Strategy games face a fundamental question that developers can’t afford to ignore: does your game need a story? The answer isn’t as simple as you might expect, and the financial stakes are higher than most realize. The Economics of Narrative Investment Creating compelling narratives costs serious money. Full voice acting, pre-rendered cutscenes, historical research, location rights. These expenses can push a game from indie to AAA territory based on story investment alone. Miss the mark on narrative quality, and your...
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A Strategy Gaming Podcast
What is Heroes of Might and Magic? A Critical Moves Episode Breakdown In the latest Critical Moves podcast episode, hosts Adam and Tim attempted to convince Al, who has never touched the series, that Heroes of Might and Magic deserves his attention. They failed spectacularly, but the conversation revealed why this 30-year-old strategy series remains Poland’s unofficial national sport. Breaking Down the Genre Confusion Al’s initial confusion was understandable. Adam’s opening description – “high fantasy science fiction RPG” – sent...
Featuring Joe Beard from Example of Play This week’s guest is Joe Beard, the creator of Example of Play, a YouTube channel that fixes a problem developers still haven’t worked out: teaching people how to actually play their strategy games. Joe’s not in it for clickbait or glory. He makes clear, no-nonsense tutorials for complex games, especially the ones with terrible or non-existent tutorials. Think obscure war games and overcomplicated 4X systems that launch with a PDF manual and a...
The Critical Moves podcast crew spent their Independence Day discussing indie games. Here’s what they covered, without the usual podcast rambling. The Last General: Modern Warfare Done Right One developer is building what Broken Arrow should have been. The Last General tackles modern military combat at the strategic level—you’re the theater commander, not some grunt managing individual soldiers. The scale here is impressive. Million-plus procedurally generated battlefields. Post-Cold War setting with Western Alliance versus Eastern Bloc forces. You control companies,...
The title sounds simple enough — but the reality is a mess. In Episode 35, Tim, Adam, and Jack try to untangle what makes a strategy game worthy of the top spot. Is it innovation? Execution? Scale? They don’t agree on much, but they do surface some patterns — and a few painful truths about the genre in 2025. Tim opens the discussion with a question that should be easy: what makes something Strategy Game of the Year material? But...
When did the best RTS games get made, and why haven’t we seen anything like them since? This week on Critical Moves, Al, Jack, and Tim rewind to the golden age of real-time strategy to figure out what made that era so good. From peak base-building to iconic faction design, it was a time when RTS games felt fast, focused, and everywhere. If you were there, you remember. If you weren’t, here’s what you missed. WHY IT FELT LIKE A...
Battlesector is one of my favourite Warhammer games. I’ve always preferred the action of real-time to the thinking behind turn-based, but this game is fast paced (for a turn-based tactics game). I’m playing through the full campaign Age of Crimson Dawn, starting with the first mission and covering the entire campaign. Mission one is here: And you can follow the full series on this playlist: Let’s Play Warhammer 40,000 Battlesector. Let me know what you think in the comments, and...
In this episode of Critical Moves, we sit down with Tatsu, a game developer with a background in both traditional tech and indie strategy projects. Tim and Jack join him for a wide-ranging discussion about breaking into the industry, surviving the learning curve, and building games that actually work. MEET TATSU Tatsu doesn’t come from a typical game dev background. He got started in engineering, drifted into modding, and gradually moved toward designing and developing strategy games with a focus...
World War II has inspired more strategy games than any other historical period. Some are still brilliant. Some are best left in the archives. In this episode, Nuno leads a full tour through the genre’s best and worst, with Al jumping in with questions and commentary as they go. Hearts of Iron IV and the Grand Strategy Giant Nuno starts with Hearts of Iron IV, which still dominates the WWII grand strategy space. It’s big, complex, and strangely addictive. You’re...
Speed Freeks is a multiplayer-only vehicle combat game set in the Warhammer 40K universe, built around the Orks and their obsession with speed, dakka, and barely functional mechanics. It mixes team-based objective modes with high-speed vehicular chaos, somewhere between Twisted Metal, Overwatch, and Rocket League—if you stripped out polish, added a lot of yelling, and duct-taped rockets to scrap. You choose from a roster of Ork vehicles, each falling into classic roles: Damage, Tank, or Support. Every one of them...
