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Interesting Realtime Strategy games

Games focused on acquiring, managing and using resources to achieve a goal in real time. Most of the time player has the option to get more resources.

Achron (link)This game keeps track of last few minutes of the match, you can view past state of the game and change your original orders, send units back in time and more, all in real time multiplayer. Changes in the past cause recalculation of present state. Any event older than those few minutes becomes permanent and changes to past state are limited by energy, so that they don't happen too often.

ActRaiser (link)You control an angel and have a town with population, that you can't control. You can only choose where they will try to expand. Defend the town from monsters and shape the environment with miracles, so that the town can expand and close lairs that spawn enemies. At certain points you play side scrolling fighting levels where you defeat enemies and bosses. The more population you have, the stronger you will be in these fighting sections. Townsfolk will also find various items that will help you fight or can be used to help other towns.

A Game of Thrones: Genesis (link)Game starts in peace time. During peace players hire envoys to capture and hold towns that generate gold. Town control can be strengthen using noble lady that can also convert enemy units. Rogues can buy off enemy units so that while enemy still controls them you get their vision and their actions are fake. Rogues can also disable a town. Non combat units can be quickly killed by assassin or arrested by guards (their owner can pay ransom). Most special units are invisible, a spy can reveal them and detect bought off units and secretly disloyal towns. Units can be also killed by mercenaries or more powerful armies, that cost food instead of gold. Food is produced by hired peasants working town fields. No unit limit, instead buying increases its price. Eventually game switches to war time, where towns can't be captured diplomatically anymore but sieged with armies instead.

Age of Empires III (link)Gather resources, build structures, produce units, advance through technological ages. You start the game with special explorer unit that respawns after death. It is used for early scouting and grabbing piles of resources on the map. It can also build trade post on neutral native settlements to ally with them. Allied settlements allow purchase of special units and technologies. Building and fighting provides experience to your faction. For experience you can obtain resources, free units or special technology from your home city, depending on what cards you selected for your deck before playing and what age you are in. Experience received in matches is persistent and will level up your home city, unlocking more cards.

Airships: Conquer the Skies (link)On world map, you wage war against other factions, capture cities for income and use them to do research and build war machines. The war machines can be completely designed by connecting various pieces together. You get to decide the location of engines, fuel, ammo, weapons, crew and various support pieces. The bigger you make it, the more it costs. You can create air ships, land ships and immobile defenses. Combat is done on a battle map where you can directly command your ships. Ships gradually lose armor where they are hit, can catch fire and get boarded which captures the enemy ship.

Aliens Versus Predator: Extinction (link)Humans and Predators call in reinforcements for money/honor points, but Aliens have a queen that lays eggs, which hatch into facehuggers, that will use bodies of defeated enemies to create more aliens. What kind of an alien you get depends on what kind of enemy unit you use. Some aliens can be upgraded to specialize in acquiring hosts, so the bodies they bring back will result in stronger aliens.

Anno 1404: Gold Edition (link)Each player starts with a ship. The map has islands with various resources that players can settle on. The settlements have people that work the buildings and have needs that must be met to keep them from dying or rioting. To get the needed merchandise, players have to establish production chains and maintain trade between their colonies. The map is divided into north and south parts which each have their own kind of islands with some resources that are only available there. However, to build in the southern part of the map the player has to gain favor of a neutral faction. Neutral factions can also offer quests.
Players can go to war with each other. Players can build defensive buildings, ships and land units, but their colonies have to maintain them and supply them with provisions. Ships can destroy buildings on shores, cutting off the island from traded goods. Land units appear in a form of movable camps that after will send soldiers to attack enemies in range after the camp is set up. Colonies can be destroyed or taken over by capturing market buildings.

Anomaly: Warzone Earth (link)You control commander unit that can move freely on the map and use limited amount of support abilities. You also have a convoy of vehicles that constantly advances along specified route. You can change the route at any time and change the order of vehicles in the convoy. Along the way your convoy will come into range of enemy towers which will shoot at it until they are destroyed. Map also contains additional charges for commander’s abilities and money crates for purchasing more convoy vehicles or upgrading them.

Arena Wars Reloaded (link)Game has few game modes similar to those in shooters - Capture the Flag, Bombing Run and Domination. You only build units for money. When your unit dies it is fully refunded, so you can keep building in response to what other players have. On map you can pick up consumable power ups and hold buildings which either shoot at nearby enemy units or generate money.

Ashes of Empire (link)Your goal is to pacify a few countries by accomplishing mission goals in their provinces. You move around the country in person, talking with people to get them on your side, taking control of and destroying important buildings and defeating enemy forces. You have various resources – goods, vehicles and people, which can be used directly, like calling in a vehicle or a friendly squad, or used to gain support of the local people. People you get on your side either do something for you, like build a building you need, or can be added to your resources. They will also reveal location of other people, which eventually gets you to the leaders. Getting a support of a leader makes all the subordinates automatically join when you meet them. The leaders are based on nationality and people of a single nation are spread around all the countries. Capturing the right kinds of buildings give benefits while in the province, like infinite amount of a certain resource. After some time in the province, the enemy forces start to sabotage, which decreases the rewards for pacifying the province. The likelihood of nuclear strikes also increases with time and taking too long will end up in a nuclear civil war and game over.

