Most TBS dont do that, Civ 4 for example, is a very fine game indeed!

Edit: but RTS, yea, usually units can get in each others way, and hence path finding becomes a big issue. Total Annihilation for example, as good as that game is, you cannot launch large scale ground assaults, all your unitsget blocked up and wait to be killed.

Indeed. though the amount of processing power hopefully is minimal unless it has a screensaver option or something.

I recall Uplink is a game where one player might have it running 24/7. Course the events in the game may take hours to spawn or act upon, so having it sync with real time, not pausing and not speeding forward could make for an interesting game approach. (I think it's like 10 days in when you get the first email that goes towards the plot of the game)

But most games... setting up a shop and hiring someone to sell your stuff, maybe seeing them haggling over prices, or getting subtle upgrades. (Got a blacksmith who makes a better sword, so switches it with your nicked sword and works on your current sword, so long as you don't have an enchantment on it that you can't live without) or some other minor progress. Something where you aren't counting to 10 and then have to do something again, to which i don't see the point in waiting for 10.

The only concern that I have not only with Civ 4, but Civ games in general, is how easily it is for me to forget about time. This is the reason why I've recently stopped playing Civ 4 for quite some time as the predicament really robbed away any other activities that I could've done had I not played Civ 4 for too long. I don't think the in-game alarm even would help me, as playing a game with a time limit really makes me stop enjoying the game as I would start to look at how many minutes do I have left in between turns. But that's just me. My time management is just bad I guess.

Since Civilization IV, one of my absolute favorite games on GOG thanks to its genious design, has already been mentioned, I'll add the original Colonization to the list. Of course, nowadays the graphics will look rough at first sight, but gameplay and immersion hold up extremely well.

Edit: which had already been mentioned as well! ;)

Wizardry 8 and the Bard's Tale games aren't strictly turn-based (though it isn't really an issue in BT1 and BT3).


If anything, I think that turn-based gameplay is really the only good way to have one player control multiple characters. Disgaea would not work if it were real-time (and, in any case, it's not that hard to solo the game; in fact, it's common for players to have only one really good unit in the post-game because of the effort required to get your equipment to be powerful enough; the rest of the party is there only to (ab)use the lift/throw mchanic).

The issue of keeping track of everything is manageable in turn-based games; in real-time games, it becomes too much because you don't have time to think carefully, whereas in turn-based you do.
Honestly, the best strategy in Disgaes is really to kill enemies before they get a chance to act; in the Item World, you usualy want to avoid using the End Turn command unless you are sure that no enemies can attack you.

Evade tanking isn't completely reliable (though I hear that, in later games in the series (3 and 4), it ends up being the only way to tank, as any character will be killed in one hit in high level content).

I note that Tangledeep is a roguelike that has something very similar to Disgaea's item world. Granted, the numbers don't get nearly as large (you'll probably only ever have a few thousand HP at most), but it still has the whole mechanic of going into items to upgrade them.

Technically, Wizardry 4 (unless you count the Wizardry Archives version) and Wizardry 8 aren't strictly turn based.

Is tennis a turn based game?

It kinda has time limits on the turns, but so do many other turn based games (especially multiplayer ones).

No but they are turn based nontheless, strictly doesn't really matter unless it was specified in the OP imo.

As for me, I couldn't be happier about getting rid of that RNG system that had plagued the series from the start. I was happy enough to see doomstacks gone, but ecstatic that you could no longer get the old ''ancient spearmen can beat Panzers if RNGsus wills it'' trope.

I am playing Disgaea 5 right now. I am a huge of the series and and a fan of tactic SRPGs in general.

As for my suggestions (some of which have been listed and some which have not)

Disgaea series
Fire Emblem series
Dragon Quest Series (DQ VIII being my favorite in the series)
Etrian Odyssey series
Wizardry 8
Valkyria Chonicles
Lords of Xulima
Lords of Grimrock
Legends of the Sky series
Final Fantasy Tactics
Rainbow Skies

And here is a list of others with videos to see games similar (though I don't agree all these are similar) but is is still a guide to check out 50gameslike

One more list to check out with a bunch of interesting games. Game Cupid Games like Blackguards 2

I don't mind turn-based in RPGs, though I prefer real-tme with pause, to be honest, and I have yet to find the turn-based strategy game that really manages to get me hooked. Somehow I always feel like I am constantly waiting for something to happen, but it never really does. The Total War Series is somewhat of an exception, although I like the real-time battles more than the actual turn-based part.

