In addition to being the preeminent competitive strategy game of the last decade, StarCraft 2 deserves credit for rethinking how a traditional RTS campaign is structured. Heart of the Swarm is a good example of this, but the human-centric Wings of Liberty instalment is the place to start: an inventive adventure that mixes up the familiar formula at every stage. In , Blizzard finally decided to wind down development on StarCraft 2 , announcing that no new additions would be coming, aside from things like balance fixes.
The competitive scene is still very much alive, however, and you'll still find few singleplayer campaigns as good as these ones. Most notable today for being the point of origin for the entire MOBA genre, Warcraft III is also an inventive, ambitious strategy game in its own right, which took the genre beyond anonymous little sprites and into the realm of cinematic fantasy. The pioneering inclusion of RPG elements in the form of heroes and neutral monsters adds a degree of unitspecific depth not present in its sci-fi stablemate, and the sprawling campaign delivers a fantasy story that—if not quite novel—is thorough and exciting in its execution.
Shame about Warcraft 3: Reforged , it's not-so-great remake. Some games would try to step away from the emotional aspect of a war that happened in living memory. Not Company of Heroes. Age of Empires gave us the chance to encompass centuries of military progress in half-hour battles, but Rise of Nations does it better, and smartly introduces elements from turn-based strategy games like Civ.
When borders collide civs race through the ages and try to out-tech each other in a hidden war for influence, all while trying to deliver a knockout military blow with javelins and jets. It was tempting to put the excellent first Dawn of War on the list, but the box-select, right-click to kill formula is well represented.
In combat you micromanage these empowered special forces, timing the flying attack of your Assault Marines and the sniping power of your Scouts with efficient heavy machine gun cover to undo the Ork hordes.
The co-operative Last Stand mode is also immense. If you need a 40K fix, we've also ranked every Warhammer 40, game. Like an adaptation of the tabletop game crossed with the XCOM design template, BattleTech is a deep and complex turn-based game with an impressive campaign system.
You control a group of mercenaries, trying to keep the books balanced and upgrading your suite of mechwarriors and battlemechs in the game's strategy layer. In battle, you target specific parts of enemy mechs, taking into account armor, angle, speed and the surrounding environment, then make difficult choices when the fight isn't going your way. It can initially be overwhelming and it's undeniably a dense game, but if that's what you want from your strategy games or you love this universe, it's a great pick.
A beautifully designed, near-perfect slice of tactical mech action from the creators of FTL. Into the Breach challenges you to fend off waves of Vek monsters on eight-by-eight grids populated by tower blocks and a variety of sub objectives.
Obviously you want to wipe out the Vek using mech-punches and artillery strikes, but much of the game is about using the impact of your blows to push enemies around the map and divert their attacks away from your precious buildings. Civilian buildings provide power, which serves as a health bar for your campaign.
Every time a civilian building takes a hit, you're a step closer to losing the war. Once your power is depleted your team travels back through time to try and save the world again. It's challenging, bite-sized, and dynamic. As you unlock new types of mechs and mech upgrades you gain inventive new ways to toy with your enemies.
The game cleverly uses scarcity of opportunity to force you into difficult dilemmas. At any one time you might have only six possible scan sites, while combat encounters are largely meted out by the game, but what you choose to do with this narrow range of options matters enormously.
You need to recruit new rookies; you need an engineer to build a comms facility that will let you contact more territories; you need alien alloys to upgrade your weapons. You can probably only have one. In Sid Meier described games as "a series of interesting decisions.
The War of the Chosen expansion brings even more welcome if frantic changes, like the endlessly chatty titular enemies, memorable nemeses who pop up at different intervals during the campaign with random strengths and weaknesses.
Sneaky tactics doesn't come in a slicker package than Invisible Inc. It's a sexy cyberpunk espionage romp blessed with so much tension that you'll be sweating buckets as you slink through corporate strongholds and try very hard to not get caught.