BattleForge (link)Has built in collectible cards – picking 20 of them forms a deck. In the game you use the cards to place units or buildings which you can then command to take hold of energy and sphere points. Spheres unlock cards of matching color, the more powerful need more spheres under control. Energy is spent to activate the cards which then need to recharge.

Black & White 2 (link)You have a god hand that can interact directly with anything in your circle of influence (picking up people or things, building structures etc.). You plan your city, assign jobs to people, raise army, expand your influence and do miracles. There is a symbol drawing system for miracle selection. You also get a giant creature with modifiable behavior that can fight and do the miracles too.

Brütal Legend (link)Initially this seems like a fighting game but the main focus of the game are stage battles. There you capture resource points and build units in order to destroy the enemy base. All of it is done with your character in third person perspective flying around the map, giving out commands to units, capturing resource points, using powerful abilities and fighting themselves. An important feature is the ability to team up with your unit which allows you to use their special abilities.

Carrier Command 2 (link)One or more players are in a carrier ship control room. Using panels and controls in the room they can steer the carrier, use its weapon systems, send out aircraft and amphibious vehicles, give them orders or directly control them. There are many islands on the map and enemy carriers as well. Carriers can take control of an island and get access to its resources. Each island provides different new units or weapons to the carrier that controls it. Automated boats move supplies from islands to the carrier.

Castles II: Siege & Conquest (link)Your goal is to achieve a certain minimal score and hold it long enough to win. That is accomplished by taking over territory, defending it with armies and maintaining good relations with the pope. To make actions in the game, you use three kinds of action points. You can start up to three tasks at once a distribute these points among them. Each task has a minimal amount of action points and resources it needs, but more points can be assigned to accomplish it faster. As tasks are completed, you get more action points to work with and you increase the amount of tasks you can do at once. The tasks include things like gathering a resource, recruiting an army, attacking, sending diplomats and spies, searching for spies, building castles and so on. When building a castle, you can design it by placing towers and walls. In battles you have a limited control over your troops.

Chaos Island: The Lost World - Jurassic Park (link)You control few characters that can build base, fight and collect resources. These are air dropped supplies and dinosaur eggs. Eggs are found in nests, often guarded by neutral dinosaurs. Eggs can then be hatched in your base to obtain a controllable dinosaur of the same species. Supplies are used for buildings and upgrades.

Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight (link)Each player has a mobile base and a fixed amount of points that are used to build units and that will get refunded when the unit dies. There are three types of base for each faction with different units and abilities. When a base is destroyed, the player can choose a different type to respawn with. A match is won by getting a set amount of victory points from captured control towers, destroying enemy units and gathering tiberium.
Tiberium is picked up by unit which can carry it to spawn zone to get points for purchasing base and unit upgrades. Unit can also detonate the carried tiberium for area damage to enemies. Units gain experience as they fight. The player gain experience as they play, unlocking more units and upgrades.

Conflict Zone (link)Actions of your units have influence on popularity score which determines what units you have available. There are two factions. ICP gains popularity by rescuing refugees and imprisoned soldiers but loses it when civilians get hurt. GHOST gains it by recruiting civilians and using a cameraman unit that increses popularity when it sees your units winning but decreases it when they are losing.

Cossacks II: Gold (link)Allows up to 64 thousand units on the map. Units have morale and fatigue, you can make formations and you can hide them from fire behind trees.

Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal (link)You build up economy and defenses to hold back ever increasing amount of liquid that destroys your buildings on touch. Eventually you start pushing it back, containing it and capturing the victory points. Apart from directly bombing the creep you can also manipulate terrain and produce anti-creep. Each level requires a different approach.

Cultist Simulator (link)The game is represented with cards. They can be used in various actions in various combinations to get new cards, which will progress the game and story. Besides cards there is time management. Actions take time to complete, cards can expire or become temporarily unusable. The game periodically consumes your money cards. If you don’t have any, you can lose by starvation. With time other events appear that will check for specific cards and can make you lose the game.

Dominium (link)There are seven planets with terrain that wraps around at the edges and one fortress on it. You must take over five fortresses before the enemy does. You start with a factory, which can produce more factories and other units. All units can carry gold, fuel and crew. Factories mine gold and fuel from deposits and units buy crew from cities. Units use fuel to move, but a factory must be transported by a unit. More crew makes factory work faster. Units are destroyed when they run out of health or crew. Units have vision and radar, which has more range, but does not see in forests. When producing a unit, you can choose its properties like speed, armor, fuel capacity etc. which changes its cost. There is a space map, which connects the planets. Space units can move there and transport ground units between planets.

Driftland: The Magic Revival (link)Build base on floating islands, that can be moved around, destroyed or created, connected by bridges and terraformed, so that they are suitable for your faction. Units are commanded by bounty flags, the more gold spent the more units will go there. Abstract population is divided between economy buildings and hired military units, which level up. Buildings have upkeep based on distance from castle.