Civilization 2 had a good way of handling it; units get more hit points than in later Civ games (10 at minimum), and more advanced units get more HP than more primitive ones (Gunpowder being the first big jump). So, to kill a panzer, a phalanx would have to win the dice roll 30 times before the panzer wins just 10 times, which is probably not going to happen (this assumes both units start at full HP).

This *was* a problem in the original Civilization, where all units had only 1 HP, and hence only one dice roll had to be made.

It turns out that only 1, 3, and the original version (only) of 5 are strictly turn based, and DQ9, the 3DS remakes of DQ7 and DQ8, and (to my understanding) DQ11 (and the JP-only MMO that was stupidly given a number), are far from turn-based (only the battles are). Specifically, the violations are:

DQ2: There's a lottery where there's a slot machine you stop in real time, and where, I believe, it matters when you stop it.

DQ4: There is one part where you have to sneak through a jail to rescue someone. It is a stealth sequence, but fortunately quite short and rather easy (having an overhead view without anything blocking vision helps here).

DQ5: In the remakes, there is a board game minigame, and certain squares take you to an area where you have a time limit in which to gather all the treasuers in the area. (Older DQ3 remakes also have this minigame, but lack this particular event.)

DQ6: There is one part where wou have to follow someone without being seen by them. Unlike the DQ4 example, this segment is quite annoying.

DQ7: I remember there being moving platforms in this one. The 3DS remake has visible enemies that move in real-time.

DQ8: Certain special monsters you can catch move in real time outside of combat. In the 3DS remake, this is now the case for all normal enemies.

DQ9/DQ11: Visible enemies that move in real-time. (I haven't played DQ11 (and probably won't anytime soon), so it could have other violations, but this one sticks out like a sore thumb since it permeates the entire game, except in encounter-free zones and on the ship.)

While generally a good choice, Wizardry 8 is one of the two bad examples for this purpose; the game is only turn-based during combat, and enemies move in real-time the rest of the time.

Any other Wizardry game except 4 is a better example of a turn-based game.

Assuming you mean Legend of Girmrock, that game is not turn-based; it is real-time just like Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder (games that are similar enough to consider them to be in the same sub-sub-genre).

This game *is* turn-based, but be aware that it was made during the time where Square did not care about balance; in fact, the game just hands you an overpowered character later in the game (you don't even have to go out of your way to get them on your team).

(Final Fantasy 7 (not actually turn-based during combat, real-time minigames and one real-time segment in a mandatory dungeon) and SaGa Frontuer (turn-based combat, but visible enemies that move in real-time otherwise) are other games Square made around this time that have severe balance issues.)

Yeah, my bad on Legend of Grimrock. I forgot it was real-time, I only played a bit of it so far. As for the DQ series, iand such, turn-based is a usually reference to combat.

Leaving out all games that allow you to explore and move freely is ridiculous in my opinion. That takes out the whole DQ series, Legends and Trails series and many others mentioned by others in here.

I'm not leaving out all games that allow free exploration; I am mainly concerned about leaving out games that have real-time components, particularly those where the enemies move in real time outside of combat, turning the game into an action game when you want to avoid (or seek out, in the case of things like metal slimes) combat.

I am, however, excluding the random, inconsequential, movement of random towns people; if one gets in your way, it is an inconvenience, but it's not the sort of thing that results in extra challenges or failure conditions. (Final Fantasy had the right idea by making NPCs move faster when you push up against them; too bad Dragon Quest neven did that; Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and (original) SaGa 3 even let you jump over them (though there are still situations in SaGa 3 where they can still get in your way despite that).)

I do not know how the situation works out in the Legends and Tails games you mention.

(Random (?) fact: The DOS version of Wizardry 4 *is* strictly turn based, even though the Apple 2 and PlayStation versions are not.)