Low-processor, turn-based games for PC?

[Man_Over_Game]

Hey, guys, I recently got a laptop from a friend, but the thing is a 1.3 Ghz dual core processor with 4 gb RAM. Or, in other words, the thing is a fancy toaster. There are flip phones that are smarter.

I'm trying to use it during my 2 hour commute every day, but finding things that can run on it is pretty difficult. Even some 2d Game Maker games have a hard time running if they have action elements. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Tried:
Exit Fate (Laggy, but playable)
Iji (unplayable)
Faster Than Light (100% playable)

Haven't Tried:
Battle for Wesnoth
XCOM
Into the Breach
Sword of the Stars
King's Bounty
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Might and Magic VIII
Lords of the Realm 2
Master of Orion 2

[Bastian Weaver]

Good old stuff, perhaps, like the original X-COM?

[Man_Over_Game]

Good old stuff, perhaps, like the original X-COM?

Works for me! Turn based RPGs, tactics games, Civilization, whatever you guys recommend.

[Cikomyr]

Check if you meet the specs for Sword of the Stars

[NRSASD]

The modern remake of XCOM would probably barbecue your computer, but can I recommend Xenonauts? Less elegant interface, but richer in gameplay.

Another classic I have to recommend is FTL. Faster than Light. Extremely good, extremely gentle-on-the-software game.

[halfeye]

4GB isn't much, but what the type of processor is can make a difference, Intel's Core series have much better instruction per clock performance than their Atom series.

[Man_Over_Game]

The modern remake of XCOM would probably barbecue your computer, but can I recommend Xenonauts? Less elegant interface, but richer in gameplay.

Another classic I have to recommend is FTL. Faster than Light. Extremely good, extremely gentle-on-the-software game.

I really hope FTL can run on it. I'm going to try and test it tonight. I'll take a look at Xenonauts.



I'll also check out Sword of the Stars. Haven't heard of it before.

[Gecks]

Seems to meet the minimum requirements for one of my favorites, Star Trader: Frontiers (http://www.tresebrothers.com/). You could always use Steam's generous refund policy to try it to see how the real world performance works out (game tends to eat a bit more resources later game when you have bigger crews, but I think you would figure out pretty early on if it is going to be playable or not).

Star Trader: Frontiers is a little like a turn-based version of sid meier's pirates, except in space. There is plenty of rich lore to delve into or ignore entirely, and plenty of sandboxy fun after the main story is exhausted or sidestepped.

[Eldan]

You won't lose anything by trying Wesnoth, and it's worth a try.

[Man_Over_Game]

Seems to meet the minimum requirements for one of my favorites, Star Trader: Frontiers (http://www.tresebrothers.com/). You could always use Steam's generous refund policy to try it to see how the real world performance works out (game tends to eat a bit more resources later game when you have bigger crews, but I think you would figure out pretty early on if it is going to be playable or not).

Star Trader: Frontiers is a little like a turn-based version of sid meier's pirates, except in space. There is plenty of rich lore to delve into or ignore entirely, and plenty of sandboxy fun after the main story is exhausted or sidestepped.

I love the various Star Traders games. I haven't tried Frontier, yet. But you know what they say: Where the spice flows, I goes.

[PraetorDragoon]

Heroes of Might and Magic III

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The Geneforge games come highly recommended; I haven't gotten back to it, but I started playing the first one on a low spec netbook about five years ago.

[Silfir]

I'd probably be playing piles of ADOM if that was all I had. I used to, on an old Celeron laptop. To this day I could probably play numpad-less, using arrow keys and 1, 3, 7 and 9 for diagonal directions.

When you download the most current public release of ADOM from the developer's website (the Steam version is basically the same game with some bells and whistles), by all means try the graphical version, but they still actively develop the ASCII-only version, which is 2 MB in size and should run anywhere you can think of. Including motherfrickin' MS-DOS.

I'm not sure how many games are still being actively developed for DOS these days, but ADOM has to be one of the best on that list.

