Types of Strategy Games | Video Essay
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- I love strategy games, and they've been on my mind lately. I've been grinding cooperative RTS games (real-time-strategy games) with a friend for the past few weeks and have revisited some TBT (turn-based-tactics) I adore to cheer myself up. Strategy games are one of my favorite genres, and I thought it'd be fun to focus on them and better categorize the genre. I hope you enjoy my little essay on my personal three sub-genres for strategy games!
Also, in case you weren't aware, I'll be away from home for a long time. I'm unsure if I'll be able to upload while I'm away, but I'll certainly try. Thank you for all of your support; it means the world!
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Also, check out my Tactics Ogre Knight of Lodis Review; it's pretty short and discusses why I would recommend the game without spoiling anything significant! • Tactics Ogre Knight of...
CouchMoba: Just a small-time content creator. My videos mainly cover video games: reviews & discussions. I started the channel to practice my creative tools and enjoy games more. If you have any advice or questions, please contact me on social media!
I am glad steam added sub-genres, so if I click on the strategy genre, I can then click gs & 4x, rts, turn based, building, tabletop and all that
but then even then, an rts like supreme commander is completely different then say, airline manager, idk why they should be under the same tags.
@@jordy1278 money most likely; I'm guessing Steam has an impression system and algorithm so more visibility even if inaccurate is always good in their eyes.
Love to hear that passion coming from you, keep it up ! B)
Part of the appeal of Fire Emblem for me, which few other turn-based strategy games have done, is capture the feeling of being an actual strategist looking at the battlefield from on-high and commanding an army.
I like Triangle Strategy and Devil Survivor a lot, but I never liked how characters' turns were determined by speed. I always preferred FE's Player Phase, then Enemy Phase dynamic, as it let me create formations with my units in response to the enemy.
One example I love is forming a defensive wall around more vulnerable units with heavy knights and the like to limit the enemy's movement on their next turn, with ranged-units positioned just behind the knights to punish any enemies attempting to use ranged weapons of their own. Then sending my melee units out to mop up the now-weakened enemies. It's the sort of satisfaction that I don't get from a lot of other strategy games. It's like playing a more varied, dynamic version of chess, but with a cool medieval war-drama attached to it.
Granted, I'm not a big fan of Awakening and especially Fates and Engage for their overly-clean, cutesy, moe-anime take on the franchise, or the fact that those games (and Sacred Stones) can barely even be called strategy games when they give the player access to unlimited resources, opening up the possibility for tedious grinding in place of actual strategy (and when that's the dominant strategy, it's hard to excuse it by simply hand-waving it off with "You don't HAVE to grind!"). But at its best, this series gives me everything I could ever ask for in a medieval-fantasy game; good writing, compelling characters, a lived-in world, and addictive gameplay.
Strategy rpgs feel more like subgenre of rpgs rather than strategy. Story rich, focus on individual named characters, your keeping and growing the same army between battles, they level up and grow stronger, and can be lost forever if they die during battle. The strategy component is mostly just the combat system instead of the typicsl action rpg or turn based rpg. Strategy games usually your armies are for that specific mission only. They do have important generals/heroes in some games but most of your army will be generic faceless soldiers. There is a heavy emphasis on logistics and resources to recruit and maintisn your armies.
Good video! Would be nice a video where you single out evry niche and recomend older e modern games inspired by the older one. final fantasy tactios, fire emblem, yuyu hakusho tornanment tactics, advanced wars
Honestly, could be a fun idea, appreciate the recommending it. Honestly, not sure what's next as I'm currently moving right now, but I hope to make more like it.
1:30 Only true in the context of wargames, otherwise it's an overarching plan/s with the purpose of achieving a desired goal
I've always felt that the term "tactics" is underutilized. Most strategy games are tactics/operations games.
Side note: my favorite rts is the dawn of war series.
I love Dawn of War, I played Dark Eldar when I was really into it. But yeah, I def agree; it's rare to see a strategy game with a focus on strategy.
There are so many subgenres, most of them even have intersections. But here's my idea:
Grand strategy: Crusader Kings, etc.
4X: Civilization, etc.
RTS: Starcraft, Age of Empires, etc.
MOBA: DotA, LoL, etc.
Tactical games: Mutant Year Zero, XCOM, etc.
But I feel like AoE could also be considered grand strategy. Another difference is turn-based and real-time. And I have no idea how to classify Total War.
so if i understood correctly, you're saying that starcraft is not a RTS (real time strategy) but a RTT (real time tactics)?
Tbf Starcraft has a lot of macro play so it could be argued there's some strategy elements. It really depends on how the game is played and possibly even at what level it's played. That's a question for Starcraft players and I'm just some guy explaining semantics of genres on youtube :P
I've heard that Chris Taylor, who headed the design team for Supreme Commander, described what we call rts as more real time tactics with a dash of strategy. I think part of the problem is that the common definition for "strategy" can greatly contrast with the military one. The common definition seems to be most plans, while (from what I've heard) the military definition is the stuff that takes place before a battle, like training, research and logistics. Then there's the speed up training and build times in the majority of rts games, which really throws the real world definition for a loop. In your average rts you can make a tank from 200 pounds of raw resources in under a minute. Which really changes how the stuff that would be pre battle works with tactics. Since A factory under attack can get out a unit from raw materials in less time then the enemy can destroy it.
me personally i prefer RTS games like command & conquer: generals
cool
want to do some faf games? :D
Personally I think that TRPGs are the most boring game genre ever... unless they have a lateral view and have more actual aiming rather than luck-based precision, and that makes me sad because I only know 3 games like that.
What do you think about 4x games? From what I've heard and played, they can get pretty complex.
Your definition of strategy is wrong.
Given the context of the conversation it's accurate; there are other definitions for other discussions, like strategy in marketing isn't the same as in wargames. Though I appreciate the feedback!
@@couchmoba It is this same.
Strategy is the way we make our decisions.
Example:
Speedrun is a strategy.
@@danieladamczyk4024 I recommend Unicorn Overlord, its strategy RPG published by Sega.
@@orangeslash1667 Thanks i already have my favorite resource manager game.
@@danieladamczyk4024 oh