Looking back at it now, 2020 doesn’t feel like a banner year for strategy games, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few gems. The list below – gathered by a panel of experts and regularly updated – contains games from as recently as 12 months ago alongside classics from as far back as 28 years ago. They’re all games we think you could play and love right now.

(more…)

For a time it looked as though strategy games had sunk into a kind of deathly malaise, unsure which territory to claim next and which ones it should leave well and truly alone. Fast forward to 2020, though, and strategy games have never looked healthier, which is why we’ve compiled this best strategy games list of all time. Whether you want to conquer the depths of space, wage historical warfare or hulk around in big mechanical robots, there’s a strategy game for you below.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

When Imperator: Rome was released in April this year, I really enjoyed it. My colleague Ghoastus absolutely loved it. To be honest, both of us were happy with it as it was. Nevertheless, in response to a good deal of player roaring on launch, Paradox have been working hell for leather to rebuild whole sections of the game, and after two big free patches, we’re now looking down the barrel of a third before the end of the year – along with a content pack (also free) about the Punic Wars.

As of September’s 1.2 “Cicero” patch, The Monarch Power resource, which many people referred to as “mana”, is gone. Instant population upgrades are gone. Sad times as your boats have nothing to do: also gone. Despite retaining everything I liked about it in the first place, it’s a wildly different experience now – and patch 1.3, “Livy” is going to shake it up even more. The headline change is the new mission system, which introduces both scripted objectives for Rome and Carthage as part of the Punic pack, and procedurally generated missions for everyone else. But there’s a whole amphora full of other improvements too, including a revamped character experience system, and new tactical gameplay which – among other things – includes finding dinner for elephants. And once again, like bread hurled from a tribune’s balcony, it’s all for free.

(more…)

On the night of Friday 30th August, at PAX West in Seattle, RPS will raise the dead. Using techniques too dreadful to comprehend, we shall puncture the mortal veil like a sheet of wet tissue paper, and drag something back from the other side. That spirit will be Ghoastus, the Roman Ghost: our first fully spectral staff writer, and the site s occasional historical strategy correspondent. He s erudite, he s wise, and he s in no way a person draped in a sheet and a replica centurion s helmet.

Ghoastus will be interviewing a panel of strategy gaming s leading lights: Ed Beach, lead designer for Civilization VI; Adam Isgreen, creative director for the Age of Empires series; Peter Nicholson, content designer for Imperator: Rome; Jeff Spock, narrative director of Amplitude’s just-announced historical 4X Humankind; and Nicholas Tannahill from Stronghold developers Firefly. From within his circle of chalked wards, Ghoastus will ask them how they mix reality with fiction when making historical games, and how they ve kept well-loved franchises fresh over the years.

(more…)

Haha, that was funny last week wasn’t it! Remember how we did that whole bit where I had left RPS, but then I was still stuck writing Steam Charts? Heh, they do some good goofs at this site. Anyway, let’s… [looks straight into camera]

(more…)

For me, one of the perennial pleasures in PC gaming is clicking new game on a fresh Paradox grand strategy game, and having that big ol map unrolled before me, freighted with promise and overwhelming complexity.

If you ve not played one of these before – and for all its glories, Imperator: Rome is very much an iteration of the formula established by Europa Universalis in 2000 – the premise of the game is as simple as playing it isn t: you re presented with a map of the world at a given point in history, where you can browse every single discrete political entity that existed in that moment, before choosing one to pilot onwards through time.

(more…)

We would never do anything to hurt you. Our loyalty is beyond dispute. That s just how trustworthy we are on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. If anyone is the spy here, it s you. I don t even recognise you. Have you been to this website before? You look nervous. Maybe you re hiding something. Maybe you re planning to stab us all in the back when we re not looking. Traitor! Traitor! Everybody look at the traitor and not over here, at our treachery-filled podcast.

(more…)

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but in launching under a year from its announcement Imperator: Rome is making pretty good time. Paradox Interactive today announced a release date for their grand historical strategy game – April 25th. Perhaps missing a trick not launching it on March 15th, but it’ll have to do. Paradox reckon this should be a little easier to get into than some of their past games. They aim to strike a balance between the character-driven antics of Crusader Kings 2 and the grand military campaigning of Europa Universalis IV. See the release date trailer below.

(more…)

Bugger me, Paradox Interactive s grand strategy games are a lot, right? If I could put that even more in bold, I would have fattened up like a sacrificial pig before god-appeasing slaughter, because they really are.

My experience with Crusader Kings II, for example, mainly involved me staring at menus for half an hour then crushing half a pack of ibuprofen into a fine powder, mixing it into a hot chocolate, and cradling it while rocking back and forth in a corner for the evening. I am, to put it lightly, not a bountiful well of expertise when it comes to these devilishly complex map-painters. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to find that, about four hours into Imperator: Rome, the thing had got its wreath-decorated hooks well and truly into me.

(more…)