WarBirds is the Single Player version of the world famous Massively Multiplayer Online Simulation game of World War II flying and aerial combat. The original WarBirds was launched in 1995. Cities: Skylines, Factorio, and Assetto Corsa are probably your best bets out of the 23 options considered. 'Large scale' is the primary reason people pick Cities: Skylines over the competition.
Are you looking for a great game that offers in-depth simulation to get lost in great gameplay for hours on end? Check out this list of some of the best simulation games for PC gamers in 2019. Each of these games offers a unique take on city-building, management, or industry to provide gamers with hours of fun.
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15. Elite: Dangerous
Since Star Citizen has not released yet, Elite: Dangerous is the best space simulation game available right now. Players can explore a massively open and interconnected galaxy that is influenced by other players through trade, factions, and fighting. The ever-evolving narrative changes as players work their way up from a green pilot with only a few credits and a tiny starship.
Docking and flying your spaceship is one of the most accurate parts of this space sim. New content is released at a steady pace in an expansion pack format, so be prepared to pay more for additional content down the road. Many players describe Elite: Dangerous as a space trucking simulator, which isn’t far off if you participate in the game’s economy.
14. Planet Coaster
Planet Coaster attempts to recapture the magic of building your own roller coasters and theme parks first introduced in Roller Coaster Tycoon. The game offers piece-by-piece construction of theme parks and roller coasters with over 1,000 unique building components. Landscape sculpting lets players create death-defying roller coasters that soar through the sky and into tunnels below the ground.
Much like the original Chis Sawyer game, players must keep guests satisfied with the park to win scenarios. The sandbox mode will be the main draw for most players, but there are several creative scenarios to tackle. The game also links with Steam Workshop to allow players to share their favorite creations with others.
13. Kerbal Space Program
Ever wonder what it was like for scientists in the 1950s figuring out how to send people to the moon? Wonder no more with Kerbal Space Program. The developers have paid very close attention to create an accurate rocket physics simulator. The ultimate goal is to create a successful craft to land kerbals on the moon, but that’s just one goal. Perform planet to planet sling-shot maneuvers and more with advanced space physics.
Sandbox mode is the main draw, but Kerbal Space Program also features a Career Mode. In this mode, you’re responsible for the kerbal’s NASA-like program for getting to space. Manage every aspect, including construction, strategy, funding, upgrades, and more.
12. Tropico 5
Ever wanted to take on the role of an island dictator who controls everything about your people? Then Tropico 5 is the experience for you. Players start their reign during colonial times for a newly discovered island, surviving through two World Wars and the Great Depression. Advance from 19th-century technology into the 21st-century.
New to this version of Tropico is the dynasty feature, which allows players to invest in members of the dictator’s family. Appoint your children as head of government services, ambassador, or even general to keep it all in the family. Tropico 5 has lots of expansions that add depth to the gameplay, or crazy new scenarios. Fans of early city builders will find a lot to like about the Tropico series.
Note: Tropico 6 is available now and is a more recent addition to this franchise, but it is not as well fleshed out. The game lacks some of the core features that were available in previous Tropico games, so Tropico 5 is the best entry point for people new to the game.
11. Factorio
Factorio is all about harvesting the resources of an island to escape. But it is also about building the most efficient process to harvest and transport minerals. The gameplay loop is satisfying as you find new ways to increase the efficiency of your machines. Add to that the challenge of developing machines to help you defend your operations turns Factorio into what has been described as “electronic heroin.”
10. Prison Architect
Build and manage a maximum security prison as warden. Face challenges you never thought possible as inmates form gangs to rival one another. Prison Architect features a story mode to teach you the basics of prison building, but sandbox mode is where this game shines. Build the prison of your dreams to contain even the most hardened criminals. Then try to escape from it as a criminal yourself.
9. Foundation
Foundation is a new take on the city-building concept that doesn’t adhere to grids. Most city-builders use grids to keep everything aligned. Foundation takes an organic approach to building a sprawling medieval city. The game is a cross between city-builder, strategy, and economic simulation. It is currently in early access, but the game is very enjoyable in its current state.
8. Banished
Take control of a group of exiled travelers who week for form a new settlement along the banks of a river. This low-fantasy city-building game is all about managing the population boom and fitness of your Banished citizens. The gameplay feels like a cross between a city-builder and The Sims since you’ll slowly get attached to everyone in your village.
