The Innovation Problem in Strategy Games | Dr. Ben Angell Returns (Ep.73)

Jack and Tim welcome back Dr. Ben Angell to examine why strategy gaming struggles with innovation despite an apparent renaissance.

https://criticalmovespodcast.com/listen

The discussion reveals how nostalgic RTS developers create spiritual successors for audiences wanting “the good old days back.” Ben explains why most modern RTS games are clones of four titles: Command & Conquer, Supreme Commander, Warcraft 3, and Starcraft 2. The hosts explore why turn-based games succeed at cross-genre innovation while RTS remains derivative. They examine Anno 117’s disappointing safe choices after Anno 1800’s unexpected success. Ben addresses the tutorialization crisis that excludes new players. Tim reveals the challenges of developing Beyond All Reason’s third faction. Jack questions whether live service models could bring strategy gaming to mainstream audiences. The conversation dissects Civilization 7’s controversial changes and its year-one walkback. The hosts debate whether “early accessification” represents healthy evolution or a problematic normalization of releasing unfinished products.

Innovation in Strategy Games – Why Is Everything a Spiritual Successor?

Hosts: Jack, Timothy
Guest: Dr. Ben Angel
Episode Length: ~62 minutes

Episode Summary

Episode 73 of Critical Moves reunites Jack and Tim with Dr. Ben Angell. He was previously interviewed about Age of Empires 2’s Alexander the Great Chronicles DLC. This time, the hosts examine why strategy gaming struggles with innovation despite an apparent renaissance.

The conversation reveals that most modern RTS titles function as clones of four foundational games: Command & Conquer, Supreme Commander, Warcraft 3, and Starcraft 2. These games are created by nostalgic veterans for audiences wanting “the good old days back” rather than fresh experiences.

The discussion distinguishes turn-based strategy’s relative innovation success through cross-genre pollination. Examples include RPG hero systems in Endless Legend 2, alternating activation in Menace, and base building in XCOM. This contrasts with RTS’s derivative stagnation. The hosts examine whether Paradox innovates sufficiently beyond their UI failures. They debate the relationship between tactics games and strategy given the increasing infrastructure focus in tactics titles.

Tim reveals the challenges of developing Beyond All Reason’s third faction while introducing new dynamics to a competitive two-faction balance. Ben addresses the tutorialization crisis that excludes new players through text dumps rather than interactive learning. Jack questions whether live service strategy games could achieve mainstream Helldivers 2 success if developers overcame their commercialization fears.

The discussion dissects Anno 117’s disappointing safe choices after Anno 1800’s unexpected success. The hosts examine Civilization 7’s controversial changes and the year-one Test of Time update that walked back era-switching while adding apex systems. They debate whether “early accessification” represents a healthy evolution or a problematic normalization of releasing unfinished products at full price.

Are Paradox Games Innovating?

UI Stagnation Despite Mechanical Experimentation

Jack frames the opening question around recent Critical Moves criticism. “We’ve been speaking a lot on the channel recently about Paradox titles,” he says. “We actually just had an episode go out a few weeks ago where we kind of ripped into Paradox games as far as whether or not they were innovating very well because of the DLC policy they had.” He notes that they take years to develop a game and then release it without early access. “But still it has all of those Paradox normalized bugs and broken features.”

Tim identifies a specific innovation failure. “I think innovation is a very broad topic in many ways,” he explains. “You can innovate in many different aspects of the game. And I think one thing that they’re not innovating enough in or well enough is something like UI.”

The critique cuts deep. “I think UI is something that is very traditional in a lot of ways in game design,” Tim continues. “And something that can be improved on massively to make new players feel like they can easily get into it.” He emphasizes that seasoned players should feel like they’re not fighting the UI. “Rather than having these menus and pop-ups and everything, they should feel like the UI is part of the experience.”

Mistakes as Part of the Innovation Process

Tim offers a partial defence. “I think Paradox is trying,” he says. “I think that they are playing around and sometimes they make mistakes and that’s part of innovation.” He explains that making mistakes is necessary. “Then you change course because you will never try something new and immediately do everything perfectly right. It’s about correcting course.”

Crusader Kings 3 as a Rare Success

Jack credits one title for solving the UI problem. “The most recent Paradox game that I’ve actually attempted to get into and that I would argue was made so easy because of the subject matter was Crusader Kings 3,” he says. “The UI was probably the best in a Paradox game I’ve played since Stellaris.”

His experience illustrates effective design. “I thought that it’s one of those things where you know when you’re going to get into it it’s going to be overwhelming,” Jack explains. “So I didn’t dedicate enough time to it before. But I’ve put a few hours into multiple games now and the UI is actually pretty easy to navigate. The moment you start to realize what those individual systems must be, then the UI speaks for itself.”

