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ilmucche
Mar 16, 2016

Darkest dungeon ran into the early access problem of all the EA players getting super good at the game so the devs kept making it more challenging

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FishMcCool
Apr 9, 2021

lolcats are still funny
Fallen Rib

UltraShame posted:

I'm looking for TBT games that allow for improvisation, customization or have flexible enough systems that allow for such. Preferably with a 3D \ multidimensional battleground.

Not sure how well it'll fit what you're after, but you may want to at least look a bit into Battle Brothers. You manage a band of mercenaries and play tactical battles. The presentation doesn't look like much but the visual information you get from battle graphics at a glance is incredible (weapons, status of armour, ammo, injuries..) and the battles are excellent, even with the relatively limited choice of actions. It's not every game that allows you to release your hound to hunt down the fleeing enemies. The hex battle maps have individual tile elevation and it does play a critical role in terms of movement and combat.

The main caveat is that in between battles, you move your warband on the procgen map, looking for towns or battles. Towns allow you to recruit, gear up, do some trade and get quests, looking for trouble on map allows you to raid monster camps, dungeons, caravans, villages, patrols... It's a big sandbox and you need to get involved with it, the game won't take you from one battle to the next in straight missions. Kind of a turn-based Mount and Blade without the kingdom stuff. If that's not a showstopper, take a look at it, because the battles are good, you get to mostly choose your challenges, and the whole making the best of your lot with gear and level up skills makes every new game different in addition to the random map layout.

Loddfafnir
Mar 27, 2021
I think Solasta also fits the requirements well.

Jinkeez
Dec 31, 2008
What about the Expeditions (Conquistador, Vikings, presumably Rome, though I haven't tried that one) series? The turn-based combat system isn't too bad, and there's a fair amount of party customization/leveling IIRC.

NihilCredo
Jun 6, 2011

iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

UltraShame posted:

I really liked Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's gate 3. This has caused me to dip into a genre that I have never really played before: Turn Based Tactics. It's essentially bite-sized turn based CRPG fights. Gimme that distilled CRPG battle.

Aarklash Legacy may well be the game for you. It has virtually no story and just enough lore to make the 8 characters distinct; minimal loot and exploration and no side quests.

What it is all about is amazing battles that will require you to plan and execute a precise strategy, and skill trees that let you create interesting synergies between your selected characters. And you'll need those synergies to survive the nasty powers that some bosses can pop up.

One thing is, it's a RTWP system, like BG2, not turn-based like BG3, which may be new to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc-N0M5zFh8

Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

UltraShame posted:

I really liked Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's gate 3. This has caused me to dip into a genre that I have never really played before: Turn Based Tactics. It's essentially bite-sized turn based CRPG fights. Gimme that distilled CRPG battle.

My first abortive attempt into this a few years back was with Into the Breach. It almost felt like it was too tightly designed if that makes sense. It felt like playing a game of Solitaire and making sure that I was ensuring the BEST turns each round. It put me off the genre until I played BG3.

I'm looking for TBT games that allow for improvisation, customization or have flexible enough systems that allow for such. Preferably with a 3D \ multidimensional battleground.

the ones I've tried that I really love have been:
  • XCOM: Enemy Unknown
  • Persona 5 Tactica
  • TROUBLESHOOTER - Abandoned Children - this one is tightly designed but the absurd amount of systems involved allowed for crazy customization

Ones that I've like the mechanics of, but wish weren't the genre they are \ have no space to navigate within the battlefield:
  • Darkest Dungeon - like Into the Breach, too tightly constructed and no depth of positioning
  • Monster Train - mechanically perfect, but a deckbuilder
  • Trails of Cold Steel - loved the combat, do not want a hundred hour RPG attached
  • Nu-Shadowrun series - see above WRT RPG

Please let me know what other, if any TBT games fit this bill!

E: i'm okay with any vintage of game given that it's not heinous to interact with. Preferably PC, but i have an Ipad and PS5 as well.

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen

I haven't played them myself but Rad Codex's games--Voidspire Tactics, Alvora Tactics, Horizon's Gate--are fairly well liked

Naramyth
Jan 22, 2009

Australia cares about cunts. Including this one.