Dune (link)You can travel around the planet, talking to people. Everything you do takes time. You can take some people with you, which lends you their help, and you can leave them somewhere else to do a task for you. You need to find neutral bases and convince them to join you. Your troops can then be commanded to either harvest resources, train for combat or cultivate plants. Some places are richer with resources than others, but resources can’t be harvested where plants grow. Troops can be given better equipment, will gain experience and their morale must be maintained. Until you gain an ability to communicate with your troops at a distance, you must travel there personally and give orders. The goal is to keep the emperor satisfied with resource tributes and to force the enemy of the planet, which can be done by taking their bases by force or waiting for the enemy to abandon the base when it was surrounded with plants.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard (link)Map has two connected layers - surface and underworld. Your base has limited space for buildings that recruit single unit type or gives bonuses to adjacent buildings. You choose one strong champion unit and you recruit weaker captain units. On surface you collect randomly spawning dragonshards and in underworld you fight neutral monsters for experience and gather gold and items. For experience you level up captains, up to level 5 if you have enough buildings. High level captains get soldiers following them but soldiers and all flying units can’t enter underworld.

Dynatech (link)You can build industries on planets and use ships to transport goods between planets, both cost money to maintain. Various industries require various resources to produce their goods. You can either produce the resources yourself or buy them from other players. Goods can be then transported by your own ships or another player can do it for a fee. The price of the goods change based on their supply and demand. Ships and industries are purchased from Earth, which will also buy high-end products. The game has a split screen for a second human player.

Earth 2160 (link)Human factions have modular base construction and modular vehicles that allows to choose their weapon, armor and other components. Units gain experience and use up ammo. The alien faction has no base, instead it uses special ground and flying unit to gather resources and make it multiply itself or morph into combat units. Players can also bid on hiring agent units. These will temporarily work for player who pays the most, they are powerful units and provide passive bonuses.

Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (link)City builder. Satisfy needs of the people, make money through taxes and trade, build army to defend yourself. Population is needed as labor for buildings. Keeping people happy makes more people immigrate to the city. Buildings spawn workers that walk the roads. Some go to a specific destination, others walk aimlessly and provide services to passed houses. To distribute goods to houses, market workers need to get them from storage buildings first, which must be supplied by workers from farms, workshops and other storage buildings. Apart from buildings that cost money, monuments can be build, which need labor camps that gather necessary resources and construct the monument. Each map has only some resources, other goods must be imported. Temples can be build which allow attracting a hero with offerings. Heroes can visit the city and give benefits to buildings they pass. The effectiveness of offerings, population health and popularity is affected by feng shui, which is increased by placing buildings in spots that are in harmony with their element. Army size is determined by the amount of non-working noble population. The world map is filled with other cities, which are willing to trade, if the player maintains good relations with them by fulfilling their requests. They can be also spied on and raided or conquered with an army. In multiplayer, every player builds on their own map, can trade with each other and spy or attack each other. Invading player does not control their army, but they can choose where the army appears and how it behaves. To win, it is necessary to achieve certain score in culture, prosperity and other ratings, often to build some monument as well.

Europa 1400: The Guild (link)The player controls a member of medieval family. They can marry, have children and when their character dies, the player controls one of the children. There is a number of different businesses player can own and run by hiring employees. Some produce goods that are sold at the city market, other provide services, some steal from people. Buildings can be upgraded and have to be maintained. The city has various offices for which the player can apply and which grant various privileges, ranging from passive bonuses to actions like changing law, expelling people or petition to remove someone from office.
Each character has various skills that can be improved. Game tracks their standing with other characters which changes their behavior. The standing can be influenced in many ways, including bribery and slander. Character gets also a certain amount of action points every year that are required by certain actions. When character breaks laws, others can use gather and use evidence against them in the court. Apart of old age, character can die due to illness, injury during a duel or in battle which happens when a building is attacked.

Factorio (link)Player controls a character that can gather resources, combine them, place structures and shoot from weapons. If the character dies, it will drop all items and respawn. Player can place structures that automatically generate electricity, gather resources, transport them, combine them and do research that unlocks more advanced structures and items. The goal is to design large and efficient factory that is able to produce late game items from basic resources. This activity triggers attacks from alien wildlife which spawns from lairs. Player can defend their factory using various weapons and automated defenses.

FireFly Studios' Stronghold (link)Players have their lord unit that must be protected. They build chain of production structures for food, materials and weapons. These are worked by people who pay taxes and can be paid to become soldiers. To defend your town you can build layers of walls where you can position your archers, towers with war machines on them, dig moats and lay traps. To fight this the enemy can bring equipment like catapults, siege towers or ladders. There is no fog of war.

Genewars (link)Players compete to gain favor of neutral Ethereals. When they are present, growing plants and populating areas with creatures gives you points, killing removes points. You have 5 specialists which build your base, grow plants and research creatures. Ethereals may reward you with monolith that improves specialist’s skill. You clone creatures to do work or attack other players. The more researched creature is, the stronger it is. You can mate creatures to create hybrids. Creatures have finite lifespan and need to feed. Initially you can mine resource deposits but when they get depleted you rely on recycling plants and bodies.

