Critical Moves Podcast - Strategy Videogames

Does Anno 117: Pax Romana live up to the hype? Err... No. In this episode, Al (the Anno noob) got a chance to quiz Anno veteran Timothy on what the latest instalment of the franchise does right and what it does terribly wrong.Join us as we pull apart Ubisoft Mainz' latest city builder title and discuss if the Roman setting fits the Anno brand, if it adds anything to the series and why diagonal roads are such a big deal. We go through the core problems with Anno 117. The Roman setting sounds good on paper but doesn't translate to compelling gameplay. This feels like a step backward for the franchise.We compare it to previous Anno games and talk about why this entry falls short. The issues aren't small fixes - they're fundamental design choices that undermine what the series does best. If you've been on the fence about buying it, this discussion will help you decide.

Join hosts Jack and Adam as they sit down with Thomas Vandenberg, the visionary creator behind Kingdom Classic and Kingdom New Lands, for a deep dive into the evolution of minimal strategy design. Thomas shares the fascinating journey of turning a Flash game prototype into a beloved franchise that pioneered the "aesthetic strategy" genre, where atmosphere and accessibility take precedence over complex mechanics.The conversation explores the golden age of Flash gaming, the creative constraints that shaped Kingdom's innovative sidescrolling strategy mechanics, and the philosophy behind keeping games minimalist while resisting feature creep. Thomas opens up about the challenges of following up a successful indie hit, his collaboration with composer Amos Roddy, and his upcoming projects including the tower defense game Garbage Country. From diegetic UI design to the appeal of multiplayer "friend slop" games, this episode examines what makes strategy games truly engaging beyond their mechanical depth.This conversation offers rare insights into creating games that prioritize vibes and player experience over conventional complexity, perfect for Kingdom fans and anyone interested in thoughtful game design philosophy.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Joe and Big Sid talk Football Manager from Championship Manager 01/02 to the FM26 disaster. Big Sid has been playing for 25 years. Joe started with FM12 and the San Marino Challenge, spending a year building a lower Italian league team into Champions League contenders. Both have lost relationships and jobs to this game.FM26 launched in early access and immediately got review bombed on Steam. The new Unity engine brought performance problems. Menus take five minutes to open. Big Sid has a 4090 and still had problems. The UI overhaul moved everything around, breaking muscle memory from years of previous versions. Sports Interactive told people to give it 20 hours to adjust, which is absurd when most people quit games in 10 minutes if they don't like the feel.FM25 got cancelled months before release. Miles Jacobson said it wasn't good enough and he wasn't having fun. The community questioned whether FM26 would also get delayed, but Sega's release schedule meant it had to ship. Maybe they should have delayed it anyway.The transfer system improved with a recruitment hub for planning squad building. Women's football is in the game now with 14 playable leagues across 11 nations. The men's game has 100 fully playable leagues and around 800,000 players including coaches and scouts. The match engine got better with more natural player movement, but the trade-off was PowerPoint transitions between menus.We talk favorite saves and legendary players. Big Sid runs journeyman saves, starting unemployed with Sunday league experience. His go-to tactic is the 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress. Joe gives himself one coaching badge and prefers building from nothing. Freddy Adu dominated FM05 saves. Lorenzo Kryzite bossed midfields as a lone defensive midfielder in FM12. Shane Long had one year where he was inexplicably the best player in the game. Joe once reloaded his youth intake 100 times to get his own kid as a regen and turned them into a national team player.Big Sid says let them cook. FM26 needs time and iterations to fix the performance and UI problems. Or just play FM24, which got delisted from Steam. You can download it if you already own it but can't buy it anymore.Tell us what your first save is in a new FM or which wonderkid you remember best.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Welcome back to Critical Moves! In this episode, hosts Jack and Adam welcome newest team member Sid to break down the Sudden Strike series - the World War II real-time tactics franchise that's been quietly serving a dedicated fanbase for over two decades. With Sudden Strike 5 recently announced at Gamescom and promising ambitious features like 300+ units, co-op PvE gameplay, and massive 25-hour campaigns, we dive deep into why this arcade-style strategy game occupies such a unique space in the genre. Sid walks us through his experience with the series from the original game through Sudden Strike 4, explaining the core gameplay loop that focuses on tactical resource management, fuel and ammo conservation, and scripted reinforcements rather than traditional RTS base-building. We explore why Sudden Strike has struggled to gain mainstream recognition despite four previous entries, discussing how it sits awkwardly between hardcore military simulations like Men of War and more accessible titles like Company of Heroes, making it too arcade for wargaming purists but potentially too tactical for casual RTS fans.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

