Does Balance Spoil Strategy Games? (Ep. 105)

Al, Drexy and newcomer Rob ask whether balance kills fun in strategy games. Prompted by an interview with Supreme Commander writer William Harms, they argue over asymmetry, patch culture, vocal multiplayer minorities and what made Supreme Commander work.

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This episode welcomes Rob, the founder of eXplorminate, back to the microphone after a long hiatus. Al starts from a conversation with William Harms about why Supreme Commander’s factions share the same gameplay, and asks whether balance helps or harms strategy games. Rob and Drexy argue that imbalance gives single player games their character and pushes players to think creatively, while Al insists the answer depends on how balance is done. The discussion covers patch culture, the influence of vocal multiplayer players, comeback mechanics, hard counters, why tanks cannot kill infantry in real time strategy games, and the idea that Supreme Commander gave every player the same canvas.

Critical Moves Podcast: Episode 105 Show Notes

Episode Title: Does Balance Kill Fun in Strategy Games?

Hosts: Al, Drexy, Rob

Episode Length: ~58 minutes

Episode Summary

Al is joined by Drexy and Rob, the founder of eXplorminate, who is appearing on a podcast for the first time since stepping away from his previous site. The question is deliberately simple: does balance kill fun in strategy games? Rob and Drexy argue strongly that it does, citing games such as AI War 2 and the original Master of Magic where imbalance forced creative play. Al takes a more cautious position, pointing to Supreme Commander and Empire at War as games that are balanced and still enjoyable. Along the way the hosts discuss patch culture, vocal multiplayer minorities, the Steam review chase, comeback mechanics, rock paper scissors counters and the question of why tanks struggle against infantry in classic real time strategy games.

Rob Joins the Show

Al welcomes Rob, who describes himself as the former founder of eXplorminate and says he and Drexy have recorded hundreds of podcasts together over the years. He explains that he has been on hiatus, that this is his first podcast in a long time and that he is recording on a headset, and jokes that he may be rusty.

The Question and William Harms

Al explains that the topic arose from an interview recorded for The Final Level, his new show launching in January 2027, which will interview programmers, composers, artists and writers from the games industry. One of the first guests was William Harms, who wrote the stories behind Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. Asked why the lore differences between the UEF, Cybran and Aeon factions do not carry over into gameplay, Harms said it was a conscious choice to keep the game balanced. Since Al regards Supreme Commander as great fun, he wondered whether balance kills fun at all, and invited the others to answer.

Have Games Become Too Balanced?

Drexy argues that over time games have become too balanced, driven by esports, multiplayer, the ability to patch and loud voices online. He says it removes the power fantasy of simply crushing everything in front of you. He adds that developers have good reasons to avoid broken systems, since a player needs self restraint or ruins the game for themselves.

Atari ST Trainers and Self Control

Drexy recalls buying Atari ST games from a car boot sale every Sunday, many of which came with trainers, which were effectively cheat menus. He would switch on every cheat, finish the game within a week and return the following Sunday for another. His point is that overpowered options are fun but should be something players work towards or discover, rather than hand over from the start.

Single Player Versus Multiplayer

Al asks whether the argument changes between single player and multiplayer. Rob says a finely tuned game can become boring, using Civilization as an example where identical units and similar civilisations lead to a stalemate. He argues multiplayer needs balance but that balance does not have to mean symmetry, giving Overwatch as an example of unbalanced characters that still work together. Al counters that a game where you are simply wiped out by superior units is not fun either.

AI War 2 and Impossible Odds

Rob offers AI War 2 as a game where the player faces impossible odds, which forces hit and run tactics and creative thinking. He believes imbalance in a single player game pushes the player outside the box, which he thinks most players want.

Are Newer Players Missing Out?

Drexy wonders whether newer players are missing the challenge and discovery that earlier players enjoyed, since he hears many people praise strategy games for vibes and looks rather than difficulty. He also points out that the sheer number of games makes it easy for players to hop around without discovering their depth.