Germ Crazy (link)The player is defending a patient's body from an illness. The body is divided into connected maps, which represent individual body parts. A map consists of body cells, which can be changed to various static defenses. There are two kinds of mobile units, one moves inside the cells, the other in a layer on top of the cells. The illness spreads through body cells, damaging them, mutating them and releasing various mobile units. To fight them, the player can use energy, that the body generates, to create units anywhere in the body. Some units can be given orders, other act on their own. Units can be repaired, recycled for some energy or moved to other parts of the body through the blood stream. The illness can also spread through the blood and will fight with player's units in the blood. There are lymph nodes that can cut off blood access. As the illness spreads, it will cause body parts to die. The more damaged the body is, the less energy it will produce. Losing important organs will also remove certain functions, like the ability to repair units, and can cause death. During the game, the patient has to get rest, enough food and their body temperature should be monitored. The player has a limited amount of money that can be used to purchase drugs, that help with fighting the illness, replace damaged organs and body parts (except the brain), get the patient on life support and also sell body parts, that are not too much damaged.

Global Effect (link)Players get or lose points based on their economy rating and the environmental rating. Players can spend their points to place cities and place buildings, which allow their cities to grow, which increases their economy rating. Cities require power and most power plants require to find and mine resources. Players can also build air, sea and missile bases to attack each other. Most things that players do has an effect on the environment. Polluting too much can lead to catastrophes, like rising sea levels, nuclear winter or spread of deserts, on which players can’t build. Players can also help the environment by planting trees or getting rid of the polluting player.

Hanjuku Eiyū: Aa Sekai Yo Hanjuku Nare (link)You control generals, which can have up to 6 soldiers with them, can carry consumable items and an egg. In battle, both armies automatically hit each other. An army has a limited amount of energy, which can be used to make them fight better for a while. Soldiers die first, then the general starts taking damage. At any time you can interrupt the battle to use an item or to use your egg. Eggs have a level, which goes down with every use. The egg summons a monster. What monster is summoned depends on egg level and type of the egg. When a monster is in battle, the battle continues in turn based mode. When the monster is defeated, the egg breaks and can’t be used until repaired. The map has castles which must be all captured for the boss to appear. Castles earn gold, which can be spent every month on items, soldiers, generals, upgrading castles and restoring eggs.

Hearts of Iron III (link)A more abstract strategy game. Very detailed in both military and country governance.

Heroes of Annihilated Empires (link)You have a hero unit, that levels and has inventory. At the beginning of the match you can choose to freeze the hero for 30 minutes to spawn workers which allows you to build base, gather resources and start producing units. Or you can keep the hero active instead, gather experience, money and equipment, pay neutral settlements to join you and take on the enemy base.

Homeworld 2 (link)Base is a single mobile mothership. You gather resources, build more ships and keep your fleet for the next mission. Units can move in 3D space instead of 2D plane like in most games. Units are more vulnerable from some directions and bigger ships have subsystems that can be targeted (e.g. engines).

Hooligans (link)You don’t have base, instead you tell units to rob shops, steal cars and capture bars where you hire more units. You can either hire more expensive, controllable units with upgradable weapons, or buy beer and gain weaker non-controllable followers. On the map you fight enemy gangs and neutral police. To do that effectively, you have to manage how drunk, drugged, angry and loyal your units are by getting drinks in a bar, destroying public property etc.

King's Dungeon (link)The goal is to prevent heroes entering the level from reaching the end of the level. Each level consists of connected rooms, which may have a pentagram inside them. You can spend mana to summon monsters and traps inside these marked rooms. You can not control the monsters, they move and attack heroes automatically. Defeating heroes grants more mana and experience, which unlocks stronger monsters and traps. Heroes can find items in the level, which make them stronger or allow them to bypass obstacles.

Kingdom Wars (link)Online game. You have a persistent base where you gather resources, build structures and hire units. Once you create an army, you can move it on the global map to do story missions, kill neutral units on random maps for gold, siege AI controlled cities and fight other players. When fighting players, you can fight their army, or siege their city. You can also cooperate in siege of AI controlled city. Your units have formations, gain experience and you can choose their bonus on level up.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces (link)Players get more units by converting neutral people and enemy units. Players purchase buildings and specialize them. Buildings can produce more resources and can train converted units to special units with abilities. Units have a spirit value, which can be increased or decreased by unit abilities. Units can also fight, but killing enemies lowers the spirit of fighting units and can make them neutral again.

Loop Hero (link)The map is tile based and consists of a camp and a looped road on which your hero keeps walking. The hero will fight enemies on the path. Defeating them will grant equipment for the hero and cards that can place new locations on the map that spawn new enemies, benefit your hero or grant resources. Enemies get gradually stronger and using cards will eventually cause boss monster to appear. Once per loop you can make the hero rest in the camp which allows spending resources on upgrading the camp. That gives bonuses to the hero and unlocks new cards. Visiting camp will reset the map and hero equipment.

Maelstrom (link)The alien faction causes flooding of the map with water that heals their units and damages units of other factions. The terrain is malleable, factions can raise terrain to stop the water or freeze it with special unit. Hero characters level up and can be controlled directly as a 3rd person shooter.

Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds (link)You build a deck of cards. In the match you directly control your wizard, you cast spells and summon creatures depending on what cards you chose. The map is small, divided into your and opponent’s half. You can move freely, have weak melee attack and block that halves damage. You can cast only on your half of the map. Each half of the map periodically spawns an orb that increases maximum mana. Mana recharges over time and can be also recharged from killed creatures. Summoned creatures automatically attack enemy wizard and will fight other creatures in the way. Spells include buffs, direct damage and even one that cancels enemy spell.

Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim (link)You can’t directly control units, only build structures, hire units and cast spells. Units will move around, explore and fight on their own. They behave differently based on class and you can influence them by placing bounty. Money to pay for all this you obtain via tax collection from your buildings. Units level up, can hold items and they will spend found treasure in your shops, so their money will get to you through taxes.

Metal Fatigue (link)Map has three layers. Units can move between these layers and some can also shoot from one layer to another. You build bases, produce units and can also build customizable mechs. Each faction has unique mech parts and it is possible to steal and reverse engineer parts from enemy mechs.

Minecraft (link)Player controls one character, obtaining resources in a fully destructible cube block world and turning them into items they need. Game allows for building logic circuits that power blocks which can do work for the player. Using the right blocks players are able to design moving buildings for various purposes, like automatic block placement or mining tunnels.

Natural Selection II (link)One player assumes role of commander, others control individual soldiers or aliens. Commander can give orders to team mates but they may not follow them. Gathered resources go to each player. While commander use them on structures, research and support abilities, other players can spend them on equipment.

NetStorm: Islands at War (link)Map consists of many small islands. Some have resource geysers. Your base produces free randomly shaped bridge pieces which you place to connect the islands. You can directly control your priest that builds non-combat structures and units that transport resource from geysers. You only fight with stationary towers that shoot or spawn temporary uncontrollable units. You can place them directly in range of your generator buildings but only on islands controlled by you or connected to your bridges. Weaker towers can fire in any directions, stronger have to be placed facing one way only.
Multiplayer has leveling system. You win match by capturing and sacrificing enemy priest on an altar. This gives you access to more towers. The more you have access to, the higher your level. Once all is unlocked, you can increase your rank instead, which will revert you to level 1 and give you permanent bonus to health and damage of your units.

Northgard (link)Randomized map is divided into territories, each containing resources, monsters or monster dwellings. After territory is scouted, you can send units there but to own a territory you need to purchase it. On owned territory you can build limited amount of buildings. Buildings are worked by villagers that spawn over time, consume resources and can become soldiers. Resources to build, research and maintain your base are infinitely produced by worked buildings, resources for upgrading buildings and units have to be found on map or traded. Periodically, monster dwellings will invade adjacent territories and various events happen. Some dwellings you can ally with. There is also reoccurring winter season that increases drain on your resources. There are multiple victory conditions and there is mode based around various challenges.

Offworld Trading Company (link)Each player starts by scanning for resources and placing their main building. You place more buildings on tiles you claimed. You have limited amount of claims, upgrading main building provides more. Most buildings produce resource if placed on the right tile or transform basic resources into advanced ones. Resources can be bought or sold on the market, price changes based on supply and demand. To increase production you can place buildings next to each other and research upgrades. You can also pay for sabotage of competition. The goal is to buy companies of other players through purchasing their shares which change in value based on player’s owned buildings, money and debt. Bought out player is taken over by AI that will provide income to players owning the shares.

OpenTTD (link)Players build rails, roads, harbors and airports, so that they can set up their trains, buses, ships and airplanes to transport people and goods for profit. Better transportation options become available over time and what is available depends also on the map climate. Cities will pay the players to set up transportation they need and players can destroy parts of a city, if they have a good standing with it. Providing good transport services and investing allows cities and industries to expand, thus providing more people and goods that players can transport. Players can also take loans and buy shares in other companies, possibly taking them over with all their assets and debts. Multiple players can cooperate in a single company.

Original War (link)You have limited amount of people that can’t be replaced and can change their class to do all the building, fighting and researching. Doing these, they get better at it over time. You gather randomly spawning resources and build customizable vehicles that people drive and require fuel that can be mined. You can also build weaker driver-less vehicles and tame less skillful apemen.

ParaWorld (link)Before match starts, players can change what units and resources they will start with. Units are divided into 5 tiers. Amount of units in each tier is limited but at any time you can promote any unit into higher tier which will heal it and make it more powerful.

Perimeter (link)Terrain here is malleable. Energy is the only resource and is harvested from flat low ground by generators. The bigger the area you have covered, the more energy you will have. You produce three types of units which you can combine into more powerful units. Those can be later divided back to combine again into different unit. When in danger you can raise impenetrable shield around your base that quickly drains energy.