It's tricky, sometimes dauntingly so, but there's a chance you can fix your terrible mistakes by rewinding time, adding some welcome accessibility to the proceedings. First, you manage stockpiles, and position missile sites, nuclear submarines and countermeasures in preparation for armageddon. This organisation phase is an interesting strategic challenge in itself, but DEFCON is at its most effective when the missiles fly.
Blooming blast sites are matched with casualty numbers as city after city experiences obliteration. Once the dust has settled, victory is a mere technicality. Unity of Command was already the perfect entry point into the complex world of wargames, but Unity of Command 2 manages to maintain this while throwing in a host of new features.
It's a tactical puzzle, but a reactive one where you have the freedom to try lots of different solutions to its military conundrums. Not just a great place to start, it's simply a brilliant wargame. Hearts of Iron 4 is a grand strategy wargame hybrid, as comfortable with logistics and precise battle plans as it is with diplomacy and sandboxy weirdness. Ostensibly game about World War 2, it lets you throw out history as soon as you want. Want to conquer the world as a communist UK?
Go for it. Maybe Germany will be knocked out of the war early, leaving Italy to run things. You can even keep things going for as long as you want, leading to a WW2 that continues into the '50s or '60s. With expansions, it's fleshed out naval battles, espionage and other features so you have control over nearly every aspect of the war.
Normandy 44 takes the action back to World War 2 and tears France apart with its gargantuan battles. It's got explosive real-time fights, but with mind-boggling scale and additional complexities ranging from suppression mechanics to morale and shock tactics.
The sequel, Steel Division 2 , brings with it some improvements, but unfortunately the singleplayer experience isn't really up to snuff. In multiplayer, though, it's pretty great. And if the World War 2 setting isn't your cup of tea, the older Wargame series still represents some of the best of both RTS and wargaming, so they're absolutely worth taking for a spin. We're always updating this list, and below are a few upcoming games that we're hoping we'll eventually be able to include.
These are the strategy games we're most looking forward to, so check out what you should be keeping an eye on. There's also a dynamic turn-based campaign, where you can pretty much do everything that's possible in the RTS layer, whether that's dropping artillery strikes on enemy or sending engineers in to deactivate mines.
There's also an expanded destruction system that gives objects, whether they are buildings or foliage, different damage states, so you'll see buildings being slowly eroded and chipped away at before the finally collapse.
Other new headline attractions include extremely customisable companies and detachments—you can add a medical detachment to a company and then summon a medical truck mid-battle—and full tactical pause. It's not coming until , but you can take it for a spin earlier by signing up to Games2Gether, which will let you try out alpha and beta builds. The conclusion to Creative Assembly's Warhammer trilogy is coming this year, and it looks like it's going to be massive. The series has been gearing up for a big confrontation with the forces of Chaos, so Total War: Warhammer 3 will give us a quartet of daemonic armies to fight with, and a pretty different battlefield: the Realm of Chaos.
Kislev, Cathay and the Lands of the East will also be thrown into the mix, and Creative Assembly boasts that it will have an "unprecedented scale". Expect big monsters, and a campaign that's twice the size of Warhammer 2's Eye of the Vortex campaign. Deserts of Kharak was fantastic, which is why you'll find it above, but who hasn't yearned for a true Homeworld sequel?
One of the best games by Blizzard, a sequel to the highly successful space-themed RTS game. The game space-themed the upgraded graphics and a completely new story. Multiplayer option of the game takes the gaming experience of it to a new level. The game revolves around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a super-species of assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced species with vast mental powers.
Wings of Liberty focuses on the Terrans, while the expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void will focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. The game includes both new and returning characters and locations from the original game. Company of Heroes received widespread acclaim, winning multiple awards for the best strategy game of the year.
The success of the game led to a sequel, Company of Heroes 2 , which was released in As of January , the whole Company of Heroes series has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.
