Might and magic is first person based, there are strategies involved in how you organise your party, for example you need to think about which skill points to add to which character etc. Though strategy doesnt play a huge part in it, its more attack and number based.

Though for strategy i highly recommend an old dos game called "birthright: the gorgons alliance" it is a blend of adventuring, kingdom management, party management and strategy during battle. It is an "advanced dungeons and dragons" game which means alot of attacks / etc are based on "dice rolls" or simply, luck.

You can obtain artifacts during adventures, and its a good game, i personally really enjoyed the kingdom management.

Another game i would advise (again, old time classic) is Return to Krondor. It is the sequel to Betrayal at Krondor. Though, Return to Krondor is alot more enhanced, certainly graphics wise. It has quite alot of stategy, though the main focus is character building and item finding, you get random battles in houses. You have a party and again allocate skill points to them. Though, RTK is a story based game, which is a pretty decent story in my opinion.

Betrayal at Krondor is very good too, but its a dos game, and the graphics (compared to Birthright) are pretty low.

The best fantasy strategy game ever is Heroes of Might and Magic III, no doubt. I don't think there is a larger players community than the fans of HoMM 3.
The game have a random map generator and an editor, you can find tons of new maps. It's a turn-based strategy very addictive, I used to play all the campaigns from the game and the two official add-ons:
Armageddon Blade and Shadow of Death.

I recall one of my best friends playing homm, but i never played it.

I like the total war games for strategy too. Shogun total war is very good, but for european strategic war theres medieval total war, and a number of expansions to it.

There is also a game called "demon's souls" out for the PS3 which looks incredible, though its not available to order in the Europe, its availble for import.

You can customise your starting character and choose a class (pretty much everything across the board to choose from) then forge items, gain strength etc through the demon's souls you capture.

Another game i highly reccomend is "blood will tell" it isnt a european medieval game, rather a japanese medieval game (possibly sengoku era). You play as a man who is living with artifical limbs, organs etc and who has had his own stolen at birth by demons. You have to hunt them to retrieve your body back, and each adds interesting parts to the character (stats, moves etc).

Theres alot of story too, and alot of swords to find. The best part in my opinion is hunting demons, who often cannot be found until you have the right organs / etc.

Total War series it's a classic. You plan your moves, build, give orders and press "End Turn", but the battles are all real-time. What a genial idea..
Shogun Total War (the first) was, how shall i call it.. a brilliant miniature, perfect in every aspects.

But Medieval Total War I appear, much more complex, weeks and months of pure strategy and real-time fights, but have one single minus: you can easily win not by a good strategy, not by being a military genius on the battlefield, but just by trade. Build tons of ships and build markets on the ports, secure the seas and your income will go up to the skies.
What a loss.. It was the best Total War from the whole series and the best part was the battles so realistic, a cavalry charge have the impact of a cavalry charge, berserkers rush (or other infantry of the same kind) have a devastating impact on the enemy, breaking their lines, with the expense of heavy losses of course, archers do their job (longbowmen properly used and protected can make the difference) and so..

Rome-Total War it was and always be a good strategy game, but I cannot say the same about the two expansions.

Medieval Total War II was a kind of Rome in another era, i still have it on my computer.

Medieval Total War III was an ambitious project to move the battlefield in a 3D environment, but the success was moderate in my opinion, like all the attempts to put good games in 3D graphics.. none was a real success. We had even an expansion, it was like 20Gb on my hard when I finish to install everything.

Now we expect European Total War..

The bonus is that there are a large players community and tons of mods made by them in the attempt to make this wonderful game more balanced or realistic. I tried a few, "Clouds over Europe" it's one that I remember, but it was more than one interesting for a try.

I used to play Mount&Blade very much, while it still had a lot of bugs to be complained about. No, you can't compare the game to its version of nowadays, which is 1.011, but earlier on, when 7.51 the game was simplier, much simplier, but still nice for those like me who are obsessive for middle-ages-styled games. What about the Warband coming? It should be nice.

