You’ll ocassionally find someone on the internet sounding off about how the strategy genre is dead. If you see such a person in the future, send them this list of the best strategy games ever made.

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Paradox today announced the next Hearts Of Iron IV expansion pack, named La R sistance. As well as giving resistance movements more to do, it will introduce a new espionage system. I will confess, when I first saw the announcement trailer on Paradox’s PDXCON stream I did think it might be a whole new game about the French Resistance with a pretty painted style and got a bit over-excited. Ah well. See for yourself below.

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I’m nothing if not a hypocrite. Week after week I lament you utterly awful people buying the exact same five games again and again and again and again and again and again> and again. This week I shall lament people buying games that barely even exist. Hold my hand, let me walk you through this most peculiar of weeks, and into oncoming traffic.

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There’s a new Hearts Of Iron IV expansion out today, and this one goes ham on the history books. While Paradox’s grand strategy series has always played a bit fast and loose with real history, the Man The Guns expansion pairs a slew of naval warfare upgrades with some wildly divergent histories. The British Empire could re-establish monarchic power, or decolonise decades early, while America can hurl itself into a second civil war in pursuit of reforms. Of course, this being a Paradox game there’s a shipload of free naval changes coming in a free update for owners of the base game. A trailer sets sail below.

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We’ve just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It’s a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you’ll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.

2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets. (more…)

An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC strategy games ever made, now freshened up to include everything from 2017 and 2018. From intricate, global-scale wargames to the tight thrills of guerrilla squads, the broad expanse of the genre contains something for everyone, and we’ve gathered the best of the best.

The vast majority are available to buy digitally, a few are free to download and play forever. They’re all brilliant.

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The Paradox DLC factory continues to diligently extend the lives of its myriad grand strategy romps, with all but Stellaris getting new DLC announcements at PDXCON last month. We re getting restless pagan warriors, war elephants and even some sharks. If you can match the feature to the game, you get a polite nod of respect.

Rather than tiring you out, making you click on three articles like a thoughtless task master, I ve gathered all the sizzling deets in one place. Rest those fingers and direct your eyes below to find out what s changing in Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4 and Crusader Kings 2.

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First launched in 2016, Hearts of Iron IV is yet another of the grand strategy games to come from the great grand strategy Santa’s Workshop known as Paradox Interactive. Mixing sandbox style play and real-time war simulation, the title allows you to start in 1936 or 1939 and take one control of one great power — leading them to victory over the rest of the, you know, World War. Today, the third major expansion for the game was announced. Man the Guns develops the naval side of war, including the addition of modular design for warships.

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Democracy is on the brink of collapse. Caesar’s Legion, the authoritarian slave state across the Colorado River, has launched a massive assault on the last, best chance for freedom in the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout. It’s a grim certainty in Old World Blues that the New California Republic will fight Caesar’s Legion: they’re the wasteland’s two superpowers, diametrically opposed ideologically, each expanding towards the other. I just thought I was better prepared. While Caesar was annihilating every ill-defended tribe to the west, I was rearming, inviting new states into the republic, and admittedly annexing a few tribes myself. With the game paused, I assess my options, reorganise my armies and ask, finally, does democracy die in 2279?

Old World Blues is a mod for Hearts of Iron IV which transports the World War II grand strategy game hundreds of years forward into the post-apocalyptic American west coast of the Fallout series. Players select a faction in the year 2275 and attempt to survive and thrive in the west coast wasteland. Structurally, it’s similar to Hearts of Iron IV, but the content and style has been transformed. Old World Blues is tremendously fun, comparable in quality to the standard Hearts of Iron IV game, and it does a terrific job of translating Fallout to grand strategy. (more…)

‘Waking the Tiger’ is not a ho-ho-hilarious euphemism for onanism, unless you want it to be, but rather the next Hearts of Iron IV expansion. It’ll focus on making China more unique in the WW2 grand strategy game, complete with several possible political paths the country might have gone down, along with expanding other systems in the game. Paradox are taking their time with this one as, after announcing Waking the Tiger way back in November 2017, they today announced plans to release it on March 8. For now, here’s a new dev video going over some of its additions: (more…)