@@thediamondtree4027 literally only a skin to a 20yo game Its still nice that we get them, same.with RA1 and WC3 remaster. But its not enough to qualify the genre as healthy and Alive from a production view.
Pretty sure that if the metric was "hours played" rather than "peak players", paradox games (mostly EU4, HOI4 & CKII) would obliterate the rest of the market.
Honestly man, after i played Stellaris i didnt want to play Endless Space 2 anymore. Im not saying its bad, i love it, its just that the gameplay feels so slow and sometimes i feel that the game is so weird, in the sense that the buildings that you construct on planets often have strange buffs or hard to use traits. Also, something that i noticed is that you spend so many turns waiting, waiting for fleets to arrive at a certain system or constructions to be finished, that makes the game feel very slow for me. So currently when i want to play a space strategy game, i go for Stellaris. I still like Endless Space, i have both games.
I love ES2. It is alive. When I tried Stellaris, it seem dead to me, it was not important which new civ I met everytime, they were just some random forcibly-glued parameters. Compare with the background of the Riftborn, the Horatio, etc. (Sorry for my poor English, btw).
@@krustimolu348 i agree with you there, the factions didnt seem to differentiate between one another in Stellaris. In this sense ES2 is superior, the lores of the factions, the outlandish looks of their characters and ships, the huge differences between the factions makes it so interesting.
@@joostvandenoord4336 And can I speak? I have several thousand hours in paradox games (EU, CK, HoI, Stellaris and this Rome shit). Each game has a mass of mechanics taken from the others, so if you can play one, you can do all of them. And paradox has the worst publishing policy in the world - "let's make a game of shit quality, and then we improve it for years". As a result, it is worth buying a paradox one or two years after the premiere. But the paradox is a monopolist, so we play the shitty (and really simple! But they pretend to be something more complicated) games with even worse AI (seriously, HoI or Stellaris is unplayable in single player). Oh, fuck you paradox...
after playing VI i don't think i can go back to V anytime, love the new mechanics like districts builders etc... just like i i cant go back to historical total wars after warhammer
On a daily average TW: Warhammer 2 far exceeds 3 Kingdoms in player count, the latter never really became loved by the masses. As I write this 7.000 are playing 3 Kingdoms and 45.000 are playing TW: Warhammer 2.
As I write it 25k are playing Warhammer 2 and 10k are playing 3K. Warhammer 2 is still so popular because of quality content CA is making with each DLC and FLC. 3K to this day had only 2 DLCs (I dont count Yellow Turbans) both of them had mostly negative reception and main free content was Dynasty Mode which offered nothing in terms of campaign gameplay. 3K is a good game that needs more flavor so campaigns wont be so repetetive.
You mean roller coaster tycoon 2? It wasn’t as good as the first game, not close. They made some small changes that made a big difference in a bad way. Still decent though, but the original is the best
I know there are players who think we live in a dark age of strategy games but I personally liked the list of games which were on the list and I think that I play them a lot more in the next year. Plus we still have great games and DLCs coming in 2020. I think it has been a good year. My personal favorites were the Paradox titles (including Imperator yes) and Three Kingdoms.
What we really need for Planet Zoo is the abilty to merge it with Planet coaster if you own tgat game too, so you can make hybrid Theme park-zoo parks!
Amazing video Darren ! I hope that 2020 will be a better year for the strategy, especially that it brings new things to the genre, although I am not so sure. Quite surprised by Planetfall but also They Are Billions , apparently the campaign did not help a lot the game. Happy new year !
Yeah, that Total War: Warhammer thing is 100% right for my case, I only bought it because I got Warhammer 2 as a gift and wanted to play as Bretonnia in Mortal Empires, I've never played the first game.
I quit buying total war for the same reasons. Just kept rehashing old games as new then release them with all the content hidden behind dlc that was immediately ready to buy. Hast had a good TW since napoleon
I'd like a first-person RTS. Playing a mayor of a city, going to workplace, making decisions, traveling around the city and seeing how the decisions affect the city.
I have it, and although I've had issue with difficulty balancing, and needing more instruction early on in the campaign, functionally it's worked for me. I've played for 38 hours, only had one bug that was so bad I had to force close it. So on a technical front it's been solid. However, I started playing the game later in the month from when it actually released, so I can't comment on what it was like Day 1.
i really liked three kingdoms, but after half a year i found myself playing total war warhammer 2 again, the replayability is just way higher, especially now after the performance update
Yea. Warhammer 2 just gets way more attention from Creative Assembly, you can't even finish one campaign and the next DLC will already be out. I think thats what keeps it alive. Thats awesome imo
@@nathantop8561 Correct, what made them special was the tactics, the world map, three kingdoms is just spam the same 2 units, use the same strategy on every map, win the game
I didn't know Three Kingdoms had almost 200k players... That's a nice score, perhaps 90% of players are from China. But nevertheless, Warhammer II is still superior game.
I also prefer Warhammer 2. I think what makes it so good is all the attention it gets from its developer. But the politics in 3K are way better than in Warhammer 2
Three Kingdoms deservedly reigns supreme. It is in my mind the best Total War game to date. TW games are very much iterative and this one just nailed it.
Well i prefer Warhammer 2, largely because i fucking adore fantasy. I guess people who like fantasy prefer Warhammer 2 and people who like historical Total War prefer 3K. It feels like Warhammer 2 is the main focus of Creative Assembly at the moment, so it gets a lot of DLCs. You can't even finish a campaign before the next DLC is released. But i think everyone knows that the diplomacy in 3K is just way better.