Pharaoh (link)City builder. Satisfy needs of the people, make money through taxes and trade, build army to defend yourself. Population is needed as labor for buildings. Keeping people happy makes more people immigrate to the city. Buildings spawn workers that walk the roads. Some go to a specific destination, others walk aimlessly and provide services to passed houses. Before a building can function, its worker needs to pass by houses to get labor. To distribute goods to houses, market workers need to get them from storage buildings first, which must be supplied by workers from farms, workshops and other storage buildings. Apart from buildings that cost money, monuments can be build, which need labor camps that gather necessary resources and construct the monument. Each map has only some resources, other goods must be imported. Food production relies on Nile flooding, which can vary. The city worships gods, one of which is the patron god. They need to be kept satisfied by building enough temples to avoid disasters. When happy, they can give blessings and their temple complex gives additional bonuses. The world map is filled with other cities, which are willing to trade, if the player maintains good relations with them by fulfilling their requests. The player also needs to keep the Pharaoh in favor by fulfilling his requests. The city has to be defended by raising an army. Ships can also be built to fight naval invasions. To win, it is necessary to achieve certain score in culture, prosperity, favor and population, often to build some monument as well. Player keeps their personal savings and sometimes troops to the next mission, which they get by paying themselves a wage during mission. Those can be given to the city to avoid debt, or used to send gifts to gain favor.

Planetary Annihilation: Titans (link)The map can consist of several planets and moons. On their surface players build unit factories, power plants and extract metal. Ground, air, naval, submersible and orbital units are available, including very powerful units, long range artillery and nukes. Units can be transferred between planets via transports, cannons and teleporters. Planets can be destroyed by special building or by accelerating it into another planet.

Planet M.U.L.E. (link)Players compete for the best score. Each round they claim free land by pressing a button at the right time. An auction for more land can happen, where players bid money. Players then take turns developing the land. Player has a limited time for their turn, which is shorter, if they did not have enough food left. They can go to town to buy a mule, then lead it to their plot of land to make it start producing resources. The amount produced depends on terrain, adjacent plots and random factors. They can also try catching a hidden animal for extra money, survey land for luxury resource deposits and can end their turn sooner by going to the pub, which gives money based on time left. After all players are done, resources are produced by mules, if the player had enough energy stored. Then for a limited time players can buy and sell resources between themselves and the town by changing their price in real time. The town produces mules from ore players sell to it and their price depends on the ore price. The price of resources in town depends on supply. Random events happen, bad ones are more likely for players that are ahead.

Populous: The Beginning (link)Each player has a shaman and villagers. The shaman respawns and can cast spells. The villagers can build houses, where they multiply, and other structures, where they can be trained into combat units. Villagers in houses produce mana that recharges spells and they can also worship statues on the map that grant nonrechargable spells. There is a very expensive armageddon spell, that when cast ends the game and teleports all units into an arena for a final fight.

Prison Architect (link)You design and build a prison, hire staff and accept prisoners. There are various ways of earning money, including using prisoners for farming and other work. You can manage the daily schedule of prisoners but they try to steal things, start fights and fires, form gangs and try to escape. There is also a mode where you play as a prisoner.

R.U.S.E.: The Art of Deception (link)Get money from exhaustible supply points, build camp and order units from them. Some units can hide in forests, ambush enemy for more damage and have morale. Camps can be quickly taken over with infantry. Map is divided into sectors to which players can deploy temporary abilities, most of which affect intelligence – hiding your troops, revealing enemy troops, creating fake units to distract enemy players etc. Players get more of these over time.

Sacrifice (link)You directly control your wizard that can cast spells and summon creatures. In combat you gain experience which unlocks more powerful spells. You start with an altar building. You capture mana points and summon special creatures that follow you and transfer mana to you from your mana points. Summoning creatures costs mana and souls, you can command them around or anchor them to your building which makes them into powerful defenders. There is a limited amount of souls in the map. Whenever your creature dies, you can collect its soul back. Souls of enemy creatures must be collected using a spell, that will take the soul to your altar. Enemy player may intercept them on the way and take the soul back. You defeat players through desecrating their altar by sacrificing your creature. During the ritual, player being desecrated looses experience and eventually levels.

Screeps (link)Online real time strategy game. The game is always on but your faction is managed by artificial intelligence. You don’t play the game, instead you program your AI. You program everything - path finding, scouting, building and the overall strategy decisions. There is one resource type to harvest. Units consists of parts which determine attributes like movement speed, health, build speed, damage, healing and their production cost. Buildings include for example roads, unit production, towers or walls.

Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars (link)You play as a kingdom. You can take control of villages by building a fort near them, removing their resistance with force or grants and trade. You can build structures around village that will be worked by the villagers and settle new villages to grow your population. Structures produce goods that can be sold to villages, do research, build war machines and summon the national god. Villagers have skills that can be trained and will improve when they work, fight or lead soldiers. You can recruit villagers and train them as soldiers. You promote soldiers to become generals that train your soldiers. You also have a king which will be succeeded by one of the generals in case of death.
All your people have loyalty meter that changes based on reputation of your kingdom, nationality, leadership of your king, availability of goods and jobs etc. They can be influenced with money. Low loyalty leads to people leaving for other kingdoms or villages rebelling. High reputation may lead to heroes joining you. Reputation decreases by actions such as attacking civilians or neutral villages. You can propose treaties to other kingdoms, trade with their villages and build your structures for their villagers to work in. You can also fight monster kingdoms for treasure and reputation.
You can hire or train villagers as spies and covertly transfer them under control of different kingdom. Spy gives access to information about the kingdom, can lower loyalty of village, sabotage structures, attempt assassination, steal technology and capture structures when turned back to your side. Because it behaves like any villager, the enemy kingdom may recruit your spy as soldier, promote to general or even to king. In that case, spy either gives you control over kingdom or if disloyal, will create new AI controlled kingdom.
Lastly, you can play as the monster kingdom. Difference is that apart from money you need lifeforce, both you get from enslaving villages and killing people. Monsters are generally stronger than humans and are bred instead of recruited from villages. You can still obtain a civilian builder and do all that humans can but loyalty of your human subjects will be low.

