Who here enjoys complex historical strategy games?

Sign me up, but I have a specific taste for turn-based grand strategy historical games. I never liked hexagons, so I skipped a lot of the otherwise "complex" strategy games, until I discovered Ageod and games based on their AGE engine. Been an ardent supporter ever since.

You want a copy of Imperialism?

I do, although I'm still new to operational level strategy games.

Right now I've been playing a lot of Conquest of the Aegean, which is a company level operational level game (you can control up to multiple corps though). Unlike most, it's real time, though it's not even remotely "click festy", since you're moving around hundreds of men so stuff happen slowly.

It has easily the best AI I've seen in a wargame, both for your opponents and for you subordinates (you can issue orders to commanders at various levels to avoid micro and be confident that they will be able to handle it most of the time). The AI opponent frequently will try to flank you, and send recce units deep into your rear to cut off your supply lines+harass base/artillery units. It's very much a challenge.

It also has significant order delay, which means you can pull off feints etc to great effect since any enemy response will be sluggish if you've managed to draw his attention elsewhere. Reserves also are paramount in a way I haven't seen in other wargames.

I highly recommend it. If you're interested in the series you might want to get the newer "Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge" though. It has an updated engine and further improved AI.

Other than that I play Combat Mission a lot, though the AI isn't really up to snuff there so its more a purely vs human affair.

I love this kind of games with a historic background. As a result, I love Paradox's games much more than Civ series. Another ones are historic simulation games from KOEI (Japanese games), but their games are more about historic background (Chinese and Japanese) and gameplay, less about historic accuracy. (That means, they have detail historic background but quite gamey system.) The third are Total War series, but I am really bad at RTS, so I switched to Paradox's games.

You're asking if somebody wants a free game? :P

Complex is okay.
Realistic, not so much.
If at any point I feel you need to be able to actually take over the world in order to win the game by taking over the world then I go elsewhere. Example Cossacks; what is this feeding your troops crap!?

I actually prefer hex based movement to square based.

Of course, free movement or region based is even better....

Panzer General has to be one of my all time favorites, tho there are some good ones from deeper in history as well. Level of complexity is of course something which can change game to game but that's rather nice as it keeps play fresh while still being deep, just have to leapfrog titles a bit :)

That is very nice of you and highly appreciated, but I think it would be better you give it to someone who wants to play the game and is unable afford it.

Ok. But you should give the game a try some time :)

First person to say they want a copy of Imperialism, I will gift them a copy. Merry Christmas!

I do! I'm a big fan of AGEOD games too. I've found Wars in America best as an introduction.

I also have a thing for SSG games (battles in italy, normandy, kharkov) but unfortunately they didn't release anything new years..

nvm

Imperialism looks pretty interesting. More interesting than Civ games, at least. Edit: Nevermind, turns out I've already got something similar I haven't played on Steam. Curse you cheap bundles with all your cheap games!

But for now I need to go back to watching what sounds like a French guy on Youtube doing a let's play of it. :P And I also need to check my Steam account to see if there's anything similar I've looked over from an old bundle...