Best Grid-Based Strategy Games, Ranked

Players can test their luck and their planning skills in a variety of ways when taking part in strategy titles. As the years have progressed these games have taken on different mechanics to allow players to strategize during different situations. One such mechanic that has been a long-time addition to many strategy games is the title using a grid to visualize the movement of both the player and their opponents.

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By  Mark Hospodar

A grid can either be squares, hexagons, or simply different pieces of land but the process of moving between them remains the same. With so many amazing games over the years, these grid-based strategy games are by far the best.

8 Endless Legend

Endless Legend is a player's typical 4X Turn-based strategy game that gives them the opportunity to create their own legend all while attempting to save their homeworld of Augria. Alongside the magical twist of the game, players are still expected to expand their populace by building industry, farms, science, and residential buildings—all of which are placed on a hexagon grid.

Besides the hexagon grid-based strategy combat, Endless Legend is an incredibly beautiful game. Each battlefield or piece of land the player explores is perfectly designed to create a vibrant and interesting location for the player to grow their legend.

7 Tales & Tactics

While this game is only in early access on Steam, Tales & Tactics shows a lot of potential to become a magnificent squad-based auto battler with a simple premise that makes constructing strategy easy. Like Endless Legend, the player battles on a hexagon grid though this appears to look more like a board game than being a large map that is set on land.

Players must decide on their units and then where they should be placed on the board before the intense battle between the two sides begins. Players create their own story through the units they decide as the game master narrates the greatest strategy of the player's life.

6 Hearts Of Iron 4

With Hearts of Iron 4 originally released in 2016, even seven years later many players have returned to this military title when they are looking for a great strategy title to lose countless hours into. Players are free to control any nation they desire from World War 2 and bring their armies to glory through intense strategic combat.

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Players are left to fight across the various countries that took part in World War 2 with each place cut into smaller sections that the player is left to move across. Although it doesn't directly appear like a grid, this leaves the player to move across these sections in the hope of pursuing their enemy and eventually winning the war.

5 XCOM 2

Another military strategy game that has impressive grid-based movement is XCOM 2. Unlike Hearts of Iron 4, this game isn't set in any real war but instead teleports players to the future where they have been taken over by aliens.

While controlling a small group of elite soldiers, players will be sent on various missions to defeat aliens, collect data, or save hostages. The maps these missions take place in vary in size, but all must be maneuvered across while using a grid. Once the player is in position then they can strike in the hope of beating their opponent.

4 Triangle Strategy

Players who are looking for a classic strategy game that takes place on a grid need to look no further than Triangle Strategy. Created by the developers who also made the just as impressive Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy has phenomenal pixel graphics that suit the grid-based movement of this strategy title nicely.

Although the maps themselves are heavily detailed, the player is still stuck to a square grid that allows them to either move horizontally or diagonally when approaching their opponent. Players may be reminded of the older Fire Emblem games when playing Triangle Strategy which makes for more of a familiar experience.

3 The Banner Saga 3

The Banner Saga franchise is one of the best when it comes to grid-based strategy games. It has continued to prove itself over the years with the most recent being The Banner Saga 3 being by far the greatest of them all.

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With the third title being the epic conclusion to this Viking tale, it's of no surprise that Stoic went all out when developing the strategy combat the players take part in during every competitive moment. Although the game takes place in a wonderfully drawn world, every fight is still made interesting on a simple square grid with the occasional object. All this makes The Banner Saga 3 a title a player shouldn't pass up.

2 Invisible Inc

As seen strategy games cover all sorts of themes and activities. Therefore, not all of them explore active wars or intense battlefields. In some games like Invisible Inc, a player is likely to be stealthy when approaching their problems.

In Invisible Inc, players stick to a square grid in the hope of avoiding the vision of the people they must sneak around. A player controls multiple spies as they infiltrate some of the largest corporations in the hope of taking down targets or collecting data. Playing in a randomly generated world also means that every map and therefore grid will be different.

1 Sid Meier's Civilization 6

Unsurprisingly, out of all the strategy games that use a grid to help the player strategize, by far the best strategy game of them all to use this mechanic must be Civilization 6. Every single Civilization game in the franchise has impressed players, and this has continued to be the case with the sixth game of the title.

Players build their various settlements on a hexagon grid, it's important to know what surrounds these settlements as players will gradually expand on the grid to have these resources as a part of their Empire.

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