5 Strategy Games Perfect for Beginners

Strategy games have a reputation outside of the community for being tough to break. Impenetrable mechanics, tutorials which assume you know what you’re doing, and punishing enemies who will ruin you if you put one foot wrong. That reputation is well earned. It’s not the easiest genre to get into, but there are games out there which make the transition from FPS and platformers a little easier. Here’s a list. Five games that are perfect for beginners.

And if you’re still struggling, drop by our Discord or forum and we’ll be happy to help.
Some links in this article are affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

5. Crusader Kings III

Maybe an odd title to start this list, because Crusader Kings III looks complex and intimidating, but it’s not. It’s a grand strategy title covering medieval Europe from 867 to 1453, and the interface is dense with menus, modifiers, and dynastic intrigue. Paradox redesigned the entire onboarding process for the third entry in the series making it great for newcomers, and the RPG gameplay makes it feel more human and less mechanical than its predecessors. It’s a game about managing people. Scheming courtiers, ambitious relatives, and rival rulers who each have their own agendas. The tutorial covers the essentials and early scenarios are forgiving enough for you to make mistakes and still enjoy the game. Once the game logic clicks and understanding sets in, there’s few titles which are as compulsive. That depth which looked so overwhelming at the start becomes the reason you cannot stop playing. Crusader Kings III is available on the Humble Bundle store.

4. Company of Heroes 3

The Company of Heroes series has always been one of the most recognised and popular franchises in real-time tactics wargaming, and the third instalment comes at you with the best tutorial system yet. The game is set across the North African and Italian theatres of World War II and asks you to manage small squads in close-quarters combat. Use cover, suppression and combined-arms warfare to outmanoeuvre and defeat your opponent. The small scale of engagements ensures that you can keep track of everything that is happening on screen and the mechanics reward positioning and timing over the kind of rapid-fire production (often referred to as APM – actions per minute) that plague other, more hardcore, RTS titles. Skirmish mode, and a dynamic campaign give you plenty of material to work through before you decide whether to tackle multiplayer. Company of Heroes 3 is available on Steam.

3. Northgard

Northgard is a viking-themed city builder and RTS hybrid with a pace that prioritises thoughtful resource management over APM. It is designed to give players room to think before they take action. Settle territories, assign workers, and survive through brutal Scandinavian winters before eventually expanding into conflict with rival clans. The resource management is simple enough with only fifteen assets to manage such as food, wood and stone, and the map is divided into discrete zones. Each of the games’ clans plays differently enough to hold interest across multiple campaigns. Northgard sits at the perfect intersection of settlement management and real-time strategy in such a way that neither veterans nor complete newcomers will find it alienating. So many complaints about strategy games from new players is the impossible, frenetic pace. Northgard slows things down and allows you to enjoy the experience. Northgard is available on the Humble Bundle store.

2. Into the Breach

Into the Breach achieved its elegance by stripping the turn-based strategy formula down to the essentials and presenting them through perfect mechanics. Your mission is to command a squadron of mechs in defence of human cities against waves of insectoid aliens. Each enemy attack is telegraphed before it happens, there is no fog of war hiding what’s going on, no hidden dice rolls (often referred to as RNG – random number generation) and no information is withheld from you. The game presents a series of puzzles and gives you the tools required to solve them. The perfect information design of Into the Breach means that when something goes wrong you understand exactly why. There’s education, not frustration, in failure. Each run is short enough to be completed in a few hours, so there is a pick-up-and-play element to Into the Breach which keeps it accessible, and there’s enough variety to make each attempt feel meaningfully different. Mastery feels earned rather than ground out. Into the Breach is available on the Humble Bundle store.

1. Civilization VI

The Civilization series coined the phrase “Just One More Turn” which many people use to describe the incredible addictive quality of turn-based games. Civilization set the standard, and the sixth entry in the series perfected it. Firaxis’ long running 4X series wraps an enormous amount of mechanical depth in a structure that is immediately understandable. Expand your cities, research technologies, build an army and outlast rival civilizations across thousands of years of human history. The tutorials are thorough without a hint of condescension, and the pace is forgiving enough so that mistakes rarely prove to be fatal. Civ6 introduced a districts system requiring players to plan their cities spatially on the map rather than just clicking through menus. Like much of Civ6, the more you understand this system, the more rewarding the game becomes. The sheer volume of available content, including the Gathering Storm and Rise and Fall expansions means you’ll never run out of “Just One More Turn” material or new problems to solve. Civilization VI is available on the Humble Bundle store.

The strategy genre rewards patience and curiosity more than any other, and every veteran you see dominating multiplayer ladders started exactly where you are. Pick one of these, take your time with it, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. That’s what the Discord or forum are there for. See you on the battlefield!