I can't say much about Total War series, specially Medieval II Total War, but what do you think about Assassin's Creed? I have the game, I had beaten it quite some times now, and still love it. Of course, with the point of view of an Assassin, but still, you can see much about Middle-Ages info.

What about Saxon Stories of Bernard Cornell? I did read two books of the series and I am eager to buy the next ones. Nice story about Uhtred of Bebbanburg who losses his fortress and later on try to reconquer it (trying to not be spoiler, sorry). You learn much about Denmark, 9th late Century, Alfred Magnus, the Green Dragon of Wessex. And more. Nice books, those. And of course, there are the Archer, Heretic and Wanderer trilogy of Bernard Cornwell as well, which speaks of the war between England and France (that famous one) and the Holy Grail.

I just buyed Fantasy Wars. Well, I won't say it is the best strategy turn-based fantasy game ever made, but it's better than much out there. It may appear an RPG for times, because of its dragons, elves, orcs and so on. But the game is nice, with some average graphics and it is not half-bad for time-passing if you are like me and do not have any Total War game ^^.

Gregory I wrote:
[quote]
Medieval Total War III was an ambitious project to move the battlefield in a 3D environment, but the success was moderate in my opinion, like all the attempts to put good games in 3D graphics.. none was a real success. We had even an expansion, it was like 20Gb on my hard when I finish to install everything.

Now we expect European Total War..
quote]

Medieval III there is no such game and with European I think you ment Empire:Total War

Yup, the names was wrong, but did you play the game? Do you have an opinion or just use goggle to check it out?
Medieval Total War III is in fact Medieval Total War: Kingdoms
and
European Total War (that was the first title, they change it) is in fact Empire:Total War
as Jaeg just find out from goggle..
Please accept my apologies for the wrong titles!

Ahh. I am just more used to speak of games with their published names.

Well Kindoms has some good points for example in Americas campaing playing with aztecs allows you to get muskest and riders, though getting better infantry and archers at the start of game bugs a bit. also the limit for their best is pretty high.

Crusades how ever is very intersting one and rather chalenging to play with byzants(once venetians arrive it gets a lot harder) or crusaders(getting the english and french kings helps a bit) But in it you'll easily notice how badly infantry powered and heavy armored armies do against light and fast opponents. I must have lost at least 3 times more ment to the archers and skirmishers tahn to melees.

Teutonic has also it's unigue features such as economy onus produced from hanceatic legue and adventuring crusaders. Also playing with danes allows 'alliance' with norwegians and thus producion of some rather good viking units.

England throws religion to waste bin and replaces it with cultures and you need certain level of certain culture to produce better units.

And Empire is not part of this thread because it is industrial age.

Seeing how many have played M&B longer than 0.9 patches(i found it at 0.808) seems to prove how good the game just is. Also I can't think of any other game with so many mods.

Mods? If you want those, just take a look at Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or the third game of the series, Morrowind. Oblivion should have around 900 Mods (200 of those are larged packed ones, with a whole different gameplay). I have Oblivion and it is in my favorite games. Tons of way to 'beat it', though it is hard to define that word in this game, since there are 300h+ of gameplay just without doing the main quest, which should be around 40h. I do not have Morrowind, but it is for free download at Elder Scrolls main website, as well as the emulator needed. Morrowind should have tons of mods (At the minimum, 3000+, one third of that in large-packed ones with gameplay changes).

Of course, Oblivion isn't at all medieval. It has some fantasy within. Though much of it resembles the middle ages (most of the people use swords, daggers; no gunpowder, iron and steel armours, heavy horses, castles and so on).

Though I still think Mount&Blade will get you closer to middle ages than any Elder Scrolls game. Mount&Blade itself is on a fictional world, but I know many good mods with are very authentic (try Hundred Years War, for example).

must say we all love similar games here it seems, played mount & blade to death and Rome total war is probably my favourite game.