Blame yourself or the Random Number God: the squad-based strategy & tactical RPGs thread

We love these games here on Broken Forum. We create monster threads for them, LP them, and name our squaddies after one another. Our love for them even transcends the grognard/otaku divide - both the Games and Kawaii forums have their respective TRPG threads! This is intended to be a catch-all thread, where we can discuss genre-wide issues, point each other to interesting TRPGs we might have missed, or talk about games that might not attract enough interest to warrant a full thread. (Also, I kinda-sorta hinted-promised to fadeaccompli that I'd create this thread. XD)


To start with, I thought I'd talk about the genre's classics and established designs. This is really three genres in one:

1. Games that emphasise the "strategy" part of "squad-based strategy". Combat is "realistic" in the sense that there isn't much in the way of character customisation or special abilities, while soldiers can typically take only a few hits before (usually permanently) dying. Rather than linking battles with a story, these games usually feature a freeform campaign, in which the player runs an entire war effort.

Examples:

• X-Com (1994)
• Jagged Alliance series - thread here
• The upcoming Xenonauts - thread here
• Silent Storm - LP by Nute here

2. Games that introduce a bit more in the way of RPG elements (classes, levels) and some level of abstraction (e.g. Fire Emblem sets up rock-paper-scissors between sword-, axe-, and lance-armed classes). However, there still is not much in the way of character customisation, which means these games can get away with perma-death. They also trade in the freeform campaign for a linear story-based campaign.

Note that in these games, the player is typically vastly outnumbered; however, enemies will typically stay put until the player's units get close enough. So advancing cautiously, so as not to draw too much aggro, takes on a new importance.

Examples:

• Fire Emblem - threads in Kawaii for the series as a whole, FE: Awakening, and FE x Shin Megami Tensei; thread in Games for FE: Awakening
• Valkyria Chronicles

3. Games that are primarily RPGs, in that the player's focus is on customising characters and fleshing out their skill trees, but that use a grid map for playing out battles. While perma-death can still be present, it takes so much time to level and train characters that - unlike type 1-2 games - I just cannot see myself playing these games without reloading if someone dies!

Examples:

• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Tactics Ogre
• Disgaea
• Front Mission
• Maybe the upcoming Banner Saga?

And then there are games which blur the boundaries. My favourite example is XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the current 500lb gorilla of the genre; it has a monster thread and not one, not two, but THREE LPs (by Snark, Farnsworth, and Adam B ). It also combines elements of all three - the strategic layer of type 1, the aggro management of type 2, and the character customisation of type 3, with a dash of Valkyria Chronicles' cinematic visuals.

Note that type 1 is largely a PC, Western genre while types 2-3 are largely console and Japanese. One of my persistent gaming campaigns is an effort to make each fandom aware of each other's games. :D I think there are a lot of Fire Emblem players out there who would love XCOM if they knew about it, and vice-versa (every time I see some platform-warrior baying that the new XCOM is "dumbed down for console", I feel like saying, "hey, genius, if you're so good at these games, why don't you see how long you can keep your squad alive in Fire Emblem?"). And I'd love to see more developers following Firaxis' lead and borrowing ideas from the other sub-genres.

Update: CSL @5 argues that MechCommander should be considered a type 1/2 hybrid as it shares a focus on inventory management with X-Com, Jagged Alliance, etc; while Talorc @13 points out that I've missed a long and rich history of Western TRPGs.

How about you? What are your favourites? What are your rants, your thoughts, your dreams for the genre?

I just bought X-Com, so I can't comment on that yet; but for a long time Disgaea has been my favorite in terms of grid-based strategy games, with each new (main) installment in the series bringing in better gameplay. (If...not always so much with the better plot. Sigh.) I like having plenty of time to think about what I'm doing, and I really like the interesting aspects of positioning being important. It's not unlike why I like the fourth edition of D&D so much.

One of the things I liked about Disgaea was the overlap of turn-based tactical (which is fun) and leveling (which is fun on its own), so that I could use either better strategy or more grinding to compensate for a lack of the other. As someone who is often just Not Very Good At Games, I like have multiple routes to success; it makes it much more likely that I'll eventually get to finish the game, rather than quitting in frustration. (Difficulty levels: also nice.) I've had much worse luck with Final Fantasy Tactics in every iteration I've tried it, despite thinking it'd be right up my alley for being so similar. Still not sure why, there. Just something about the interface that always confuses me.

