I am looking for a good war-gaming program

[zinfamous]

Have you played any Matrixgames? It's funny you mention them because yesterday I ran into their site while trying to find out about Puresim baseball and noticed they had a few naval simulators. I was wondering if there games were any good.

a lot of people seem to hate on Matrix. I didn't know anything about them,

but downloaded Distant Worlds, anyway, based on the thread in this forum.

They tend to release games early, mostly buggy, but from what I've seen a pretty good community and they do push out fixes and are pretty good with support.

While I haven't played it for a few months, so the latest fixed mechanics are unfamiliar to me--I do like DW. :\

a real-time 4x space simulator. you can automate must of it so that the real-time aspect is not as bloated and stressful as one would assume.

 

[damocles]

Been looking for a game like this myself.

Panzer General 2 is okay, I'm not crazy about it though, not sure why it hasn't grabbed me yet.

I've been tempted by HOI, but it looks very grognard - diplomacy, politics, economics, budgeting, etc, I'm more interested in moving forces and killing.

I'll try Combat Mission at some point, just haven't pulled the trigger yet.

One game that I thought really captured the spirit of a table game, was Strategic Conquest, a very old game for Macs. The AI in it was pretty good, it was hard to beat on the highest difficulty setting. Although it did sort of cheat, iirc. I remember actually learning a tactic or two from it. Still remember a game I had that lasted a really long time, til I finally found a tiny gap in the AI defense. I'd buy it in a second if there was a workable PC version right now.

Spent a lot of time playing Strategic Combat and Reach for the Stars on the Mac.

 

[BladeVenom]

Have you played any Matrixgames? It's funny you mention them because yesterday I ran into their site while trying to find out about Puresim baseball and noticed they had a few naval simulators. I was wondering if there games were any good.

I only have a couple of their games. They are just the publisher, so it depends on who developed the game.