From the mailbag
Ranked by what readers save to their shelves and write to us about. Our own scores set the order at the top; your notes decide what we play next.
A free-to-play combat MMO where aircraft, tanks and warships share the same battlefield. Matches run from arcade skirmishes to full simulator control, and thousands of researched vehicles sit behind a long progression tree.
Choose elves or humans and grow a magical city across a hand-painted world map. Research, layout planning and trade with neighbouring players carry more weight here than fighting does.
City building across historical eras, joined to a hero-collection combat system. You develop a settlement, recruit figures from different periods and fight tactical battles on a hex grid.
“I wanted something I could open for twenty minutes after the kids are down and not feel behind the next morning. This one lets me do that.”
“Half my friends bounced off it in week one. The ones who stayed are still in the same alliance two years later. That tells you what kind of game it is.”
“It is the only strategy game I have played where I never once felt pressured to open my wallet just to keep up.”
Pick a historical civilisation and lead it from a single settlement to an empire on a seamless world map, recruiting real historical commanders and fighting kingdom-scale wars.
A gentle restoration sim about bringing a run-down valley back to life. Clear land, plant crops, look after animals and follow a light story of neighbours returning to the village.
A persistent medieval browser strategy game built on resource management, army timing and alliance diplomacy. The presentation is dated; the strategic layer has aged remarkably well.
An Arthurian MMO strategy game about growing a stronghold, training armies and raising a dragon while your alliance fights for territory on a shared kingdom map.
A cooperative management game set on orbital stations. Build modules, expand laboratories and send out survey expeditions while keeping your residents supplied and content.
A hero-collection RPG where you assemble a five-strong team, upgrade their gear and skills, and send them into largely automated campaign, arena and guild battles.
A long-running browser space MMO. Fly a single ship through contested star maps, fight NPCs and rival factions, collect resources and upgrade your loadout with your company behind you.