City Skylines receives an honourable mention. “I think one of the games that actually did that best was City Skylines maybe one and two,” Jack notes. “City Skylines one, especially having played that game before on console, it has a very convenient UI setup for console as well.”

RTS: The Four-Game Clone Problem

Ben’s Central Thesis

Ben articulates the derivative content crisis. “When you look at most of what’s coming out, they tend to fit into clones of four games,” he says. “It’s Command and Conquer, Supreme Commander/Total Annihilation, Warcraft 3, or Starcraft 2.” He notes these are being replicated over and over again. “Sometimes in minute detail with the same UI icons as Supreme Commander, things like this.”

Why RTS Differs From General Derivative Trends

Ben distinguishes RTS from other genres’ derivative problems. “Derivative content is something that’s afflicting every genre of video games and it’s afflicting media more generally,” he observes. “You look at films and it’s reboots and sequels and prequels. But I think it’s actually a very different phenomenon that we’re looking at in real-time strategy.”

The key difference becomes clear. “Whereas in maybe big games in the FPS or the RPG genre or big films, that tends to come from execs making safe bets,” Ben explains. “They don’t really care about creativity or innovation, we’ll do the same thing that we know is going to sell. I don’t think that’s what’s happening with RTS.”

Nostalgic Developers, Nostalgic Audiences

Ben identifies the real driver. “I think it more comes from the fact that the people who are making these games are people like us,” he says. “People who loved RTS back in the golden age and they want to recreate how they felt playing Command and Conquer.” They just want an updated version of what they love. “And who are they making it for? Again, people like us with the perception that we just want the good old days back.”

The paradox of this approach emerges. “That can be a good motivation,” Ben acknowledges. “But I think if you really want to recapture what it was like to experience those games back when they were made—they were new and fresh at the time—I don’t think you can simply copy them.”

Hope for Development

Ben expresses cautious optimism. “My hope over the next few years in the RTS genre will be that we start to develop a bit rather than just replicating what came out 20 years ago.”

Turn-Based Games Are Doing It Differently

Less Focus on Spiritual Successors

Jack identifies turn-based as an exception to the derivative trend. “I think that turn-based isn’t focused on doing spiritual successors,” he says. “I think that they have been moving forward.” He can’t necessarily point to a particular title from recent history that has introduced a feature he thinks needs to be in every other turn-based title. “But I certainly see far more turn-based games releasing on Steam where they’re doing something different mechanically.”

Menace’s Alternating Activation

Jack provides a specific example. “Even recently when we played Menace, it took me a second,” he recalls. “Because I’m used to a turn-based game being where you do everything in your turn and then you end your turn and then you allow the enemy AI to do everything, similar to something like Civ.”

The innovative twist stands out. “In the case of Menace, it was essentially that every single squad unit you had on the field had its own turn,” Jack explains. “And there was always chance based on speed numbers, almost like a CRPG, that the enemy’s AI units were going to go somewhere in between yours.”

The tactical implications proved challenging. “I would basically move my unit and then realize I made a mistake but then have spent those action points,” Jack says. “And then the enemy’s units would start moving and I’d be like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t move anything else on the field yet. I’m getting surrounded.'” It was just the case that the enemy had equipped their units better. “Their squads better to be faster than mine.”

Combination Over Pure Innovation

Jack’s conclusion emphasizes practical results. “They may not be innovating, but the combination of gameplay mechanics that they’re doing is a little bit more friendly towards innovation.”

Cross-Genre Pollination and New Genre Birth

Tim’s Evolution Theory

Tim frames innovation through a biological metaphor. “A lot of the innovation also comes from cross-genre pollination where some new elements from a different genre comes in and a new game or new subgenres is made,” he explains. “Like MOBA was a huge thing. It didn’t exist at all and then suddenly two elements from two different genres came together and created MOBA.” Now it’s one of the biggest video game genres.

The evolutionary perspective continues. “It’s kind of like an evolution type thing,” Tim says. “It evolves into something that is unrecognizable from what it used to be, but then the ones that stay are kind of like an old version regardless and isn’t as adapted.”

Simulation Plus Strategy

Tim identifies a promising frontier. “I think there’s still a lot of room to do cross-genre innovation especially with things like simulation together with strategy,” he observes. “I think that’s a really good cross-genre that has so much room still for innovation.” However, he acknowledges the challenge. “But it’s probably quite difficult to pull off and requires a lot of playing around and testing what works and what doesn’t and that requires a lot of time and effort.”