The funny thing is, I would totally have put Warcraft and Starcraft on here. Maybe not in any of the specific categories above, but they are tactical games with a strong plot element where you maneuver little individual units around on the field... Where's the dividing line between those and these games? Is it that you're building more units on the field (rather than having a limited number), or something else?

Hmm, I would say that's a big part of it, but I think the single largest difference is that in a Starcraft you're manoeuvring around units who (A) are anonymous, and (B) go poof once the battle ends. In the games I listed above, units are all individualised in some way, and they all persist from one battle to the next.

I'm sorry to hear FFT didn't really work for you. I like Disgaea, but I love FFT - not so much because of their gameplay (though I enjoy the heck out of FFT's), but because of their stories. I recall you've made the point in other threads that Disgaea doesn't have a plot so much as it has a loose tissue of episodic gags! FFT, otoh, has a great plot complete with themes, character arcs, and other storytelling devices that would be unremarkable in every other medium but that makes it the Citizen Kane of games. :p

And I hope you have as much fun with XCOM as I did. :D

Starcraft and...well, Warcraft 3, not sure about the other ones, did have named important units! ...but, yeah, by and large it was faceless identical types, which downplays the RP part of the TRPG. They were actually sort of my introduction to the genre; I got all excited about Disgaea the first time because I heard it was like Starcraft, but with turns.

To be fair, I never tried FFT: I've tried FFT:A and FFT:A-2, and while the plot of the first one was reasonably interesting until the cartridge got stolen, the second one is driving me batty with its system. My clan is leveling up, but I can't figure out how, or what that means; I had to figure out how to equip items almost by trial and error; and I can't figure out what half of my attacks do, or where they hit, until I reach the "target enemy" part of the round, so I do a lot of backing out of things to reposition.

It's reminding me in an unfortunate way of the first JRPG I ever tried to play. Cute little game that I was having great fun with until I hit the first actual combat... and I couldn't figure out how to fight, because I had never, ever played a JRPG before, and didn't know anything about how turns and menu selection worked, and I gave up on the game in frustration because it assumed that surely everyone knew how the basics worked, right? Right.

(But now I'm diverging into an old mutter of mine about how games shouldn't assume that all their players are already familiar with their genre's control scheme assumptions. Anyway.)

Mechcommander should be on the opening list as a hybrid of your first and second "genres" since it straddles the divide rather well. It emphasizes the strategy aspect by giving you a limited number of fragile units (mechs and vehicles) to complete a number of goals each mission. Pilots can level up and improve their skills which makes you prize established veterans. It has a pre-set campaign with randomization brought in via drop rates (for salvage) and pilot losses.

The key thing that it really shares with the western examples you cited is the prevalence of inventory management. Mechcommander, Jagged Alliance, X-COM, Silent Storm, etc are all linked by how important managing inventory space and weight is. A lot of the time the key question for me in those games is how can I best utilize the space I have to bring along the best combination of guns/grenades/LRM racks/plasma rifles/etc.

Silent Storm has long held the #1 position of Nute's Favorite Video Game, because it combined turn-based strategy with a realistic logic that I could wrap my brain around. In comparison:

- I sucked at Heroes of Might and Magic because the advancement trees made no sense to me whatsoever.
- Fallout Tactics had potential, but was just a visually ugly game.
- Jagged Alliance: see Fallout Tactics but without the benefits of a compelling backstory.
- Final Fantasy Tactics is SLOOOOOOOOOW. Turns take too goddamn long, even playing on the PS3.

What I love about these kind of strategy games is the ability to queue up actions that set up a domino effect of awesome. In Silent Storm, for instance, I'd have my scout sneak up and stealth-kill an enemy patrol so that my soldier could sprint forward and rocket a building, blowing down part of the wall for my sniper to pick off targets through. XCOM is (so far) just as good for that and may actually have a chance of dethroning Silent Storm. Provided that I can ever get past the second terror mission without losing half my squad and 3-4 countries at once...

