Thanks for teaching me how to play Shadow Empire. Once you're over the hump it really is one of the best strategy games ever. I'm looking forward to your next playthrough, the last one was too short!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoy it!

@joelrasdall7662

6 ай бұрын

Das' videos are the only reason I bought it and also the only reason I had any idea what was going on. That is a top-tier game.

Against The Storm is easily the best city builder out there for me. The fact that you actually finish the settlement by meeting target score helps avoid many of the issues most city builders run into, like the sheer boredom of being fully established and only waiting to slowly tackle each advanced resource to mitigate reliance on trade.

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Yes, the game mechanics are exceptional and revolutionary.

Thanks for keeping me company this year Das. Great recommemdations!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Thanks Mike :)

Gladius and Master of Magic lets goooooo ! 100% agree with those.

@LukeTan-tj6px

7 ай бұрын

It's funny how he rates his favourite games so low. I think it's because his criteria favours "safe game", big budget, good UX/UI, easy for beginners, but as he notes such game are bland, boring have little replayability . Biggest example is AOW4

@dnaseb9214

7 ай бұрын

@@LukeTan-tj6px I think he might favor games that came out this year. Damn aow 4 is that mediocre ? I saw it but didnt look better than master of magic.

@LukeTan-tj6px

7 ай бұрын

@@dnaseb9214 yes there's definitely some new factor going on. His #1 Galactic Civ4 is definitely an example of it. As for AOW4, actually, for his #2 game of the year, he critiqued it a lot (see earlier video on his most played games).... AOW4 is the type of the game that looks nice on paper but once you play it you go cold very quickly and you wont want to play more than once or twice

@LukeTan-tj6px

7 ай бұрын

Notice how he says even Paradox releasing new content via DLCs won't fix the replayability issue! which is damning on how bad the fundamental design is. I have a suspicion he is wary of being too hard on games by big studios...but even then

@dnaseb9214

7 ай бұрын

@@LukeTan-tj6px I tried aoe 3 and didnt like it at all. I liked aoe 2 thou. Thats why I got master of magic, it looked very similar.

Thanks for a great year Das! Looking forward to 2024! Off to play some GalCiv!

You put me onto Distant Worlds 2 which I have loved. As you say, I hope they keep the dev cycle up. Still so much to flesh out.

Great to hear your thoughts on these games... finally a channel who enjoys the games I enjoy.

Watching now can tell its going be a great video!

Thanks much for the list ! with Steam Sale up and your list we are in for great times!

You basically taught me how to play Distant Worlds: Universe and enormously improved how I play Distant Worlds 2. Might have to head back to DasTactic University for Shadow Empire.

Awesome, thanks!

Great video again Das! Gonna pick a few of these up I think

Great video, Das! Happy New Year!!

Master of Magic is the way it is because it's meant to be a very faithful remake of the original Master of Magic. It already has quite a bit of a face lift in the interface compared to the original but the idea was for it to be a very close remake to the original with the real major change being that it's using hexes instead of squares. The reason why you have so many broken overpowered stuff is because the original did too. Finding out the cheese and using it or beating the game with no cheese whatsoever is up to the player but one of the things that the players have always requested was that the Devs didn't tried to balance the game. It is a single player experience so balance is not really necessary.

Thanks for the video! Happy new year mate!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Happy new year!

Loved your content this year Das, Happy new year!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Thanks. :)

Shadow Empire game of the year, every year. But yeah, UX/UI just has to bring it's score down.

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

UX/UI is pretty much the only reason.

Thank you sir for this video. From France I send you my best wishes for the New Year and especially good health!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Thanks. And wishing you all the best for 2024 as well.

Finally a top list I really feel :) Lots of good titles!

GalCiv IV is very much improved. There are so many good 4X games to play now that it's hard finding time for it. I hope to dive in more soon!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Yes, GalCiv 4 has gotten exponentially better with each major iteration.

I think Age of Wonders gets 4 is a superb game.

Gal Civ IV is great, AOW4 awesome, great year for these type of games!

I've been playing Galactic Civilizations IV now for the last few days. Just a step up from the usual genre of this type of game. Everything remarkably polished and well thought out - from replayability, extensive choices throughout play, decent interface, and a great space expansion feel. Truly is one of the best games of 2023. A hidden gem. Perhaps the only negative I may have about GC IV is it does run the GPU hotter than usual. Seems odd given there really isn't a whole lot of graphics taking place. So why so hot? I mean, playing GTA V and my GPU runs cooler.

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Yes. the changes have really elevated the game a lot even in recent weeks.

@AntonGully

6 ай бұрын

To be fair, GTA V is a ten year old game, with the PC release in 2015.

No Spellforce: Conquest of Eo, eh? Sure, the replayability isn’t there, but it’s still better than the disappointment that was AoW4. Granted all the AoW games tend to be disappointing at launch and then become fantastic right before they announce the next game.

Is GalCiv4 that good? The reviews seem to be mixed, but I'm super intrigued.

I still wish you would have done the inverted order! interesting top though. Stil lfeel like distant world, dwarf fortress and Shadow Empire are your true top 3 (not sure of the order though)!

