I'm mostly a strategy game freak(both turn based like Heroes/Shogun/Civilization and RTS like Starcraft/Warcraft), so here goes.
Lothar's possible hit list.
1.) Rome: Total War Gold Edition.
3.) Companies of Heroes pack.
I'm confused about this game. Everywhere says it's strategy but the pictures I see almost everywhere makes it look like an FPS/action game or something. Is this a Rainbow Six like tactical game? Is this a Battlefield type game? What type of game is it? Any popular examples of what other game this is close to would be appreciated.
6.) Civilization IV Complete Edition.
I missed the $20 deal on this a month ago. I will get this. I've played a lot of the original using my best friends disk and the game was very addictive. I've never tried any of the expansions however.
7.) Defense Grid.
For $2.49, I have nothing to lose. I find tower defense games to be interesting, but I only play them like once or twice a month or so. I will get this.
1) I have purchased R:TW simply because it was like £2 and the series as a whole was given big thumbs up all round.
3) CoH is a WW2 RTS. As for comparison, it is rather unique an Dawn of War is probably closest to it with many similar background mechanics. To increase your resource income you need to capture certain points (fuel/munitions etc) and they provide a steady income unless your supply lines are broken (the enemy severs the link between your main base and an outlying resource node).
Certain features like squad-based infantry combat and directional armour with critical hit effects made this game even better at release. The armour on a tank is much thicker on the front than the sides or rear and a critical hit can damage the treads, knock out the engine or disable the main gun of the tank for example.
Relic make the best RTSes. Company of Heroes is just one of their great series.
6) Civ 4 is ok but having played every Civ since I started with Civ 1 at the age of 6, I am still impartial to Civ 2. The expansions in my opinion do not add much to the normal game but do provide interesting scenarios to play through. The scenarios gave me much enjoyment.
7) Defense Grid - Perhaps the best Tower Defense game I have ever played. Looks great @ 1920*1080 on a 47" HDTV, it helps you through the first few missions all tutorial like and is in places, very challenging and requires you to balance spending, upgrading and think very hard about placement.
Hopefully this helps a bit