[Bavarian itP]

Master of Orion 2.

https://www.gog.com/game/master_of_orion_1_2

[factotum]

Ah, the world we live in, where a 1.3GHz dual-core processor is considered antiquated and slow...that was top of the range in the early 2000s! That being the case, I'd have a look on GoG for games of that sort of vintage, which stand a reasonable chance of working. For example, Civilization III Complete is available on there and that ought to run fine on your laptop.

One other thing: are you sure 1.3GHz is the maximum speed of your laptop? My laptop (Celeron N3050) claims to only be a 1.6GHz unit, but it turbos up to 2.16GHz when doing anything intensive and it uses so little power that it can keep going at that speed pretty much forever.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ah, the world we live in, where a 1.3GHz dual-core processor is considered antiquated and slow...that was top of the range in the early 2000s! That being the case, I'd have a look on GoG for games of that sort of vintage, which stand a reasonable chance of working. For example, Civilization III Complete is available on there and that ought to run fine on your laptop.

One other thing: are you sure 1.3GHz is the maximum speed of your laptop? My laptop (Celeron N3050) claims to only be a 1.6GHz unit, but it turbos up to 2.16GHz when doing anything intensive and it uses so little power that it can keep going at that speed pretty much forever.

What's crazy is that this laptop was made in 2012. It came with Windows 8 (I downgraded it to Windows 7), so I'm not sure why it's so bad. And it definitely doesn't seem to "turbo" anything. I can't seem to do much on the thing without it slowing to a halt. I'll play around with it, though. Maybe you're onto something.

[halfeye]

What's crazy is that this laptop was made in 2012. It came with Windows 8 (I downgraded it to Windows 7), so I'm not sure why it's so bad. And it definitely doesn't seem to "turbo" anything. I can't seem to do much on the thing without it slowing to a halt. I'll play around with it, though. Maybe you're onto something.

I ask again, what is the processor?

If it's AMD, I don't understand their chip descriptions, but someone here probably will. Intel have two series at that sort of speed, core and atom, they went through a phase of calling atoms "celeron" and "pentium" so those names tell us nothing, we need the id number. Windows will tell you the processor's name and number.

[Man_Over_Game]

I ask again, what is the processor?

If it's AMD, I don't understand their chip descriptions, but someone here probably will. Intel have two series at that sort of speed, core and atom, they went through a phase of calling atoms "celeron" and "pentium" so those names tell us nothing, we need the id number. Windows will tell you the processor's name and number.

AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics, 1.30 ghz

[Drasius]

I'll also check out Sword of the Stars. Haven't heard of it before.

I doubt it would work, but then, SotS is old and you might be able to get away with autoresolving all your battles (though then you're missing out on the best part of the game).

While SotS is a fantastic game that has aged fairly well, I wouldn't hold out too much hope that it'll work smoothly. Definately play it if you like 4x games on a better rig though.

Might I suggest Bionic Dues however? A nice little low PC demand jobbie that is quite fun.

[Sermil]

There are a number of free text-only games if you like that sort of things. Look for the winners of the Interactive Fiction Competition?

And, of course, the great classic which is Nethack.

[Cikomyr]

There are a number of free text-only games if you like that sort of things. Look for the winners of the Interactive Fiction Competition?

And, of course, the great classic which is Nethack.

Or Angband if you prefer relaxing mindless hack n slash

[Anteros]

Whenever I've been stuck with a laptop like this for trips or something and I want to game I've turned to emulation.

[Corlindale]

Tales of Maj'Eyal (https://te4.org/) should run on most things, I play that a lot when I'm stuck with my old laptop. It's an entirely turn-based roguelike game. It's also free.

Lots and lots of roguelikes should fit the bill, really. Many are turn-based, and most have pretty low system reqs. You can perhaps check the currently active roguelike thread for further recommendations.

I also second the recommendation of Heroes of Might & Magic III. That game holds up incredibly well in my opinion.