FFT is a must play for anyone that likes any sort of turn based RPGs. Play it on the PS1 or the PSP, but just play it!

Semi-related, I was really enjoying Pokemon: Conquest until my brother borrowed my DS like a year (E: more like a few months but whatever) ago, and every time I see him I forget to ask for it back.

EDIT: Yes, FFT is slow. Can't comment on the PSP version but the PS1 version might be best played on an emulator with a speed boost option. It had the benefit of me being a kid with a shit-ton of free time when I first played it, I haven't tried replaying it as an adult but I bet it would take me on the order of >6 months to beat the game with the amount of free time I have.

There've been a lot of little Flash tactical RPGs and strategy games released in the last few years. It's a real shame that the ones that are any good / well-polished, like Grinn's Tale, are over-monetized, Facebook-game style. :(

This is a good point - I think we're used to pooh-poohing "press W to move forward" / "move the mouse to scroll the screen"-type tutorials, but they exist for a reason!

This is a great point - I hadn't thought of the MechCommander games as squad-based strategy at all, but I definitely see the parallel now that you mention it. Thanks for the suggestion! I'll amend the first post.

(Incidentally, would you agree that new XCOM shifts the focus from inventory management to character/skill tree management?)

You're absolutely right about XCOM, and this is why I prefer its move-shoot system to the traditional time units/action points system -- it makes it clearer and easier for me to plan out that queue. And it's good to know I'm not the only one who was massacred on the second terror mission. :P I took no casualties on the first, but lost 5 guys (including a colonel!) + two countries on the second. Luckily I was able to bounce back after teching up to archangel armour and hover SHIVs.

For eye candy, have you taken a look at Valkyria Chronicles?

If I could like this post more than once...

I never found individual FFT turns particularly lengthy, and I don't even mind the game's imbalances - for me, rolling up to the battlefield with a ludicrously overpowered party is half the fun. I was even able to one-shot the final boss! But ye gods, the grinding... I like QuantumBit's suggestion of using an emulator. (I did replay it as a grown-up, and it did take me ages. Since I was replaying the PSP version, I just chipped away at it during my commute.)

Darn, that's disappointing to hear. :( I'd love to see more of these for Android, myself - the turn/menu-based format works really well for portable games.

I was going to write about my fondness for Fallout Tactics, and argue for why Temple of Elemental Evil belongs in this list, but the wide perspective of Mind Elementals post inspires me to talk about something else.

These types of games are a trigger for my darkest OCD impulses...



These spreadsheets are just the tip of the iceberg, the electronic evidence. Most of my notes are handwritten written on paper from the days before my PC could alt-tab gracefully. I keep them in a concertina folder. If I were to spread them out around the room I could be mistaken for one of those insane mathematician/conspiracy theorists from the movies. Maps, tech trees, weapon loadouts, character names, shopping lists, skill planners.

You might think my goal is to have powerful characters, but that's not really it. Most of these games have an element of grind to them, so from a time-invested perspective, I'm better off just grinding out more experience points rather than obsessing over spreadsheets. Similarly, I know I could design more powerful characters if I spent a few hours in a strategy forum reading up on all the best builds. But for me that defeats the purpose. Min-Maxing is an end, not the means.

There's something about these tactics games that brings out my strongest OCD impulses. The variables are complex enough to min-max, but simple enough for me to comprehend.

Tony

* Should anyone care, the purpose of this Tactics Ogre spreadsheet is to put a mathematical rating on how well each character is suited to each profession. Each stat is given a weight, depending on the profession, and then multiplied by the Reaction Time (speed) to deliver a final "Profession IQ". Then I sort by each profession and assign a profession rank to each character (eg "W Rank" of 1 means they are the best Wizard in my party, "W Rank" of 20 is the worst Wizard) My goal is to make sure each character is assigned his best profession, but also that I have the right profession mix in my party.

Tony, you crazy! In a good way.

Tied with fantasy 4x for my favorite genre!

