Strategy gamers aged 30-60 with full-time jobs and families average five hours weekly for gaming—roughly 300 hours annually. The Critical Moves team examines which strategy titles respect that constraint while delivering substantive experiences, covering everything from Total War’s naval combat to Dwarf Fortress’s emergent narratives.
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This episode confronts the practical reality facing most strategy gamers: severely limited time. Research shows players in their 30s through 60s with jobs and families manage approximately five hours weekly for gaming, totalling just 300 hours annually. Jack, Al, and Joe evaluate strategy games across multiple subgenres—grand strategy, city builders, colony simulators—based on accessibility, learning curves, and whether meaningful progress occurs in short sessions. The hosts debate whether immersion conflicts with time management, examine how prior experience affects perceived complexity, and question whether campaign-style games serve time-limited players better than isolated matches. The discussion concludes with significant industry analysis regarding Paradox Interactive’s handling of Colossal Order and the Cities Skylines franchise, plus an Arc Raiders subscriber challenge.
Critical Moves Podcast – Episode 64 Show Notes
Episode Title: 300 Hours to Game in 2026: Empire Total War, Cities Skylines, and Dwarf Fortress
Hosts: Jack, Al, Joe
Episode Length: ~45 minutes
Episode Summary
The sixty-fourth episode of Critical Moves addresses a reality most strategy gamers face but rarely discuss openly: severe time constraints. Research indicates gamers aged 30-60 with full-time employment and family responsibilities average five hours weekly for gaming—approximately 300 hours annually. Rather than suggesting quick-match competitive titles or simplistic mobile games, the hosts examine campaign-based strategy games that accommodate irregular play sessions while maintaining engagement. The discussion reveals fundamental tensions between accessibility and depth, questions whether immersion conflicts with time management, and analyses how prior genre experience affects learning curves. The episode concludes with substantial analysis of Paradox Interactive’s controversial handling of Colossal Order and the Cities Skylines franchise.
Al’s Pick: Empire Total War
Al initially considered recommending Stellaris but switched to Empire Total War, arguing it occupies the sweet spot between arcade accessibility and strategic complexity. The game offers multiple gameplay layers—grand strategy campaign management, diplomacy, trade, and real-time tactical battles—without requiring the thousands of hours needed to master Paradox’s most complex titles.
The key advantage lies in flexibility. Players can engage with the full campaign experience, managing Britain’s conquest of India over months, or simply play custom battles for an evening of naval combat and cavalry charges. The game doesn’t demand continuous attention—players can make tea for the kids, handle work obligations, or deal with family matters, then return without losing track of strategic positioning.
Empire Total War distinguishes itself through naval combat that remains unmatched in the Total War series. The Age of Gunpowder setting introduces line infantry, cannons, and naval warfare that fundamentally changes tactical considerations compared to earlier Total War titles focused on melee combat.
iPad Accessibility and Platform Flexibility
Joe raises an excellent point about Empire Total War’s availability on iPad, significantly expanding accessibility beyond PC-only gaming. Al notes that approximately four to five months before recording, Creative Assembly released iPad-exclusive DLC featuring 44 new factions and 14 new ships—an entirely different version of the game available on mobile platforms.
This cross-platform availability matters tremendously for time-limited players. An iPad version enables gaming during lunch breaks, commutes, or moments when accessing a gaming PC isn’t practical. The ability to play the same campaign across different devices maximizes those precious 300 annual hours.
Jack’s Microphone Disaster
Jack recounts how Empire Total War apparently destroyed his microphone quality. After Al recommended the game following discussions about Total War’s Medieval 3 announcement and the Warhammer game reveal at the Game Awards, Jack purchased Empire during a sale. The game featured an unusual audio calibration system that scanned hardware to determine optimal audio settings—something Jack had never encountered before.
After running this calibration, his microphone quality degraded dramatically. Everyone on Discord now asks him to lower his volume or stop yelling. Jack blames Empire Total War for ruining his audio quality on Critical Moves, though the actual cause remains mysterious.
Complexity and Prior Experience
Jack initially viewed Empire Total War as too complex for time-limited players, similar to Stellaris with its nested menus and systems requiring extensive memory of previous strategic decisions. However, Al’s perspective reveals how prior experience dramatically affects perceived complexity.
Al played Empire Total War after thousands of hours in Rome Total War and Medieval Total War. He understood settlements, armies, turn-based campaign maps, and battle mechanics before touching Empire. The core systems—lining up troops, charging, retreating, formations, flanking—remained consistent across Total War titles. Empire simply added Age of Gunpowder elements like cannons and line infantry, changing tactical considerations without altering fundamental gameplay.
