2013 Turn Based Strategy

Age of Wonders 3 has just been announced. 2013 is going to be an awesome year for Turn Based games!

I've tried to link to the Broken Forum Thread where one exists.

Already released in 2013
Battle Academy: Operation Husky - Battle Academy expansion
Eador: Masters of the Broken World - The previous game Eador: Genesis is getting a whole lotta love
Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy - iOS conversion of a well liked boardgame
Expeditions: Conquistador - More hexes, this time with a unique Spanish and Aztec flavour
Fire Emblem: Awakening - Its a Gameboy thing, I don't own a Gameboy :(
Skulls of the Shogun - Highly polished indie title featuring undead samurai
Warhammer Quest - Board Game conversion on iOS

Scheduled for 2013 release
Age of Wonders 3 - Master of Magic with less micromanagement
Arma Tactics - Lead a four man Special Forces team
Band of Drones - Tactical combat from a platformer-like side on view
Banner Saga - Vikings, Hexes and Disney Art.
Battle Worlds: Kronos - Battle Isle, Massive Assault type game by German Indie team
Card Hunter - Jon Chey combines CCGs with old school DnD dungeon crawl
Crasleen: Drums of War - Hex-based overhead-view tactical combat, like Grandad used to make
Dwarf King - broken forums strategy is working on this game for Android. Read about the Small Battles system.
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft - Blizzard online card game
Legends of Eisenwald - Cites Disciples as an inspiration, Darklands style setting
Mechwarrior Tactics - Multiplayer only, but still might be fun
The Occult Chronicles - Vic Davis Roguelike
Pandora: First Contact - Slitherine does Alpha Centauri
Rome Total War 2 - The strategy map is turn based. So it belongs on this list if you squint a bit.
Scrolls - CCG with lane mechanics, by Notch.
Space Hulk - 40k goodness
XCOM Expansion - Terror from the Deep?
Xenonauts - More faithful X-COM sequel, for better and for worse

RPGs with Turn Based Combat
Blackguards - Not much detail on this one yet
Chaos Chronicles - Party based RPG cites Ultima and Pool of Radiance as inspiration.
Divinity: Original Sin - Sequel to Divine Divinity and Divinity II, but this time with turn based combat instead of Diablo style combat.
Pioneers - Turn based dysentery. New World survival RPG in only 4 colors
Shadowrun Returns - Cyberpunk with Elves (much better than that sounds I promise)
Wasteland 2 - Law of game delays says we won't see this till 2014

And thats not counting many other Kickstarters that will likely claim to be released in 2013 and then be delayed until 2014.
Nor does it count whatever Jon Shafer (update: At The Gates) and Brian Reynolds might be cooking up (again thats likely 2014 releases).
Nor does it count most of the excellent Card and Board games to be released on iOS this year.

I'm so happy.

If you can't wait, check out these strategy threads:
Squad-based Strategy & Tactical RPGs
The Wargaming Thread
Good Old Games
iOS Games

Don't forget Eador: Masters of the Broken World.

Add Chaos Chronicles to this section.

How could I forget. Nice catch.

Never heard of it. But I see hexes and party based tactics, and I smile.

Legends of Eisenwald is purty.

What about turn based strategy with realtime combat? Because while it will probably be buggy through 2013, we're due for Rome Total War 2. Or is that too real-time for this thread?

I started in on Fire Emblem today, its strength is that it is not as stale as the Wii game was mechanics-wise.

Support effects are now visible during the combat, and include some bonuses like your bro sometimes keeping you from taking a counterattack or sometimes getting an attack in as well.

Carrying someone is now called joining up, and you can actually switch who is the active player in the pair is. Only one of the units can do a combat action, and you can't switch after doing a combat action. Separating still ends both units' turns. I didn't notice what effect there is on movement rate for joined units. Since you can switch before or after moving, I don't think there is any difference if the healer is carrying the paladin or vice-versa, but I didn't count off the movement range to see if it's averaged, or the slower unit's or the faster unit's.

I'm explaining this because the game does not, at all. I kind of feel sorry for new players, the tutorial doesn't even really show you anything.

Also,

I only curl one toe on the ladies, but it curls with the force of ten normal toe curls. This talent either makes me deeply ashamed or haughtily self-satisfied, I can't really tell.

Every Spaniard is a unique Spaniard.

I'll take the opportunity to pimp my own Dwarf King (for Android). It has as good a chance of being done in 2013 as a lot of the titles mentioned above.

You make with joke, yes? I almost am missing it in this list of things.

Better add Jon Shafer's new one, At the Gates to the list. They just keep coming!

That's expected to be a 2014 release.

Also one I'm looking forward to in the RPG's with Turn Based Combat category- Larian Studios, Divinity: Original Sin.

I've added the games mentioned to the list. The list is so long now it also needed to be sorted alphabetically. I would sort by release date, but I don't think any gamer takes announced release dates seriously anymore. I also fixed grammar because Owen is an annoying git.