The line is pretty fuzzy for me personally between mission-based SRPGs at one end, and something like Master of Magic -- or the more recent, and spectacular Eador: Genesis -- at the other, which includes tactical combat and unit leveling along with its empire-building. In Eador: Genesis, your main hero character gets 3 options upon each level-up, but even your lowliest units can level up and gain perks based on their performance in battle.

I think games like Disciples, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, Armageddon Empires, and Monster's Den belong in here as well, or maybe they're a sub-genre? There's no unit maneuvering within battle, but unit placement matters, and the tactics become all about the specific actions you choose from round to round. What would be a good name for the way battles in these games are played out? Static tactical?

Also, I am a "turn-based is best" gamer, but I want to shout out to good pauseable real-time tactical games like Freedom Force and... um, Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich.

I would have to say that you can't easily put our category 3 in the box of being "largely console and Japanese". There is a huge body of "Western" tactical RPGs that easily fit this definition. A lot are based on the D&D system (or derivatives thereof), but not all.

I am going to borrow heavily from my copy of Dungeons & Desktops here, highly recommended for any fan of the CRPG genre.

Some of the earliest ones are pre D&D from the mid to late 1980's, games like Wizard's Crown from SSI or one of my favourites The Magic Candle by Mindcraft.

The early "genre definer" though is clearly the Gold Box series of games from 1988-1992, by SSI. Based on the D&D licence, they are pretty good and strongly feature tactical combat. My personal favourites are Curse of The Azure Bonds, Buck Rodgers (the first one) and Gateway to the Savage Frontier.

On the sci-fi front, you get Battletech: Crescent Hawk's Inception (my teenage self jumped in glee upon successfully escaping with the 50ton Chameleon mech)

Of note also is the CRPG addict blog - he has been replaying a lot of these classics.

I am going to leave out the "blob" style RPGs like Wizardry or Might & Magic - I think to qualify you need the grid map for battles. This also strikes out Dungeon Master / Eye of the Beholder and its Ilk. (Legend of Grimrock is the reincarnation of this lineage). Darklands is in here as well, not a blob game, but the "real time" nature of combat perhaps rules out inclusion as a "tactical" RPG? (I've not played, so "perhaps")

Form there you go into the early 90's - and you get the German influenced Realms of Arkania trilogy. I've never played these, but they wink at me impishly from the GoG bookshelf!

The Western RPG (and thus the tactical RPG) took a hiatus during the mid 90s. Lets blame FMV, Stonekeep, Descent to Undermountain and Ultima 8, they deserve it. Don't get me wrong, I am sure you can find some good games from the mid 90s, but there were plenty of stinkers too.

From there we go to some more modern games of the late 90s, which definitely qualify for "tactical" RPG - Fallout (1997), Fallout 2 (1998) and the one that dials the tactics up and RPG down, Fallout : Tactics (2001). I've played 1& 2 (very good!), but never Fallout Tactics.

The Infinity Engine (i.e. Baldur's Gate) comes around in 1998 to 2002, but only two from this could probably "qualify" as tactical RPGs - Icewind Dale 1 & 2. Both very nice little dungeon crawlers,my favourite from the infinity engine games (albeit tied with Planescape) and heavy on the tactics. Although thinking it through, the mage trigger conditions in BG2 were pretty complicated. These are not "grid" games though - real time with pause.

Now things start to peter out a bit on the "tactical" front - Neverwinter Nights 1&2 come along in 2002 and 2006, but I don't think you can call the "tactical" combat in these a highlight. I wouldn't put them in the tactical RPG genre.

I for one personally have never really been able to get into group 2 (Fire Emblem) or the Japanese / Console members of Group 3 - FF Tactics, Tactics Ogre etc. I did kick starter banner saga though.

Temple of Elemental Evil (from 2003) is easily one of the best "fantasy battle simulators" ever made and totally belongs on list 3. Nute's lets play is right this way.

Alas, it is probably also the high water mark of the Western Tactical RPG version of "group 3". We get some great RPGs since then (the Elder Scrolls series etc), but the Western tactical RPG goes on hiatus from essentially this point on.