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Yes, DW2, DF and Shadow Empire are all in my top 5 games of all time. It was the UI/UX score that pulled these down.

@TrepTheSnake

6 ай бұрын

@@DasTactic Fair enough thought I have to admit that in the case of Shadow Empire, the originality and immersive aspect of the UI makes me ready to sacrifice a bit of it's usability. Granted there's some part of it that could be improve without compromising it's immersion though!

Yes, Age of wonders 4 is my top game of all time, not just this year.

In general, as an average player who doesn’t spend a crazy amount of time playing a game, I highly prefer beautiful hand crafted maps compared to random generated ones. I rather have one play through in an astounding world with Easter eggs etc, than getting hundred different random maps. That’s was also the biggest let down of AoW 4. Damn were those maps beautiful. Now they are meaningless. Should try a mod like The fate of Emrilia, to see what the engine of AoW3 was capable of.

GREAT AWESOME GAYMME! AWESOME! I appreciate that you don't give too much credit to Steam ratings and just go on with your preferences. That being said, Gal Civ 4 looks tired as all hell, I don't think you made your positive view on it very clear (I have no idea why it's in first place). Also like some grognards I thought AoW4 was not a step in the right direction for the series (horrible PDox influences), but I know this is controversial.

@LukeTan-tj6px

7 ай бұрын

Nah you are spot on. Das's criteria here makes him favours boring bland games. Basically his list are games with slick interface, easier for beginners but are not interesting particularly in long term, that's why his real favourites are not in the top 10.

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Yes, I just gave my own personal scores and thought these would be more helpful for new players rather than my personal favourites. I was going to do just a top 10 but then when I saw my traditional favourites further down I went for top 20. :)

Hot take but I prefer GC4 to Stellaris. While Stellaris has more systems its fundamental game loop is always the same. There are also systems like espionage which are completely useless or the galactic senate which is borderline useless. I think if a game has a system that you can just ignore and not notice any effect on the game if you ignore it, its just noise that is confused with depth. The alien races ships all play exactly the same, the combat is just smashing your toys together, there are way too many random events that you've seen before and you just hover over the bonus effect, and the combat is so numerically driven that whoever has the highest fight score wins. I think Stellaris is more an RP game which is fine, and GC4 is more a board game which is also fine. I also just play human in Stellaris which might be the biggest problem as I think people like to play custom races. I'm probably just old but Stellaris being real time means there are long stretches of boredom then I'm bombarded with way too many things going on.

AOW4 is one of those games where, as soon as i finish a map I immediately want to start a new game

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

I love it. :)

GalCiv IV has a mixed rating, with only 60%. Not sure about this one.

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

Some of my favourite games have poor Steam ratings. :) Distant Worlds 2 for example. And visa-versa - some of the games I find boring rate really high.

@dennissvitak5475

6 ай бұрын

@@DasTactic - To a certain extent, I agree. I have about 400 Steam games, and I purchased many of them based on review scores. I stopped doing that a couple of years ago, and now I just watch your channel. Heh heh.

@AntonGully

6 ай бұрын

@@DasTactic I'm one of the few people still playing Distant Worlds 2, with about 500 hours in total, but I'd struggle to say I'm enjoying it. I look back at some of the old Space 4X games I played and wish they had the AI fleet control that the player gets in DW2. No matter how much better or more interesting other 4X games may be, it's hard to go back to manually controlling every last ship or fleet. I also feel they're letting the game die by not opening up modding more (though I appreciate the game is still basically in Beta, as you said) so that more creative people could fix what is basically a very bland game. The longer they hold off on modding so they can sell race packs, the less chance the game has of getting a second wind. It's a shame.

@occamsblunderbuss

6 ай бұрын

Each to their own. I find Distant Worlds II duller than drying paint, whereas I find Unity of Command II to be one of the greatest strategy games ever made.

I think you should give hearts of iron 4 a try if you haven't yet.

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

It has been a while since I've played that. There are some great WW2 games coming in 2024.

Isn't Shadow Empire from 2020?