7. Megaquarium
Start a local aquarium with only a few tanks and grow it into a thriving aquarium theme park to attract hundreds of guests. Megaquarium draws a lot of inspiration from early sim games like Zoo Tycoon and Roller Coaster Tycoon. The game features over 100 different marine species to display, including fish, jellyfish, sharks, crustaceans, and turtles. Staff management and happiness is also an important part of running a successful aquarium.
6. Don’t Starve Together
Don’t Starve is a highly unique survival simulator that offers a standalone free multiplayer expansion called Don’t Starve Together. Two players can enjoy surviving in the dark but deep world of Don’t Starve… together. The game draws plenty of inspiration from games like Minecraft, but the 2D flat presentation turns the world on its head.
5. Frostpunk
Frostpunk is described as a society survival game and the first of its kind. You take control of the last city on an Earth destroyed by climate change. The decisions you make as ruler of the city will have lasting effects on districts, with increasing challenges coming your way. The moral decisions from This War of Mine combined with city management makes for heart-wrenching survival.
4. Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines is the indisputable champ of the modern city-building simulation after EA dragged Sim City through the mud. Cities: Skylines is consistently updated with new features and DLC to provide city architects with all the tools needed to create a true megapolis. The game also supports the Steam Workshop for added player-created fun.
3. Rimworld
Inspired by the ASCII-based Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld gives you control of three colonists who must create a thriving outpost against all odds. Players create their own story as these initial colonists fend of bandit attacks and other unknowns in a new world. Rimworld features some of the finest emergent gameplay you will find in any simulation game for PC.
2. Oxygen Not Included
Take control of three duplicants and attempt to build a thriving colony inside an asteroid. ONI is unique in that you’ll need to manage the gases, liquids, and solid waste your duplicants produce. Everything can be recycled to keep the colony thriving, but you’ll need to watch out for space viruses. The sheer amount of management in ONI gives the game a steep learning curve, so be prepared for that going in.
1. Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley draws a lot of inspiration from the Harvest Moon series of games. Players take control of an old family farm that has fallen into disrepair in a small town. Get to know the townspeople and form relationships while you grow a variety of crops and tend to animals on an ever-expanding farm. Stardew Valley is one of the most relaxing simulation games on this list and is available on every single platform.
Didn’t find a simulation game worth playing on our list? Be sure to check out the simulation category on Steam for more games you might enjoy.
The best strategy games always has a good balance between a survival element and either a great story to go with it or multiplayer to play against your friends.
Whether it is high fantasy, sci-fi or based on historical events, the best strategy games are the ones that gives you hours of gameplay.
There are two basic categories when it comes to strategy games,
- Turn-based strategy games
- Real-time strategy games
Turn-based strategy games are usually a lot longer and aim to gives the player a feeling of real power when you accomplish your goals. They also tend to focus more on grand strategy than having a deep story connected to them.
Real-time strategy games on the other hand has rich stories and gameplay is a lot faster with everything happening right now!
You will have to do a lot of smaller missions that leads you through the story while you try to accomplish specific goals and survive, survive, survive! Luckily there are many awesome strategy games out there you can choose from to give you a great gaming experience.
If you like the list of strategy games, please share with your friends and share your favorite game in the comments.
The Best Strategy Games in 2019
1. Total War: Warhammer 2 and Total War: Thrones of Britannia
The Total War Series is most likely the best and most well known strategy games of all time, with a balance between turn-based and real-time gameplay.
Playing a Total War game can take you, depending on how much you play, days, weeks or even months to finish a grand campaign, but still gives the player the pleasure to have massive real-time battles that can take anything up to an hour.
The key is to find a balance between economic management and war tactics to get the best results in your campaigns and this is what keeps the games really interesting. You will manage massive campaigns and have a lot of strategic battles through any campaign.
The Total War Series has made a wide range of strategy games depicting various times throughout history in Europe, America and Japan.
They also released Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2 that is all about fantasy, perfect for those of you who loves fantasy. The latest title in the series is Total War: Thrones of Britannia that takes you through some of the darkest times in English history on the British continent.
My opinion is that if you love historical games, you must play some of the games in the series like Rome II, Shogun II and Thrones of Britannia. If you like high fantasy games, either one of the Warhammer titles will give you hours and hours of awesome gameplay.
Or you can just play all of them if like!
Total War: Warhammer II
Total War: Thrones of Britannia
Buy Total War Games
2. Civilization 6
Civilization is another grand strategy turn-based game where your main goal is to lead a chosen civilization through the times like the stone age to the modern day.
Unlike the Total War Series, it only has a turn-based gameplay with some form of military management to enjoy. There are many different civilizations to choose from and the race is on to achieve victory in a few various categories.
In Civilization you need to keep up with research to improve your technology, culture and military endeavours.