This highlights a critical point: complexity is relative. For Jack, encountering Total War for the first time, Empire seemed insurmountable. For Al, with extensive Total War experience dating back to Medieval in 2001, the game felt immediately accessible despite its added complexity.
The Manual Era
Al recalls purchasing Medieval Total War in 2001 when YouTube either didn’t exist or offered nothing useful for learning games. Players bought physical copies at shops and read included manuals on the bus ride home. That manual provided the only learning resource—no YouTube tutorials, no wikis, no online guides.
This created different expectations. Players invested time learning systems through documentation rather than expecting immediate entertainment. Modern players often demand instant accessibility, which fundamentally different titles like Empire Total War may not provide without prior Total War experience.
Jack’s Pick: Cities Skylines (Original)
Jack recommends Cities Skylines 1 specifically, not the troubled sequel. The game offers two distinct play modes: hardcore simulation where players maintain detailed spreadsheets, pre-plan cities based on real urban planning principles, and obsess over realistic details, or casual play where cities develop organically based on immediate problems and practical solutions.
For time-limited players, the casual approach works perfectly. Players zone roads, watch cities grow, address traffic problems or crime waves as they emerge, and return weeks later without feeling lost. Unlike grand strategy games with moving AI opponents and forgotten diplomatic relations, Cities Skylines presents a static canvas. Players review their city’s current state and immediately understand what makes sense next.
Scenario Mode for Time-Limited Players
Al highlights Cities Skylines’ scenario system, which Jack didn’t initially mention. Rather than building megalopolises from scratch over months, players can jump into pre-made cities with specific problems—crime out of control, traffic gridlocked, economy collapsing—and spend an hour solving that particular challenge as the new mayor.
This provides perfect bite-sized gameplay for someone with limited time. No need to invest dozens of hours building infrastructure before encountering interesting problems. Scenarios deliver immediate strategic challenges without long-term campaign commitments.
The Immersion Time Paradox
Jack argues that Paradox games excel at creating immersive experiences that make hours fly by. Even spending an entire hour just connecting the interstate to your city feels rewarding because the immersion makes time pass quickly without feeling wasted.
Al respectfully disagrees, pointing out the contradiction between immersion and time management. True immersion means looking up to discover the sun rising after an all-night session. With 7,000 hours in Cities Skylines 1, Al knows the game functions as a massive time sink. Players intend to spend an hour building one neighbourhood and suddenly four hours have passed because they’re placing individual buildings by hand, adding props, constructing car parks with cars in every parking space.
The game’s depth enables endless detail work. Players can drag roads and zone districts quickly, or spend hours placing every individual building to create visually perfect cities. The choice between efficiency and perfectionism determines whether that hour stays an hour or becomes four.
Picking Up After Extended Breaks
Jack’s strongest argument centres on Cities Skylines’ strength after extended breaks. Unlike Stellaris where players forget diplomatic relations and strategic plans after a week, Cities Skylines players simply examine their city’s current state and understand available options. No enemy AI made moves during the break. No NPCs changed diplomatic stances. The city exists in the same state, waiting for the player’s next decision.
Al agrees, adding that players can completely change focus between sessions. His current city has 130,000 population with an impressive city centre and growing suburbs. One evening, rather than continuing that development, he started building a forestry industry area in previously undeveloped woodland. Cities Skylines doesn’t require sequential progression—players can work on completely different city sections each session based on current mood.
Cities Skylines 1 Versus 2
Both hosts strongly prefer Cities Skylines 1. Jack notes the original is simpler on the surface but actually more complex due to comprehensive modding scenes and extensive DLC. The Industries DLC, for example, adds oil, forestry, and dedicated industrial zones that significantly increase complexity for players wanting that depth.
Al tried Cities Skylines 2 but returned to the original because the sequel felt incomplete—missing so much content that it seemed like half a game. For time-limited players, Cities Skylines 1 offers far more content, better mod support, and years of community refinement.
Joe’s Pick: Dwarf Fortress
Joe champions Dwarf Fortress as the perfect time-limited game, describing it as a city builder/4X hybrid that becomes a role-playing game depending on perspective. Players manage a colony of dwarves with entirely open-ended goals. The first hour might involve building the world and designing starting dwarves. The next session begins actual fortress construction.
Within a few hours, Dwarf Fortress becomes an “ant farm game” where players watch dwarf ants milling about doing their thing. The game supports jumping in and out easily—players reassess situations each session and set micro goals. Someone could pursue world domination incrementally, hour by hour, or simply decide to raise chickens. Joe mentions reading about a player who spent his time breeding the largest possible rabbits within Dwarf Fortress. The scope is limitless, but players can make it as small as desired.