@@Haarsgard there was a pause in dlc and updates for 3K as the first one was received poorly so CA are trying to change up the formula but their are already 3 dlc's announced for it this year so I don't think it's really fair to say one has more focus than the other
Top strategy games: 1) An economic simulator 2) City builder 3) Theme park simulator 4) Theme park simulator 5) Actual strategy game 6) Theme park simulator 7) ...
I liked Stellaris...until i had to make an account on their site...i didn't need it before the update...for me it was enough that i log on steam...such a rip off...
I tried to play crusader kings 2 so many times. I’m not a super experienced strategy gamer but I have my fair amount of experience in civ and some of the endless legend series but geez I could not wrap my head around crusader Kings 2. Ive watched hours of video tutorials but I couldn’t figure it out. It might be time to go back and try it out again
CK2 feels to me like there are a few pieces of information I need for it all to click into place, but noone who plays it can explain what those pieces are. I just can't do anything so gave up because it's just too baffling.
@@jumbo4billion You just have to go back and keep trying until it finally does click. Theres a lot going on but once you figure it out its amazing, especially for history buffs. problem is the only good way to figure it out is first hand. I had to reboot it up 4-5 times and watch people play it on youtube to get it to click
@@rickyrick2330 I've tried for about 20 hours and watched a ton of videos, can't be arsed to spend any more time on a game that I just don't understand.
@@jumbo4billion your not missing anything, i gave it a couple hundred hours the whole time thinking am i missing out here? wheres the fun? its pretty over rated imo.
The DLC is fucking ridiculously overpriced. Maybe I'd look at the game for more than 30 minutes if it wasn't $40 total for 2 DLC that have MIXED reviews.
@@RepublicOfPlay I think with that definition there are tons of games that would be considered strategy games too that no one really does in practice. I mean you could argue a game like Diablo is a strategy game in that case by saying that you're planning out your character build way in advance etc
I have nothing good to say about City Skylines.I was locked out of my game on Steam,they wanted me to jump through hoops to gain access to a game i OWN.Besides that ,it's a game that gets boring real fast,a few hours in and you've seen everything.
It's really great, I played it on Switch but it's on Steam - It's basically a final fantasy Tactics type game - hire characters to make a party, and then fight turn based battles on a grid with various classes and enemy types. Sort of like a banner saga.
Every time a new Total War game came out, it was almost always (*coughs* Rome 2 *coughs) superior to its predecessor, and me and my friends would move across to it. When Three Kingdoms came out... we enjoyed it, dont get us wrong... but we kept looking back at Warhammer 2. And then returned to Warhammer 2. Three Kingdoms is an amazing game but for the first time, the Total War franchise is facing the same issue Civilisation has faced for a while, where new games struggle to compete with the sheer quantity of their predecessors.
No one is really talking about it, but a game called Kingdom Under Fire The Crusaders was released on steam. Its a really fun strategy game, but it is kind of old though.
ideally you would want to make a custom filtered ranking. somebody would like to filter out fanboys rating 10s, or trolls rating 1s, or reviewers with high deviations who pretty much only have binary rating system, or with minimum amount of reviews, so you could assume they have some competence in rating. personally, I find critic part of metacritic most akin to my baseline taste far more than fanboy-hater dominated user reviews with argumentative skills of a rock
Total War Three Kingdoms is really dull compared to WH2+1, but it's about China, so of course it will outsell any other strat titles in China. Doesn't reflect quality or gameplay.
Agreed. Steel Division 2 did horribly at marketing, because they didn't call it "Wargame: Steel Division 2". The result is that, very few Wargame: Red Dragon fans even know it exists. I spent years not knowing there was a new Eugen game.
@@manictiger it does play quite differently to the wargame series though. It should have been on your Steam recommended list though, their algorithm is pretty good at picking stuff based on your library, at least sometimes.
I have mixed feelings about how frostpunk is placed. Imo its one of the best survival city builder strategy game of all time; if not ever. Then again the genre itself is a niche one
Of the games you highlighted, my favorites that I play (in order from best to least best): Cities Skylines, Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4, Total War Three Kingdoms, XCom2, Warhammer 2, Civilization 6, Crusader Kings and definitely least and most mad about, Imperator Rome. My biggest disappointments not making the list: Transport Fever 2 and Gary Grigsby's War in the West & War in the East.
Excellent info but it lacks one minor fact. I would appreciate the addition of the audio stating if the game is multi-player only or single-player only or single & multi-player modes available.
@@dawson5853 I say that because the game is a spam fest that requires you to place houses all the time, it's a game of houses more than a zombie since I can lose some missions if I don't got enough population. I really like the art style and the theme the are billions brought with it but it's just too grindy.
Aksam Rafiz Spam fest? Sounds like you need to follow a build order. And yes keeping spaces for your residencies is a large part of the game. It’s part of the strategic aspect. It’s definitely not spam.
@@RepublicOfPlay The hunt continues. It's just that those weird-looking planes are Vickers Wellesleys, and were almost entirely retired by the time WW2 started. You don't see film of them very often, so I was curious where it had come from.
three kingdoms was really good but warhammer is still in the top most played and with new dlcs and updates is shots to 2020 as one of the most played games in the saga :3
Even though I really like the other total wars when I first play them, they just can't have the faction or army variety that warhammer does. You can only do so much when all your factions are humans that all need to be based on the same historical time period. But when some of them are dinosaur people, nazi rats, angry skeleton bois, vampire pirates, demons, tree men etc.? Much more replayability with all the unique kinds of units and faction playstyles.