With the advent of Kickstarter though, some challengers appear on the horizon:

• Banner Saga
• Shadowrun Returns
• Project Eternity (by Obsidian - notable for the philosophical and staff alignments with Troika, maker of Temple of Elemental Evil, as well as their very own lineage either as Obsidian in their own right or as the successor to Black Isle - Icewind Dale 1&2, Neverwinter Nights 2 etc)
• Wasteland 2

All linked to Kickstarter pages, because it was easier than finding websites. I've backed them all! Interestingly the original Wasteland (I believe) was the "blob" style combat and did not have the necessary "grid" element.

Voltare would appear to suck at everything.

Going back in time, my introduction to the concept was the Shining Force series of games on the MegaDrive/Genesis.

They are firmly in camp 3, with a very JRPG 'walk and talk round the village' section between each battle. The battles themselves are what the genre does best: simple rules on the surface, but huge depth in practice.

Both Shining Force and Shining Force 2 are on Steam, and SF1 was re-released on iOS

This sounded right up my alley until I saw the price at $38. Even the Kindle edition is $33! I love the CRPG's, but I'm not spending that much to read more about them.

Oh man. I can't play the ROTK games anymore because I inevitably end up with spreadsheets of generals and governors to optimize who goes where for every province. Eventually my empire gets so large that it becomes a significant time commitment just to continue playing.

Also, you should see the charts Bill Dungsroman did for KOTOR.

I'm playing the Card Hunter beta right now, and I think fans of turn-based tactics will be very, very pleased when it is finally released (at some future, unknown date).

I feel like it has been in development for an eternity.

In terms of gameplay you describe the Fire Emblem series very well in #2, Mind Elemental!
However for customization I'd argue that RNG determines a large part of whether a unit becomes worthwhile or left to guard the castle FOREVER. In FE, each level up gets the RNG treatment with a percentage chance of get a single digit increase- but since it's directed by unit movement, encounters, numbers number numbers, one player tends to get a differently leveled named unit than another. (one gal I know chooses only Beautiful Men and babies them to god-killing levels, while a guy I know likes using all the female units available (which tend to be less in number than the male) and is rewarded with great level ups whether he grinds them or not) And in that sense, it's customizable in terms of which unit you favor to use and feed Exp, but there's no controlling the RNG leveling. And there's always choosing what weapon to give who, sometimes skills, but compared it's all narrowly unit-based. Although the latest entry, Fire Emblem: Awakening, opens the customization up vastly more with being able to change classes multiple times (it's only limited by funds) and re-leveling with each switch.
I'd blabber more, but am not really sure what else would be interesting for this thread.

An yes, I was definitely endorsing the book, not the price. I can only assume it is out of physical print and the publisher is a moron by not setting a more reasonable ebook price that will see some actual sales revenue (like $10 to $15)

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments! Note that my list at the top of the page wasn't intended to be exhaustive -- it was just a bunch of titles that I personally consider good representations of, or classics within, each subgenre. :) (It's also skewed towards titles I've played, with a few exceptions such as Silent Storm and Banner Saga.)

I agree straight away that Freedom Force, Fallout Tactics, et al belong in the genre, and Talorc makes a great point - I hadn't considered the Infinity Engine games at all! I'm not very familiar with Icewind Dale, but from what I know, I don't see why it wouldn't fit. (Mind you, I wouldn't call Fallout 1 or 2 "tactical" RPGs since you only control yourself.)

Re-reading my initial list, it looks like I had a pretty heavy unconscious bias towards turn-based games, which is probably why Icewind Dale never occurred to me. I don't think it's a coincidence these games tend to be turn-based, and I think Bruce Geryk and Jake Solomon have (separately) hit on why. I suspect real-time might be best at the extremes of the scale: either when you only control yourself, or when you control a whole army of faceless, interchangeable units (as in an RTS). If you only control yourself then it's easier to keep track of the situation, and if you control a whole army, then by design the game most likely won't hinge on what one unit is doing. But when you control a small squad of individualised units, that makes it vital that you keep tabs on everyone. You'll need to exert fine control over every unit, you won't want your precious party members to die because you were paying attention to something else, and similarly, you won't want one of your guys to pull off a Critical Hit of +1000 Lethality while you're not looking. All that is easier in turn-based, or at least in pausable real-time.