SimCity 2000 (link)Place zones for housing, commerce and industry, what industries get built depends on demand for goods, education level and taxation of the industry. People need various services in their reach, like power, water or police. They will travel farther depending on transport available. You can put in effect policies, like free healthcare, the city council may force them. Random disasters can strike. You can change funding of police and other services to change their effectiveness. You get money from taxes, you get more from housing in nice environment. There are multiple newspapers reporting on events differently, technology changes add new buildings over time.

Slaves to Armok: God of Blood - Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress (link)The game generates a world with settlements and history where you select a location to settle with several dwarfs and supplies of your choosing. The map is made of squares and is many layers deep. You control the dwarfs by assigning them jobs, with the exception of soldier squads that can get direct orders, and over time more dwarfs will migrate to your fortress. You can dig out large underground rooms, build structures overground, craft items, lay traps and design your own defenses using pits, water or magma. Dwarfs get better at their job, have needs, can have family and pets and can get stressed up to the point of going murderous. You can trade with caravans, get attacked by underground monsters, get besieged by invasions and send raid parties yourself. The combat system is very detailed and your dwarfs and other creatures sometimes do surprising things. There is also an adventure mode, where you directly control your character and can explore your generated world, even visit your stronghold.

Space Haven (link)You design and manage a space ship that serves as a colony for your people. They have needs, mood and skills. You assign them to jobs which they do by themselves or draft them to fight in which case you directly control them. In the ship you place rooms and equipment to satisfy the needs, turn resources into useful items and defend the ship in case of an attack. The ship can have weapons and shields placed in the hull. You jump your ship from system to system and there are AI controlled ships that do the same. When you encounter them you can communicate with them and trade but also fire on them with your guns and board it with your crew.

Star Wars: Empire at War (link)Players take control over planets which generate credits and give special bonuses. Planets can have structures constructed on them and house units. They can also have units on orbit. When moving fleet to enemy planet, space battle starts. Moving ground units from fleet to planet surface starts land battle. In battle players can spend credits on defensive towers, upgrades and repairs but credits do not increase during the battle. Both attacker and defender can’t produce units in battle. In space, ships can be disabled by targeting their weapons, engine etc. On land, native population will aid one of the players based on what faction they play. Attacker can bring more units than defender can have but how many can be deployed is limited by amount of captured points on map. Defender has all units available at the start and buildings produce limited amount of free units during the battle. Having control over orbit also allows for bombing during land battle and on orbit you can take advantage of cannons on planet surface.
While the Empire has to research new technologies and build economy structures on planets, the Rebellion steals technologies and money from Empire using hero units. Rebellion can also sneak small force on planet through enemy controlled orbit. There is also third faction, the Zahn Consortium, which spread corruption that makes planets leak information about the enemy, hide your units and allows the player to place various negative effects over the planets.

State of War (link)Each player has main building that will automatically respawn your only flying unit. It can defend itself, attack enemy buildings and repair and upgrade your buildings. On map there are various buildings. Shooting building does not destroy it but converts it to your side. Some automatically produce free tanks or air strikes, other give you gold to spend on defensive towers or research points to upgrade buildings.

Steel Division II (link)Game is divided into 3 phases. Before game starts you create your card deck that determines resource income in individual phases, what units you can purchase and in what phase they will be available. You win by taking more control points than the enemy team. Game has features to make it closer to reality - units have morale, gain experience, can surrender, use cover, hide in forests and buildings, have line of sight, can run out of ammo, have good range, tanks have poor vision, hits might not penetrate armor but when they do they may partially cripple the vehicle.

Submarine Titans (link)All units can fly at five different altitudes. In combat they change altitude to avoid enemy projectiles and they need to be supplied with ammo. Human factions can relocate their towers and steal technologies from themselves.

SunAge: Battle for Elysium (link)All buildings must be connected to central power plant. There are 4 resources of different rarity. Resources are harvested from points on the map, the rarer the resource, the less points there are and the further away they are from starting player bases. Weak units need only the most common resource, strongest unit needs all of them. To harvest from resource point, you use special unit that will transport the resource to refinery. To make this efficient, you build a chain of power relays from your power plant to build a refinery close to the resource point.

Tanktics (link)Instead of mouse pointer you have a flying magnet that can pick up objects in the game. These are boulders to block enemy, consumable power ups and tank parts which you get from destroyed tanks and from your base. To produce parts, your base has a treadmill operated by sheep. Sheep get tired over time and you can refresh them faster by dropping them into special pool. You stack tank parts on top of each other to make a tank which you can then command. Tanks can defend the base, move crates to base to refill the treadmill factory and will level up in combat. Enemy tanks are regularly spawned on the map until you destroy all their recievers.

