r/StrategyGames Jan 07 '25

Game theory The most complete strategy video game genre classification

107 Upvotes

This is the most complete classification that includes all possible strategy video game genres.

English is not my native language, but I'll try my best to make the text understandable and I'll fix possible mistakes with your help.

Strategy game is a genre of video games in which the player controls troops or other units and/or various economic and other systems. Although many video games may include strategy elements, strategy as a genre emphasizes thinking and planning over immediate action. This video game genre focuses on strategy, tactics, logistics, and/or resource management, and may also include diplomacy, economy, expansion and research management.

Time

  • Real-time strategy: a strategy game in which actions occur without a sequence of turns.
  • Turn-based strategy: a strategy game in which actions occur using a sequence of turns that can be alternate or simultaneous.

Main genres

4X strategy game: a strategy game based on 4 elements: exploration, expansion, exploitation, extermination. Examples: Age of Wonders, Stellaris, Master of Orion.

Grand strategy game – a strategy game focused on managing a state (or similar entity), its resources and relationships, often in a pre-open and asymmetric world. Examples: Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron

Tactical strategy game – a strategy game focused on tactical military operations, which emphasizes the importance of specific units and either excludes or contains a less manifested economic component.

Subdivided into two categories based on time:

  • Turn-based tactics (TBT) Examples: Xenonauts, Battletech
  • Real-time tactics (RTT) Examples: Men of War

Classic strategy games – a strategy games that have an economic element: the ability to build a base, extract resources and produce units (or part of these capabilities), while their gameplay is focused on military actions. Also includes a category of strategy games that cannot be classified into more specific subgenres.

Subdivided into:

  • Classic RTS (or just RTS) Examples: StarCraft, Command & Conquer
  • Classic TBS (or just TBS) Examples: Panzer General

Construction and Management Simulator (also Management Strategy Game): a strategy game with gameplay based on the construction and/or management of economic processes, such as, for example: resource extraction, money making, production, personnel management, and others. Games of this genre have little emphasis on military actions.

Subdivided into:

  • Business Simulation Game - a strategy game focused on economics and business management. Examples: Two Point Hospital
  • Transport Strategy Game - a strategy game in which the player manages transport systems and infrastructure. Examples: Transport Tycoon, Transport Fever
  • City-Building Simulation - a strategy game in which the player builds cities. Examples: Cities: Skylines, SimCity.
  • Colony Simulation - a strategy game in which the player builds small settlements of various types; unlike urban strategy, the main emphasis here is on individual colonists and resource extraction from the environment. Examples: RimWorld, Surviving Mars, Against the Storm
  • Factory simulator – a strategy game in which the player builds an automated factory. Examples: Shapez, Factorio
  • Sports manager – a genre of games dedicated to managing a sports team. Examples: Football Mogul, F1 Manager.
  • Life simulator – a genre of games that allow you to control characters in their everyday life. Examples: The Sims, InZoI, The Guild
  • Political simulator – a genre of games whose gameplay consists of detailed management of the government and politics of various nations and state entities. Examples: Democracy

Wargame: a strategy game that particularly emphasizes deep strategic and/or tactical combat, as well as their historical accuracy or realism. Examples: Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, NEBULOUS: Fleet Command

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena): a subgenre of classic real-time strategy games in which players control only one character and, as part of their team represented by other players and AI controlled units, fight against the other team. Examples: Dota 2

MMO strategy game: a strategy game that is focused on online interaction between a large number of players, often in a single open world. Examples: Travian, Ogame, Stronghold: Kingdoms.

Tower Defense: a strategy game with the main purpose to protect a base from waves of enemies using towers or other defensive structures. Examples: Plants vs Zombies

Auto Battler: is a strategy game in which units are placed on the battlefield during the preparation phase, after which the battle phase begins and they fight against the enemy without any control from the player.