i don't really get your argument about AoW4 missing replayability. i understand what you mean with lukewarm balancing and that paradox feel. it certainly has paradox touches in it, its much more modular and those modules sometimes feel a bit too symmetric. but reavers dlc and the item forge update put in some more spice so i think they are on the right path. in terms of evolution AoW4 vs AoW3 blows it out of the water because it basically became fantasy stellaris, which was what many people were looking for. now i also got gal civ 4 but i honestly couldn't play it so long, it felt kinda generic. some game aspects of it are nice, like the planetary system and the character system with different ministers. but it didn't give me anything too exciting, mostly a rewarming of gal civ 3 and gal civ 2, i admit ... a finetunement of those but still no big changes or no big evolutions. in terms of replayabilty ... the different cultures and tomes in AoW4 have vastly more replayability than gal civ 4 's small static bonuses like "+x% production" or some "Unique tech" which ist mostly some smaller buffs for smaller areas. compare the possible playstyles of gal civ 4 with stellaris and gal civ 4 looks like a childs attempt compared to stellaris. every time i started playing gal civ 4 i was thinking about playing stellaris. so for me gal civ 4 is a neat game and i will follow its development, but its not some big evolution from its previous games. some changes like sectors i feel are a downgrade (because only a handful and awkward sizes) and they attempted something what stellaris did without understanding why it works in stellaris and why not in gal civ4. the identity of gal civ was always big open map .. a sid meyers civ in space. i understand that you might be infatuated with the changes from gal civ 3 to gal civ 4 ... but stardock has gotten greedy. supernova is a 20EUR dlc at best compared to gal civ 4 and now they are planning to release dlc which are similiar to the developement of the previous game or rather some features they took inspiration of stellaris, but of course just a tenth of the depth because they try to release all within 1,5 years. at the end look at steam review and player numbers...those don't lie. gal civ 4 has 1/6 th the active players on steam compared to Age of Wonders 4. numbers don't lie. both 4x games .. both niche ... gal civ 4 just isn't so interesting and new compared to gal civ 3 or compared to the rest of the 4x genre. meanwhile AoW4 is the new best 4x fantasy game with beautiful artstyle and massive replayabilty. even more unique to gal civ 4's small Master of Orion likes number crunching. same with distant worlds ... nice series .. have both .. but the uniqueness in the races are mostly some percentual buffs and minuses.

I noticed Dwarf Fortress is also not marked as early acces, lmao

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

I think that launched as a full launch. It is clearly Early Access.

@Flackon

6 ай бұрын

Yeah, just thought it’s funny because it’s the most early access game ever. Seventeen years in alpha so far. And they didn’t mark it as EA on steam…

Against the Storm has been the most disappointing game that I have played in the last couple of months. Dave the Diver and Moonstone Island are way better. LOL I will be playing Project Zomboid and Empire of the Undergrowth next, none of which are on your list. LOL

Cannot agree with age of wonders. Super bland with no racial difference + a mobile game UI with everything super dumbed down. Most disappointing game of the year imo.

@adhabens

7 ай бұрын

Yes the interface and art style feels like a generic mobile game spinoff created for the couch, you can clearly see it in battle with those huge stylized circular health bars over every single troop. It's just a terribly bland game and uninteresting, even just visually.

@LukeTan-tj6px

7 ай бұрын

@@adhabens To be fair Das also agrees it is bland and lacks replayability (irony for a game that fans boost is super customizable). Das is just weighting UI and easy to play higher so it comes up on top. I won't be surprised Gal Civ 4 is the same

@DasTactic

6 ай бұрын

While AoW4 is one of my personal favourite games there were a lot of viewers who also felt it played bland so when I rated it I gave it's replay value just an average - even though I could play this a lot more than I do. :)

@MFewwy

6 ай бұрын

I don't know how you played aow4 if you say that there is no racial difference. You literally create your own race with certain stats and the same for the opponents. 😮

@NietzscheanMan

6 ай бұрын

@@MFewwy the races are just skins that do not add anything. An orc can be the same as a dwarf or an elf or a human or whatever.

A lot of the games on this list just dont work well tho.... KSP2, DF ect.... (buggy/missing features) the #1 game is out of business.... 100% believe that YT content creators are playing a major role in the decreased quality of video game releases. Nothing buy HYPE HYPE HYPE, every new game seems to release in a worse state than the previously newest game and yet every video is about how awesome, perfect, fun, bug free, ect... But every game releases in a sorry @$$ state... How can the best game put a dev team out of business?? DF released over a year ago on steam (not early access) and they removed tons of features that were previously free like adventure mode. which still is not out

@LukeTan-tj6px

7 ай бұрын

They can't critique games from big companies much...

@AntonGully

6 ай бұрын

Have Stardock sacked the GalCiv team? There's still a free version of DF. And it was clearly stated what you were getting on the store page if you wanted to pay for the graphical version. Hate on that asshole Brad Wardell as much as you like, but Dwarf Fortress is art in and of itself.

@codyj9983

6 ай бұрын

@@AntonGully my guy, they said the steam version would have updated graphics and UI. They did not complete the UI, the removed menus, and UI, it's lacking filters ECT... They also said adventure mode would be out soon after release. Im a consumer, not a fanboy... Tired of all the lies pre launch. Every game releases in the sorriest state, but YT creators and fanboys hype each game as if it works on release. And then when the fixes don't come years later... Adventure mode is still not out. And when they finally do release it it will still be buggy.

So your GOTY is basically a reskin of it's predecessor, causing it to have barely a 70% rating on Steam. Ugh. Did Wardell pay you for this?

@Wenkebach

7 ай бұрын

"sponsored"

@captainkoloth1631

7 ай бұрын

Speak for yourself, I had a blast with GCIV.

@joramhh1637

7 ай бұрын

The initial release was definitely a mess but Supernova made it so much better. Now sure if it's GOTY material but it's now very very good.

@d1ngd0

7 ай бұрын

Maybe he just liked it? This whole “did they pay you” feels like you want to devalue his opinion. He likes things you don’t, that’s ok

@Flackon

7 ай бұрын

70% is decent. It’s steam, not IGN