Block Fortress 2 hits you with a strange mix of nostalgia and ambition. It’s the kind of game that feels like a long-lost favourite from your teenage years—but it’s also clearly trying to be something bigger than just a mobile-to-PC port. At its best, it delivers a rewarding loop of planning, building, and direct combat. At its worst, it shows the rough seams of early access, unrefined UI, and balancing problems that push players toward one optimal strategy. What’s clear...
The conversation starts with the Paradox beast that is Victoria 3. Tim and Adam have clearly lost dozens of hours to it already, while Joe shares his obsession with playing smaller, underdog nations. There’s plenty of banter about Japan, Belgium, Haiti, Ethiopia and about how these nations let you impose your own stories and challenges. The group agrees: the real hook isn’t conquest. It’s the numbers. Big numbers. Going up. That’s the drug. They talk multiplayer, historical quirks, and the...
Welcome back to Critical Moves. This is Episode 30, and we’re doing something inevitable, talking Warhammer. Specifically, Warhammer strategy games. Al’s in the host seat this week, joined by Joe for a rare one-on-one episode that digs into Games Workshop’s long, weird relationship with the strategy genre. The episode kicks off with Al admitting the Warhammer Skulls showcase has been on his radar more than usual this year. Partly because it’s always a mixed bag, and partly because the Warhammer...
In this episode of Critical Moves, the crew look at what happens when popular franchises take a shot at the strategy genre. Jack hosts, joined by Tim and Adam, for a wide-ranging discussion on games like Halo Wars, Battle for Middle-earth, Minecraft Legends, and Dune: Spice Wars. From cult classics to tactical misfires, it’s a conversation that covers the good, the bad, and the copyright. Jack opens with a reminder of Episode 5’s wishlist of franchises we wanted to see...
Welcome back to the Critical Moves Podcast. This week’s episode is a change of pace. We’re not covering one big topic, announcement, or interview. Instead, we’re doing something a little more relaxed: talking about the strategy games we’ve been playing lately. From grand campaign builders to multiplayer RTS brawls, the team shares what’s been keeping us busy and what’s fallen flat. Jack joins us for his first full episode as a regular host, and we’re glad to have him. So,...
It’s May the Fourth, and we’re celebrating the only way that makes sense—by talking about the newly announced Star Wars strategy game: Star Wars Zero Company. In Episode 27 of Critical Moves, Al is joined by Joe and Nuno to break down everything we know about the game, plus a little history on Star Wars strategy games in general. Expect praise, pessimism, some EA-flavoured rage, and the phrase “space wizards” used unironically. The Ghosts of Strategy Past Before getting into...
It took six people and twenty-six episodes, but Critical Moves finally turned the mic around. This episode isn’t about a theme or a debate—it’s about questions from the community. Al is joined by Nuno, Joe, Tim, Adam, and newcomer Jack for a sprawling, chaotic, and strangely wholesome chat where they look back on the podcast so far and answer everything you’ve been asking. There are moments of reflection, plenty of sarcasm, and at least one relationship-threatening moment involving a microphone,...
With the release of Tempest Rising just around the corner, Tim and Al sat down with Brandon Casteel, the game’s lead designer, to talk about the past, present, and future of this throwback real-time strategy title. Are We in an RTS Revival?Brandon pushes back on the idea of an RTS revival. While the genre has had flurries of attention, it tends to be cyclical. He points out that multiple indie developers and publishers are keeping the genre alive, like MicroProse...
Which side are you on? Turn-based or real-time? In Episode 24 of Critical Moves, Al, Nuno, and Tim try (and mostly fail) to take sides in the ongoing debate between strategy game formats. There’s plenty of banter, some solid history, and a few digs at Civilization 7 along the way, but it turns out that, shockingly, they all enjoy both. RTS vs. Turn-Based: Is It Really a Debate? Tim makes a solid case for real-time strategy being more reactive and...
In Episode 23 of Critical Moves, Al, Nuno, and Tim unpack Broken Arrow, a large-scale real-time tactics game that blurs the lines between milsim ambition and arcade execution. Based on hands-on time with the preview build, the team breaks down where the game shines, where it fumbles, and whether it’s shaping up to be something genuinely special – or just another middle-of-the-road tactics game with a flashy coat of paint. There’s a running debate throughout the episode about what Broken...