game recommendations please before i lose my mind!

[Sailor Vulcan]

I'm bored out of my mind right now. Anyone have any recommendations for games I can get into while I'm waiting for the next mage wars expansion?


I'm looking for something that is:

-free or at least inexpensive
-preferably something i can play online
-customizable strategy
-a game that involves skill and where players actually play their armies/decks/whatever instead of just piloting them.

that completely rules out hearthstone, and almost completely rules out yugioh and mtg unless there's some special formats that i'm not aware of that people actually play often enough that it won't be a frustrating and exhausting struggle to just find an opponent.

For example, the pauper and peasant formats are dead because people would rather waste a ton of money getting burnt out on standard then playing something that they actually can afford to play competitively. Now that I think about that, it makes me rather worried about the future of mage wars, since affordability is one of its biggest selling points and most people don't seem to care about that even if they're dirt poor.

In any case, please don't recommend pauper or peasant mtg unless someone successfully revives them. Please put some thought into your recommendations and think about whether it's actually something I would want to play based on what I've written here.

Thank you for your help.

[Boocheck]

What term "pauper or peasant" means?

to your problem, i am afraid, that there isnt so many "pay to win" card games. If you were a pc player and we have a year 2007 i would definetly forward you to Company Of Heroes 1

I hope you will find an answer to your problem.

[Borg]

At the risk of hooking you onto another game ... but the best fantasy, strategy, tactical turn based PC game imo is Age of wonders 3.

It's not free but not expensive imo but gameplay is really rewarding.
There's massive strategy as you can plan in advance what race, what Hero and what strategy you want to try out with them and it's highly tactical as well as you have to adapt to a lot of different opposing units.

As a reference : Ive been playing games for over 40 years and played tons of TBS games including the Civ series and that magnificent mod Wild Mana ( fantasy civ ) but :
when it comes to boardgaming, my nr1 pick is Mage Wars
when it comes to PC gaming : Age of wonders 3
here's the link anyway
http://ageofwonders.com/category/news/

PS there's a similarity between MW and AoW3 : it can be overwhelming at first. Not that the gameplay is necessarily difficult because it's not but there are a lot of mechanics ,abilities, skills, to digest and there's happiness to monitor and diplomacy.
Just start up a random new game and checkout your hero and his starting unit's abilities and you'll know what I'm talking about. It gets easier with more play.
Just like you would start MW as a new player right now and you have all those unknown cards to digest  ...
a challenge, but fun at the same time, right ?

[Sailor Vulcan]

What term "pauper or peasant" means?

to your problem, i am afraid, that there isnt so many "pay to win" card games. If you were a pc player and we have a year 2007 i would definetly forward you to Company Of Heroes 1

I hope you will find an answer to your problem.

What I'm looking for is not pay to win, I'm looking for things that are NOT pay to win. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear in the original post, I thought it was.

Pauper format is a format of magic the gathering that uses only common cards. No one plays it anymore even though the regular game is a lot more expensive. Peasant is a format similar to pauper.

That's also why I said it makes me worried about the future of mage wars. Most magic players aren't megarich, but they'd still rather waste money on standard format than play something they can afford, even if they're dirt poor. And while I can understand how it can be a sort of prisoners dilemma, since why would someone want to play a format if no one else is playing it? But that doesn't really explain how people stopped playing budget formats in the first place. The best I've been able to come up with is that magic players simply don't care about the monetary expense. Which is bad, since affordability is one of the biggest selling points for mage wars.

[ACG]

I'm bored out of my mind right now. Anyone have any recommendations for games I can get into while I'm waiting for the next mage wars expansion?


I'm looking for something that is:

-free or at least inexpensive
-preferably something i can play online
-customizable strategy
-a game that involves skill and where players actually play their armies/decks/whatever instead of just piloting them.

that completely rules out hearthstone, and almost completely rules out yugioh and mtg unless there's some special formats that i'm not aware of that people actually play often enough that it won't be a frustrating and exhausting struggle to just find an opponent.