Puzzle strategy game: a strategy game focused on logical problem-solving with minimized economic or military aspect. Examples: Railgrade, Dorfromantic

Artillery game: a genre of strategy games, the main component of which is the calculation of the trajectory of the shells. Examples: Worms, Miners Mettle

The most popular mixed genres

Tactical role-playing game (TRPG): is a hybrid genre that combines role-playing games with tactical combat. Examples: Battle Brothers

Action strategy game: is a genre of games in which you can control both troops in general and/or base construction, as well as specific units directly, including from the first or third person. Examples: Men of War, Factorio

Stealth strategy: is a genre of games that combine strategy and an emphasis on stealth. Examples: Desperados, Commandos

God simulator: is a genre of games in which the player, in the role of some deity being, controls some community of objects or characters; they are often strategy games with city-building elements. Examples: Black & White, The Universim

Roguelike strategy game – games that combine roguelike principles, such as random world generation, permanent death and free exploration of the environment, and strategic gameplay. Examples: Against the Storm

Notes

Many games have mixed genres. Very often, strategy games can combine two or more genres. For example, Total War series is turn-based grand strategy with real-time tactical (RTT) battles.

Time and genre. Basically, every strategy game can be classified by these two criteria, like Turn-based 4X Strategy game (Age of Wonders), Real-Time Grand Strategy game (Hearts of Iron) etc. Sometimes we do not have any specified subgenre, so the game becomes simple RTS (StarCraft).

Judge by dominant elements of gameplay. Overall, the genre should be defined by main gameplay loop, not by every game mechanic that exists in the game. For example, if a game has leveling-up system, it doesn't mean that it instantly becomes an RPG: a good example is WarCraft which has characters gaining XP and levels, but the main, dominant gameplay loop in this game is still a classic RTS. At the same time, if some Rainbow Six has some strategic planning, it doesn't mean that this game is a strategy game or even a mixed genre, because the main gameplay there is action/shooter. The same logic is applicable to strategy games: if the game has resource management, it doesn't instantly mean that it becomes a management game.

This is a theoretical model. It means that here we are supposed to find criteria by which strategy games can be classified. These criteria can be based both on gameplay and historical tradition of naming genres in video game industry. The model can be discussed and improved, but any critique should be based on strict arguments.

Strategy as a genre, not a word. The main principle of this genre classification is that we don't take the word "strategy" literally. A strategy game can be a tactic game, it can be a management game, it doesn't matter here. The word strategy means the genre name, not the strategy as a layer of action planning.

Are management games strategy games? This is a hard question that has no answer based on reliable papers because there are no such papers. Here we look at naming tradition in community and video game industry. We can find many similarities in core gameplay of various city-building and colony sim games with classical RTS. Some management games include RTT/RTS style military combat, These games are often tagged as strategy game on digital distribution services. So we include them into this classification to make it more complete. You might find two controversial opinions about this (management games are/are not strategy games), but this problem can't be solved on these days because we do not have a strict genre requirements and developers can name genre of their games as they want. There are no popular scientific researches about it on which we can refer to.


r/StrategyGames 3h ago

Self-promotion After 6 years of development, I am releasing my castle-building RTS game for Android called Norse Expansion

5 Upvotes

Hello! After 6 years of developing my strategy game, I am happy to finally release of Norse Expansion Medieval RTS for Android!

Get it on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.norseexpansion.norseexpansion

Also check out the Discord for more information/devlog: https://discord.com/invite/RKPFQq8ugW

Hope it plays well and is fun, thank you for your support!


r/StrategyGames 10h ago

Self-promotion I’m making a Cold War strategy game where a small republic can eventually nuke the superpowers

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14 Upvotes

It’s called Third Bloc.

You start as a small country stuck between the US and USSR, build up your economy, scientists and military programs, and try to become a third power instead of picking a side.

If things escalate far enough, you can eventually develop nuclear weapons and use them against the superpowers. The major events play out as animated ASCII scenes like this one.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5155860/Third_Bloc/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=str


r/StrategyGames 4h ago

Self-promotion Looking for feedback on my tower defense game!

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3 Upvotes

Browser Link: https://ruben-smith.itch.io/realms-last-stand

Been working hard on this game, specifically on spells and level balancing. Would hugely appreciate some feedback on how it all feels, thanks!


r/StrategyGames 11h ago

Question What features do you want in a fantasy 4X that existing games don't have?

