Looking for a different type of Strategy game

Hi All,

Could you please bounce some ideas around... I'm in a bit of a lull at the moment.

I am seriously in the mood of a great strategy game - unfortunately, not the standard fast-paced mayhem we have lately.(WC3, C&C, SC, DoW)
In all honesty, I'm looking for something of a base/empire builder. Imagine Civilisation and Stonghold combined (if there is such a thing).
(and no, Not ROME series)

Civilisation alone is a bit boring for me after a while, though I love the research. Isn't there a game where you can just build your base / castle / kingdom / empire and defend defend defend?
A long time ago I had Lords of the Realm but that game was so buggy. And I didn't hear too many great things about Stronghold series.

I LOVED the strategy element of Company of Heroes. That was a bit slower paced, and you could really do strategies there... flanking, surprise attacks etc.
But again, that didn't have the base / empire building focus.

Anything out there that has elements of the following :

Civilisation / Company of Heroes / Research / Stronghold ??

Thanks

there will NEVER be another like it i recommend:

edit: nevermind i see you have your mind made up about it.. umm maybe tryrise of nations.. or sins of a solar empire.. or ceaser

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/lordsoftherealm3/index.html?tag=result;title;0

Ground Control.

It is free now too.

Sins of a Solar Empire

Supreme Commander, SupCom2 is due out soon.

Lords of the Realm III is the one I was talking about being so buggy. I actually loved that game, still, didn't help crashing all the time or the units getting stuck in the wall for the entire battle.

Supreme commander is ok... I like the defensive buildings, I can stretch out a game for hours on that one - except no empire / civilization element. Its just the one map and there you go. Still fun though but not exactly what I am looking for...

... then again if I knew exactly what I was looking for, there wouldn't be a point to this thread :) hehe

As for Sins... what a waste of a game imho. I would much rather delve into Galactic Civilizations II (which I am doing), though the game type is correct I guess... except it needs to be on a planet instead of the universe :) hehe.

Yes I know.. I'm picky - like I said, I'm in a lull and don't know what I want to be playing. Something that makes me think, and can be played out on a lesuirly pace. I'm pretty much fed up with COD4 and DragonAge - which is the two games I now play mostly because I can't think of a nice Strategy to get my hands on.

Thanks for your input, keep them coming please ;)

I'm not sure what you meant by not the Rome series, but have you thought about the Total War series?

If you play peacefully it's got all of the elements you mentioned there, an empire building part and in battles a real time part.

Which game in the series is up to you really, I enjoyed all of them, althout Medieval 2 is getting great mods now [like Third Age Total War - a LOTR mod].

Thanks again!

Rise of Nations is a great game.. bit dated though.

As for Medieval II, this looks very promising. I have only played the ROME : Total War and didn't enjoy it at all as it was lacking in various areas. But Medieval looks enjoyable and has some great reviews. Sad that you don't have a multiplayer campaign mode though. Perhaps there's a patch out for this, not sure. Either way, with the support mentioned above of new mods still coming out it seems to be greatly supported.

This entire issue of me searching for an "empire builder / RTS" originated so that a friend and myself can have some real EPIC scale world-domination type gameplay and battles. Though I think I will be checking out Medieval II for myself on the single player campaign, the epic multiplayer battles could at least settle some of our intrigue.

I've also read up on "Dawn of Discovery" which looks rather good, except once again no multiplayer - though I'll check out it's single player as well :)

Thanks for all the input everyone. If you read this post and think of another title which has somewhat better multiplayer support, feel free to let me know.

Again, thank you for the support in trying to find that 'special' title. It's nice to see the GameSpot community assist each other ;)

IIRC the latest game in the Total War series [Empire] has a form of multiplayer campaign thing....or a beta version of it. I believe Napolean has it too.

The game is a bit buggy, though I enjoyed it, but not one of the best in the series...

These 2:

awww crap, you want the base-building stuff, both of these avoid that stuff.

But as far as different......these 2 and Dungeon Keeper fit the bill.