For example, the pauper and peasant formats are dead because people would rather waste a ton of money getting burnt out on standard then playing something that they actually can afford to play competitively. Now that I think about that, it makes me rather worried about the future of mage wars, since affordability is one of its biggest selling points and most people don't seem to care about that even if they're dirt poor.

In any case, please don't recommend pauper or peasant mtg unless someone successfully revives them. Please put some thought into your recommendations and think about whether it's actually something I would want to play based on what I've written here.

Thank you for your help.

I don't know whether you are set on a specific type of game, but I recommend the following games, all of which have loads of strategy and skill:

Free-to-Play Games:

Battle For Wesnoth - A turn-based strategy game with excellent multiplayer skirmishes and single-player campaigns

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - A turn-based roguelike with an amazing amount of depth and skill involved. Has an absurd number of races and classes, and excellent magic and religion systems. Also designed to be friendly to new players (in terms of learning how to play; you'll still die a few hundred times before you win). Single-player only.

Brogue - Another roguelike, simpler than Dungeon Crawl and with some pretty unique mechanics. Single-player only

Single-time purchase (you buy it once, then you can play as much as you like):

King Arthur's Gold ($10) - An addictive side-scrolling multiplayer platformer game where two opposing sides do battle, part of which involves constructing elaborate castles, traps, and other defenses block by block. There are 3 classes, Builder, Archer and Knight. It is best described as Terrarria/2D minecraft meets Team Fortress 2. I recommend looking at youtube videos to learn more about the gameplay. There is a ton of strategy and skill here as well, so you are unlikely to grow bored of it quickly.

[Boocheck]

What I'm looking for is not pay to win, I'm looking for things that are NOT pay to win. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear in the original post, I thought it was.

I am just an idiot What i was wanting to write is that there is too many pay to win games these days and trying to find a jewel in this pile of heap is pretty hard.

I am sure, that what i will write next is not probably for you but with mentioned Age of Wonders 3 (that game rocks!) i must add my own favourite of all time. Its Jagged Alliance 2 with 1.13 patch.

[Sailor Vulcan]

Lots of great suggestions! Anything that I can play both online and in real life? The reason I said that I preferred games I can play online is that it's extraordinarily difficult to find people I can play non videogame games with if those games are deeper than monopoly clue and connect four and not mtg, yugioh, or Pokemon tcg. The next most common thing is pathfinder and DnD and those seem to only occur in small groups of friends or at FLGS, and the closest FLGS are not very accessible to me.

[Boocheck]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup decreased my work effectivity by 100% That game is great and runs on office pc.

[Cnoedel]

I am a bit biased but you could try out Path of Exile!

- Free to play
- Very complex
- A lot of fun to play
- great atmosphere

Anything you can buy is either aesthetics or stash space (but i play this game since 2013 and never spend money, stash space and character slots are more than enough for semi-casual players)

But before you begin, know that your first character will be very bad as you do not know the skilltree and all imaginable possibilities. If you like looting and character development in Diablo 2 you will love this game!

To be honest, this game challenges the hell out of me. It is very hard to plan ahead, hard as hell and a bit too complex for newbies. If you are smart, have a lot of time to invest and like dungeon crawling games, give it a try.

[exid]

totally free, nice strategies to create...
but perhaps to much piloting for you, and only online (1 turn/week):

http://ultraball.ludimail.net/

[jupiter999]

Battle For Wesnoth - A turn-based strategy game with excellent multiplayer skirmishes and single-player campaigns

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - A turn-based roguelike with an amazing amount of depth and skill involved. Has an absurd number of races and classes, and excellent magic and religion systems. Also designed to be friendly to new players (in terms of learning how to play; you'll still die a few hundred times before you win). Single-player only.

Brogue - Another roguelike, simpler than Dungeon Crawl and with some pretty unique mechanics. Single-player only

Cool, something that I'm familiar with.
Great suggestions.
Worth your time and imagination!