Losing is Fun: The Dwarf Fortress Philosophy
Dwarf Fortress operates on the principle that “losing is fun.” Players inevitably die because most can’t resist digging deeper, building more weapons, and accumulating wealth. The wealthier the fortress, the more the rest of the world notices. Eventually, goblins, necromancers, and ogres attack repeatedly until the fortress falls.
Game length depends entirely on defensive skill and when players get bored. Not everyone enjoys the ant farm phase—some players build until feeling safe, then lose interest. Of course, players are never actually safe.
Session length varies dramatically. Joe can’t complete a successful fortress in an hour, but players can build successful fortresses over a month with just 20 hours of play, jumping in daily for short sessions.
Siege Warfare Evolution
Recent updates made defensive survival significantly harder. Attackers now arrive with battering rams, ladders, and picks. Trolls accompanying goblin forces will dig directly into fortresses. The old strategy of digging deep and covering the entrance with a locked hatch no longer works—invaders simply break through.
Modern defensive strategies involve elaborate trap systems. Players create flood rooms or magma chambers that incinerate invaders. Joe’s preferred approach involves training animals caught in caverns—cave dragons, war elephants, and other dangerous creatures—then stationing them in a “kill room” at the fortress entrance. Invaders run directly through this gauntlet rather than attempting to dig alternate routes.
Legends Mode and Historical Simulation
Jack highlights Dwarf Fortress’s extensive logging system. The game simulates everything and makes that information accessible. Players who forget what happened during the previous week can scroll through the in-game wiki to discover their population was decimated by disease, werebeasts invaded, platinum was discovered, or new construction completed.
Dwarf Fortress exists in two versions: the free original and the paid Steam version with graphical upgrades. Jack primarily used the free version’s world-building tool, which simulates entire worlds—creating religions, gods, civilizations, and complete histories—then allows using that as a “world bible” for reference.
Joe shares an example from his fortress: an immigrant arrived who was secretly a vampire. Twice yearly, dwarves started dying mysteriously. Joe eventually identified a dwarf with suspiciously numerous skills and abilities, sent him on a suicide mission to a goblin fortress, and the deaths stopped. Later, in Legends Mode, Joe read the vampire’s complete 250-year history—cursed by a god 200 years before joining the fortress, then finally killed by goblins. The game simulates and records all this history in minutes. Many players spend hours just reading Legends Mode rather than actually playing.
Learning Curve Considerations
Joe acknowledges Dwarf Fortress has a steep learning curve. However, the tutorial covers basics in approximately 30 minutes, leaving players capable of continuing though many mechanics remain unknown. Players figure out additional systems gradually through experience.
This contrasts with Empire Total War and Cities Skylines, which don’t require watching YouTube tutorials before playing. Creative Assembly and Paradox are experienced developers with reputations for accessible onboarding. However, Joe argues that despite the steeper initial curve, Dwarf Fortress works well for time-limited players once basics are understood.
Jack’s Additional Pick: Mount & Blade II Bannerlord
Jack suggests Mount & Blade II Bannerlord for similar reasons as Cities Skylines. While nobody lives in feudal societies raiding villages and dispersing troops, the game tackles core management mechanics that strategy players want. The simulated world includes logging systems like Dwarf Fortress where players can scroll back through events.
The systems feel intuitive despite the unfamiliar setting. Players understand basic concepts even without real-world experience with medieval warfare and kingdom management. Mount & Blade presents management and strategic concepts in ways that feel accessible to modern players.
Why No RTS Games?
Al raises an interesting observation: nobody suggested RTS games like Beyond All Reason, Supreme Commander, or Broken Arrow—games where each match is an isolated incident. Instead, all picks feature campaigns, longevity, and sequences of events requiring tracking across sessions.
This reveals assumptions about what time-limited players want. The hosts gravitated toward persistent experiences that develop over weeks or months rather than one-hour matches that end completely. Perhaps this reflects personal preferences, or perhaps it suggests that players with only 300 annual hours prefer experiences that feel like ongoing projects rather than isolated competitive matches.
Accessibility and Learning Investment
Al suggests the fundamental issue is accessibility. Strategy games typically require significant time investment and system learning. Cities Skylines succeeds partly because learning to play takes minimal time—build a road, zone it, and you’re playing. From there, complexity builds gradually. Players can skim the surface successfully without deep system mastery.
Empire Total War offers similar flexibility through custom battles. Players don’t need to build empires or engage with grand strategy elements. Someone can play a siege battle for an evening, enjoying explosive combat and cavalry charges without touching campaign mechanics.
