Grab some coffee and draw the curtains, armchair generals, because it’s time to dive into the best strategy games available for some great gaming on the cheap.
Whether you’re looking for some easygoing, low-stress mental stretching or some intense brain strain, we’ve got some of the top picks the web has to offer in the realm of strategy games. Each game is affordable enough to ensure you won’t break the bank while you indulge in your strategic pursuits.
Skulls of the Shogun
Steam: 9.99 USD ; iOS: 4.99 USD
In this amusing and often hilarious game, a quirky collection of cartoonish samurai find themselves in the afterlife, ready to heed your beck and call. As your betrayed general seeks revenge, these goofy warriors slash and pincushion your enemies. The chatter of your league of vanquished souls sets the stage for turn-based matches of the grid system variety, albeit without an actual grid.
Instead, Skulls of the Shogun employs range-indicating circles, which may sacrifice some precision but offer a more forgiving and freeform method of control. The game’s cast is further enhanced by a variety of otherworldly creatures, such as oni demon-ogres and fox monks. This entertaining strategy game provides a lighthearted yet thoroughly enjoyable gaming experience.
Anomaly: Warzone Earth
Steam: 9.99 USD
If you’re searching for the best strategy games, look no further than Anomaly, an innovative title that revolutionizes the traditional tower defence genre. As a first-time player, you’ll find yourself immersed in a gaming experience unlike any other. In Anomaly, you don the combat boots of human forces striving to reclaim Earth from entrenched alien invaders. The game masterfully inverts typical tower defence conventions, introducing the concept of tower offence.
Your mission is to guide your forces along a player-defined path through the ravaged city streets, dynamically adapting your course in response to in-game events or reassessing resource allocation and enemy positions. As you advance, you’ll utilize powerful commander-level abilities to bolster your troops in their relentless fight against the alien forces. Dive into Anomaly and explore one of the best strategy games that promise to challenge and captivate even the most seasoned gamers.
Company of Heroes
Steam: 9.99 USD
Looking for the best strategy games to play on your PC? Company of Heroes hailed as one of the greatest real-time strategy games ever created, can be yours for a mere $10. This modern classic transports you to the heart of World War II, following the American campaign across a war-torn Europe and retracing the steps of their most significant battles.
Company of Heroes redefines conventional resource-gathering methods by implementing a capture point system dispersed throughout the map. This innovative approach encourages players to secure strategic territory for reasons beyond advantageous positioning. Unit combat also boasts a unique flair, taking into account factors such as aim, morale, and quality of cover rather than just relying on brute force.
The game’s immersive atmosphere, characterized by soldier chatter, realistic behaviours and movements, and a dynamically scarred and fortified battlefield, delivers a gripping and personal experience. Don’t miss out on Company of Heroes, one of the best strategy games that brilliantly captures the essence of wartime camaraderie and heroism.
Reprisal Universe
Steam: 9.99 USD
For fans of the best strategy games, Reprisal offers a delightful homage to the god game genre, pioneered by Peter Molyneux with the iconic Populous. Reprisal casts you as the divine force behind a civilization, empowering you to wield elemental magic linked to collectible totems while guiding your followers to recover their lost tribes.
Though you don’t have direct control over your people, they’re generally eager to obey the commands of their omnipotent deity. The game features a captivating minimalist pixel art style that complements its divine theme, making Reprisal a standout title in the realm of strategy games. Don’t miss out on Reprisal, a modern tribute to Molyneux’s legendary god game genre that promises to captivate both newcomers and veterans of strategy games.
Frozen Synapse
iOS: 9.99 USD
Do you tend toward the more cerebral end of the gaming spectrum? Because Frozen Synapse is perhaps the closest thing you’ll find to pure crystalline brain candy this side of chess or the puzzle genre. You are Tactics, a duly named AI responsible for coordinating the exact movements of several mostly-mindless warm bodies. Ponder, simulate, and counter the moves you think your enemy might perform with the tools provided, then pit your combat solution against what your opponent actually has in store for you. There is no squish or randomness here: cold, sharp tactical superiority and forethought will decide the victor.
The Steam version is inexplicably still available only in 25 USD two-pack form, but its iOS incarnation is identical save control schematics and a slimmer price.
Greed Corp
Steam: 9.99 USD
Greed may have its merits, as evidenced by the birth of this engaging strategy game. The title transports players to a bizarre world shaped by rampant industrialization, where landmasses are devoured by resource-hungry powers. Witness towering landscapes crumble and collapse as they are stripped of materials or shattered for tactical purposes.
Despite the sombre subject matter, this turn-based strategy game is brought to life with vivid colours and quirky two-legged tin can robots. This playful contrast in themes provides a fun and captivating experience for strategy game enthusiasts.
Delve into this unique strategy game, where environmental exploitation meets lighthearted design, and embark on an adventure that will challenge your tactical prowess and delight your senses.
Evil Genius
Steam: 9.99 USD
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be the bad guy? In the captivating strategy game Evil Genius, you can find out. This playful parody of classic Bond film antagonists places you in the heart of a top-secret super-villain lair, plotting world domination.
Before you can take over the world, however, you must manage your nefarious empire. Train your henchmen, construct doomsday devices, and “interrogate” government agents attempting to infiltrate your base. Enticing features such as kung fu academies, deadly traps, and a wide array of other intriguing gadgets await installation. Unleash your inner antagonist with Evil Genius, a captivating strategy game that lets you embrace the dark side while testing your strategic prowess in a world of diabolical mischief.
Sacrifice
Steam: 9.99 USD
Okay, so it’s a tad long in the tooth, but its somewhat recent induction into the Steam fold is excuse enough to include this beloved title. Explore twisted, bizarre worlds of gods and conflict from over your wizard’s shoulders, leading bands of fantastically strange creatures into battle as you go.
The next rank in your repertoire of spells and summonables is defined by whichever deity you chose to champion for that round of missions, allowing you to string together custom amalgams of units, abilities, and chunks of perspective on the overarching story for each playthrough. Each figure has their own full-sized missions and personal motivations in the absorbing and surprisingly dismaying story, and the bits you miss the first time around are absolutely as enjoyable as the ones you played. As an added bonus, the cast of actors is phenomenal. And not just because of Tim Curry.
R.U.S.E.
Steam: 9.99 USD
An unusually heady take on war theater strategy, R.U.S.E. fogs the action by treating players as the recipients of fallible information rather than semi-omniscient blimps. Deception is a force as potent as any body of armor or flight of bombers. The titular Ruse mechanic sees you playing cards to employ various forms of subterfuge or spying that your regular units couldn’t accomplish on their own. Though real time, you’re asked to take a step back and consider your actions and planning before committing, making the game about as anti-Starcraft as you can get without “pause” or “end turn” buttons.
Dawn of Discovery
Steam: 9.99 USD
With the renaissance well underway, players construct cities and establish trade in one of the most good-natured strategy games to date. Peasants and patricians alike don grand smiles as you build the production and refinement buildings necessary to meet their needs and desires. Progressively more luxurious goods enable ecstatic citizens to move up in life, producing more taxable wealth and unlocking new structures as they climb.
When more exotic goods are requested, imports from colonies in the orient will be necessary for advancement. Natural disasters and hostile forces may rear their heads in the campaign or more difficult scenarios, but for many, the bulk of the game’s fun lies in peaceful endeavors – a realm you and your friends can engage in exclusively if you so choose.