Patch Culture and the Vocal Minority

Al blames patch culture and the gap between a silent majority and a vocal minority. In his Red Alert days, an unbalanced game was something you worked around, whereas now developers hear constant demands to nerf and buff units and often respond. He cites Stellaris as an example, and notes that most players are happy with a bit of imbalance because it creates a challenge.

Choosing Your Own Difficulty

Rob suggests players can already tailor their difficulty in games such as Stellaris and Age of Wonders 4 by choosing an overpowered build for a power trip or a weaker one for a challenge. Al accepts the idea but argues there is still a fine line between a game with a challenge and one that is stale.

Overpowered Needs a Counter

Drexy argues overpowered options should be hidden and discoverable rather than obvious at the start, and that anything overpowered needs either a counter or a downside, such as a nuke that damages your economy or food supply. Without that, whether the opponent is the AI or another player, it simply stops being fun.

StarCraft and Imbalanced Factions

Rob praises StarCraft and StarCraft 2 for balancing three very different factions by making each one lean into its strengths while protecting its weaknesses. He says that kind of balanced asymmetry is the exception, and that in single player games he would rather have the freedom to tailor his own experience.

Europa Universalis and Tailoring Your Experience

Rob adds that in Europa Universalis you can choose France or Bavaria to steamroll the map, or a tiny city state for a real struggle. Al notes that games with only two or three factions, such as Tempest Rising, give the player much less room to tailor the experience. Drexy replies that depth in the systems can make up for it, like the StarCraft meta, where players discovered and countered strategies the developers never planned.

Endless Legend 2 and Front Loading

Drexy calls Endless Legend 2 a very pretty surface with little underneath after 10 or 20 hours, and mentions Ben’s theory that modern developers frontload the best content to get players past Steam’s two hour refund window, or to secure positive reviews. Rob agrees that its asymmetry feels exciting in the opening hours but fades, with the late game becoming a matter of large armies marching around.

Steam Reviews, Social Media and Developers

Al asks whether Steam reviews and social media drive the trend. Drexy thinks the larger problem is that developers rarely play their own games beyond the first ten hours, while Al argues that review bombing can ruin a solo developer, making it very hard to ignore loud voices. Al recalls Tim’s experience on the Beyond All Reason design team, where complaints about particular units forced fixes to avoid community problems, and notes with regret that Tim has decided to step back from the podcast.

Beyond All Reason’s Single Player Campaign

The hosts note that Beyond All Reason is adding a single player campaign, with Hooded Horse publishing it and the multiplayer remaining free to play. Al does not know whether balance changes will carry over. Drexy argues that a game’s multiplayer and single player sides ought to be balanced differently, though he accepts this may make it harder for single player fans to move to multiplayer, while Al points out that esports have existed for decades without mass patches.

Quake and the Quad Damage

Drexy describes playing Quake from the first game to Quake 3 and says the increasingly balanced approach hurt it. He argues that the quad damage power up, which lasted 60 seconds in the earlier games and respawned more rarely in Quake 3, was a great comeback mechanic for a losing team and that he preferred a mod that restored the old timing. Al questions why that is a balance issue given anyone could take it, while Rob supports the view that the mechanic is exactly what modern games lack.

Chasing Good Steam Reviews

Rob argues that developers who try to please everyone water down their vision, saying some of the best games on Steam have mixed reviews because the developers stuck to a vision. He worries that if today’s review and patch culture had existed back then, AI War 2 designer Chris Park might have made the game easier. He also says most feedback is not useful.

Al’s Stance: It Depends

Al says the answer is not yes or no. Supreme Commander is among his favourite games and is supremely balanced because it has little asymmetry, while Empire at War shows a game that is asymmetric and still balanced. He adds that he only plays single player, enjoys roleplaying in Stellaris and sometimes uses console commands to enjoy the story he is building.

Situational Asymmetry

Rob proposes a design in which factions are strong at different moments, such as an early rush, a powerful midgame or a late game surge, with counters that exist but are not obvious. He thinks the key is that the strengths must feel powerful, and that finding a counter should feel rewarding and lead to new community strategies. He says Endless Legend games miss this.