[Thomas Cardew]

Lords of the Realm 2. It's a bit weird, it's turn based but everyone's turns occur at the same time. You play a Lord trying to eliminate your rivals to become king. You have to manage your counties, feed your people, make your weapons, raise armies, and conquer your enemies. Battles can either realtime but pausable or skippable with the autocalc. However, the autocalc is ... not great. Some battles are winnable with a fraction of the losses if you're talented, other's you'd take more loses no matter what you did. Sieges are either kill the defending army or have a capture the flag mechanic which means you can win with a fraction of the army the computer thinks you need.

[tonberrian]

Into the Breach. Another gem by the developers of FTL, this one actually is turn-based, and is really simple and yet simultaneously very complicated.

Into the Breach is a tactical game of mechs vs giant bugs, except there is a marked reduction of random chance. Each turn the bugs move in a random-ish pattern, but then they telegraph every action they're going to do, and you have a turn to move your mechs around and negate those actions, whether by killing the bugs, disabling them, making them hit each other, or simply moving them so the attack hits nothing vital. You only have three units under your control (certain missions give you more, but only for that battle), and you've got a simple 8x8 isometric grid to move around on. Fundamentally very simple, but it's addictive. Once per mission you can even reset an entire one of your turns if you've messed things up. If things really aren't going your way, you can send a pilot "into the breach", that is, back in time, to attempt the game all over again, keeping the experience and random skills learned - or you can choose to start with any of the time-travellers you've unlocked (but at level 1).

It's a good game in general, but it also runs on my crappy laptop. Although.... Min spec says 1.7 GHz, which is lower than FTL's 2.0. Jeez...

[factotum]

AMD E-300 APU with Radeon HD Graphics, 1.30 ghz

OK, looked it up and that one doesn't have any sort of turbo boost--1.3GHz is its maximum speed, unfortunately. It's slower than my Celeron N3050, which isn't any great shakes. Having said that, I've successfully run older games (even non-turn-based ones) on it--Might and Magic VIII from 2000, for example.

[zlefin]

the king's bounty series or the various RPGs by spiderweb software may run on it.

[Man_Over_Game]

Into the Breach. Another gem by the developers of FTL, this one actually is turn-based, and is really simple and yet simultaneously very complicated.

Into the Breach is a tactical game of mechs vs giant bugs, except there is a marked reduction of random chance. Each turn the bugs move in a random-ish pattern, but then they telegraph every action they're going to do, and you have a turn to move your mechs around and negate those actions, whether by killing the bugs, disabling them, making them hit each other, or simply moving them so the attack hits nothing vital. You only have three units under your control (certain missions give you more, but only for that battle), and you've got a simple 8x8 isometric grid to move around on. Fundamentally very simple, but it's addictive. Once per mission you can even reset an entire one of your turns if you've messed things up. If things really aren't going your way, you can send a pilot "into the breach", that is, back in time, to attempt the game all over again, keeping the experience and random skills learned - or you can choose to start with any of the time-travellers you've unlocked (but at level 1).

It's a good game in general, but it also runs on my crappy laptop. Although.... Min spec says 1.7 GHz, which is lower than FTL's 2.0. Jeez...

FTL does work at 100%, thank god. That alone is enough to keep me distracted for the next 6 months. I've heard amazing things about its antecessor, so I'll have to definitely give it a try.


Heroes of Might and Magic III

D*mn straight, one of my favorite games of all time. I'll try and grab a copy. Now if only I didn't suck at it...

[JeenLeen]

Double-check the specs, but an old gem I really liked was Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (though for some reason I thought it was Of Steamworks and Sorcery). Pretty sure I saw it on GoG some time ago. Lionheart was also a fun game, even if some parts are mechanically unsatisfying especially if you like to optimize.

I played them back in college, over ten years ago, on a laptop I got as a high school graduation present, so I would reckon the tech requirements are low enough. Both default to action RPGs, but have some turn-based mechanics and I know you can turn Arcanum to full turn-based.

