The most popular turn based games

Baseball Mogul (1997) was the original release that kicked off the whole franchise. Developed by Clay Dreslough and published by Infinite Monkey Systems, this was a pioneer in the ...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

Castle of the Winds is a fantasy roguelike role-playing game developed by SaadaSoft in the early 1990s. It was designed for Windows 3.x and is notable for being one of the earliest...

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a grumpy bearded guy swinging an axe and saving the world before second breakfast, Bloodstone: an Epic Dwarven Tale is your jam. Released in 1...

Heroes of Might and Magic II takes the foundation of its predecessor and polishes it with the care of someone who genuinely loved the original. The visuals are richer, the mechanic...

Based on a classic Chinese novel, Bandit Kings of Ancient China combines strategy, RPG elements, and about 800 names you’ll never remember. You play one of 108 outlaws trying...

If you ever wanted to run a football club without leaving your chair, The Manager (1991, DOS) delivers. This early management sim lets you buy players, balance budgets, and suffer ...

Lords of the Realm II is a medieval-themed real-time strategy (RTS) and turn-based strategy game developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra On-Line. Released in 1996, i...

Mad Paradox embraces surrealism with remarkable enthusiasm, presenting an action-platform adventure where strange creatures and bizarre environments are perfectly normal. Players m...

Strategy enthusiasts looking for a detailed World War II simulation will find plenty to appreciate in MacArthur's War. Focusing on the Pacific theater, the game challenges players ...

Sid Meier's Colonization is Civilization’s scrappy, historically charged cousin. You start with a tiny ship and a dream: exploit the New World before the other European power...

Free Enterprise from 1996 is business simulation with a distinctly ’90s sense of ambition. You’re tasked with building and managing a corporate empire, juggling finance...

Grandmaster Chess is not here to hold your hand, compliment your moves, or pretend that losing is part of the fun. In Grandmaster Chess, you are up against a computer that takes it...

Part strategy, part slapstick cartoon, North and South makes the American Civil War look like a Saturday morning show. You juggle troop movements, train robberies, and spontaneous ...

Premier Manager 2 polished the formula, giving football nerds even more stats to obsess over. If you thought juggling line-ups and balancing books was fun in the first game, this s...

Ever wanted to manage a kingdom, lead armies, go dungeon-crawling, and attend budget meetings? Birthright: The Gorgon’s Alliance makes all your fantasy micromanagement dreams...

Before Worms made artillery games cute, Bang! Bang! let you and a friend lob cartoonish shells at each other using nothing but angles, wind speed, and pure spite. It's a math lesso...

Released in 1984, Hack is one of those games that quietly shaped an entire genre while pretending not to care if you understood it or not. This early roguelike doesn’t bother...

Then there’s Martian Dreams, the Ultima game where you travel to Mars in the 19th century with none other than Sigmund Freud and Nikola Tesla. Yes, it’s as delightfully...

Balance of Power: The 1990 Edition is a geopolitical strategy game developed by Chris Crawford and released in 1985. It is considered a classic in the genre of political and strate...

Environmental doom simulator? Check. Grim statistics? Double check. Balance of the Planet lets you tinker with carbon emissions, wildlife extinction, and deforestation until you ei...

King’s Bounty is a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, originally released in 1990 by New World Computing. It was created by Jon Van Caneghem, also known for the Migh...

X-COM: Terror from the Deep (also known as X-COM 2) is a DOS science fiction tactical strategy game and the sequel to one of the most popular DOS games in history, X-COM: UFO ...

Scorched 3D is a free and open-source artillery game that serves as a modern adaptation of the classic MS-DOS game Scorched Earth. Developed by Gavin Camp, it was first released in...

Eishockey Manager is proof that spreadsheets can, in fact, be thrilling—if you really love ice hockey. Released in 1993, this is a hardcore management sim that skips the flas...