Cities: Skylines
Although there is now a second part of the city-building simulation, the first game is still highly recommended. Cities: Skylines is still the more extensive game, and with mods, it can be further enhanced. All of this makes it a game in which you can easily spend a lot of time.
- Cities: Skylines on Steam
Cities: Skylines 2 has yet to recover from its poor release, as a look at the Steam reviews shows – they are only 52% positive overall (as of October 30, 2025, 14:00).
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes is a somewhat different kind of real-time strategy, and therefore serves as the conclusion of this list. The series reduces the amount of base building, but provides more tactical depth in battles – for instance, with a cover system and individual weapon customization for squads. The setting is World War II.
All three parts of the series still have an active player base, but the two newer games are especially recommended. You can still tell from the first game that it was released in 2006, while the second game shows that less.
Currently, Company of Heroes 2 is the most popular with nearly 3,200 concurrent players on Steam in the last 24 hours (according to SteamDB). Company of Heroes 3, which has received mixed reactions from fans, had “only” 2,700 concurrent players in the last 24 hours (according to SteamDB).
In player numbers lies the essence for many gaming hours. After you are through with the campaigns of the series, you will still find people for multiplayer – and especially there you can invest a lot of time. If you prefer tactical battles over simply overwhelming your opponents with sheer numbers, then Company of Heroes would be the best fit for you.
That was now 6 real-time strategy games in which you can really spend a lot of time. But of course, these aren’t all – are there titles you feel are missing here? Then feel free to let us know in the comments!
Just because you spend a lot of time in a strategy game doesn’t mean you’re good at it. The developers of Victoria 3 showed some statistics for the anniversary of their game. It turns out that surprisingly many players don’t even know what they are doing – and players admit it: Popular strategy game on Steam shows how bad its own players are, who say: Yes, that’s true