Nah the dimplomacy suck balls. Your allies are not usefull for shit. And again the game is basically: Piece treaties, war, war, piece, war, war.... for 150 turn before the chaos shows up. This is so freacking repetitive. The game could shine more if they developped the diplomacy and the politics systems more, but it seems like the Warhammer Universe doesn't give a shit about either of those things and prefer to be just a giant massive massacre.
Paradox interactive- 6 games SEGA- 4 games Frontier developments- 3 games 2K- 2 games Xbox game studios- 1 game 11 bit studios- 1 game Kalypso media- 1 game
The problem with Paradox game is that you can play just the base game but it's rather bland and incomplete then the DLCs cost so much more than the game
Tru but u really can’t do anything about it, u can’t tell paradox to lower prices because they will tell to fuck off. I personally do pirate their games as I don’t even have a credit card to buy games lol
Roller coaster tycoon 2 was the best game ever made. Mostly because you could make a death coaster that shoots people into the water where they would drown. My visitors couldn’t wait to get on that thing
@@bilymunroeyahoo Dude, if you are to believe the 'forums' before purchasing any game you won't be able to buy any game... Forums are only for complaining, questions and ranting. It is not broken, you probably haven't played more then 2 hours and don't understand jacksh#t about it and just concluded "STElLAriS mUST Be BroKen!!#$!$!#" or are still made about replacing the tile system. It is time to move on, spreading lies like "STELLARIS IS BROKEN" is just childish and sad on your end.
@@sqocks8254 so you havent seen the 900 page, moderator pinned (and named) mega thread for performance issues. Nor have you seen the 200+ page thread for sector issues? Maybe take a look at some of the other stuff while you are there: forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/stellaris.900/ Additionally I've got literally hundreds of hours in the game and have been playing since it was first released. The devs have now broken it, but you know what, it's your money (or probably your moms as you sound about 12) - feel free to buy whatever peice of shit game you like as i, and the thousands of other petitioning Paradox to try and make the game playable again, must know 'jackshit'.
I took the info from the Steam product page, the dates don't match up. Google on the other hand says: War of the Chosen was released August 29, 2017. The beefy free DLC for War of the Chosen titled Tactical Legacy Pack was released for free for a month for all existing users in October 2018. It now costs 8$. I forgot to add, I really enjoyed the video :D
@@RepublicOfPlay No, War of the Chosen was released in August 2017. Then in October 2018, an add-on for War of the Chosen came out called the Tactical Legacy Pack, but it was still included in the same Steam entry. However, then in December 2018, Steam decided to separate the Tactical Legacy Pack from War of the Chosen. I can only presume that what then happened is that they had to make a new Steam page to accomodate this and the main War of the Chosen entry was thus moved to it, and then its listed release date was then also incorrectly updated to say December 3rd 2018: the date of the entries' separation, instead of its actual release date of August 27th 2017. In other words the current Steam information is simply wrong, but it is a 2017 expansion pack
EU4 below Imperator? That's rather surprising to me. Paradox was absolutely killing it in that list, though given their game list probably should have been expected.
@ger du Ah that would make sense. With EU4 and CK2 most people won't buy the DLC's unless they're on sale. I know personally I bought maybe only half the DLC's at full price and waited for the rest
I loved Three kingdoms the first weeks, but meanwhile I came back a little to Rome 2 and it’s insane how battle animation in Three Kingdoms are bad and clunky while in Rome 3 those are still amazing What a shame tbh
18 total war warhammer 17 Planet Coaster 16 frostpunk 15 jurassic world evolution 14 xcom2 13 tropico 6 12 two point hospital 11 crusader kings 2 10 europa universalis 4 09 age of empires 2 definitive edition 08 imperator rome 07 hearts of iron 4 06 cities skylines 05 stellaris 04 planet zoo 03 total war warhammer 2 02 civilzation 6 01 total war three kingdoms
I played ANNO 1800 when it was free for a weekend. I love that game, but uplay is so shit I cannot be bothered to buy it, and I dont trust downloading epic games store. Wish it was just on steam
I mean even if it was on steam youd still have all the hassle associated with uplay anyway lol I own a few games that are on steam via uplay. Theres really no avoiding uplay even if you buy through steam. Uplay is still mandatory you launch the game through steam and it launches uplay for you to log in if your not already lol. Really it's no different just pointless steam achievements and shit is the only difference. And i dont give a flying fuck about achievements and shit i just wanna play the damn game
Troubleshooter is a X-com like strategy game which i can recommend. It's still in early access yet already so good and complex that it's 20bucks, when not on discount, for it is underpriced in my opinion. Totally worth to check it out. I'm a player not a dev of that game btw.
It makes me sad to have seen the death of base building RTS games, such as red alert, tiberium sun/wars and so on.
Except for Sc2.
Aoe2.de?
literally aoe II de?
@@thediamondtree4027 literally only a skin to a 20yo game
Its still nice that we get them, same.with RA1 and WC3 remaster.
But its not enough to qualify the genre as healthy and Alive from a production view.
@@dalitas You know aor
e IV is comming?
Gotta love a good ol' list video :) - Happy New Year, I'm super motivated going into 2020! Can't wait to get stuck into new projects and videos!
RepublicOfPlay Do a list video of the best list videos. I get confused easily and can’t choose the right one
Another great video good job.
