Linux

I highly recommend getting a gaming laptop. You can buy a 4070 lenovo laptop at Walmart for $1k (at least in the US.)

Otherwise, check out https://old.reddit.com/r/LaptopDeals/ until you find something that fits your needs and budget. (sorry for linking to the other site)

You should use bluetooth controllers instead of ones that take a dongle simply because the dongle is unnecessary. Playstation controllers work well, but they're expensive and I haven't been able to find a 3rd party variant that works properly.

I also recommend getting a wireless keyboard + mouse combo.

Certainly the best choice for processor and graphics card will be AMD. I would certainly advise you to avoid Nvidia, as it is very poorly supported on Linux, and it is even worth paying extra for AMD if you use a system other than Windows.

When choosing a graphics card, I've generally found AMD/Radeon to be a reliable option. I’ve used several different Radeon GPUs in various builds, and they’ve consistently performed well. Nvidia users sometimes encounter compatibility issues, though that isn't universally the case. Vulkan is a strong API and provides a good experience.

Considering you play a lot of simulation and strategy games, the CPU you pick will probably influence your experience a lot more than usual. This chart can give you an idea of how they stack.

I will say, other than Civ7, you'll probably have a good time with whatever build people have linked here.

O hello, the one and only other ItB player! How was the mech chess today

Listing the games isn't really helpful without specific resolution/FPS/Quality you're looking for. I'm assuming 4k/60 for living room setup? What about your budget for hardware? Also kind of a long list, can you narrow it down to the 5 or so that you play most often? A $350 Steam Deck would play all of those at minimum settings.

If you were planning to buy parts new and build the computer yourself, I threw together a parts list for an all-AMD system that's appropriate for Linux (I recommend Bazzite) and has a good price-to-performance ratio; $1200 to beat the pants off a Steam Deck and be very future-proof in terms of hardware features, platform support, and general performance.

If you're thinking about buying used older-gen parts or a prebuilt system, compare gaming benchmarks of the GPU or CPU you're looking at to the components in this build to see if it's an upgrade or downgrade. This is probably the best price-to-performance prebuilt I've found in a few minutes on Amazon, couple hundred less than the parts list above, but it's on the older AM4 platform (5000-series Ryzen), an older generation GPU (6600), and much less storage.

Lastly, obligatory mention of the last PC build guide you'll ever need. Good luck!

I have a T14 gen1 ryzen 7 (only 16G of ram for now), with integrated graphics running bazzite. Civ 5 and 6, rimworld, FTL run flawlessly. Anno 1800 is a bit laggy, but playable. I also do some sim racing and no complaints there either, if graphics are set just right, so I think that the bar for hardware is pretty low. As for hardware, not sure what I’d go with, but I’m sure there is no need to go overboard. For software bazzite is amazing if you want near hassle free gaming.

As for accessories I have a keychron keyboard which was a worthwhile investment and a Mionix 3200 mouse that’s over 10 years old, still amazed at the build quality and value for money. A good keyboard mouse combo is invaluable.

An AMD GPU and Bazzite would be great for you. The AMD GPU makes installing any Linux system easier, cause the drivers are already there.

Check ProtonDB, e.g. https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Civilization and that, even though very useful ~~initially started~~ for the SteamDeck it is also a very reliable source to know if a game will work well on Linux. Overall the vast VAST majority of games do work unless there is a kernel level anti-cheat which is mostly for competitive online games only.

Now in terms of performances, get the GPU you can afford but overall its comparable with other OSes (not to name them) and sometimes even better, so on average, you can trust whatever the publisher is recommending.

Source : been gaming on Linux, in VR and on "flat" 3D for years now, pretty much daily.

I think https://lemmy.world/c/buildapc would be a good fit to crosspost or ask again

Bazzite is probably the best Linux distribution for this purpose. It's practically made for it. In terms of hardware, get an AMD GPU. Intel might also be ok, but they are pretty new so might have hidden caveats.

CPU, whatever you can afford I guess.

Do you have a budget?

If you feel most familiar with Debian, I recommend looking at Mint. It has great compatibility and is otherwise easy to use, and it handles GPUs well (including Nvidia). In terms of hardware, I'll agree with the others here--used is the way to go, you'll get a lot more for your money than buying new.

That being said, you can also look for clearance and/or refurbished PCs. This one would probably be powerful enough.

Many of those games I had been playing on a 2400g with no dedicated gpu, which is far weaker than the Steam Deck.

When you say you’ve noticed it’s underpowered, did you mean for the games on this list?

Do you have any preferences (distro, cpu/gpu manufacturer, etc) and a budget? Most of the games on your list I am familiar with and will run on damn near anything remotely modern.

Lacing direction, with the fairly low requirements (from what i recognize), and assuming you are price conscious id suggest you poke around the used gaming PC market (either gamer friends, or failing that online), which will also completely bypass the tariff issue too.

PopOS is pretty solid for linux gaming and has a distribution specifically for Nvidia too which handles most of the headache with Nvidia if you go that route.

EDIT: Poked around the requirement pages of the ones i wasn't familiar with, i didn't see a single game that had a requirement of anything newer than 10 year old hardware, depending on your friend network, you could get a computer that could play those games well for a song. Civ 7, your 'evenutally' game, is the only thing listed that has strongish requirements, and would be what i would pay attention to if you are aiming higher.

Few months ago I built a gaming PC and chose to not use Windows for multiple reasons. I would suggest sticking to AMD as it would better supported on Linux. For the OS I'm using Arch Linux which is base for a lot of gaming Linux distributions. 99% I have never felt like I was missing out by not using Windows. Wine/Proton works really well OOTB. I highly recommend it if you want to get into Linux gaming. Like others have mentioned, ProtonDB is also a great resource for finding game specific information.

Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qzwbFs