I've been playing a bit of Jagged Alliance 2 and X-Com lately and they seem great they're a bit hard for me. Is there anything better to ease me into these games or should I just practice with them more?

I would much prefer recs of games on GOG if there any that fit my request.

Fallout Tactics is teh awesome. It's also a lot easier than Jagged Alliance 2. X-Com I've never played, but JA2 took a bit of time to get the hang of.

I'd second that. I think that game is often overlooked in the series, but it offers some good tactical game play without all of the really complex aspects that make JA and X-Com hard to get into. Try the Heroes of might and magic series and age of wonders if you like turn based fantasy strategy as well, both are well worth the money.

I love X-com to death, but I've never been able to get into JA. X-com broke up encounters into nice self contained missions, but the more...continuous style of JA makes it seem a little hectic to me.

Have you tried X-com Apocalypse? It's probably the easiest of the 3.

Heroes of Might and Magic, Master of Orion 2 and Lords of the Realm 2 are relatively easy to get into.

I played a few games of Master of Orion 2, but I always got spanked.

QFT, Rise of Nations kicks ass

Are console games ok? Front Mission 3, maybe?

What is the difficulty for Galactic Civilizations II? Is it easy? Is it hard?

Does Total Annihilation count?

Battle for Wesnoth.

Completely free, and has campaigns of varying difficulty.

Double QFT

King's Bounty is rather easy if you play as a mage, the class has some overpowered late game skills and from start to finish you always have one or two 'save my ass!' spells on hand.

It has an easy difficulty setting too if you're just wanting to play with the format without thinking overmuch about mistakes = death.

Even though I grew up playing fallout 1 and 2, I never really fell in love with turn based combat until playing Advance Wars on the nintendo DS. Later I loved and lost (years) to Civilization 3. I still have great fun playing titles from the Advance Wars series, Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, and am currently battling through Valkyrie Profile (I keep my DS with it loaded in my bathroom, instead of a magazine)

Yeah that was the one I tried. Part of the difficulty was not entirely knowing what I was doing. I might need to check a FAQ.

For those recommending Heroes, how much better are 2 and 3 than 5? I played some of 5 and it was alright but I didn't really get into it.

I am quite good SRPGs that have been mentioned: Front Mission, Fire Emblem etc.

Anyone have comments on the Battle Isle or MAX games on here?
Not really looking into RTS right now but I will keep that in mind.