In honor of this rare genre, let's discuss what is best of them. Kidding, just wanna know what to download.

I can honestly say that

1.UFO : Enemy Unknown / X-COM : UFO Defense (There were two names right???)
2.Silent Storm series (Only played the first one a bit and it was nice).
3.Heroes of Might and Magic series

And yeah the never UFO games are getting better and better, well except Aftermath. I mean Aftershock is quite decent (reminds me slightly of X-COM 3 : Apocalypse). And I should try Afterlight someday.


So what are your top TBS games and what you think about the future of TBS ,UFO games.

I haven't played many of these sort of games, but out the ones I have tried I find UFO: Enemy Unknown (which it was called in Sweden) the best. There are tons of stuff to do, lots of variety in the options and so forth. I always did enjoy the graphics and menus of the game - very easy to understand and navigate in.

I enjoyed Silent Storm quite a bit.  The storyline and voice acting were atrocious but combat was vicious.  The entire game was destructible and it had ragdoll physics so it was really fun shooting out windows, blowing up walls, and just DESTROYING the environment as bodies flew everywhere and rolled along the ground.  I really enjoyed the seminal freedom of movement the environment gave me as I had a sniper who would climb up on pedestals and buildings to get a clear shot.  Even four years later, the game is a visual treat and it's awesome leveling half a house and then witnessing the fiery destruction of combat afterwards. 

But overall, the best strategy game both in story and gameplay is definitely Jagged Alliance 2.  The expansion packs were pretty average but fuck is this game terrific.  If you put it on realistic mode, it gives you hundreds of guns with various small modifiers and that amount of options gave me this massive boner.  The characters were so fucking interesting that I honestly felt a real bond between me and the characters.  I honestly cried when I got the Russian guy killed in battle but instead of hitting the quickload button I decided that his death was for the best.

chess

seriously though, heroes of might and magic are great, and the total war series kinda count and are ok if you've got the patience of a saint (required for pretty much every tbs really).

Anyone know of any freeware games similar to HoMaM?

You could always try Battle for Wesnoth.
EDIT: I've never liked Vantage Master......

Everything Heroes of Might and Magic 3. 4 was shit... and 5 was good.... but nothing can beat the Heroes of Might and Magic 3 line of games in regards to TBS.

Lords of Magic was memorable rip off though.

Medieval II: Total War is probably my favorite.  The expansion adds a truly ridiculous amount of new content!  I also love Silent Storm.

TBS.. Turn Based Strategy?

Final Fantasy Tactics.

Agreed.

Yggdra Union isn't pretty bad too.

Advance Wars. Still one of my favorites. And FFTactics, plus Disgaea.

eh, fallout i guess? would that even count?

front mission 3 had some nice ideas too.

Hundley, not only the 3rd Front Mission, there's even 4th and 5th Front Mission! I dunno which of the next Front Missions lets you recruit pilots via Scout mode or something...

I am so bummed that Front Mission 5 never left Japan but a half-assed port of the original SNES title came here on DS.  The cool thing about Front Mission though is that you can import the games and still play them; all of the menus and general game mechanic information is always in English.  Unfortunately the cutscenes are not, but that doesn't matter since every game is about a 3-way struggle between diamond/gold/drug/whatever smugglers, an aggressive foreign power, and a burgeoning national defense.

I second Jagged Alliance 2.

Also, I'm currently playing Fire Emblem 8 and plan on picking up the Wii FE tomorrow.

I second Jagged Alliance 2.

Also, I'm currently playing Fire Emblem 8 and plan on picking up the Wii FE tomorrow.

The Wii Fire Emblem is probably my favorite Wii-exclusive game.  It's really good.

I'm backing Jagged Alliance 2 it's awesome I just got it actually...the shit load of real life weapons man....

My all time favorite: Alpha Centauri.

Man, Alpha Centauri was like playing a Spreadsheet except with worse dialogue.