UltraShame posted:

I really liked Divinity Original Sin 2 and Baldur's gate 3. This has caused me to dip into a genre that I have never really played before: Turn Based Tactics. It's essentially bite-sized turn based CRPG fights. Gimme that distilled CRPG battle.

My first abortive attempt into this a few years back was with Into the Breach. It almost felt like it was too tightly designed if that makes sense. It felt like playing a game of Solitaire and making sure that I was ensuring the BEST turns each round. It put me off the genre until I played BG3.

I'm looking for TBT games that allow for improvisation, customization or have flexible enough systems that allow for such. Preferably with a 3D \ multidimensional battleground.

the ones I've tried that I really love have been:
  • XCOM: Enemy Unknown
  • Persona 5 Tactica
  • TROUBLESHOOTER - Abandoned Children - this one is tightly designed but the absurd amount of systems involved allowed for crazy customization

Ones that I've like the mechanics of, but wish weren't the genre they are \ have no space to navigate within the battlefield:
  • Darkest Dungeon - like Into the Breach, too tightly constructed and no depth of positioning
  • Monster Train - mechanically perfect, but a deckbuilder
  • Trails of Cold Steel - loved the combat, do not want a hundred hour RPG attached
  • Nu-Shadowrun series - see above WRT RPG

Please let me know what other, if any TBT games fit this bill!

E: i'm okay with any vintage of game given that it's not heinous to interact with. Preferably PC, but i have an Ipad and PS5 as well.

Tactics Ogre Reborn is my favorite of the genre, and probably my favorite game period.

Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark is probably the best FFT clone.

Final Fantasy Tactics is the OG and is on the iPad and plays wonderfully.

Solasta was mentioned but I’ll mention it again. It’s very good for combat.

Card Hunter is an older was FTP game that has been mostly unlocked now game that is deck builder with 3 party members.

Warhammer: Battlesector is breezy 10ish hours of tactics combat.

Battle Bros, BATTLETECH, Hard West, Jagged Alliance, are all good.

Most trad roguelikes have a significant movement on the tactical map component: Tangledeep, Tome4, Jupiter Hell are all amazing.

Where you are now is basically where I’m at at all times in gaming. I want this combat wothout the 40 hours of rpg attached to it.

You can also check out any board gamey things like Gloomhaven.

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

Check out the age of wonders games. They're 4x games with a heavily developed combat system (imo it's better to treat the tactical combat as the game as the 4x part as a minigame you play between fights)

Planetfall is the best one tactically speaking (imo) but it's got a really steep learning curve with a lot of information to absorb (at release I was 50 hours into the game and still going "woah what is that? I've never seen that unit before what does it do" somewhat frequently). The information itself is pretty simple and the age of wonders charm comes from each individual component being easy to understand while combining into highly complex situations on the battlefield, but it's still a lot. Base game has 6 different races with 7 or 8 units each, each of which is unique in abilities and usage (though they will still fall into overall archetypes, largely defined by how far away they can shoot). On top of that, there's 6 "secret techs" that are like a mini race that you combine with your actual race to make your faction - each of those is 3 units, at least one of which you probably have a racial variant of (your race's version of that secret tech unit has extra/changed abilities or tags). And that's before getting into NPC units and the independent node defender exclusive units.

If that sounds good to you, I highly recommend it! For my money it's substantially better tactical combat than xcom has. If that sounds intimidating, the recently released age of wonders 4 may be a good starting point - a lot of aspects of the game were streamlined and simplified, it's sort of more designed to be beginner friendly while planetfall is more appealing to, well, someone who wants to still be learning the game 50 hours in. Faction creation is more of an ongoing process during the game via the tome system as opposed to age of wonders 3 and planetfall with the race/secret tech system (in 3 it would be class/race) having you set your entire tech tree at game start.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

I think the Valkyria Chronicles series is worth a look if you're exploring tactics games, because for better or worse, it's doing a weird and different thing that nobody else is doing. There's a VC4 demo to check out.

UltraShame
Nov 6, 2006

Vocabulum.
Thank you for all the recs, I'll plug them into ITAD and look through them. Much appreciated!

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Walh Hara
May 11, 2012
Warriors of the Nile 2 is also worth checking out, it's really really good in it's niche.

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