Great list Darren. I have most of this games, want a few of them and don't want the others.
Nice list! But why not add the list in the description? Also, is that gameplay footage from your channel? If not, why not give credit to the creators?
You had high expectations of this year, sorry to let you down bud
We need a new Star Wars Empire at War
That isnt by EA
@@HDTomo too unlock the Play button pay 15.99$
There is a Mod recently announced, who re did nearly everything.
Play the new mod they reworked almost everything
It would probably be set in the dreadful sequel era though.
The lack of Endless Space 2 is very surprising.
I spent 2k hours of my life on paradox games. Those are addictive. 75% of that on EU4.
did they ever fix that turn 200 bug?
Pretty sure that if the metric was "hours played" rather than "peak players", paradox games (mostly EU4, HOI4 & CKII) would obliterate the rest of the market.
Honestly man, after i played Stellaris i didnt want to play Endless Space 2 anymore. Im not saying its bad, i love it, its just that the gameplay feels so slow and sometimes i feel that the game is so weird, in the sense that the buildings that you construct on planets often have strange buffs or hard to use traits. Also, something that i noticed is that you spend so many turns waiting, waiting for fleets to arrive at a certain system or constructions to be finished, that makes the game feel very slow for me. So currently when i want to play a space strategy game, i go for Stellaris. I still like Endless Space, i have both games.
I love ES2. It is alive. When I tried Stellaris, it seem dead to me, it was not important which new civ I met everytime, they were just some random forcibly-glued parameters. Compare with the background of the Riftborn, the Horatio, etc.
(Sorry for my poor English, btw).
@@krustimolu348 i agree with you there, the factions didnt seem to differentiate between one another in Stellaris. In this sense ES2 is superior, the lores of the factions, the outlandish looks of their characters and ships, the huge differences between the factions makes it so interesting.
Imperator above eu4 that’s a surprise
Recent dlc for it has been underwhelming.
Also in my opinion imperator is more approachable especially for new players that may find eu4 overwhelming
@@R3GARnator underwhelming, nonexistent would be better. There literally hasn't been a dlc since 2018
He wasn't clear but when the title shows up he lists peak players, which can influence the rating vastly compared to other forms of evaluation.
@@snoboreddotcom Thats bc they're working on the big europe overhaul dlc
Jesus. Paradox basically took over the strategy charts.
jaguar warrior spoken like a person who’s never played a Paradox game lmao
@@treejan5782 he has played them, but thought they were all too complicated for him to understand.
@jaguar warrior XDD
DLC has taken over Paradox, thank the community for mods :)
@@joostvandenoord4336 And can I speak? I have several thousand hours in paradox games (EU, CK, HoI, Stellaris and this Rome shit).
Each game has a mass of mechanics taken from the others, so if you can play one, you can do all of them.
And paradox has the worst publishing policy in the world - "let's make a game of shit quality, and then we improve it for years". As a result, it is worth buying a paradox one or two years after the premiere.
But the paradox is a monopolist, so we play the shitty (and really simple! But they pretend to be something more complicated) games with even worse AI (seriously, HoI or Stellaris is unplayable in single player). Oh, fuck you paradox...
CIv VI left me cold for some reason. Played it a few days and then never went back to it. Civ IV & V are still the best for me.
I haven't played any of the older civ games, but this game has me hooked. I've been playing it everyday for a month or so
Thiar - Civ 6 would feel cold if I only played the base game. The 2 expansions make it good.
I cant get into civ 4, its that bizzare middle ground between old school mechanics and new graphics
after playing VI i don't think i can go back to V anytime, love the new mechanics like districts builders etc... just like i i cant go back to historical total wars after warhammer
Couldn’t agree better loved Civ V Civ VI just got to boring for me for some reason
On a daily average TW: Warhammer 2 far exceeds 3 Kingdoms in player count, the latter never really became loved by the masses. As I write this 7.000 are playing 3 Kingdoms and 45.000 are playing TW: Warhammer 2.
3Kingdoms is bs, never liked it
As I write it 25k are playing Warhammer 2 and 10k are playing 3K. Warhammer 2 is still so popular because of quality content CA is making with each DLC and FLC. 3K to this day had only 2 DLCs (I dont count Yellow Turbans) both of them had mostly negative reception and main free content was Dynasty Mode which offered nothing in terms of campaign gameplay. 3K is a good game that needs more flavor so campaigns wont be so repetetive.
@@Necropantz Same here, so much diversity in TW: Warhammer and endless army compositions. All other Total Wars pale in comparison.
@@Necropantz I'm just waiting for TW to get rights to make LOTR game
That's incredibly low for both games damn. Warcraft 3 still had around 35.000 players in 2019 just on EU region. And this game is nearly 20 years old.
The fact Battletech isn’t in the current best sellers is a crying shame. Such an underrated gem of a game.
We all know that Roller Coaster 2 is the best park game
You mean roller coaster tycoon 2? It wasn’t as good as the first game, not close. They made some small changes that made a big difference in a bad way. Still decent though, but the original is the best
I know there are players who think we live in a dark age of strategy games but I personally liked the list of games which were on the list and I think that I play them a lot more in the next year. Plus we still have great games and DLCs coming in 2020. I think it has been a good year.
My personal favorites were the Paradox titles (including Imperator yes) and Three Kingdoms.
What we really need for Planet Zoo is the abilty to merge it with Planet coaster if you own tgat game too, so you can make hybrid Theme park-zoo parks!
