and other stuff, liek a i am spam, a bar, a trainign dojo a sapentry bench and other stuff. If a dwarf has enough experience in one skill, he can research a new beuilding for the entire clan. Eventually your dwarves grow old and die but your dwarves marry and reproduce over time, the offspring has some of the experience of its parents. Its a really good and mostly funny game but the game is giant, you easy loose the orientation in the giant world and the camapign is ramdonly generated each time you start a new one. While the missions are the same, the location of the important stuff shuffles each time. Even with the printed walkthrough I never could complete the game.
Trapt
Hardly a strategy game but I still list it. This game is part of a bigger series but it was the first part that was released outside of japan. In the game you play a princess that has to flee from her castle after she was accused to kill her own father. She escapes to an old mansion which is rumored to be the prison of the devil himself. And exactly that devil gives the princess a special power to protect herself from her pursuers. she can now create and place traps around the mansion and use them to kill enemies. The devil uses the souls of the fallen enemies to free himself and you can use the freed souls as currency to buy new traps.
A typical mission features the protagonist being chased by soem enemies and you have to place traps around the different rooms of the mansion and then bait enemies into the to hurt and kill them. To get the best out of your traps you have t create combos with multiple traps, whcih not only increases the damage but also the amount of soul energy you get from them (in other words, money). There are also some special traps hidden among the mansion that you can activate with special actions that you have to dicover. These traps have a special cutscene when activated (mostly really brutal) and coutn as big combo when used. However they can only be used once per level.
During the development of the game you get access to new rooms (and new environment traps) of the mansion but the enemies get also stronger. If you hurt enemies too much but don't kill them, they will flee the mansion. The way you play the game affects your ending.
Its really interesting to find out how the different traps work together, what effect they have on the envoronment and how to maximize your combos. I think however, the game lacks varitiy towards the end. A lot of the newer traps are just "upgrades" of your starter traps, you eventually also run out of good environment combinations because the different environment traps repeat themself. On some long levels you just run around in sircles and activate the same traps again and again, hoping to get somethign good next time. It is however fun enogh to play for some hours until you run out of things to do.
Dungeon Keeper
A classic among games, so I keep it short. You play as evil presence that manages an underground dungeon. Liek the ones in rpgs but this time you are not the hero, you are the evil mastermind. You dig out rooms, build traps, hire some monsters and wait for stupid heroes to step into your dominion and die. You expand your evil realm with each mission. The game is still one of the most liked games of all times because the concept is so unique. This game was oen of many inspiriations for the flood of sandbox games, for example Dwarf Fortress.
I have many more games but I think I talked already too much.