Terraria (link)Player controls one character, obtaining resources in a fully destructible rectangle tiled world and turning them into items they need. Player progresses by defeating bosses which will cause the world to change, creating new biomes which can then spread and prevent player access to resources from other biomes, unless the player prevents their assimilation. Game allows for building logic circuits but more complex machines can be created using displacement caused by collision with sloped tiles that allows moving monsters around to act as signals. The game has a special mode, in which the player can change difficulty and other parameters of the world and sacrifice gathered items in order to be able to duplicate them infinitely.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth (link)Map has certain points where bases of various sizes can be build. Some factions get a wall around their base which units can climb on. Units and heroes gain ranks as they fight but buildings get ranks too which makes them produce more resources, train units faster or unlocks better upgrades and units.

They Are Billions (link)Build resource production structures in appropriate areas to support further building and expansion on the map. The map is full of zombies that will attack your base if they get close, infecting your buildings which spawns more zombies. To clear them out you can make units which become veterans as they fight. You have to survive for certain amount of days, waves of zombies will periodically appear from map edges. Before time runs out a giant final wave attacks you from all edges of the map.

Tooth and Tail (link)You control leader unit that can be killed but respawns. Maps are small and randomly generated without symmetry. It contains finite resource points and features that slow down or block movement and vision. Before match you select what units and defensive buildings you will have available. Leader can buy farms at resource points and build defensive buildings and dwellings around the owned resource point. Dwellings automatically produce units up to a limit. Units can be commanded to follow the leader.

Traders: The Intergalactic Trading Game (link)Players compete for the best score. Each round they claim free land by moving their character at a free spot and taking it. Player can make their lands produce various resources. To end their turn, they have to return to their base. Movement is limited by the amount of oil player has. The amount of resources produced depends on terrain and random factors like weather. Snails are a special resource that is gathered by sending rockets to planets. Rockets can be shot down by pirates and player then has to buy new ones. Then for a limited time players can buy and sell resources between themselves and the landlord by changing their price in real time. The landlord then demands paying rent in snails. Players who can not pay will not get free land next turn. Finally players get a limited time to buy oil and rockets, sell gems and participate in lottery. Sometimes players also compete in grabbing free resources placed on a separate map and can also buy defenses and weapons, that are used in a separate battle map. If a player manages to get into other player's base, they will steal the player's resources. Random events happen, like destruction of some buildings or their random transformation.

War for the Overworld (link)The map consists of tiles, most have to be dug out for units to explore the map. Some tiles are faster or impossible to dig. Each player starts with main building that must be protected. Dug out tiles can be used to create special purpose rooms. Depending on what rooms you have, various units will came in through indestructible gateway building and join you. Units will dig, do work in rooms and fight but player can’t control them directly. However, they can be directed somewhere by placing a flag, picked up with mouse and dropped elsewhere or controlled in first person view using a spell.
Units can do research which unlocks more room types, spells and traps. Units also work to produce mana and build traps. Gold is found by workers when digging. Units can level up by training or fighting and they require wage and food. Units that fall in combat can be picked up and revived, fallen enemy units can be converted. Map contains neutral buildings for capture, items and can contain AI controlled human faction that will attack all players.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III (link)The units available are not tied to buildings or research but to escalation phases, which happen at a fixed time. You can summon powerful elite units for free which can be summoned again some time after they die. And there is a game mode where each team has to destroy enemy core which is protected against early rushes with towers. Otherwise, you capture resource points, construct buildings and hire units.

War Wind II: Human Onslaught (link)Players recruit basic workers from neutral population on the map. Workers are trained to combat and support units. Some workers have potential and will train to better units. Units have inventory for carrying passive bonus items and usable items like bombs. Units have skills, like construction, stealth or magic, that can be improved with training. Vehicles can be constructed, which are piloted by units. Some units can cast spells, strongest spells cost so much mana that multiple units have to cast it together.
Over time, units consume supplies produced by farms and vehicles consume fuel mined from deposits. Research costs influence points that are gained by killing enemy units, hiring workers and buying for resources, but losing units will lower influence instead. Units can hide in forests. Neutral
Zombie Night Terror (link)The game is about guiding a horde of zombies to complete the level. Zombies are uncontrollable and continuously moving until they hit a wall which forces them to turn around. You can modify the zombies by spending DNA to give them permanent or temporary special abilities. More DNA can be gained by finding it on the level or by sacrificing the zombies.

Honorable mentions

Atrox
Battle Realms
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
Darwinia
Deuteros: The Next Millennium
Divinity: Dragon Commander
Emperor: Battle for Dune
Evil Genius
Genesis Rising
Homeworld: Cataclysm
KKND2: Krossfire
Knights and Merchants
LEGO Rock Raiders
Mega lo Mania
Outpost 2: Divided Destiny
Primitive Wars
SimAnt
Spore
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
The Tone Rebellion
Universe at War: Earth Assault
WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos
Warlords: Battlecry III
Zero-K
Zeus: Master of Olympus
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