Lol no
rct3 platinum edition >>
Amazing video Darren !
I hope that 2020 will be a better year for the strategy, especially that it brings new things to the genre, although I am not so sure.
Quite surprised by Planetfall but also They Are Billions , apparently the campaign did not help a lot the game.
Happy new year !
They are billions campaign mode was alright. I still haven't finished it though. As for planetfall I want to play it.
When you showed the jurassic park game I was half expecting to see the stegasaurus charging into group of ratmen... wrong game.
Underrated comment! Lol
Go Blues!
Yeah, that Total War: Warhammer thing is 100% right for my case, I only bought it because I got Warhammer 2 as a gift and wanted to play as Bretonnia in Mortal Empires, I've never played the first game.
The game I expect to see but I don't
- Oxygen Not Included
- Rimworld
Rimworld has also been out for ages
DEFINITELY get CK2 for free if you have not done so yet!
I just wish paradox didnt hide so much of their game behind dlc...
yeah its a real pain because of that
I quit buying total war for the same reasons. Just kept rehashing old games as new then release them with all the content hidden behind dlc that was immediately ready to buy. Hast had a good TW since napoleon
its like if you wished that people shouldnt need money in order to live. Money rules bro and that applies to Paradox as well.
Paradox doesn’t really hide any of their game behind dlc.
Think about this. Would you say the same if paradox never added new features in dlc.
they are total greedy f****, never have, never will buy their games
Great video as usual, very informative, nice touch keeping the list for everyone to keep an eye on
I'd like a first-person RTS. Playing a mayor of a city, going to workplace, making decisions, traveling around the city and seeing how the decisions affect the city.
Fantastic summary! Great work! Happy New Year!
I heard Phoenix Point is having a really hard time, lots of bugs inherent from the first XCOM, ie buggy rolls, map physics, etc
As long as the devs patch it and add expansions to it.
I have it, and although I've had issue with difficulty balancing, and needing more instruction early on in the campaign, functionally it's worked for me. I've played for 38 hours, only had one bug that was so bad I had to force close it. So on a technical front it's been solid. However, I started playing the game later in the month from when it actually released, so I can't comment on what it was like Day 1.
@@jiado6893 That's good to hear as long as it gets better i'll pick it up
@@jiado6893 Epic Store is enough to keep me away from it so I won't touch it until it hits Steam , GoG or similar.
serves em right for ass fucking their backers
Factorio is still a must play every month.
The video: a giant advertisement for all the games
Also the video: has ads
i really liked three kingdoms, but after half a year i found myself playing total war warhammer 2 again, the replayability is just way higher, especially now after the performance update
Yea. Warhammer 2 just gets way more attention from Creative Assembly, you can't even finish one campaign and the next DLC will already be out. I think thats what keeps it alive. Thats awesome imo
I just cant enjoy three kingdoms, hmm shall i use spearmen, spearmen, spearmen or these spearmen with fancy hats, decisions decisions
@@ChestOfDoom i mean, Thats with most total war games except for the warhammer ones
@@nathantop8561 Correct, what made them special was the tactics, the world map, three kingdoms is just spam the same 2 units, use the same strategy on every map, win the game
@@nathantop8561 Rome II has a pretty diverse list of units. I went back to that after I got bored of the lack of unit diversity in Total War 3K.
Great vid and nice amount of views Darren. Good job! 👍🏽
I didn't know Three Kingdoms had almost 200k players... That's a nice score, perhaps 90% of players are from China. But nevertheless, Warhammer II is still superior game.
aye, i really disliked three kingdoms.
I also prefer Warhammer 2. I think what makes it so good is all the attention it gets from its developer. But the politics in 3K are way better than in Warhammer 2
@@Haarsgard Yes, it is.
They're both fantastic games. 3K has the campaign management locked down to a T. But Warhammers battles just steal the show
@@fudgeyman99 yea
Three Kingdoms deservedly reigns supreme. It is in my mind the best Total War game to date. TW games are very much iterative and this one just nailed it.
Well i prefer Warhammer 2, largely because i fucking adore fantasy. I guess people who like fantasy prefer Warhammer 2 and people who like historical Total War prefer 3K. It feels like Warhammer 2 is the main focus of Creative Assembly at the moment, so it gets a lot of DLCs. You can't even finish a campaign before the next DLC is released. But i think everyone knows that the diplomacy in 3K is just way better.
@@Haarsgard there was a pause in dlc and updates for 3K as the first one was received poorly so CA are trying to change up the formula but their are already 3 dlc's announced for it this year so I don't think it's really fair to say one has more focus than the other
terrible battles, poorly optimized, the easiest campaigns ive played in the total war series. i think most total war fans will agree it a 5 or 6/10
@@bravozero6 weird that they gave it 8/10 though
Great video as always. 18 minutes is a good amount of time to summarize 18 games, good job! Kept my attention easily! Have a wonderful new year!
Top strategy games:
1) An economic simulator
2) City builder
3) Theme park simulator
4) Theme park simulator
5) Actual strategy game
6) Theme park simulator
7) ...
I don't know how accurate that is.
Man, I wanna take a week off and just play some of these games!! Especially the Paradox games. They look awesome.
Happy New Year Darren!
I'm proud of Stellaris
is it singleplayer ?
@@agftun8088 both singleplayer and multiplayer! and alot of mods.
@@kqar1 im afraid I buy it then I lose a year xD
I liked Stellaris...until i had to make an account on their site...i didn't need it before the update...for me it was enough that i log on steam...such a rip off...