The MOBA Creation Story

Tim explains how MOBAs emerged. “That’s what created MOBA as well—it was created by custom maps,” he says. “So the barrier for entry was really low. People could play around with mechanics and there were thousands, tens of thousands of maps that were made.” These maps were made in way less effort than it took to make a whole game. “And then it was MOBA that came out as the most fun, as the most amount of people enjoying that.”

The lesson becomes clear. “The barrier for entry was really low to make a new kind of gameplay,” Tim emphasizes. “And I think that’s what allowed for that innovation because people tested out different ideas, people played different things and naturally what was most fun came out on top.”

Games Blurring the RTS Line

Ben’s Hesitation to Categorize

Ben identifies genre-bending successes. “Thinking about some of my favourite RTS games that sort of feel different and new that have come out recently, they’re ones that maybe I would hesitate to actually call RTS.”

They Are Billions and Here Comes the Swarm

Ben cites asymmetric examples. “They Are Billions, which I guess actually is quite old now, but also played Here Comes the Swarm’s demo, which has just come out,” he says. “I really like it. Feels really good.” He hesitates to call them RTS. “There’s something about an asymmetric game where the enemy isn’t quite behaving the same as you that makes me hesitate to sort of put it in with those other sorts of games mentioned before.”

The innovation source stands out. “That combo of sort of tower defence, wave defence with RTS with controllable units spawned a couple of very interesting games there.”

Calyx

Ben praises a recent release. “Calyx came out very recently and I love it,” he says enthusiastically. “It’s great. Finished the campaign. I’m looking forward to them adding more content. It’s really good.” Again, the asymmetry defines it. “It’s kind of asymmetric because you’re fighting against the big sprawling plant. But it’s kind of got that RTS core.” It feels like Command and Conquer base building and then you fight against the plant. “Sort of Creeper World is an inspiration there. But it’s kind of pulling things in and combining them together.”

Last Train Home

Ben mentions the furthest departure. “Last Train Home, which is I guess even further from RTS than those examples,” he notes. “But again, it’s kind of vaguely within that same thing, but it’s a combo of genres, and that felt new and creative and interesting and different.”

Hope Within Traditional RTS

Ben maintains optimism for the core genre. “I would hope still that there’s innovation space within what we might consider traditional RTS,” he says. “Maybe you can make something in the lineage of Command and Conquer but that doesn’t necessarily feel like Command and Conquer.”

The negative example clarifies his point. “Tempest Rising—that could have been Command and Conquer 5 basically. It didn’t necessarily feel too different.”

Steam Fest and Publisher Support

Ben identifies positive developments. “I think it is quite positive now that there is this sort of big community around the RTS scene,” he observes. “These Steam Fests with all sorts of demos coming up where people can put out ideas.” He acknowledges frustration. “Often it’s slightly frustrating sometimes how unfinished some of these demos are. But people can just put out ideas that you can play around with.”

Publisher intervention helps. “There are publishers now coming and swooping up these very small games and giving them a chance like Hooded Horse,” Ben notes. “Hooray for Hooded Horse. What a great job they’re doing. Microprose is back and picking up small projects. So I think there’s fertile ground.”

RPG Elements in Strategy

Endless Legend 2’s Anomaly Interactions

Jack explains the cross-pollination. “Endless Legend 2 introduced far more of those anomaly-esque interactions from Stellaris into their fantasy world, which also has a sci-fi undertone,” he says. “You run across anomalies in the world of Endless Legend. You have particular heroes that you recruit with backstories.” You equip them specifically like you would an RPG game. “You give them armour and weapons and magic items unique to their traits and then improve on their history.”

The friendship system stands out. “In Endless Legend, you were able to choose two of your heroes and then form a friendship between them,” Jack explains. “So you were canonically making it so that two of your heroes that would be generals of your armies were actually companions who had adventured together and had a backstory.” When their armies were next to each other fighting together, they received a bonus.

Stellaris as a Storytelling Platform

Jack identifies Stellaris’s true strength. “When we talk about Stellaris so much on the channel, I think the reason why Stellaris is so successful is because it is a wonderful platform for storytelling,” he argues. “More than it is almost a formula for a grand strategy game.”

Heart of the Machine’s Narrative Focus

Jack discusses Chris McElligott-Park’s approach. “Heart of the Machine, his idea was what if I just take all the different things I love about different strategy games,” Jack says. “So city building, random story pop-ups, and it feels a lot like something like Citizen Sleeper in the sense of the vibe that he’s trying to create.” It’s his most narrative game ever. “He said it was over 100,000, 150,000 words of narrative alone, or possibly way more than that.”