The 3 main victory conditions is through Science (establishing a colony on Mars), Culture (become the top tourist destination through arts and music) or Military (dominate every other civilization on the map). It is awesome to work your way through the different times and using the available technology to overcome scenarios that you’ll face in your campaigns.
The great part is that the maps you choose will be different and randomly generated which gives you a different experience every time.
The latest title in the series is Civilization VI that came out in 2016 and the first official expansion released in 2018 which introduced new civilizations and leaders to play with.
If you like grand strategy management games Civilization is the perfect game for you.
Buy Civilization 6
3. Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2
Do you like Real-time Strategy games, enjoying epic battles and fighting to survive the onslaught of countless enemies?
Look no further, Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 are one of the latest strategy games for pc that is out in 2019.
It’s a sequel to the original game (Battlefleet Gothic Armada), but it’s bigger, better and with much more richer content.
Have epic space battles between different galaxies with massive fleets and military spaceships.
You’ll need to carefully plan your strategies and tactics to take out your enemies and grow your space empire.
Every spaceship, big and small, are unique and will ultimately impact how your campaigns or battles will pan out.
You can choose to play either a skirmish mode and choose between all 12 available factions, play the 3 single player campaigns with 5 different factions or get together your friends to play some multiplayer games, even co-op play modes.
Each faction is unique with their own story and characteristics to give you a unique gameplay, every time!
So, the basics is to pick your faction, build your fleets and engage your enemies in some epic space battles. Are you ready to command your own space fleet?
Buy Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2
4. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
StarCraft is a military science-fiction real-time strategy game that are focussed on the hardcore elements of strategy games as we know it.
The world is about to get over populated and the world decides to send colonization parties to establish a new capitol somewhere in the Milky Way.
But, the computers are malfunctioning and they lose all contact with the Earth. Now it’s time to survive! Your job is to grow and protect the new capitol from invasions by weird species genetically created a 1000 years ago, all while conflict starts to brew between the human factions.
The story is absolutely great, brutal and breathtaking with many missions to do and plots to uncover. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is a direct sequel to StarCraft I, so to fully enjoy and understand the whole story I suggest you play or at least watch a video of StarCraft I as it came out in 1998.
The game is perfect for fan that love’s a old school real-time strategy game with a rich story to immerse yourself for for hours of gameplay. StarCraft is also a very popular Esports title with awesome multiplayer capabilities, so you don’t have to play alone after you finished all the campaigns.
Buy StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
5. Stellaris
Are you ready to lead a civilization in space?
Stellaris is a real-time grand strategy game that will give you the opportunity to build, manage and grow a civilization in space.
The game starts in 2200, so your’e already in space. You can choose between various pre-made empires or create your own custom species with unique traits.
In Stellaris, there are many factors and processes you’ll need to manage to keep your space colonies save.
These include the management of space ships, science development, construction and military tasks.
Like in every strategy game, you’ll need to fight enemies to survive. Combat can take place in space or on the ground, depending on what planets you are.
The game also include diplomatic and trade mechanics which let’s you team up with other factions or trade resources.
If you love space exploration and want to build colonies on various planets, make sure to check out Stellaris.
Buy Stellaris
6. Spellforce III
Spellforce III finds the perfect balance between real-time strategy (RTS) and role playing (RPG) with an epic fantasy world to explore.
You can create your own hero just like in RPG’s, choose skills & attributes from a complex system that makes every character unique.
How to play gameboy advance games on my macbook. From the layout screen, you can move the buttons around, change their size (by moving direction arrows in and out), and you can also move the screen.
Fantasy is a big part of Spellforce and you’ll be able to make use of magic and spell casting during combat. It has many different options and combinations to choose from.
You don’t have to fight alone, by raising large armies and leading them into battle will give a true RTS feeling.
Besides the fighting, the game has an economy system as well where you need to build settlements and keep your people alive.
The story will give you more than 30 hours of gameplay with a full dialog, so it’s more than enough time to fully enjoy every aspect of the game.
When you like the real-time strategy and role playing game blend with the ability of large scale domination, Spellforce III hits the sweet spot.
Create a unique character, build settlements, raise armies, forge alliances and cast some epic spells!
Buy Spellforce III
7. Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes is a real-time strategy video game that let you experience the Second World War from another viewpoint.
It is a fast paced video game with a lot missions you can play and enjoy with your friends in multiplayer mode. The main goal in every mission or round is to capture strategic points that generate resources you’ll need to build a base, recruit soldiers, vehicles and crush your opponents.
