Matrix Games Forums

1. Close Combat 2
2. Carriers at War
3. Korsun Pocket
4. Highway to the Reich
5. Uncommon Valor
6. Close Combat 3
7. Europe in Flames (East Front II and West Front)
8. Panzer General 1/2
9. Steel Panthers
10. Age of Rifles

Others I own(ed) and don't make the list : CC IV and V, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, Silent Hunter 2, Hearts of Iron (yuck).
Ones I am keeping my eye on for my next purchase(s): Birth of America, Forge of Freedom, Carriers at War, Close Combat Cross of Iron.

I know I'm gonna get flamed for this but the original Command and Conquer is what got me into all types of war games (I know it's sacrilege to mention RTS).

I would have to include Pacific War in the list. It was THE premier game of the Pacific Theater in WWII for over a dozen years -- an eon in computer time.

Operation Flashpoint also deserve to be on list[;)]

As this looks like an all-encompassing list (including boardgames) I'll throw in my favorites.

1. Advanced Squad Leader (AH/MMP)
2. Totaler Krieg (Decision Games)
3. Great Battles of the American Civil War (series, SPI/TSR, Richard Berg designer)
4. Up Front (AH)
5. Starship Troopers (original Avalon Hill edition)
6. Carrier Battles (Rising Sun Simulations)
7. Flat Top (AH)
8. Wooden Ships & Iron Men (AH)
9. Modern Naval Battles (3W/Alan Emrich)
10. Ogre/GEV (Steve Jackson Games)

No computer games make the top 10. I doubt they'd make the top 20. Of computer wargames the only ones I thought were fun were Panzer General series, Gary Grig's Pacific War, and Talonsoft's Rising Sun.

RedStorm rising back on the 64 was the first I ever played.

The others in no particular order and chosen for fondness and/or quality are:

Battleground series both napoleonic and ACW
TOAW
WITP
V for victory series
Combat Mission
The Total war series (at least initially)
Take Command series
An old Apache flight sim, forget the exact title.
The Fleet Board series of games - I had 6th, 2nd, 7th and 5th.
Harpoon

If I had the time, I would also play the Highway to the Reich series into the list. I played AA and have HTTR but haven't had the time to do enough to get it into the list.

Knuckles 85,
     I attempted RTS but found the lack of control of my units and the "he who clicks fastest wins" mentality a drag. 
 
MDiehl,
     If I had added boardgames, I would also add Flat top, Submarine and Squad Leader.  No computer games in your top 20?  What are you doing floating around a computer game company forum if you dislike computer games?
 
Ironduke,
     I totally forgot about the V for Victory series.  What a great series it was.  Maybe Matrix can do a re-mix of that series.?.
 
 

My favs

1) Harpoon
2) Pacific War
3) Carrier Force
4) War In Russia
5) Knights of the Desert

Too many fighting for the last 5 spots and I'm sure I forgot some.

What are you doing floating around a computer game company forum if you dislike computer games?

Who said I dislike computer games? I just said that computer wargames don't make my top 20 list. As WW2 consims go, GGPW is superior to GG-WitP or Uncommon Logistics because they're both horridly flawed as consims but at least GGPW can be played in less time than was required to fight the real war.

Also, in computer games, some of the combat flightsims are pretty good, and the various Sid Meiers' Civ/AlphaCentauri ones are good.

But for quality of design and experience the board games are universally better consims IMO than any computer game. So far. One can always hope for better.

The Fleet Board series of games - I had 6th, 2nd, 7th and 5th.

Those games sucked sooooo bad. An entire squdron of Hrppon armed F-18s had the same attack factor as 2 SS-N-19s...

A CVBG with 4 FFGs was only like 3 columns different than 4 Aegis cruisers, meaning 30%.

And the thing of moving either Air, surface, or subsurface made it by definition imposile to mount a Soviet combined arms attack.

A wrote an article on it in the old wargamer I was so mad at it.

t could have ben soooo good, but it kept digging itself deeper and deeper in to a tactical hole that made it more and more ridiculous.

One of the most incredibly broken combat systems EVER in a game...