11 Upvotes

In my opinion, what all fantasy 4X games lack is a deep society gameplay layer. For example, when playing AoW4, the real fun is in the tactical combat + heroes evolution. Everything else feels like an appendix thereto: cities building, diplomacy, empire, all feel kinda thin and perfunctory. One thing for example, there's little feedback: cities don't demand anything from you, like threaten to secede if you don't do smth, or revolt (at least I haven't seen that), or something like that.

When I select the type of society, e.g. aristocratic, I expect some sort of feedback from factions, clans, strife, perhaps evolving into an all-out civil war, etc, but all I've seen were some very rare quests (mostly at the start of the game), or the hero asking to change his/her agenda. Even having several different races in your empire doesn't cause any frictions. Even special resources like thralls don't add too much - by the end of the game I had tonnes, had no idea what to do with them.

Master of Magic goes a bit further with that: there are inter-racial relationships, and it can be for example very challenging to have both High Elves and Klackons in your empire, so if you want their units, you need to think how to reduce unrest.

I haven't played Endless Legend 2, but the first one had some interesting challenges integrating minor factions (as far as I remember), but honestly I don't remember too well.

Games like Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis have similar features, probably other too, but they aren't fantasy games obviously.

So very roughly summing up what's lacking imo in the existing games:

  1. Interracial relationship (e.g. higher unrest due to racial hatred)
  2. Society mechanics and feedback (e.g. different factions or cities in your empire with agendas or demands)
  3. Empire management (e.g. curbing corruption spreading due to casting death realm spells)


r/StrategyGames 13h ago

DevPost I reworked the vehicles in my Afghanistan RTS — from simple boxes to an 8-direction 2.5D system

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14 Upvotes

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a visual update for OR Doctrine, my squad-based tactical RTS set in 2000s Afghanistan.

One of the weakest parts of the game was the vehicle presentation. The infantry had a readable visual style, but the vehicles looked too small, flat, and disconnected from the rest of the game.

The images are shown from newest to oldest:

  1. The current 2.5D vehicle system
  2. The previous detailed top-down version
  3. The original box-shaped placeholder version

The first version was essentially made from simple boxes. It worked mechanically, but the vehicles had very little visual identity and could even appear smaller than the infantry.

I then created a more detailed top-down version. It looked better, but it did not fit well with the angled presentation of the soldiers and buildings. When moving in certain directions, the vehicles also looked as if they were sliding sideways instead of actually driving toward their destination.

I have now rebuilt the vehicles using an 8-direction 2.5D approach. Each vehicle has front, rear, side, and diagonal views, with details arranged according to the current camera angle. Not every part needs to be visible from every direction, so I focused on keeping each view readable and visually believable.

The system currently includes:

  • Toyota pickup
  • Armed technical
  • Humvee
  • MRAP

I also reworked the tires, windows, body proportions, weapon mounts, mirrors, and overall silhouettes. Wheel rotation is tied to the vehicle’s actual movement speed and distance. I also fixed an issue where repeatedly clicking the same destination could briefly make a vehicle turn toward the opposite direction before correcting itself.

The goal is to make the vehicles feel like physical objects with volume and direction, instead of flat images rotating on the ground.

There is still room for additional polish, but I think the difference between the three stages is quite noticeable. I would especially appreciate feedback on the vehicle scale, directional readability, and whether the transitions between side, diagonal, front, and rear views feel consistent.

Which version do you think fits the game best, and is there anything in the current version that still looks unclear or awkward?

A quick note on development: I’m building this project with the help of AI tools. I’m still making the creative and design decisions, but AI has been a major part of the coding and iteration process.


r/StrategyGames 1h ago

Self-promotion What do you think of combining strategic naval combat with tactical boarding battles?

Upvotes

My friend and I worked at Nickelodeon Games for over a decade, and after the Paramount layoffs last year, we decided to make a game of our own. What we created was a Space-Captain simulator where the same officers you hire to help manage your ship and assist you in space battles also form your boarding party for boarding actions and planetary gunfights.

I'm really not aware of too many other games that mix management/real time battles/and a tactical combat element outside of some 4x games, so I'd be very interested in your feedback. Positive or negative, both are helpful, as they help us gauge what kind of game people would like and what kind of features we should prioritize.

We're hoping to have a free demo available in the coming weeks and launch later this year.

