Syndicate

Syndicate is a 1993 real-time tactics game from Bullfrog, the British studio of Populous and Theme Park. In a future ruled by corporations, you run one of them and send teams of four cyborg agents to take over territories around the world. Missions take place in dense isometric cities: assassinate a target, rescue a scientist, or use a device called the Persuadertron to make people follow you.

Each agent's behaviour is controlled with three drug levels, for adrenaline, perception and intelligence, which make them faster, sharper and more independent at a cost. Between missions you set tax rates on the territories you control, fund research, and buy new weapons and cybernetic parts.

Its mood is unlike anything of its time: a cold, dark, rainy future where your agents are tools of an amoral company. The cities are crowded with people and police, and a mission can turn into a firefight across a whole district.

Its controls and interface are hard to use today, and its missions can be won by brute force once your agents are well equipped. It is sold on GOG.

Syndicate shares Commandos' real-time control of a small team on a detailed isometric map, and adds a strategic layer of money and research. Its agents are interchangeable and strong, where Commandos' six are specialists and weak. It is the other root of real-time squad tactics, beside Commandos.