@@danwithjesus lmao ur a lazy boy. U only need it once though?
It's been a fantastic year to be apart of the Republic of Play. Looking forward to an strategicly action packed 2020!!
Long live the Republic!
What the fuck
@@agftun8088
>no rimworld
why even live?
:(
You're not alone broo !!!
Well if they updated it maybe
Kartöflur thought it was just me haha
Rimworld was in the list on steam, apparently not a strategy game...
I tried to play crusader kings 2 so many times. I’m not a super experienced strategy gamer but I have my fair amount of experience in civ and some of the endless legend series but geez I could not wrap my head around crusader Kings 2. Ive watched hours of video tutorials but I couldn’t figure it out. It might be time to go back and try it out again
CK2 feels to me like there are a few pieces of information I need for it all to click into place, but noone who plays it can explain what those pieces are. I just can't do anything so gave up because it's just too baffling.
@@jumbo4billion You just have to go back and keep trying until it finally does click. Theres a lot going on but once you figure it out its amazing, especially for history buffs. problem is the only good way to figure it out is first hand. I had to reboot it up 4-5 times and watch people play it on youtube to get it to click
@@rickyrick2330 I've tried for about 20 hours and watched a ton of videos, can't be arsed to spend any more time on a game that I just don't understand.
@@jumbo4billion some people just arent smart enough
@@jumbo4billion your not missing anything, i gave it a couple hundred hours the whole time thinking am i missing out here? wheres the fun? its pretty over rated imo.
Stellaris
Ck2 is best
Purger simulator.
The DLC is fucking ridiculously overpriced. Maybe I'd look at the game for more than 30 minutes if it wasn't $40 total for 2 DLC that have MIXED reviews.
ger du Try Endless Space instead
I’ve never played stellaris, big fan of ES2
Good one Darren; thanks and happy new year.
the short clip of the builidng needing water of cities skylune. lol
Such sad times when management sims are considered as strategy games.
I personally consider anything with long term forward planning a strategy game.
Why would such games not be considered strategy games, and in which category would you put them in that case?
Melodeath00 They’ve always been considered under the wide ‘strategy’ blanket anyway
Sim City was long considered a strategy game.
@@RepublicOfPlay I think with that definition there are tons of games that would be considered strategy games too that no one really does in practice. I mean you could argue a game like Diablo is a strategy game in that case by saying that you're planning out your character build way in advance etc
Bought mechanicus the other day and it was still one of my top games of 2019 lol
I got that free somewhere and I have absolutely no clue where. It's just sitting in my Steam library.
@@GodlikeGamersz Got recommended to me by a friend who does audio work, the sound design is so good!
@@GodlikeGamersz You must of had it on wish list and one of your friends can see it and gives them an opportunity to purchase it for you.
Imagine RUclips advertising itself on its own platform...
SupremeFascist120 I use adblocker
Stellaris is one of the best game i have play in the last 5 years. If you love space ou will love this game for sure
Have you ever played endless space2? If so what do u think of comparison, cuz I’ve only tried Es2
@@jeremybridges6015 I have not played ES2 but it seem really cool !!
I have nothing good to say about City Skylines.I was locked out of my game on Steam,they wanted me to jump through hoops to gain access to a game i OWN.Besides that ,it's a game that gets boring real fast,a few hours in and you've seen everything.
I'm pretty sure Aurora 4x, while not on Steam, is the most played strat game every year!
Videos like this are one of the many reasons I support the Republic!
I had never heard of fell seal. Shall look into it.
It's really great, I played it on Switch but it's on Steam - It's basically a final fantasy Tactics type game - hire characters to make a party, and then fight turn based battles on a grid with various classes and enemy types. Sort of like a banner saga.
I just want a Victorian Age Napoleon Total War style game
I want gunpowder units back
I want the Entire World
Maybe cololonisation
Check out Cossacks
Pre colonisation all the way to WW1 Would be perfect.
The nearest you could get is AOE III
And honestly... It's fun :)
Look up m2tw sigh of empire.
Not the whole world, but it’s a Victorian era total war mod, set in 1840-1880ish China
Azius medieval 2 total war.
Moddb is where I downloaded it from
Thanks for the great list - and the link to curator stuffs on Steam!
Every time a new Total War game came out, it was almost always (*coughs* Rome 2 *coughs) superior to its predecessor, and me and my friends would move across to it. When Three Kingdoms came out... we enjoyed it, dont get us wrong... but we kept looking back at Warhammer 2. And then returned to Warhammer 2.
Three Kingdoms is an amazing game but for the first time, the Total War franchise is facing the same issue Civilisation has faced for a while, where new games struggle to compete with the sheer quantity of their predecessors.
Great video Darren, happy new ywar
Gonna get me a Zoo simulator now after that review.
No one is really talking about it, but a game called Kingdom Under Fire The Crusaders was released on steam. Its a really fun strategy game, but it is kind of old though.
So it's "best selling" - "top" is a misnomer. User reviews are the best metric for quality.
ideally you would want to make a custom filtered ranking. somebody would like to filter out fanboys rating 10s, or trolls rating 1s, or reviewers with high deviations who pretty much only have binary rating system, or with minimum amount of reviews, so you could assume they have some competence in rating.
personally, I find critic part of metacritic most akin to my baseline taste far more than fanboy-hater dominated user reviews with argumentative skills of a rock
Yeah I definitely feel that top games isnt really an accurate description but top selling is if the metric to decide was sale numbers
Total War Three Kingdoms is really dull compared to WH2+1, but it's about China, so of course it will outsell any other strat titles in China. Doesn't reflect quality or gameplay.
