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[diamok]

Hey all,

Was talking with my older brother today about the old school board games we used to play back in the 80s.  Games like Sniper!, Panzer Leader, Squad Leader, Shogun and the like.  We started reminiscing about the great fun we had wasting our weekends playing long and drawn out campaigns (when we weren't playing AD&D that is), or even just a quick hit game during the week.

I told him we need something like that now, but sadly we live in different states and only see each other once or twice a year these days.  He told me "since your the computer gamer geek, you should find something we can play over the internet that's similar", I of course told him I would.

So I'm calling out to you guys to see what suggestions you have.  Not looking for anything super in depth either, we don't have hours a day to plot out our tactics and strategies, but also don't want something as simple as Risk or a clone; some very basic 4x type features would be fine.  We also have different schedules, so anything that would require us both having to be logged into the game at the same time would be out of the question.

I'm hoping there is some sort of browser based game, or something that allows you to run the client, make your moves, close client, come back, log back in, check status, if it's your turn again, make moves and so on.

Interested in any genre and don't need something with a plot, storyline, character development and all that.  Those old school board games were pretty basic, pick army size, pick your troops, setup starting locations, make moves and kill freAKING EVERYTHING IN YOUR WAY!!! MUUHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  <-- Get how my voice got louder the more excited I got?  Heh

So, any suggestions?

[Jack_Bread]

Battle for Wesnoth fits the bill. It's moddable, too.

[Shades]

Shogun

Empire: Total war has a multiplayer beta

Civ4 is pretty good multiplayer as well.

Edit: missed the not on the same time comment... sorry

[diamok]

Battle for Wesnoth fits the bill. It's moddable, too.

I thought about BOW, but also thought you had to be in the game at the same time.  Does it allow for you to log in and out at different times to make moves, all the while saving the game for each person on different computers and all that?

[Shades]

Stars! fills the bill, you can play it by email and it's awesome

There is even a forum topic on it here at bay 12

And of course the wiki.

[Dakk]

I've aways wanted something akin to a multiplayer final fantasy tactics/fire emblem, never found anything.

[diamok]

Stars! fills the bill, you can play it by email and it's awesome

There is even a forum topic on it here at bay 12

And of course the wiki.

Where can I get this?  So much info on the wiki and the only site I found that has it to buy is offline or down. (Official site)

[Il Palazzo]

Are you familiar with Shrapnel Games?
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/

They're a publisher who's very fond of old-school strategy and war games. They've got some free ones for grabs as well. Their games are generally PBEM friendly, and in design often reminescent of the old board games you seem to be fond of.

About Stars!, yeah it's really hard to get a copy nowadays.

[fenrif]

I don't know if this fits with the in-depthitude of what you're looking for, but i just found this last night

http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page "Free orion", a free, open source based version of masters of orion.

Theres also freeciv http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

...And C-evo http://c-evo.org/ Both are open source civilization clones.

You might wanna check out neptunes pride http://np.ironhelmet.com/. Only read about it on rock paper shotgun an hour or so ago, but it looks like its a streamlined 4x game, less complex and with more focus on strategy/trade/diplomacy than micromangement and so on.

[Virroken]

Advance wars by web? I don't know if that's too simple for you, but they also have Fire Emblem. It's basically PBEM.

awbw.amarriner.com

[Virtz]

The Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 mod added a rather rough multiplayer mode. Pretty buggy last I tried.

UFO2000 is basically the original X-Com on the internet, except the last few versions they've been aiming to have their own graphics instead of the Enemy Unknown ones, although you can still put the EU graphics in as well. Not to mention the horrible smudge filter on the graphics (vectorized, detail-obscuring crap is apparently preferable to "omgpixels!!!"). But these are issues probably only to me and you'll most likely enjoy it provided you don't play with too many points and just spam explosives everywhere.

Fallout Tactics had a multiplayer mode, although whether or not it allowed turn-based mode (FOT also featured a RTwP system), I do not know.

Also, do phase-based games qualify? Phase-based as in games where everyone tells their units where to move for the next 10 seconds and then they lose control and just watch till the next control phase. Cause the X-Com creators later made Laser Squad Nemesis, which is a phase-based tactical game with 4 sides and rather multiplayer oriented.

And then there's the flash Advance Wars clone called Battalion: Arena.

[kulik]

101 Airborne: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy
Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games
As Virtz said UFO 2000
Battle Isle:Incubation

[Shades]

Where can I get this?  So much info on the wiki and the only site I found that has it to buy is offline or down. (Official site)

You can download the game from the patches section you'll need a serial though.
Patches and versions

It seems the Stars! Autohost site owner is selling serials for a $6 'donation' might be worth emailing him about it.

Ron's post on serials

It's a dated thread but the forum had a couple of people asking for serials just a few weeks back and they got them.

[Puck]

Fallout Tactics had a multiplayer mode, although whether or not it allowed turn-based mode (FOT also featured a RTwP system), I do not know.

I played it in MP quite a bit, and I love it. It's awesome. Turnbased is fine and all, but every once in a while it REALLY gets on my nerves, that's where this awesome "tell-me-at-what-hitchance-I-should-attack" system comes in.

In singleplayer you have the option to play it turnbased, I dont know if that works in MP. I actually never tried it, but I'm rather confident it works. I loved their "real time" approach so much, I never had to play it turnbased.

However, there seems to be a mod to improve turnbased play in MP:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/turnbased-mod-for-fallout-tactics

[Davion]

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