I want a new, modern Battle for Middle Earth 2 with better balance, modern graphics, and maybe different modes like quick vs longer form games. Definitely some reform like making it more difficult to build walls, but the walls stand up better to infantry and you really need siege engines.
The game was not balanced competitively (men so OP) but holy damn the battles felt epic and building your own forts and castles to defend was amazing.
I want a city builder with a Civ-like timeline. You start off building huts and farms and keep on going until you get space elevators and fusion power. I want to see roads go from footpaths to trails for horse drawn carriages to full on highways. I also like the idea that you could choose your starting period so it could be used as a standard city builder too.
Here’s a full list of crossplay Xbox and PC games. I figure if it’s on the pc, there’s a good chance it could be played on the steam deck as well.
Notable mentions in there that I’ve played and enjoyed are Destiny 2, Overwatch 2, Remnant 2, Left4Dead 2, (I’m seeing a pattern here), and Deep Rock Galactic.
check out Supreme Commander, it’s a game from the erra of good RTSes, and I think has some of the features you’re taking about, e.g. beforehand of multiple bases, automation… you can do things like produce x units, send them to this area, have them start doing this patrol, etc. You can pause the game, to make these orders too. My favorite gimmick though, is that the map is zoomable, from a classic here’s your dudes and tanks view, up into a strategic view with icons representing everything. This also opens up the ability to have units be different sizes. vehicles are appropriately larger than infantry, and you can have giant mechs to which other units are literally ants.
one thing i’d be interested in: is it possible to make a fun 4X-style game that challenges the very premises of 4X (which are mostly patterned after the models of expansion we’re familiar with in the West)?
I think it would probably become “2X” in that case, given the “exploit” and “exterminate” parts. :P
Against the Storm is sort of a citybuilder/ 4X hybrid, that’s all about a bunch of fantasy species (humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies) working together to reclaim the world from this (un)natural blight.
The Bustling World is an RPG/ Citybuilder/ 4X hybrid that looks pretty interesting, but is not out yet.
I can’t really think of a 4X that leans towards the Grand Strategy side, that isn’t pretty combat-heavy. Distant Worlds: Universe can be played without focusing on combat, but it’s definitely still there.
If you want pausable combat and a logistics focus, the Hearts of Iron games might be interesting to you. They're pseudo-real-time in that things happen on an counter that ticks forward once per in-game hour of the day (so the results of two units fighting, a diplomatic message being sent, construction on a building), but you can speed up, slow down, or pause however you wish. If you want to zip along at a few seconds of real time per day in game, cool. Want to slow things down to a few seconds per in game hour instead? Also fine. Need to pause while you read a description? Also fine.
I’m a huge fan of Borderlands so would recommend that and I’m also a huge fan of Halo, the Master Cheif Collection is an absolute bargain considering what you get. Your brother with the Xbox will need to get Game Pass of some sort to join in for any games that are not free to play. Halo Infinite is free to play and has a PvE game mode, if that tickles your fancy.
If you want to play against each other, there's always fighting games, if you're into that. I'd recommend Guilty Gear Strive, Street Fighter 6, and Tekken 8, which are the most popular fighting games right now. There's also Mortal Kombat 1 but I haven't played it, so I can't comment on it.
Thanks for sharing such detailed notes; interesting and helpful.
As an inveterate Windows user (I support it at work), I’m not surprised by the challenges at all. I hadn’t heard of Bazzite though, I’ll have to check it out.
I have been very particular in this review about the experience of using Windows compared to Bazzite, not the performance. I’ve seen many reviews talk about how one is offere 5-10 FPS more than the other OS but you really don’t notice that most of the time.
Windows can do everything that Linux can do on average but the experience is vastly different. That is what I’m trying to say in this post.
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