My top 10 wargames:

Victory Games Civil War (I wore out two complete sets playing...The most fun to play wargame I've ver played.)
ASL - wargame's crystal meth - I lost my resident opponent in 1990 and got married a year later...
Bruce Harpers World at War (the culmination of the game I cut my wargame teeth on - Third Reich
Harpoon Series (manual and computer)
Steel Panthers Series
Wargame Construction Set Series (Most notable Vol 2 Tanks and Vol 3 Age of Rifles)
Russian Front (Avalon Hill - the most fun Russian front game)
Balance of Power (played on my old Apple IIGS)
SSG Battlefront series (about to be rereleased in updated form)
Conquest of the Aegean (and others in the series)

Paul, those games were very popular, so there are a lot of us out there wishing for a resurrection. I would be happy with a complete redo, fixing the problems that you dislike so much. I know many people will suggest the Harpoon series, but Harpoon is more like Carriers At War compared to the Fleet series being WITP/UV. So how about a Cold War UV/WITP? Wouldn't that be fun?

I have ben working on an operational level modern naval game withthe war college - unfortunatley funding we hoped to get appears to have been mired in a reorg...

A bunch of us actually made up a whole new set of rules to play the fleet games using the existing maps and counters, but a totally different set of combat charts and tables and an "action point" system based on accumulating points to execute a 'plan'. The US side had buch of COMCARGRU/CRUDESGRU/COMSUBGRU tracks that llowed them to move battlegroup sizd stacks often. the COmmies had a single Fleet HQ that took while to "build up steam" but then could rampage like all hell broke lose.

It also tracked misiles in "boxes" of 4 - SSMs and SAMS - and properly showed how saturation attacks worked... It also made sub combat a lot different - you alocated subs to areas like Air rather than "moving them hex by hex" since that is how they are really used...

I wish I could find those rules - they were in my old Apple II GS...long gone. I fould one of the combat charts once - based on Capt Hughes Salvo equations...then lost it again. One of these days....

Anybody who has the slightest interest in the American Civil War should try Take Command:Second Manassas. You can try their demo at the MadMinuteGames website. It is the closest thing to actually commanding a CW battle I can imagine. Afterwards, it is as if I had been there.

I am also enjoying Forge of Freedom right now. In my judgment, it is the best strategic CW game ever, and the patches keep making it better.

Steel Panthers
SPWAW
MegaMek
MekWars
Classic BattleTech
Battle Isle 3
Total Annihilation

Hmmm... Not necessarily in this order, and my favourite time-eaters historically rather than any claim they are "best"

Close Combat 2
Age of Rifles
Civil War Generals 2
Close Combat 5
Tin Soldiers: Caesar
Take Command: 2nd Manassas
Sid Meier's Gettysburg
Highway to the Reich
HPS' Campaign Gettysburg
WitP (just getting into that)

Let's see top 10 WARGAMES
 
1.  Combat Mission series
2.  SPWAW
3.  Master of Magic
4.  Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri
5.  Medieval Total War (origional)
6.  War of the Lance
7.  Mad Minutes 2nd Manassas 
8.  Sid Meiers Civil War series (for multiplayer since MM's doesn't have MP)
9.  Warlords IV & III
10. SPARTAN

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

Steel Panthers
SPWAW
MegaMek
MekWars
Classic BattleTech
Battle Isle 3
Total Annihilation

I still play Total Annhilation. The guys who made that game are making another called Supreme Commander. Go to gamespot and down;oad the demo you won't be disappointed

In no particular order;
Civil War Bull Run/TC2M
East Front/West Front/Rising Sun
Shogun Total War
TOAW(CoW and now 3)
WiTP
Waterloo(Strategy First)
and for pure fun without having to think too much; Strategic Command

 
PPl who think RTS is just a matter of clicking the fastest get 0wN3d.  Its a matter of build order for whatever situation, recon, and anticipating what plan your enemy might be using and countering it or just simply crushing him if he's a n00b.
 
When ur just barely cranking out ur 8th villager and the enemy is attacking u w/ 27 heavy cavs it aint b/c he clicked faster.  [8D]

Best wargame ever-Dirt Bomb Fights when you were a kid[:)]