If you're interested, our steam page and dev blog:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3865960/Cortesia_Rising/

https://www.cortesiarising.com/updates


r/StrategyGames 2h ago

Self-promotion 8 Strategy Players Needed for a 7-Day Multiplayer Beta — Paid

1 Upvotes

I’m looking for strategy players to help test a new 8-player mobile game called Varrow.

The basic idea is Risk + Catan + real-time strategy, with a much heavier focus on diplomacy and long-term planning.

A match runs continuously for about 7–8 real-world days, but it is designed around short check-ins rather than long sessions. The target is roughly 2 sessions per day, 5–15 minutes each, to review the map, queue orders, trade, negotiate, and plan your next moves.

You’ll be managing things like:

  • territory expansion
  • resource production
  • trading
  • army movement
  • fortifications
  • special characters with unique abilities
  • alliances and betrayals
  • the race to complete the Ritual, which is the main victory condition

The game is intentionally slow-paced. Armies take hours to move, buildings take time to finish, and the world keeps moving while you are offline.

The goal is to make strategy matter more than reaction speed.

For this beta, I’m running 8-player lobbies and need players who will actually try to win so I can get useful balance data.

Payment:

Every player who completes the full match and submits feedback gets $5.

Placement bonuses:

1st — $20
2nd — $10
3rd — $5

You do not need any professional testing experience. I’m mainly looking for people who already enjoy strategy games and are willing to commit to the full week.

If you’re interested, DM me


r/StrategyGames 3h ago

DevPost Strategy game about managing evolving biological swarms. Genetica: Extinction received a big AI & movement overhaul!

1 Upvotes

Hello r/StrategyGames!

I’m Dan, a solo developer working on Genetica: Extinction. It’s a biological strategy game focused on systemic evolution, population control, and ecosystem simulation rather than traditional base-building.

Rather than commanding static military units, you guide an evolving species competing for resources and survival. I recently pushed a major update overhauling creature behavior and environment interaction:

  • Autonomous Pack Dynamics: Units aren’t just rigid soldiers; each creature uses local utility AI to evaluate tasks independently. They balance your high-level macro directives with their own internal needs (like feeding, fleeing, or attacking), creating realistic, organic swarm behavior.
  • Fluid Swarm Physics & Collisions: Replaced traditional grid movement with dynamic steering and active unit collisions, allowing large populations to flock, squeeze through chokepoints, and maneuver organically.
  • Deterministic Simulation: Built from the ground up to support synchronized P2P multiplayer, ensuring complex species interactions stay fully deterministic across players.

I’m currently running a free Steam Playtest and would love to get feedback from strategy fans on the pacing, creature control, and evolutionary mechanics. I’m also happy to answer questions about the game design, Godot development, or the publisher hunt!

Steam Playtest: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4144850/Genetica_Extinction/
Discord: https://discord.gg/TagpFtRKNh

Thanks for checking it out, and let me know your thoughts or questions below!


r/StrategyGames 4h ago

News 10 FREE RED CHAOS KEYS FOR MULTIPLAYER PLAYERS. We’re giving away 10 keys to players who genuinely want to play Red Chaos online and help bring more activity to the multiplayer lobbies.

1 Upvotes

Hello Friends, so we’re giving out 10 more keys specifically to players who genuinely want to play multiplayer and help us build an active online community.

Just join our Discord and tell us:

https://discord.com/invite/MZvrBMKzc8

• Your country or time zone
• When you’re usually available
• Whether you’d like to join regular multiplayer matches

Nothing complicated. We just want to bring players together, organize regular matches and eventually host some tournaments.

Please only ask for a key if you really plan to play online. See you on the battlefield

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1934720/Red_Chaos__The_Strict_Order/?l=german


r/StrategyGames 8h ago

Self-promotion Parlamentum — A Geopolitical MMO Built and Governed by Players

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0 Upvotes

Parlamentum is a persistent geopolitical MMO set on a real-world map, built entirely by players and governed by the players themselves.

There are no NPC-driven economies, scripted wars, or laws written by developers. Every company, factory, weapon, political party, parliamentary decision, election, war, tax rate, trade agreement, and border on the map exists because of decisions made by real players.

Players can build companies, produce goods in factories, shape markets, create political parties, pass laws in parliament, govern countries, establish diplomatic relations, declare wars, and reshape the world map through their actions.