Rock Paper Scissors and Random Tech Trees

Al asks whether rock paper scissors counter systems solve the problem or just become predictable. Rob thinks hard counters are boring if they are obvious, and would like randomised counters. Drexy suggests random tech trees do some of this, and Rob and Drexy agree that Sword of the Stars, where the weapon technologies you receive vary, is one of the few games to do it well, along with the armour and shield counters in Stellaris.

Tanks Versus Infantry in Command & Conquer

Al reads a post asking why tanks cannot easily kill infantry in Command & Conquer, which argued the answer is partly about value and threat, since real tanks carry machine guns and high explosive rounds that would be deadly to infantry. Drexy says RTS games simplify what wargames such as Graviteam Tactics and Combat Mission model in more depth, with trenches and cover. Rob adds that a game is not always trying to be realistic, and that if tanks dominated everything, you would just build thirty tanks.

Defcon Zero and Company of Heroes

Al says the developers of Defcon Zero gave their tanks machine guns, so infantry are wiped out when a tank rolls in, which he finds realistic but frustrating. Rob explains that infantry are valuable for their mobility in towns and buildings, and the group agrees that Company of Heroes and Combat Mission handle the relationship well by making infantry necessary for taking buildings and objectives.

StarCraft and APM

Al asks whether it is fun to lose a StarCraft match because of your actions per minute. Rob says mastering APM is the point of those games and that it is a puzzle for some people but not for him, and Al and Drexy agree that it is not for them either.

Rob’s Hard No

Rob says his answer is a hard no: games do not need to be balanced to be fun, and the games he has enjoyed most, such as the original Master of Magic, were among the most imbalanced.

Does Multiplayer Have Too Much Influence?

Drexy argues that developers know most players are single player, often 90 percent or more, but that the loud multiplayer minority shapes design anyway. Rob recalls Brad Wardell of Stardock saying that only around 5 percent of his audience played multiplayer, but that they were the people complaining most, sometimes with review bombing, and that this waters down the single player experience.

What Made Supreme Commander Fun?

Drexy asks Al where the fun in Supreme Commander came from if it was so balanced. Al says it was the scale: mistakes could be recovered from, the games felt like theatres of war rather than single battlefields, and there were tech levels, experimentals, superweapons, air transports and cloaking, so players had many tactical options. Every faction had very similar units, with the main battle tanks differing only slightly, and every player had access to the same tools.

Unit Variety and the Canvas

Rob points out that Supreme Commander’s large roster is itself a form of asymmetry, since players choose which units to counter what their opponent builds, and contrasts it with Endless Legend 2, where the small roster leaves one obvious answer to each threat. Drexy sums up Al’s point by saying that everyone got the same canvas and the fun came from the colours each player applied. Al and Rob take the compliment with some humour.

Final Verdicts

Al asks for one final word. Drexy says yes, balance kills fun, one hundred percent. Rob says he agrees, because his favourite gaming moments are full of imbalance. Al remains on the fence, conceding some points but holding that balance has to be done carefully. He thanks Rob and Drexy and notes that the back catalogue now stands at 105 episodes for a podcast that is two years and one week old.

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Episode Verdict

This is a spirited debate in which Rob’s return gives Drexy a natural ally, and Al ends up outnumbered but unmoved. The strongest section is the single player versus multiplayer discussion, where the hosts connect patch culture, review bombing and the vocal minority into a coherent argument about why developers feel pressure to balance games for a small audience. Al’s defence of Supreme Commander is the best counterweight, since it forces the others to concede that variety of options and scale can deliver the same creative freedom as imbalance, a point Drexy sums up neatly with the canvas image. The tanks versus infantry tangent is entertaining and a little loosely tied to the main question, and the hosts agree more than they admit, since nobody wants a game with an unbeatable unit or no counters. Al ends on a measured it depends, which feels fair given how many of the examples cut both ways.