Agreed. Steel Division 2 did horribly at marketing, because they didn't call it "Wargame: Steel Division 2". The result is that, very few Wargame: Red Dragon fans even know it exists. I spent years not knowing there was a new Eugen game.
@@manictiger it does play quite differently to the wargame series though. It should have been on your Steam recommended list though, their algorithm is pretty good at picking stuff based on your library, at least sometimes.
LOVE Total War Three Kingdoms!!! Never gave a negative review on any of its DLCs, sooo amazing love it!!
I have mixed feelings about how frostpunk is placed.
Imo its one of the best survival city builder strategy game of all time; if not ever.
Then again the genre itself is a niche one
Of the games you highlighted, my favorites that I play (in order from best to least best): Cities Skylines, Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4, Total War Three Kingdoms, XCom2, Warhammer 2, Civilization 6, Crusader Kings and definitely least and most mad about, Imperator Rome. My biggest disappointments not making the list: Transport Fever 2 and Gary Grigsby's War in the West & War in the East.
War in West and East still selling for windows 8 and 10? I have both in DOS floppies - decades old..
Age of empires posted their numbers of players on twitter
Excellent info but it lacks one minor fact. I would appreciate the addition of the audio stating if the game is multi-player only or single-player only or single & multi-player modes available.
They Are Billions is underrated.
It's a shit game
Aksam Rafiz most people say that bc it’s too hard for them.
@@dawson5853 I say that because the game is a spam fest that requires you to place houses all the time, it's a game of houses more than a zombie since I can lose some missions if I don't got enough population. I really like the art style and the theme the are billions brought with it but it's just too grindy.
Aksam Rafiz Spam fest? Sounds like you need to follow a build order. And yes keeping spaces for your residencies is a large part of the game. It’s part of the strategic aspect. It’s definitely not spam.
Which of these games are single player only and which will allow me to play with or against friends?
Once CK3 launches, Imperator will be quietly abandoned.
I agree
Sad times :(
@@RepublicOfPlay when was the last time Pdx abandoned their core game?
Astounding content, keep up with the good work.
This is the sort of list video I can support!
Sorry, incredibly random question but where did you get that aircraft footage at 0:07?
Its in a trailer for hoi4
@@RepublicOfPlay The hunt continues. It's just that those weird-looking planes are Vickers Wellesleys, and were almost entirely retired by the time WW2 started. You don't see film of them very often, so I was curious where it had come from.
“Hearts of Iron IV - Take Action - Release Trailer”
Hope that helps!
three kingdoms was really good but warhammer is still in the top most played and with new dlcs and updates is shots to 2020 as one of the most played games in the saga :3
Agreed, far and away better than the rest
Even though I really like the other total wars when I first play them, they just can't have the faction or army variety that warhammer does. You can only do so much when all your factions are humans that all need to be based on the same historical time period. But when some of them are dinosaur people, nazi rats, angry skeleton bois, vampire pirates, demons, tree men etc.? Much more replayability with all the unique kinds of units and faction playstyles.
Nah the dimplomacy suck balls. Your allies are not usefull for shit. And again the game is basically: Piece treaties, war, war, piece, war, war.... for 150 turn before the chaos shows up. This is so freacking repetitive. The game could shine more if they developped the diplomacy and the politics systems more, but it seems like the Warhammer Universe doesn't give a shit about either of those things and prefer to be just a giant massive massacre.
@@lucerohatake3578 If you're looking for diplomacy why are you playing total war, it has literally always been awful
@@lucerohatake3578 the games called TOTAL WAR
Great review summary. Thank you.
Wish to have supreme conmader back
Paradox interactive- 6 games
SEGA- 4 games
Frontier developments- 3 games
2K- 2 games
Xbox game studios- 1 game
11 bit studios- 1 game
Kalypso media- 1 game
Can't wait for the new frostpunk pack
You have a strange American/Irish twang to your accent. Are you Irish living in the States or vice versa?
Just irish, never lived in the states. Probably exposed to too much tv/games
The problem with Paradox game is that you can play just the base game but it's rather bland and incomplete then the DLCs cost so much more than the game
Tru but u really can’t do anything about it, u can’t tell paradox to lower prices because they will tell to fuck off. I personally do pirate their games as I don’t even have a credit card to buy games lol
Excellent summary! Thank you!
Well deserved victory for 3K
Roller coaster tycoon 2 was the best game ever made. Mostly because you could make a death coaster that shoots people into the water where they would drown. My visitors couldn’t wait to get on that thing
*Stellaris for the win!!*
NO STELLARIS IS BROKEN DO NOT BUY __ READ THE FORUMS BEFORE PURCHASING THIS GAME
@@bilymunroeyahoo im playing it right now what do you mean?
Stellaris is great lol, if its broken for you theres a bunch of mods to make the playing experience better... reviews arent always trustworthy anyways
@@bilymunroeyahoo Dude, if you are to believe the 'forums' before purchasing any game you won't be able to buy any game...
Forums are only for complaining, questions and ranting. It is not broken, you probably haven't played more then 2 hours and don't understand jacksh#t about it and just concluded "STElLAriS mUST Be BroKen!!#$!$!#" or are still made about replacing the tile system. It is time to move on, spreading lies like "STELLARIS IS BROKEN" is just childish and sad on your end.