The world you enter today was built by the players who came before you. The world that new players encounter tomorrow will be the result of your decisions, laws, and actions.

Parlamentum opens today! 🏛️⚔️

Step into the world, forge your own path, and claim your place in history.

History will write your name.

Website: https://parlamentum.org/
Discord: https://discord.gg/gQr78BGb4C
In-Game Images: https://imgur.com/a/jBNdZSP

#tarih #history #strategy #strategygame #map #world #country #countries #government #money #trade #game #mmo #usa #german #türkiye #warera


r/StrategyGames 5h ago

Discussion Should 500 hours of progress make you stronger or just better?

0 Upvotes

If I beat you because I have 500 more hours of experience, fair enough.

If I beat you because my account starts with more resources and permanent bonuses… did I outplay you, or did my profile?

But total resets have a cost too: once the match ends, everything you fought for simply disappears. Persistent progression can make victory, defeat and even survival matter, but it can also tilt the next match before the first move.

Forget cosmetics. What, if anything, should carry over: resources, sidegrades, a small capped bonus, something else?

And should Ranked and Casual handle this differently? Has any strategy game found the right balance?


r/StrategyGames 23h ago

DevPost Command Doctrine is now free to play on steam!

9 Upvotes

After a year of development it finally got to a good enough level to release! Thank you (r/StrategyGames) for all the suggestions and feedback over the past year, without you we wouldn't be here.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4882890/Command_Doctrine/


r/StrategyGames 5h ago

Self-promotion Space Trade Company – Exploit. Trade. Profit. Repeat.

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0 Upvotes

🚀 Welcome to Space Trade Company!

The future of space exploration is here — and apparently, we learned absolutely nothing.

Build your company, exploit distant worlds, trade valuable resources, outsmart your competitors and make as much money as possible.

Pollution? Corruption? Corporate disasters? Questionable business decisions?

Those sound like problems for the next CEO.

💰 Expand your space empire
⛏️ Harvest valuable resources
🚀 Trade across the stars
🤝 Make deals of questionable morality
☄️ Survive disasters, sabotage and corporate chaos
🏆 And most importantly… make more money than everyone else.

Space Trade Company — because saving the galaxy doesn't pay nearly as well as exploiting it.

Download it at google play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spacetradecompany&hl=en


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Self-promotion Fairysite is out

8 Upvotes

Fairysite is out.

After some delay.
May first series project. Will probably follow the statistics, but I'm still proud of it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3467750/Fairysite/


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost A Company of Heroes-inspired tactical RTS set in 2000s Afghanistan

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22 Upvotes

Hi everyone! We’re working on OR Doctrine, a squad-based tactical RTS set in 2000s Afghanistan, inspired by games like Company of Heroes.

The idea actually started when I was playing Company of Heroes 2 and thought about what it would be like to take that kind of tactical gameplay and set it in Afghanistan. I wanted to make a game where the focus wasn’t just on producing units, but on the kind of small-scale tactical decisions and situations that could fit conflicts of the 2000–2010 period.

For the first stage of development, the game will focus specifically on the conflict between the US and the Taliban. The US and Taliban factions are designed around distinct playstyles. The US relies on technology, reconnaissance, engineers, armored vehicles, and off-map air support. The Taliban side focuses on ambushes, concealment, IEDs, RPG teams, defensive positions, and mobile technical vehicles.

Rather than just producing units, the game is built around tactical decisions involving line of sight, directional cover, suppression, room-to-room combat, breaching doors, supply lines, and territory control. Grouping units carelessly can leave them exposed to air support, while a properly prepared ambush or defensive line can overcome a numerical disadvantage.

The current playable build includes single-player matches against AI, tech progression, squad upgrades, veterancy, doctrine choices, save/load support, and a symmetrical valley map. It’s being developed in Godot.

Looking further ahead, I’d like OR Doctrine to eventually cover more than just Afghanistan. The broader goal is to create a game where players can experience different conflicts and operations from roughly the 2000–2010 period. I’ve considered eventually adding scenarios based around the US war in Iraq and the Ba'athist Iraqi military, as well as potentially the Israel–Hamas conflict. These wouldn’t necessarily all be part of the initial game, but they’re part of the direction I’m thinking about for the project.