[Knaight]

Strategy
Dominions 3 ran on my midline 2008 laptop, and it ran well. That series being that series I suspect Dominions 5 will still work fine on a 2012 low end computer. I'd second Battle for Wesnoth and Into the Breach as well, though BfW keeps getting fancier and you might need to go with an older version to get it to work. Eeador Genesis is a nice little strategy game that can run on 1995 hardware, so you're good there. I'd also suggest Bionic Dues, the second best mech pilot roguelike out there. You're up against robots that are generally very dangerous to you, while you're less dangerous to them, except they all have clearly advertised totally hilarious flaws you exploit for fun and profit.

Puzzle
If you're willing to soften the definition of turn based to tick based cycle optimization puzzles that aren't real time, I'd strongly suggest taking a look at Zachtronics. That's Spacechem, TIS-1000, Shenzen IO, Infinifactory, and Opus Magnum. That said, I also have a dark horse suggestion here for my very favorite series of videogames. DROD.

DROD is the Deadly Rooms of Death series. It's a set of perfect information puzzle games where you play a character with a big freaking sword, with you in one tile and the sword in an adjacent one. Every turn you either move 1 tile or rotate 45 degrees (moving the sword one tile), and there's an aesthetic of dungeon hack and slash, albeit a weird one in a unique setting that's a lot of fun (long distance door opening orbs, giant dungeon roaches as the primary staple enemy, all sorts of weird stuff). The opponents do the same, according to their very simple, very predictable AI. This combines into a huge variety of interesting puzzles. A solid puzzle game could be made using tiny fractions of the DROD pallette, and instead we get variety.

As for which game in particular, I'd start with DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold. The order is KDD, JtRH, TCB, SS, with two spinoff games. KDD doesn't really have its footing yet, and of the spinoffs Tendry's Tale is a completely different style of puzzle game, although also a good one. There's also a free flash game version (https://www.kongregate.com/games/skellus/flash-drod-kddl-1) that was released fairly late for advertising purposes, which is easy to try with no commitment, though it's of KDD and thus on the weak side.

[factotum]

Double-check the specs, but an old gem I really liked was Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (though for some reason I thought it was Of Steamworks and Sorcery).

It's on GoG. Only issue is that it's one of the early games to actually make use of a 3D accelerator card, and we have no idea what the graphics capability of Man_Over_Games' mystery laptop is--the CPU should be fine, but that doesn't mean the game will run.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's on GoG. Only issue is that it's one of the early games to actually make use of a 3D accelerator card, and we have no idea what the graphics capability of Man_Over_Games' mystery laptop is--the CPU should be fine, but that doesn't mean the game will run.

I'll find out and report back sometime tonight.

[Wookieetank]

The Geneforge games come highly recommended.

I'll second this and add in the Avernum series as well. Really anything by Spiderweb Software should be workable, and all are greatly interesting games.

In Geneforge you play as a shaper, a mage who plays with genetics essentially, and keep having run ins with Forbidden Knowledge(TM).

Avernum follows your adventures post exile in an entirely subterranean setting with everything from dragons to talking spiders.

There's also Avadon, but I haven't finished any of them yet. What I have played has a very similar vibe to Avernum, just above ground.

[tyckspoon]

Strategy
Dominions 3 ran on my midline 2008 laptop, and it ran well. That series being that series I suspect Dominions 5 will still work fine on a 2012 low end computer.


Between-turn calculations and AI actions might take a while, but I think you're probably right and can expect it to run - the main interface/strategy view is a flat map with very little fancy going on, and the battle replays are sprites and fairly basic particle effects. The game has something of an asymptomatic learning curve, mind, but especially in single-player you can spend quite a while tooling around on the more gentle part of the curve and still have a satisfyingly involved experience.

[Knaight]

Between-turn calculations and AI actions might take a while, but I think you're probably right and can expect it to run - the main interface/strategy view is a flat map with very little fancy going on, and the battle replays are sprites and fairly basic particle effects. The game has something of an asymptomatic learning curve, mind, but especially in single-player you can spend quite a while tooling around on the more gentle part of the curve and still have a satisfyingly involved experience.

The learning curve has a fair few outright overhangs, but they're worth going through. I wouldn't be too worried about turn calculations - at worst they suggest not to use excessively large maps.

