I'm new to older PC games for the most part. I'm a huge fan of console turn based strategy like Advanced Wars and Fire Emblem. What titles like that are available on GoG that you guys would recommend? Thanks in advance.

For large-scale maps, with an economy to care for:
- Master of Magic
- Heroes of Might & Magic
- Age of Wonders

For tactical combat:
- Jagged Alliance 2
- Silent Storm

But these are all "heavier" games than Advance Wars.

But certainly someone else may suggest something more adequate than I can. I too like Advance Wars.

Oh! I just remembered! Take a look at Battle for Wesnoth. It is a free game, not in GOG.
A new version just came out: http://wesnoth.org/

Edit: fixed my broken post.

There's also the Master of Orion series, Sid Meier's Colonization, Imperialism, and Lords of Magic, but they're more like Civilization than like Fire Emblem.

UFO: Aftermath might be worth a look, but it's a real time strategy where you can pause or lower the speed in order to set unit commands and the like.

Interesting. Thanks. I'm downloading Wesnoth at the moment.

Battle Isle Platinum - I always felt that BI has quite a few similarities to Advance Wars. This collection also includes the spin-off "Incubation", which has a phenomenal reputation , but I've never played it, unfortunately.

Heroes of Might and Magic - Particularly 2 and 3 are amazing.

For something more along the lines of the X-Com series, there's Jagged Alliance. JA 2 is one of the greatest games ever made, though also very complex, with elements of simulation and RPG (doesn't seem to have Windows 8 support, though). I reckon that JA 1 is also pretty good.

The closest to Fire Emblem you'll find here might be Expedition Conquistador and Banner Saga, both turn-based tactical games with some RPG elements (make choices between battles and live with the consequences), and both good games. Conquistador has exploration, while Banner has a strong story. Both have very cool tactical battles

Silent Storm has some very nice turn based tactics, too, with fun things like destructible environments. Some balance problems during the campaign, though (some classes have trouble leveling, and some late-game elements are somewhat unbalanced).

Going into older titles, my personal recommandation is Jagged Alliance 2. Hire mercenaries and send them on an island to overthrow a psychotic dictator. One of my 10 favourite games ever :) (the first title did not age too well, but the second one is simply perfection)

There are other strategy games with turn-based battles (the Age of Wonders series is very good, for example), but they are not as "close and pesonnal" as those.

EDIT : Oh, and you might want to check the battle Isle games, since Advance Wars is basically a clone of those. Beware, though, those are some very old games, and the UI might be quite obsolete for people used to the niceties of modern games.

I loved both Expedition Conquistador and The Banner Saga. Both are excellent choices

Very nice, back to back votes for Expedition Conquistador and Banner Saga. I'll check those out!

Alpha Centauri, baby!

Panzer General games.

Edit: The Panzer General recommendation comes third-hand. I utterly suck at it.

If you like Advance Wars then you simply must buy Battle Isle Platinum.

I can also highly recommend the Heroes of Might and Magic series if you like a fantasy setting with Heroes leading armies of different human/elves/dwarves/monsters/undead factions against each other.

I haven't seen Eador being recommended yet even though it is a very good game. It is a bit like Civilization though but so are other games that have been recommended like Age of Wonders and Master of Magic.

Or for something more recent, Battle Worlds Kronos.

In Eador you have a capitol from which you start and which you can upgrade by building various buildings which will allow various stuff like hiring new troop types, learning new spells, etc. You can hire new troops but you not only have to pay for them when you buy them you also need to constantly pay upkeep. So there is a limit to how many you can afford and you can't just zerg an opponent. ;-)

Eador: Masters of the broken World is basically a remake of the older Eador: Genesis. Some people prefer the older Genesis because it runs faster and they prefer the old user interface, other people prefer MotbW because of the newer graphics and some other minor enhancements. MotbW was also famous for its bugs when it was released but the worst stuff is already fixed. If you have both just have a look which one you prefer and only play that version.

Just give it a try. If you like fantasy themed turn based strategy mixed with a little bit of Civ you can't go wrong with that game.

The Banner Saga, Expedition conquistador, Silent Storm have set number of troops, like Fire Emblem. For Jagged Alliance 2, you can recruit new mercs between battles and try to get several armies to participate in the same battle, but you have no "onsite unit building", so I'll put it in the "set number of troops" too.

Battle Isle and Battle World Chronos both are quite similar to Advance Wars, and have limited unit building

Eador, Heroes of Might and Magic and Age of Wonder have base development (but few to no new bas creaton) and unit building, and tech/magic research.

Alpha Centauri, Master of Magic, Master of Orion and Colonization are empire building ("4X") games (i.e. "civilization like"), meaning full base building and creation for expansion, full unit building (and even new unit design for Alpha Centauri and the "Master of..." games), tech research... Battle tactics often take a back seat in those games, though, as strategy and empire building are the focus.

All are enjoyable game in their own right, but they are quite different :)

Only the Master of Orions, not Master of Magic.