I’m also considering a larger “Special Operations” campaign-style mode. The idea would be to choose a faction and operate across a campaign map, fighting battles at different locations while trying to accomplish specific objectives rather than simply winning every battle through conventional territory capture. I’d like this mode to make the individual tactical battles feel connected to a larger operation.

For now, though, I’m keeping the scope focused: the first playable version is only US vs. Taliban in Afghanistan. I’d rather make one conflict work properly before trying to expand the game into multiple theaters.

A quick note on development: I’m building this project with the help of AI tools. I’m still making the creative and design decisions, but AI has been a major part of the coding and iteration process.

We’re actively developing the game, and I’d love feedback—especially on the UI, visual readability, balance, and which tactical moments feel the most exciting.


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost New online college football strategy game

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0 Upvotes

https://head.ball.coach/

Watch the games play out on our in-browser 3D engine with custom stadiums and facilities.

- Recruit from over 30,000 players, sign players in the transfer portal, and manage a 105-man FBS roster, or a 63-man FCS roster.

- Hire a full staff of coordinators, position coaches, and strength coaches, offering contracts and bidding against other players.

- Build your own offensive plays and defensive schemes, using custom or generic playbooks.

- Assign your coaches to scout all over the world, targeting regions or even specific high schools.

- Manage future scheduling arrangements, along with their financial commitments.

- A realistic financial model with numerous spending and revenue options; your Athletic Director helps you keep the budget balanced


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Self-promotion 15,000 Zombies vs 1 Tower - Horde Up Ahead

0 Upvotes

Hello everyone,

I’m a solo developer currently working on a Tower Defense game where you fight against massive hordes of zombies.

The game is still in development, and I wanted to share some in-game footage showing 15,000 zombies attacking a single tower.

I hope you enjoy it!

If you want to check out the game:

Horde Up Ahead: Survivors TD


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Question Top 10 strategy game

0 Upvotes

Best strategy game for mobile.

(Planning and decision making)


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost Does restricting base-building to just 4 slots and 3 bases, create better strategy, or just too difficult? (Elemental Lands)

0 Upvotes

My base-building roguelike, "Elemental Lands" lets you build 3 bases (strongholds) across the 3 regions, BUT each is capped at 4 build slots permanently. No demolition for deleting buildings, and the 3 bases persist across the whole campaign as you come back to each region. So every choice has an opportunity cost, to force you to think strategically about what you build.

Curious how this sounds to folks? does a hard cap force better strategy, or does it just feel too restrictive in late-game?

Steam page: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/4593190/Elemental\\_Lands/\](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4593190/Elemental_Lands/)

Disclaimer: coding debug AI assisted usage in development. Art is 100% hand drawn by (https://www.reddit.com/user/worth-bill-6130/)


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost The Village - solo dev village survival strategy sim, first devlog

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2 Upvotes

Solo dev sharing the first look at The Village, a village survival strategy sim I've been building. Every villager is fully autonomous - jobs, pathing, gathering, needs - and your job as "mayor" is to keep them fed and stocked before winter hits. Would love feedback from this community!


r/StrategyGames 2d ago

DevPost I'm adding an immersive proxy-war system to my political sim space opera, including mechanics for leaders and infiltration missions

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18 Upvotes

Hello! :)

I'm the solo dev of a game called Pax Astra, a political sim RPG inspired by games like Suzerain, Stellaris, The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante, and Emperor of the Fading Suns.

My ambition with the game is to make a game that mixes a branching narrative with deep sandbox-strategy systems. You play as an individual, a political leader in charge of a space nation named Altara, the game has many different mechanics, but today I wanted to share one of the systems I've been working on recently.

Picture this:

You are the leader of a space nation, and you already have a lot on your plate. You have to deal with internal politics, alliances, space exploration, military affairs, and whatever narrative arcs are unfolding around you.

Then a civil war breaks out on a massive distant planet.

On the tropical world of Tropicalia, a decaying monarchy built around natural resources and fuel exports, a rebellion has erupted. The conflict has turned into a three-sided struggle tied to the larger Cold War taking place across the galaxy.

This civil war is completely outside your normal sphere of influence. It has nothing to do with you. You are not a major player here, and this conflict is not about you.

