Topics of strategy games

I’m constantly trying to get more into strategy games and discover games that I haven’t had a chance to play yet. Therefore, I would like to make one larger article that can serve as a guide for players looking for inspiration in strategy games…

… so in this article you will find interesting topics of strategy games and for games I played myself also some photos from the games. Enjoy!

Contents hide

1 Grand strategy games

2 Realtime strategy games

3 4X strategy games

4 City builder strategy games

5 Survival/building strategy games

6 Browser strategy games

7 Do you play strategy games?

Grand strategy games

Personally, this type of games is the closest to my heart. These strategy games are very complex and often contain several directions in which to think. Most often I have a combination of these three directions in my head:

army
developing your country
internal and external politics

So you have to watch a lot of things at once, and once you fall asleep in one of the verticals, the game won’t let you have it for free. These games are definitely not for beginners, it is good if you have already played something and if everything goes well so here you can experience hours of fun.

*Hearts of Iron IV – screen from article about paratroops*

Some of the most well-known games are my favorite titles such as Hearts of Iron IV or Crusader Kings III or the upcoming Victoria III. If you have played anything, check out these games.

Realtime strategy games

Another popular topic is real time strategies. I’m not really into those and I’m not really attracted to them, but I’ll take a closer look at them in the future for StrateGGames. These games include the likes of Company of Heroes, Age of Empires IV, and the announced Homeworld 3, which will probably be my go-to for this topic.

If you’re into RTS and you’d like to write about them, drop me a line and we’ll work something out.

4X strategy games

4X are other very popular and complex games like the previous mentioned themes. Under the acronym 4X is a combo of Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate. These games are very similar to the “grand strategy” games, only they are different in that you have to explore more and the whole game is based on colonizing and expanding – you have to explore more and move things around. Examples of this type are Stellaris or Civilization VI.

City builder strategy games

SimCity or Cities Skylines are two representatives of strategy games in which the task is to build a city. In these games you mostly deal with traffic, zones, services, public transport and much more.

The last big games that came out in this genre are the aforementioned Cities Skylines (2015), which was a great success and is still one of the top played strategy games, and SimCity (2013), which didn’t have much success thanks to the unconventional choices the developers made.

I see a great opportunity for innovation in this topic of strategy games. I still don’t think this genre is fully developed and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that someone new will come along and make a city builder strategy game much deeper, more complex and interesting.

Survival/building strategy games

The genre of strategy games that got a new game in August 2022 and there is obviously interest in this type of theme is survival/building strategy games in which Farthest Frontier was released. This type of game combines together city building and the need to survive, and it’s quite an interesting combination…

*Photo from the article about Farthest Frontier: How survive first year?*

… in short, you have to have enough raw materials, security, food, and you have to satisfy your inhabitants. The interesting thing is that in these games you also have to balance what your people will do. Other games might be Banished or Foundation.

Browser strategy games

A theme of strategy games that I love and have been very disappointed with in recent years are games that are played directly in browsers and now I don’t mean those simple flash/HTML5 games but complex strategies where it was not only about understanding the game mechanics but also about building a community that you are willing to get up at 3am and make big strategic moves with.

InnoGames, BigPoint, Goodgame Studios, Gameforge are very interested in this direction. Unfortunately, I haven’t explored the latest games in such detail, because with the transition to phones, this type of strategy games fell off for me.

Do you play strategy games?

And you know you can work with us? We’re looking for a game editor with a focus on strategy games to work with us to create content on our favorite games. More info about gaming redactor in strategy games here.