The question becomes whether games should require YouTube tutorials before playing. Empire Total War might need that initial investment without prior Total War experience, but that hour of learning unlocks extensive gameplay possibilities.
The Paradox/Colossal Order Situation
Al shifts to discussing why Paradox Interactive has “dropped down a peg or two” in his estimation. While they make great games, their morality regarding Colossal Order needs questioning. In episode 59 covering city builders, Critical Moves discussed how Paradox removed Cities Skylines from Colossal Order and transferred it to Ice Flake Studios, an internal Paradox studio. The hosts found this predatory.
Community member Lin Manfu responded to the episode’s request for insights, posting comprehensive analysis in the Discord’s episode discussions channel on January 5th. One particularly striking detail: “cosmic irony in that Colossal Order’s fate was sealed by city planning factors.” Ice Flake and Colossal Order operate in the same city.
The strategy appears straightforward: Paradox removed Cities Skylines from Colossal Order and gave it to Ice Flake. Developers who worked on Cities Skylines at Colossal Order will now apply for vacancies at Ice Flake Studios, transferring to the studio working on Cities Skylines 2. This ultimately leads to Colossal Order’s demise—not only did Paradox take their flagship game, they’re also poaching all their staff.
Industry Parallels and Predatory Practices
Jack draws parallels to Halo’s developer transitions. As intellectual property rights holder, Microsoft maintained Halo rights while the historical developer (Bungie) moved on. Microsoft then opened a new studio (343 Industries) and incentivized developers from Bungie to transfer, effectively poaching talent while maintaining the franchise.
Paradox executed the same strategy. They purposefully opened Ice Flake Studios in the same city as Colossal Order, making it geographically accessible. Their hiring pages probably feature attractive qualities, LinkedIn posts targeted to the local area, and enticing offers for developers who spent years building Cities Skylines.
This requires either following specialized media outlets covering industry politics or conducting independent journalism. It demonstrates serious dedication to understanding industry details beyond just playing games.
Implications for the 300-Hour Consumer
Jack connects this to the episode’s core topic. Cities Skylines features extensive DLC affecting gameplay and robust Steam Workshop mod support. Console ports exist with dedicated console mod systems. However, the transition between Colossal Order and Ice Flake Studios will permanently affect the game’s trajectory.
Paradox demonstrates a pattern. Recently, Stellaris console support underwent major transitions, dropping entire generations of older consoles. Those players are abandoned while future Stellaris content only supports current (or now previous) generation consoles as new hardware launches.
For consumers with only 300 annual gaming hours, Paradox’s pattern of affecting game trajectories, platform support, and development workflows matters significantly. Their decisions determine where you can play their games, how you play them, and whether your platform receives continued support.
Community Engagement Matters
Al emphasizes the value of community participation. When Critical Moves asks listeners to share thoughts, they genuinely mean it. Lin Manfu listened to episode 59, had relevant information, came to Discord, shared detailed analysis, and now the podcast discusses those insights on air.
The Critical Moves community operates differently from typical podcast audiences. The hosts want to know what listeners know and include them in the podcast’s ongoing story. Anyone with information relevant to discussed topics should join the Discord and share. That information gets incorporated into future episodes.
Al directs interested listeners to criticalmovespodcast.com/discord for the direct Discord link, then navigate to episode discussions to find Lynn’s comprehensive breakdown of the Paradox/Colossal Order/Ice Flake situation.
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Episode Verdict
This episode successfully demonstrates that strategy gaming remains viable for time-limited players, though game selection matters tremendously. Empire Total War’s flexibility between campaign depth and custom battle accessibility serves different moods and available time. Cities Skylines 1 enables meaningful progress in short sessions while supporting both perfectionist detail work and efficient casual play. Dwarf Fortress delivers emergent narratives and open-ended goals that accommodate irregular play patterns once basics are mastered. Mount & Blade II Bannerlord provides intuitive management systems despite unfamiliar settings.
The discussion reveals that perceived complexity depends heavily on prior experience—veterans find familiar systems immediately accessible while newcomers face steeper learning curves regardless of actual mechanical complexity. Time-limited players benefit more from campaign-style persistent experiences than isolated competitive matches, suggesting they prefer ongoing projects over resetting progress each session.
The Paradox/Colossal Order analysis demonstrates how publisher decisions affect long-term value for time-limited players. Platform support, development trajectories, and studio transitions determine whether those precious 300 annual hours remain well-invested or whether games lose support for preferred platforms.
Next Episode: Terra Invicta: The Long War From The Shadows
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