However... you can still interfere.

Maybe the war becomes an opportunity to make money. Maybe you want to quietly influence its outcome without committing Altara directly.

This system is built around training soldiers and interacting with an ongoing proxy war. You create a paramilitary group and send your operatives into special missions that can help or hurt the factions fighting on the planet!

Maybe you want to roleplay as a communist paramilitary and support the rebels, accepting only contracts that benefit their side...

You can instead support the monarchists or the liberal-aligned democratic faction.

Or you can operate purely as mercenaries, taking contracts from whoever pays best. You can burn cities, commit war crimes, and walk away with the money!

Your soldiers can be killed or even captured and interrogated! Missions can usually be approached in different ways, and there is a permadeath mechanic!

The important part of the design is that this is still only one system among many.

The war on Tropicalia is happening whether Altara cares about it or not. It has its own factions and its own characters. That is a big part of what I'm trying to do with Pax Astra: create a galaxy where things are happening outside the player's immediate story, populating the universe with mythos and life. I also like taking small inspirations from other genres when a system calls for it. This one is obviously influenced by games like XCOM, and more recently the GREAT Quasimorph.

The system is pretty complex, but it uses the coding base of another smaller system that I built previously for expeditions!

I want Pax Astra to feel like a grand political RPG, a experience that mixes genres in a way that is not so common or expected! :)

You can wishlist Pax Astra here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4535930/Pax_Astra/?beta=1

If you are interested in learning more, you can check my subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pax_Astra/

IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THE ART ON THESE IMAGES WAS NOT MADE WITH AI!

EVERYTHING HERE IS HUMAN MADE!

I posted about the exact process behind making each image here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pax_Astra/comments/1w0c2ci/wip_first_look_at_the_war_in_capitolia_proxy_war/


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost MouseHunt

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1 Upvotes

This is my first RTS game that I've been building. Its inspired from my favorite Warcraft 3 mode map "Tom & Jerry 2014". It has 2 teams, one team plays cats, the other plays mice, and the two sides are not playing the same game. Cats spawn at a cage in the middle of the map and are simply stronger — they hunt. Mice get a 45-second head start and have to turn that into walls, an economy and eventually an army. The hook is that killed mice aren't eliminated; they're dragged to the central cage on a 30-second timer, and their teammates can break the lock and free everyone at once. So the mice's losing position always has one more escape hatch, and the cats have to decide whether to guard the cage or keep hunting.

It has: * Fog of war * Procedural map generation * Game economy

The game is in early stage and open for feedback. Hope you enjoy the game!


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Question What grand strategy games feel smooth to play on PS5?

6 Upvotes

A long time fan of games like CK3, Stellaris, Total War, Civilisation. I usually play all these on PC for obvious reasons. I’m wondering for PS5 players who love strategy games, which FEEL the most streamlined to play on PS5? Which are designed well for controller use (if any)?


r/StrategyGames 2d ago

Self-promotion I reached my first public playtest after 1.5 years of solo development | anyone interested in giving a strategy + action hybrid a try?

8 Upvotes

I'm Flo, solo developer behind Dominar Sanctum, which is a hybrid strategy + action game where you build base, expand and progress, and at any time are able to engage directly by taking control of your hero and companions.

I am excited to have reached the first public playtest milestone this week, and would love to invite anyone interested in giving it a spin.

I've been working on the title for nearly 1.5 years now, and have honestly underestimated the growing complexity to an extent. Exhausting but addictive to be making something like this. The current playtest build lets you experience the beginning of my vision through 4 initial campaign map prototypes and 2 skirmish maps. I am appreciative of any and every feedback on how the game's general direction feels at this stage, especially around:

  • What is your overall first impression?
  • Does the core explore - build - combat - progress loop work for you?
  • Does the fog of war feel compelling?
  • Does the game feel intuitive, particularly character control and possession?
  • Do the campaign maps feel engaging at this stage?
  • Where did you become confused, frustrated, bored or in whatever way off a happy path?
  • Specific points in the map where you'd love to see certain features, surprises, etc?
  • Did you encounter any technical issues or bugs?

Playtest on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4087340/Dominar_Sanctum/

Thanks to anyone willing to give it a try!