That was my attempt at a Creole Ned style Bargain Bin joke. But you're right its really just confusing in an index post like this one, I'll fix it up.

From Germany a new "das Schwarze Auge" rpg named Blackguards (Realms of Arkania,Drakensang) is planned for Q3.
It sounds a bit more like the Fire Emblem Type of games then the traditional quest hub to quest hub.

http://www.daedalic.de/en/Game/Blackguards there is not much on the site yet.

Some potential additions:

The Occult Chronicles by Vic fucking Davis, amirite?
Crasleen: Drums of War
Pioneers
Battle Worlds: Kronos
Arma Tactics
Battle Academy: Operation Husky
Pandora: First Contact
Band of Drones


Of everything we've heard so far, I'm most looking forward to AoW III, Eador, Shadowrun Returns, and The Occult Chronicles. I kind of enjoyed my time with the (brutal) Crasleen demo too, I might keep my eye on that.

Roguelikes and the "Vic Davis School of Game Design" seems like a match made in heaven. His eclectic game mechanics would work well with a game that can be won or lost in one sitting. And some of the weaker aspects of Vics games (balance and AI) aren't big issues in a Roguelike.

I'll update the head post in a few days when I get time to go through that list in detail. Plus some updates on a few of the games that may be released in April.

"Vic Davis does Betrayal at House on the Hill" could be rephrased as "Shut Up and Take My Money, Vic Davis".

I've added more games, suggested in this thread, to the original post. I've also divided out a separate section for games that are supposed to be released this month. But as always, treat all release dates as suspicious.

Might be released in April 2013 ?
Battle Academy: Operation Husky - Battle Academy expansion
Crasleen: Drums of War - Hex-based overhead-view tactical combat, like Grandad used to make
Eador: Masters of the Broken World - The previous game Eador: Genesis is getting a whole lotta love
Scrolls - CCG with lane mechanics, by Notch.

Just saw a beta trailer for that - am I the only one getting the impression that this is a Alpha Centauri lookalike ? How much of a known entity are Slitherine ? I know they made Unity of Command, but have they made actually atmospheric games, or Civ-clones ? And if so, where they good ?

Definitely does look a lot like Alpha Centauri!

Slitherine's Battlefield Academy (turn-based WW2 tactical combat) is generally well regarded. On the PC most people thinks it's very solid. The iOS port is considered one of the best turn-based strategy games available on that platform.

My impression is that they do solid work with good game mechanics, although their graphics are often rather primitive.

Matrix/Slitherine only published Unity of Command, actually - it was developed by 2x2 Games.

As for Pandora, RPS has an early preview that makes the game sound promising! Yes, it definitely sounds like a spiritual successor/remake of AC.

It really is a brilliant time for re-imaginings/successors of old classics. Of course, quite a few are not very good. But I would like to see one to Alpha Centauri, but always fear that any made will fail in terms of atmosphere. While the old one was a good game, for me it mainly stood out by its hilariously well done theme. Civ-type games many times come across as somewhat sterile, and AC for all its faults managed to avoid that.

Added Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft to the OP.

May Releases
No turn based games are scheduled to be released in May, except for Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy, a well liked Board Game that was released on iOS today.

Expeditions: Conquistador has found a publisher (bitComposer), which is good news. But it also means the release of the game has been delayed until June, for both Kickstarters and the commercial release.

Released Today:

Warhammer Quest is a board game conversion for iOS. Owens review here. While you're there also check out the review for Sid Meiers Ace Patrol, released earlier this month.

Expeditions: Conquistador has just been released on Windows, Mac and Linux. The Kickstarter keys were released today, and can be used at GOG.com, Desura, GamersGate and Steam. (The Steam version will be available in a few hours). I'm looking forward to playing a turn based RPG thats outside the usual Fantasy or Science Fiction genres. Hopefully I'll post some impressions on the weekend.

Can you play as a mage?

Jk. Thanks for pointing this out, I've never heard of it and it looks interesting. Will wait for impressions first before grabbing it.

And thanks Tony for this thread. Its my favorite genre.

Yeah, I hope I remembered to register for the Steam password. I was just excited about the setting, we'll see if that pans out.

Been looking forward to this, but would like some impressions as well before pulling the trigger. LK, we're counting on you.

I'm a fool with no self-control and I'm off to go buy this, despite having purchased (and been completely befuddled by) Skyward Collapse this week.

They linked some reviews; the softpedia one seemed the most thorough.

You can give him your money now.

By the way, Expeditions: Conquistador is excellent, and if you like the genre, you should have no trouble ignoring a couple of rough edges towards a great setting and strong mechanics.

Can you explain how this works? What happens when the game is released? Did anyone actually buy in and get some time into the beta here?

Buy now, at a $5 discount, get the latest version now, get all updates later, play now, play later.

Jason Lutes started a separate thread with impressions. I'll add mine when I get a chance.