It has a great balance between managing your infantry and using your transportation units like jeeps, tanks and other personnel vehicles to have a real-time war experience.
Sometimes you really need to fight a lot of smaller battles for resource points to ultimately defeating your enemy, but that is what makes the Company of Heroes titles so fun to play.
Company of Heroes I was released in 2006 and the second in 2013, but both is still awesome and fun to play.
If you are crazy about the World War II setting and like a challenge, you will find that Company of Heroes I & II can be a lot of fun.
Buy Company of Heroes
8. Steel Division: Normandy 44
Buy Steel Division: Normandy 44
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9. BattleTech
Buy BattleTech
10. Europa Universalis IV
Buy Europa Universalis IV
11. Endless Space 2
Buy Endless Space 2
12. Hearts of Iron IV
Buy Hearts of Iron IV
13. Northgard
Buy Northgard
14. XCOM 2
Best Simulation Games For Mac 2019 Download
Buy XCOM 2
15. Age of Empires Definitive Edition
As one of the pioneers when it comes to strategy games, Age of Empires have revolutionized this gaming genre and set the standard back in 1998 when the first title was released.
Soon after that in 1999 Age of Empires II was released which was the star performer in the series. So why would you play a game that was released in 1999? Well, they released another addition in 2018, Age of Empires Definitive Edition which brings back all the original gameplay, but with better graphics to make it relevant once again.
You can choose between 16 civilizations, start in a particular age with the earliest the stone age and achieve victory. The victory conditions for a normal round is straightforward, defeat all the players on the map by gathering resources, building a base, recruiting soldiers and research technology.
The game takes you through several age periods where each have unique features and challenges.
If you played the older versions, you will know how much fun Age of Empires is to play, so now you can finally enjoy this awesome strategy video game in beautiful graphics with the Definitive Edition.
Buy Age of Empires Definitive Edition
16. Sudden Strike 4
Buy Sudden Strike 4
17. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
Buy Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
18. Empires Apart
Buy Empires Apart
19. Cosacks 3
Buy Cosacks 3
20. Stronghold Crusader II
If you go crazy for medieval castles and is a fan of real-time strategy games, then Stronghold is a must.
It is a simple game, but is very fun to play the campaigns and multiplayer with your friends. Stronghold Crusader II is the latest title, where you play in the deserts of the middle east with you choosing between a Crusader or Arabic campaign.
The campaigns in Stronghold Crusader II primarily focus on a range of skirmish missions you have to complete to win the game, unlike it’s earlier titles which had rich and interesting storylines.
You can also choose to play the economic campaigns to experience a more relaxed gameplay.
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So, if you like to build medieval style castles and play an interesting old school real-time strategy game, you should make sure to check out the previous Stronghold games in the series.
21. Crusader Kings II
Political intrigue, invasions on all fronts and a grand strategy experience, this is Crusader Kings II.
The country is in chaos with enemy invasions on almost all fronts, betrayal in your own midst, you need to figure out how to lead your dynasty to success.
The player can do this by many different ways like strategic war tactics, marriages and even assassinations. Crusader Kings II is set in the Medieval times taking place from 1066 to 1453 (or 867 and 769 with DLC’s) with many historical figures that you’ll discover throughout the game.
The win conditions are simple, don’t die and if you do, make sure to have an heir take over to rule.
The only in-game goal is to get as many prestige points as you can. There are also a few DLC’s to enhance your gaming experience even further where with new historical figures, starting points and challenges to overcome.
Crusader Kings II is perfect for someone who likes a balance between grand strategy, government, religion and political management.
22. Supreme Commander 2
Supreme Commander 2 is a fast paced, interesting and addictive game that are extremely fun if you like a good strategy game.
The developers, from the start, wanted to put more emphasis on the characters and by telling a really awesome story.
There are three factions you can choose from, each with unique stories interwoven together to make the campaigns so much more interesting. You basically play from the commander’s point of view for each faction where the characters are all caught up in an enormous intergalactic battle.
The game starts where the newly elected president of the Coalition has been assassinated which leads to chaos, uncertainty, lost of trust and ultimately a great war between the factions. Can you solve the problems and keep the peace or will there be another infinite war on the horizon.
If you’re curious about how the story plays out, you should definitely play Supreme Commander 2.
23. Ashes of the singularity
Conclusion
What is your favorite strategy game?
Did I miss one?
Share it in the comments!
Now that you have a long list of great strategy games to choose from, you can be sure to have hours of strategy fun! I listed the best strategy games, real-time and turn-based, you can play in 2019.
Please share my post with your friends if you found this post helpful or interesting.
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