Recommend me a tactical game *newer than 2007*

Jagged Alliance 2

 

Hard West was kinda good when i played it a few years ago. Might be worth looking in to.

 

I always considered games like Commandos more like a puzzle game instead of a tactical game. You have a main way of completing the level and if you deviate too much from it, then you lose.
Basically, there's only tactics the first time you play the game. Because that's when you have to think on what you have to do to beat the game. After that you have to do almost the same each new playthrough or you can't beat the game.

Also there's no real battles in these games. Only sneak attack kills.

EDIT: Some people say that the Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children game is a good tactical game. It has anime like characters, so it may be a turn off for some people.

 

Battletech (2018) is pretty good. It's giant robots instead of regular soldiers, but you can customize the loadouts of the robots quite a bit in the base game, even more with mods. You have your 'Mechs which you can customize the loadouts on, and then your Mechwarriors who have their own skills you can upgrade with the potential for three extra abilities along the different skill paths to unlock. You have a ship to manage and upgrade, your 'mechs require a maintenance fee, you have to pay your Mechwarriors, and you need to take contracts to keep your mercenary company afloat.

This image is from my modded "Roguetech" playthrough. Roguetech is fucking awesome, it brings the game much more in line with the tabletop game in terms of mechanics. I'd recommend playing through the base game, with or without the DLCs at least once before trying Roguetech.

Edit: Just to preempt something that came to mind, "Mechwarrior" is a series in the same setting but not the same kind of game as "Battletech." Battletech is a turn based tactics game, based off the tabletop Battletech. Mechwarrior is a first person persepective cockpit shooter in the same setting.

 

I highly recommend Battle Brothers https://www.gog.com/game/battle_brothers.
Has great depth/builds, solid AI, and just simply well made combat mechanics.
Also, get Jagged Alliance 2.

 

Height exists, a unit on higher ground than their target gets a melee/range hit bonus. There are also biomes with cover/objects in them. Forests especially have a crap ton of trees that you could bottleneck enemies in. While you also get swamp areas with their own trees/cover and also "swamp water" tiles that add a debuff to offense/defense and are harder to traverse.

As for the second part, it is a lot less gamey than it looks and seems to follow a more "simulation-y" approach compared to other fantasy/melee focused tactics games. Hit chance for example is affected by weapon type, a character's melee skil, target's melee defense, injuries, height, and morale of both attacker and defender. Weapon types are also pretty interesting with each one having an action that makes them unique, e.g Spear's Spearwall, Battle Whip's disarm, Mace's Stun.
The battle system in general is one of the best ones I've seen in a tactics game in a while, further improved by solid AI and a diverse enemy list.
Hell, even the RPGCodex likes it.

 

How good is the base game now? Last I checked, it had poor performance and somewhat flat levels.

 

I can't say for sure that the performance has been ironed out in vanilla, as I've always played on an SSD and with more than enough power under the hood to hide any issues. Memory leaks do still happen and it's worthwhile to save and restart the game every few hours for some. Sorry I can't help more on this one.

The map terrain depends on biomes of the planets you go to. Deserts and badlands will be very flat, highlands and lowlands often have hills and rocks. polar maps will have snow dunes and mountains. With the Urban Warefare DLC you also get city missions with buildings blocking long line of sight, but the ability to jump jet onto their roofs to get an overhead shot at the risk of the building being shot and destroyed, causing your mech to take fall damage.

 

Nice. I might check it out with the Roguetech mod. Been craving a good mech game with customization porn for a while now.
Not like we are getting a mecha tactics game anytime soon, Front Mission is still dead last time I checked.

 

Here's an example of a map. Lots of hills and cliffs.

 

Well, their reviewer did complain about skeletons in the game because he is too stupid to change his tactics.

 

Would Darkest Dungeon be considered tactical, because it is a good game. It fits what you're looking for tactical combat. soldier management, inventory and loot management.