To celebrate the new year of Critical Moves Podcast, Al, Tim and Adam sat down to recommend a new game for the others to try. These were games that the others had never played before but that each hoped their co-hosts would enjoy. Games recommended were: Tim: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1207650/Suzerain (for Al) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1434950/HighFleet (for Adam)Al: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2088550/Dying_Breed (for Adam) https://store.steampowered.com/app/3556750/Warhammer_40000_Dawn_of_War__Definitive_Edition (for Tim)Adam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/457140/Oxygen_Not_Included (for Al) https://store.steampowered.com/app/25900/Kings_Bounty_The_Legend (for Tim)We will come back in a few months and let you know what we thought of them.

Jack and Adam compare two modern revivals of strategy design: Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era and Endless Legend 2. We cover how HOMM OE modernises the classic loop, the daily and weekly map rhythm, city growth, unit upgrade forks, and where it stumbles with a cluttered spell UI and questions about handcrafted maps. We dig into Endless Legend 2’s Civ-style shell with heroes anchoring armies, event chains that create real attachment, and the tides mechanic that reshapes the map, plus the tutorial build crashing on our end and why it still kept us playing. The thread through both is a character-led 4X style that looks like Civ but plays closer to HOMM and Age of Wonders, with smaller tactical scopes and more authored micro-stories. https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Adam, Jack, and Tim dig into the October 2025 Steam Next Fest lineup. They highlight the most promising strategy titles, the ones to skip, and talk about how Steam’s visibility system shapes the fortunes of indie developers. The discussion covers what works, what doesn’t, and why the algorithm can make or break smaller strategy games.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Nuno, Al, and Jack talk about how modern real-time strategy has changed — and improved. Dawn of War: Definitive Edition shows the strength of classic design, while new projects like Tempest Rising and Broken Arrow push toward a leaner, more deliberate form of RTS. The conversation covers what recent games are getting right, where design has shifted, and why the future looks more promising than it has in years.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Al, Tim and Joe come together to discuss the future of the Total War franchise ahead of Creative Assembly's December announcement on what to anticipate next from the studio. With a look at what games the hosts expect to see and which ones they would love to see, the conversation covers settings such as Star Wars, Warhammer 40K and Lord of the Rings, along side what Medieval III might look like, or if Total War: Empire 2 will see the series return to the era of colonialism, sailing ships and cavalry charges into line infantry.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Asymmetry is one of the defining features of strategy games, but it’s also the source of endless arguments. Giving players different factions, units, or victory conditions creates tension and variety, but it also creates balancing headaches. Designers fight with trade-offs: too much asymmetry and one side can dominate, too little and the game turns bland. In historical wargames, asymmetry is unavoidable - real conflicts aren’t fair fights - and that raises the harder question of how much accuracy should be sacrificed for the sake of playability. This episode looks at faction design, uneven objectives, and the constant push and pull between theme, balance, and player experience.https://criticalmovespodcast.com

In this episode we brought in Ricky and Drexy from eXplorminate to correct the mistakes we made in episode 41 on the state of 4X. The discussion pulls apart what separates 4X from grand strategy, where games like Stellaris, Total War and Victoria 3 sit, and why the labels aren’t always useful.We cover direct control versus large-scale influence, why Total War is neither 4X nor grand strategy, the failure of Humankind’s civ-swapping mechanic, and how Ara History Untold burned out with poor pacing and clumsy systems. We get into DLC bloat, feature creep, and how these games drive away new players while locking in the hardcore. There’s also a look at the economic side of strategy games and why most 4X titles still avoid it.The state of 4X isn’t good. Innovation attempts usually collapse under bad execution, old titles feel dated, and sequels keep recycling the same template. Grand strategy keeps its audience, but only by demanding an enormous investment of time and patience.https://criticalmovespodcast.comhttps://explorminate.org