The narrative integration philosophy emerges. “It’s interesting to see a narrative platform be built for a title to justify its use,” Jack observes. “I think that’s what makes a game work—if you can aesthetically sell it or narratively sell it and then actually tie the gameplay into it.”

Should Tactics Be a Strategy Subgenre?

Jack’s Controversial Argument

Jack proposes a reclassification. “We had someone recently in the community bring up why tactics aren’t strategy games,” he says. “And I wanted to fight that with the idea that I feel like tactics games need to be a subgenre of strategy games.” He acknowledges this is his personal opinion. “Because I don’t know that there’s a bunch of innovation going on in tactics games in my experience at least. I feel like the most innovation that they’re doing is actually cross-pollinating by bringing more mechanics from strategy games.”

XCOM as a Test Case

Jack examines the genre-defining example. “One of the examples that was particularly brought up as a tactics game and not a strategy game was the first XCOM, XCOM Enemy Unknown,” he notes. “While I haven’t played Enemy Unknown very much, I looked into it.” He found something interesting. “There’s a big feature of Enemy Unknown, which is building the base, the ant farm, and the base is being built at a strategic aspect. That’s not tactical.”

The Where/When vs How Distinction

Jack references a common categorization. “A friend of mine always likes to bring up that strategy is where and when you fight and tactics is how you fight.”

His objection follows. “My problem with that is base building is at least in most of the capacities we see is largely a strategy mechanic,” Jack argues. “You’re building that for long-term economy effects. You’re building that for long-term gameplay effects. That’s not a tactics aspect where you’re building a base simply just to defend your units in that moment. It’s not a barricade.”

Genre Boundaries as Arbitrary

Ben acknowledges the fuzzy categories. “You opened up the can of worms of genre boundaries there and often it’s largely arbitrary, isn’t it?” he says. “I remember many years back when World in Conflict came out and arguing with people on the internet.” The argument was simple. “No, it’s not a real-time strategy game, it’s real-time tactics game. Why? Because there’s no economy. Because you don’t build a base.”

The feel-based classification emerges. “Often it’s just kind of what does it feel like?” Ben asks. “I loved Knights and Merchants back in the day. But I’m squeamish about calling it a real-time strategy. Why? You sort of build up your economy and your base and you build up an army.” He wonders if it’s because of its production chain-based economy. “Often the genre boundaries we have are very much based on kind of how it feels.”

Ben’s conclusion is diplomatic. “Certainly the idea that tactics and strategy—I mean, they’re clearly sort of related. It’s an odd can of worms.”

Simple Mechanics, Complex Systems

Tim’s Go Versus Chess Comparison

Tim articulates a core design philosophy. “I would like to see a little bit more of learning how to keep things simple mechanically but create a very complex system with that,” he says. “And a very easy to understand comparison would be something like Go versus Chess.” The mechanics differ dramatically. “Go mechanics are incredibly simple. You can explain Go in 30 seconds whereas Chess has some hidden mechanics, has some special rules and so on.”

The complexity distinction matters. “While both are complex, Go is—you could argue that Go is even more complex in strategy than Chess is even though Chess is more complex in mechanics than Go is.”

Player Experience Impact

Tim emphasizes the importance of accessibility. “I think the experience of a new player coming into the game and how many rules they need to learn, how many symbols and add-ons and whatever they need to know until they can start having fun is incredibly important,” he explains. “And then being able to use that simplicity and create a really complex system, I think gives a game a lot of depth and replayability.” You can be engaged with it for a really long time.

The Complexity Creep Problem

Tim identifies an expansion danger. “Sometimes they don’t try that at all,” he observes. “They just add complexity for complexity’s sake. Or sometimes the game starts off relatively simple but then every expansion pack has complexity.” This is good for players already engaged. “But it makes the game even less accessible for newcomers.”

The death spiral follows. “You only go to the existing player base and since that automatically over time always happens diminishes because people move on to other games, people stop gaming altogether perhaps or whichever,” Tim says. “It’s just a delayed death basically of the game because it can’t attract new players.”

Anno 1800’s Hardcore Targeting

Tim provides an industry example. “I worked on Anno 1800 before and by the time we were getting to the 12th DLC, the goal was explicitly we’re targeting people who are still playing the game,” he reveals. “Which equals the most hardcore players so we’re going to give them content just for them.”

Tutorialization Is Broken

Ben’s Central Critique

Ben identifies a systemic failure. “I completely agree and one thing that I think is holding back a lot of games is poor tutorialization,” he says. “I think and again it goes back to what I was saying where most of these games are being made by genre veterans.” These are people who love these games. “Who’ve played these games for thousands and thousands of hours for similar people. And so there’s no real effort to try and bring in someone who has no familiarity with these systems whatsoever.” When there is a tutorial, it’s just so badly done.