I can certainly see the argument for Disciples and Ogre Battle, given they both feature levelling units and choosing upgrades! I never got that far into Disciples - do units persist from map to map the way they do in Ogre Battle? (I love Armageddon Empires, but I don't think it has that much in the way of RPG elements -- units don't level up or gain experience, etc.)

ETA: I think the dividing line between a Disciples/OB and a squad-based game would be the greater emphasis on the strategic layer, recruiting new units, managing resources and capturing cities, etc. You're right, though - it's definitely a fuzzy line.

Static tactical? Abstracted tactical? Multi-row tactical? Hmm.

Okay, now that's impressive! I'm surprised Arycelle didn't score higher on Archer, though.

( Talorc -- you get Voltare near the start of the game, so he's outmatched by the guys you recruit later. He's still better than the people at the very start, though!)

Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for the heads-up!

Let me throw out another topic, which we briefly chewed over in the XCOM thread before the game came out - what do you guys think of permadeath? (Obviously it needs to be integrated into the rest of the design - if you have permadeath, you'd better give the player the ability to replenish losses.)

From memory, characters improve their stats every time they level up while in your party. So Arycelle may have much better stats in your game, the more you use a character, the better they get. Thats part of what makes the game so OCD-baiting, my characters don't have the exact same stats as any other players characters. Plus each battle has a different maximum squad size (roughly 5-15 from memory), so you can tailor your squad makeup for each encounter. On top of that, characters can switch professions easily, and some of the best characters have all round excellent stats. So deciding what profession each character should be, is based not just on what they are best suited for, but also what holes need filling in your party.

For my first playthough (following the "Lawful Evil" plotline), I wanted another Archer early on to complement the excellent Canopus. Ravness was the best fit at the time, and as she levelled up in Archery her stats improved to suit. And Hobyrim arrives with sensational Archer stats, if you're willing to give up his original Swordsman profession (That was an easy decision for me because the Lawful Evil playthrough is overflowing with excellent melee characters, but short on good wizards and archers). So by the time Arycelle turns up she is sort of surplus to requirements, so she rarely got put on the field of battle.

Plus I have to admit, that despite what looks like hard hearted min-maxing, some characters just deserve a place on the A-Team based on their iconic coolness (Canopus, Catuia, Vyce, Ravness, Hobyrim, Ozma), so I'm always going to find a way to fit them into my squad, even if their starting profession doesn't match my needs.

I like to think of my in-game character (in any RPG) as a hard bitten mercenary with a secret soft heart, think of Rutger Hauer in movies where he plays a good guy for the type. Coarse, intimidating, but with a soft spot. That creates a fiction I'm pleased with and also handily explains my recruiting practices.

Tony

Units in AE do in fact gain experience and improve performance based on experience. It's not advertised, but it's there. And certain units can be equipped with attachments. The customization/levelling system in AE is not super-robust, but it does exist.

I don't doubt you, but how do you know this?

Was it units or stacks that gained exp? I thought it was the latter (you can check this when you examine a stack by right-clicking).

But yeah, Jason is absolutely right - you can upgrade your units a bit in AE (imperial marines + burst lasers, heck yeah!) - but I don't think the game emphasises those elements to the same extent as some of the other titles we've discussed. :)

Can anyone think of a TBS game that had turn radius as a factor for movement? I can only think of two, Steam Birds (and its clones) and ..Dark Wind(?) that post apoc car wars style game, I believe that was the name of it.

MOO2! You could even equip your ships with inertial nullifiers that let them turn on a dime. :D

I used to play my gameboy advance RPGs like FFTA and Ogre Battle on an emulator with the speed jacked up to quadruple x. If you don't have epilepsy and you like video games, it is an option.

Whoops yeah, that's what I was thinking of.

Well, clearly not. But all of this stuff falls on a continuum, and I personally am less interested in explicitly defining this genre, than I am in figuring out which elements in what combinations create the hook, and how much of a given hook is enough to hold my attention. I don't remember how the stack experience in AE impacted the game, so that wasn't enough for me; but planning and deploying the specific combinations of army leaders, units in the army, and attachments to those units made for some engrossing gameplay. In some ways, deciding which units to put into an army in AE is not so different from choosing which gear to equip on your character in an RPG.