Or die trying. It includes features such as religion, espionage, enhanced naval combat and combat AI, as well as nine new civilizations. Warhammer 40, Dawn of War II is a real-time strategy game — tactical role-playing video game developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ for Microsoft Windows based on the fictional Warhammer 40, universe. It is the sequel to the Warhammer 40, Dawn of War video game series. The campaign can be played either as single-player or cooperatively with another player through an online connection.
Supreme Commander is focused on using a giant bipedal mech called an Armored Command Unit or ACU to build a base, then upgrading units to reach higher technology tiers, and conquering opponents. As the commander of XCOM, you control the global defence team in a battle against a terrifying alien invasion by creating a fully operational base, researching alien technologies, planning combat missions, and controlling soldier movement in battle.
Crusader Kings II is a murderous bastard of a grand-strategy game. You play a medieval lord, trying to gain more power, influence, and territory in a historically accurate medieval Europe. It offers complex game mechanics in lieu of fancy graphics. Developed by Valve Corporation. Dota 2 is played in matches involving two teams of five players, each of which occupies a stronghold at a corner of the map.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. A must for Grand Strategy fans wanting something medieval. A grandfather in the medieval rts subgenre, the original Stronghold had you build up not just a medieval castle from scratch, but the entire economy required to maintain it. Stronghold offers more than just a simple skirmish mode but a variety of multiplayer and historical campaigns set in medieval England. And with an HD re-release on steam this classic is still enjoyable today.
Stronghold has you managing both your kingdom internally and defending it from external threats. Farmland is now limited and water is more important than ever so more attention needs to be paid to preserving your precious oasis territory.
Follow the historical campaign mode as heroes from the Crusades such as Richard the Lionheart of Sala-al din or engage in a skirmish mode, or play with up to 7 others in a multiplayer match. Build and command from your own customized castle and fight in epic battles with or against the Muslim forces or the Crusader states. The game has recently received a healthy facelift with an HD version released on Steam. While technically set from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, the grand strategy game Europa Universalis none the less involves a great deal of late medieval politics and war.
Armies will start out still fighting with halberds, swords, and bows but I think being able to progress beyond this stage of technology will be satisfying for players who get sick of the same combat system over and over again. Set out to forge your nation into a great power at the twilight of the Middle Ages and into Modernity. Europa Universalis IV offers one of the most comprehensive and complex and fun grand strategy experiences ever. One of the most popular medieval strategy games, Medieval II: Total War gives players control over numerous 11th century factions, ranging from the Moors to the Rus.
You don't just smash your army into the enemy's, but send volleys of arrows and harass them with cavalry. Medieval 2: Total War mixes both large scale strategic decision making with real-time tactical battles. The second and arguably most popular of the Age of Empires trilogy. Age of Empires II is set from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and includes a multitude of civilizations to choose from ranging from the Mayans to the Vikings to the Byzantines.
Start out with a small town centre and a few villagers and expand, cutting down forests, mining stone and gold, and hunting wildlife as you build up defenses and a rudimentary army and advance from age to age until you have a mighty force of well armored knights and siege engines sallying forth from a massive medieval city filled with houses, farms, castles, barracks, and blacksmith's shops.
A title so loved by its fans, it got an HD re-release on Steam 10 years after it first came out and on top of that in came with new factions available such as the Spanish and Songhai.
Age of Empires 2 is so beloved by its fans, it has been resurrected more than 10 years later with new content and an HD facelift. So there you have our top 10 medieval strategy games for PC. While I am not the biggest fan of this genre-combination I prefer more modern settings for strategy games I still admire and respect the quality and variety of games within this niche market.
Being a history lover I have to really respect the developers when they pay attention to realism, such as Crusader Kings 2 with family politics, or Total War: Attila and its mini ice-age and migrations. Its always the close attention to details and walking the line between accuracy and good gameplay that pays off in these games.
Skip to main content. Level up. Earn rewards. Your XP: 0. Updated: 19 Apr am. The Middle Ages are an immensly popular setting for videogames including the strategy genre. BY: John Bartlett. Hi there, my name is John. I think of myself as a bit of an enigma around these parts.
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