Beyond All Reason (BAR) is a free open-source real-time strategy game based on Total Annihilation. In this episode we interview community manager PtaQ and our very own Timothy. Learn about RTS game development, community-driven gaming projects, epic-scale strategy battles with thousands of units, upcoming campaign mode, new faction releases, and Steam launch plans. This strategy gaming podcast episode covers BAR's 60,000+ Discord community management, volunteer-based game development, the "Ragnam Method" for redesigning legacy RTS mechanics, art and music coordination, and what makes this free-to-play strategy game unique in 2024. Perfect for RTS fans, strategy game enthusiasts, indie game developers, and anyone interested in community-driven game projects. https://criticalmovespodcast.com

Community supported games are the reason classics like Age of Empires 2, Company of Heroes, and Heroes of Might and Magic 3 are still played decades after release. In this episode of the Critical Moves Podcast, we look at abandoned strategy games, how modding scenes keep them alive, and why some titles survive long after developers stop updating them.We cover Dawn of War and its Definitive Edition, the ongoing debate of Civilization 6 vs Civilization 7, and the communities behind Command & Conquer and StarCraft 2. We also talk about forgotten strategy gems like Bungie’s Myth and how total conversion mods can grow into full games, such as Beyond All Reason.From mods that improve graphics and add factions, to community servers that replace official ones, this discussion explores what makes certain strategy games timeless. If you’re interested in RTS history, fan-driven projects, or the debate around when a game is truly abandoned, this episode is for you.https://criticalmovespodcast.comhttps://criticalmovespodcast.com/discord

Dawn of War 4 exists! We talk about what we know and what we expect. The franchise has one good game, one mediocre sequel, and one disaster. Dawn of War 3 killed the series for eight years. Now KING Art Games and Deep Silver are taking another shot at Warhammer 40K real-time strategy. We cover the confirmed details, the studio behind it, and the current state of RTS games. Dawn of War 4 needs to solve problems that Dawn of War 3 created while breaking new ground for a 2026 audience. This isn't speculation. We stick to what's confirmed and what the evidence suggests about development and design direction. The 40K license prints money but that doesn't guarantee good games. https://criticalmovespodcast.com

What does long-term survival look like for an indie strategy studio? In Part 2 of our interview, Chris McElligott-Park talks about: – Sustaining Arcen Games through shifting trends – Crowdfunding and community involvement – Designing sequels without repeating yourself – The challenges of predicting success in a saturated market This is Part 2 of a two-part interview.

What does it take to make a critically acclaimed strategy game? Chris McElligott-Park, designer of Heart of the Machine, joins the Critical Moves team to talk through: – How Arcen Games started – The design thinking behind AI War – Making strategy games without traditional narrative – Engineering AI opponents that can out-think players This is Part 1 of a two-part interview.

We try to avoid Stellaris. We really do.But if you're talking about the state of 4X games in 2025, it keeps dragging you back.Al, Joe, and Tim take stock of a genre that’s running out of excuses. Innovation is rare. Pacing is broken. AI can’t keep up. And the line between 4X and grand strategy has nearly vanished.Is anyone pushing things forward? Are we just reskinning old ideas? And why do most 4X games still fall apart by turn 100?

We talk to Matt, the solo developer behind Fungal Front — a hard sci-fi real-time strategy game set on a hostile alien planet. In this interview, we cover what makes the game unique, the challenges of building complex systems solo, and what players can expect from the factions, mechanics, and world design.If you're into asymmetric gameplay, grounded sci-fi, and RTS games that don’t hold your hand, this one's worth watching.

How important is narrative in strategy games and what kind of story actually works? In Episode 39 of Critical Moves, Adam, Jack, and Al dig into the role of storytelling in the genre, from scripted campaigns to player-driven chaos.We cover:• Emergent vs scripted storytelling, and where each one shines. • Why some strategy games succeed without a story, and others absolutely need one. • A heated debate over whether a Total Annihilation-inspired game deserves a narrative at all.Whether you think story elevates strategy or just gets in the way, this episode pulls apart how narrative affects design, engagement, and whether players even care. Top 5 Base-Builder RTS Games: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dBswsIEc88

Before Olden Era, there was Heroes of Might and Magic, the series that defined turn-based strategy for an entire generation.In this episode, we unpack what made HoMM so addictive: the layered overworld maps, the chess-like battles, the base-building loop, and the sheer variety of factions and creatures. We trace its rise from the early days through the glory of Heroes III and the missteps that followed, setting the stage for what Olden Era now tries to revive.If you're trying to understand the legacy behind the new game (like Al!), or just wondering why people are still talking about this decades later, this is your starting point.