The War Engine is a tactical wargame construction set that I tinkered around with years ago and is now available for free from Matrix Games. You can create custom units from the ground up, and turning radius is one of the unit stats. It uses an AP (action point) system, so you can have a mech for which a 45° turn costs 4 AP, and an individual soldier that can make the same turn for 1 AP. And, if memory serves, the engine handles momentum + turning (a la Car Wars). The basic idea is really cool -- especially the fact that you can string missions together into branching campaigns -- but I was not a fan of the underlying mechanics.

Also, one of my favorite parts of the old Koei game Uncharted Waters was the turn-based naval combat, wherein ships were limited in the kinds of turns they could make, based on their hull size, wind, and sail level. Turn-based tactical naval combat! There were some really great things about that game.

My personal biases aside, I have to take note against lumping Jagged Alliance 2 under only the Strategy genre. If anything the game is a hybrid of strategy, RPG, and tactics. At the strategy level you can send different squads to help take over sectors of the country and deal with management of militia and resources. On the RPG level you have dozens of mercs with different stats, skills, personalities, and relationships. And in regards to tactics you have more options than Fallout (I couldn't get into the original two Fallout games for their lack of kneeling and going prone).

Just briefly emerging from lurk-dom to mention Shadow Watch, which I'd put up there with X-Com and Jagged Alliance as one of the best squad-based tactical strategy games.

Another kickstarted tactical rpg that might turn out ok is Expeditions: Conquistador. I probed a bit to see how deep they were into the "lore" for the story and the results were inclusive, but at least it's kind of a novel turn.

That reminds me of the thing Dan Lawrence has been working on in his spare time. (In that it's hex based and melee focused)

Yeah it sounds similar, the main differences being that my game will be 80% less spanish, is being made by 80% less people and for 100% less money.

Looks like I've got more varied hats though. So there.

Oh, certainly, I don't want this thread to confine itself to definitions. :) I think that's an interesting point you make - my favourite part of these games is probably the "experience" -- the combination of (1) extreme attachment to individual units, fostered by the small scale + unit persistence + unit customisation/inventory management; and (2) the context provided by either the strategic layer or the storyline. Armageddon Empires fosters a similar effect - the units (heroes aside) are nameless, but there are so few units in play in any given match that we can feel attached to them the same way we feel attached to troopers in squad-based games.

Dan Lawrence - I am interested in hearing more. :D Was this the "Free Companies" mercenary game, or am I thinking of someone else?

Yeah, That's it well, close enough anyway. There is a generic bit about it on my game dev blog though some of the details might be a bit out of date as my design process is as iterative as my development methodology:

http://roboticshed.com/games/

Of course if that does not state your curiosity glands, feel free to ask any questions in any of the numerous avenues available.

EDIT:
Mind Elemental, I am disappoint.

Ha, I played that - I just didn't list it in the (non-exhaustive) OP. :D

2 interesting Kickstarters for fans of this genre:

Telepath Tactics- Craig Stern is a one man indie team who has released a number of Fire Emblem/Final Fantasy Tactics style games over the years. I played his "Telepath Psy Arena". That game was elegantly stats-lite, with each unit having a clearly defined role based on its attack. For example the Spearman is a slow tank who can pierce an enemy to hit the unit behind. The Assassin uses superior mobility to get behind for Backstab attacks. Success was based on positioning and combined arms. Telepath Tactics looks to be an evolution of those ideas.

Battle Worlds: Kronos looks like a spiritual successor to Massive Assault, although they do not name-check that game in their pitch. Think Battle Isle and Advance Wars. Its made by the indie team KING Art who created the adventure game “The Book of Unwritten Tales”.

These two game pitches share some things in common. They're both by genuine struggling indies, but with a track record of delivering in the past. Both games are fairly modest in ambition but aimed squarely at a particular under served old school demographic. They both feature single player campaigns, but are not so much about story but more about getting stuck straight into tactical, position based combat. Both are going for board game style elegant simplicity rather than RPG heavy clutter.