[Flickerdart]

King of Dragon Pass is a great game. It's 75% off ($3!!!) on GOG right now and comes with the original 1999 installer as well as the 2015 GOG release.

[Iruka]

Age of Wonders (definitely the first, maybe also the second) and Disciples 1&2 should be interesting for you.

The Panzer General series up to the 4th or 3rd (depending on how you count them) should also be good. There are also several open source projects which allow you to get the gameplay for free.

[Knaight]

Age of Wonders (definitely the first, maybe also the second) and Disciples 1&2 should be interesting for you.

The Panzer General series up to the 4th or 3rd (depending on how you count them) should also be good. There are also several open source projects which allow you to get the gameplay for free.

Even the third AoW is from 2014 or something, and might be viable (at low settings).

[halfeye]

I know it's not the type of game you were thinking of, but there's some risk that Oblivion (elder scrolls 4) from 2006 might run. It claims to want a single core at 2 Ghz as minimum, but the old processors back then were slower per clock, and I know it doesn't need much graphics card power these days, it does want a DVD drive.

I can run Oblivion on a 2010 laptop with an i3 @ 2.1 GHz, which sounds like more than 1.3 GHz, but the i3 does hyperthreading, which means it fakes having four cores, at half speed.

[Anteros]

Even the third AoW is from 2014 or something, and might be viable (at low settings).

Absolutely not. It's a very poorly optimized game and larger maps tend to slow to a crawl even on a good computer with a SSD.

[Man_Over_Game]

UPDATE:

Been playing a lot of FTL and Dwarf Fortress lately. Between those two, I'm pretty hard-pressed to find something I don't want to play atm.

I've been looking into abandonware as possible options, too, just so I'm not buying something I won't automatically enjoy.

[Wookieetank]

UPDATE:

Been playing a lot of FTL and Dwarf Fortress lately. Between those two, I'm pretty hard-pressed to find something I don't want to play atm.

I've been looking into abandonware as possible options, too, just so I'm not buying something I won't automatically enjoy.

Feel free to regale us with tales of your Fun adventures in DF. *breaks out the popcorn*

[Velaryon]

Since you have a couple of Heroes of Might & Magic titles up there, you might also try Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes. It's a puzzle RPG based on the same series (though I haven't played the main Might & Magic series so I can't say how many elements it shares).

It's a Nintendo DS title originally, but there is a port available on Steam. The story is nothing to write home about, but the gameplay mechanics are unique and have a pretty decent amount of depth.

[Man_Over_Game]

Feel free to regale us with tales of your Fun adventures in DF. *breaks out the popcorn*

It's been about 2 years since I last played, and I'm also learning to utilize some of the newer stuff on the Lazy Noob Pack hacks.

Unfortunately, the Labor Manager option seems to be unreliable (making all of my dwarves be stockpile runners), so it looks like I'll just have to utilize the Dwarf Therapist again.

Nothing too interesting so far, will post when I have updates.

As for M&M:CoH, I'm familiar with it. It's not my favorite, as some of the mechanics just feel kinda clunky to me, and it's a bit slow. Puzzle Quest (and its free, online antecessor, Gems of War) are my go-to puzzle games if I need a quick fix.

On the topic of DF, what are the major changes I should know about that happened over the last couple years? Did they finally fix how training worked? Because dear god, debugging that was a full time job.

[Crow]

Order of Battle: WW2

Then there's always Panzer Corps, which should run really well.

[Yael]

There's always the almighty Sengoku Rance (Rance 7), which I do believe there's a way of playing it without the adult content. But if that doesn't matter, you have a pretty solid turn-based strategy game.

[Balmas]

I can't resist putting in a plug for Fallout and Fallout 2. They're a bit older, but they're still damn good RPGs.

[ngilop]

Age of Wonders 1 through 3 and heroes of might and magic 1 through 3 are all great turn base strategy games I like. AoW 2 and HoMM 3 to be more specific.

ran those on an old gateway from 98.. so your more modern computer should be able to handle it if there is not just something janky with the computer itself... which I feel is more than likely the case considering what you have described.