@@sqocks8254 so you havent seen the 900 page, moderator pinned (and named) mega thread for performance issues. Nor have you seen the 200+ page thread for sector issues? Maybe take a look at some of the other stuff while you are there:
forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/stellaris.900/
Additionally I've got literally hundreds of hours in the game and have been playing since it was first released. The devs have now broken it, but you know what, it's your money (or probably your moms as you sound about 12) - feel free to buy whatever peice of shit game you like as i, and the thousands of other petitioning Paradox to try and make the game playable again, must know 'jackshit'.
What is the name of the space game at18:09 in the video please?
When you own all of them.
And haven't played any for over 6 months...
@@comradebear9477 and haven't opened them in the first place;(
@@sjoerdv22 can we share your steam account?
@@idyllsend6481 it's the same name as here with 22 on the end
Stellaris is by far the best strategy game currently. The depth of gameplay including both economic and military strategies is unrivalled.
Yes. In addition, the storyline, lore, and the options to make an empire are impressive
Age of wonders planetfall deserves more gamers.
I have 6/18 (1/3) with 4 more on my wishlist. Good or bad?
Strategy game industry: Just vibin'
Sid Meyer: *_SUP_*
Well done mate real good video..
Starpoint Gemini Warlords, GET THIS NOW!!! Great game, unfortunately very underrated. Thank me later!
While not in 2019. XCOM 2 got a free expansion in October of 2018, so it got more content after War of the Chosen.
War of the Chosen released in December of 2018 though?
I took the info from the Steam product page, the dates don't match up.
Google on the other hand says:
War of the Chosen was released August 29, 2017.
The beefy free DLC for War of the Chosen titled Tactical Legacy Pack was released for free for a month for all existing users in October 2018.
It now costs 8$.
I forgot to add, I really enjoyed the video :D
@@RepublicOfPlay No, War of the Chosen was released in August 2017. Then in October 2018, an add-on for War of the Chosen came out called the Tactical Legacy Pack, but it was still included in the same Steam entry. However, then in December 2018, Steam decided to separate the Tactical Legacy Pack from War of the Chosen. I can only presume that what then happened is that they had to make a new Steam page to accomodate this and the main War of the Chosen entry was thus moved to it, and then its listed release date was then also incorrectly updated to say December 3rd 2018: the date of the entries' separation, instead of its actual release date of August 27th 2017. In other words the current Steam information is simply wrong, but it is a 2017 expansion pack
Disappointed Rome 2 wasn’t on here...
age plays a factor
Warhammer total war is simply the best strategy game ever released, once all 3 games are fully released it will be timeless.
They still have not added Kislev. I will not play until they do :p
cool video, its nice to look back.
I think some thought needs to be given to splitting off builder games into their own category.
Planet coaster "one of the best", not it is by far the best of it's kind. And there isn't very much competition.
Where can i find rts games similar to warcraft 3 and sc2?
I’m all about strategy games!!!! This is why I’m buying a pc
Join the dark side
@@Haarsgard PC is the master race
@@s.2196 oh god. Are u serious or was that a joke?
EU4 below Imperator? That's rather surprising to me. Paradox was absolutely killing it in that list, though given their game list probably should have been expected.
@ger du Ah that would make sense. With EU4 and CK2 most people won't buy the DLC's unless they're on sale. I know personally I bought maybe only half the DLC's at full price and waited for the rest
Ye was expecting that many Paradox games. Wasn't expecting Imperator though, considering how shite it is if directly compared to other Paradox games.
ElSeto Have you played the latest update?
@@axelnils Nope, what did they add ? I love Ck2 the most so is there any dynasty shit goin on by now ?
I loved Three kingdoms the first weeks, but meanwhile I came back a little to Rome 2 and it’s insane how battle animation in Three Kingdoms are bad and clunky while in Rome 3 those are still amazing What a shame tbh
Total war three kingdoms dropped dead pretty quick.
It didn't get enough content updates. Most of CA's focus was on Warhammer DLCs.
@@unifieddynasty they made the right move imo
its a shit game for total war and catered to casual players
Great effort 👍
18 total war warhammer
17 Planet Coaster
16 frostpunk
15 jurassic world evolution
14 xcom2
13 tropico 6
12 two point hospital
11 crusader kings 2
10 europa universalis 4
09 age of empires 2 definitive edition
08 imperator rome
07 hearts of iron 4
06 cities skylines
05 stellaris
04 planet zoo
03 total war warhammer 2
02 civilzation 6
01 total war three kingdoms
Great video mate, thanks for this!
I played ANNO 1800 when it was free for a weekend. I love that game, but uplay is so shit I cannot be bothered to buy it, and I dont trust downloading epic games store. Wish it was just on steam
I went and preordered just to get it on Steam, still haven't played it lol. Looks good though.
I mean even if it was on steam youd still have all the hassle associated with uplay anyway lol I own a few games that are on steam via uplay. Theres really no avoiding uplay even if you buy through steam. Uplay is still mandatory you launch the game through steam and it launches uplay for you to log in if your not already lol. Really it's no different just pointless steam achievements and shit is the only difference. And i dont give a flying fuck about achievements and shit i just wanna play the damn game
Troubleshooter is a X-com like strategy game which i can recommend. It's still in early access yet already so good and complex that it's 20bucks, when not on discount, for it is underpriced in my opinion. Totally worth to check it out. I'm a player not a dev of that game btw.