The Text Wall Problem

Ben describes a common failure mode. “The game will pause and there’ll just be a massive block of text come up on screen,” he explains. “So playing the tutorial is just you may as well be reading a manual for like two hours.” The modern context makes this worse. “Of course our lives are so busy these days. There’s so much content we could consume. I’m not going to sit there and spend six hours learning how to play your game before I’m even sure if I would enjoy it or not.”

Here Comes the Swarm as the Gold Standard

Ben praises an effective tutorial. “I mentioned Here Comes the Swarm that I just played the demo today,” he says. “Lovely interactive voiced demo where you’re learning the game as you play the game. That’s the ideal.”

The Echo Chamber Problem

Ben explains developer blind spots. “I get that it’s hard to do,” he acknowledges. “I get that it’s an investment to create one. And if your target audience you think is just genre veterans anyway, you might think, ‘Well, why should I bother?'” But the consequences are real. “I think especially with turn-based games and tactics games and 4X games with many many systems, I’m just completely turned off from trying to learn them in the first place.”

Tim’s Natural Integration Principle

Tim articulates the ideal. “The tutorial should never feel like the tutorial in a way,” he says. “Should be like, ‘Oh, I’m having fun immediately. Bam.'”

Could a Live Service Strategy Game Succeed?

Jack’s Helldivers 2 Thought Experiment

Jack proposes a provocative scenario. “I’ve said it before too—if Helldivers 2 hadn’t jumped their genre, if they had remained a strategy title or they had leaned into their strategy mechanics, there’s a world in which I would have seen Helldivers 2 have a similar level of success and popularity,” he suggests. “By just bringing in the live service elements that they’re bringing into their third person shooter game into a strategy game.”

The vision takes shape. “A game where you’re building bases and establishing units in the sense of Helldivers or controlling a squad for tactics, but that map isn’t persistent,” Jack explains. “It’s something that you lose at the end of that level. You’re establishing that infrastructure and quickly building up or pushing and fighting all of these bugs or automatons.”

Enhanced strategic elements emerge. “The live service campaigns of going from planet to planet still works,” Jack continues. “The traveling the star chart is even more interesting. The upgrading your single destroyer ship that you exist on in the game is even more interesting. The community still gets together on it.”

Fear of Overcommercialization

Jack acknowledges industry hesitation. “Nobody’s pushing—they’re afraid to push that kind of innovative, potentially crazy idea of a live service strategy game to that degree,” he observes. “And they’re also not leaning into aspects that I think would popularize them.”

The balanced view emerges. “I think that’s okay,” Jack says. “There is a legitimate fear there of overcommercializing yourself, of pandering to the wrong audience.” It’s also something that hasn’t been attempted to the degree he thinks is possible. “To try to capture this while it’s still the height of us understanding right now what makes a game’s popularity work.”

Historical Attempts

Tim recalls failed experiments. “I think in the 2000s there were some attempts like Age of Empires Online or like Tribal something, Tribion,” he says. “There were a couple of games trying to do this sort of thing, but I think they were not doing it very well. It was just a grind basically to try to get you to pay money for not grinding.”

Setting and Theme Innovation

Ben’s Originality Argument

Ben introduces an often-overlooked dimension. “Another form of innovation is innovation in setting and theme,” he says. “Because again thinking about all these clones of things like Command and Conquer and Warcraft often they take the setting wholesale as well.” Examples pile up. “Something like The Scouring—it’s very Warcraft 3. Something like Tempest Rising—the factions, it’s so Command and Conquer.”

Endless Legend’s Strength

Ben praises distinctive worldbuilding. “One of the wonderful things about Endless Legend is that I feel like the setting is very original and the set of factions in that game very original and interesting,” he observes. “And I think that that’s a hugely important thing.”

Rule of Cool

Ben identifies the power of visual appeal. “Two of the upcoming RTS games which I see the most hype for constantly are DORF and Dustfront,” he notes. “And why? I don’t think it’s necessarily because the gameplay stands out. I think it’s because, one word, they look cool.” People look at those settings, they look at the art style. “Yeah, that looks awesome. It looks original. It looks fun. It looks cool. And rule of cool is an important thing.”

His recommendation follows. “That’s another thing that developers should be focusing on. How do we create an original, interesting setting for this game?”

Designing Beyond All Reason’s Third Faction

Jack’s Setup Question

Jack frames the challenge. “Beyond All Reason currently features two factions,” he says. “One is heavily firepower focused and the other is far more—I wouldn’t necessarily say tactical, but there’s more specialized units that you can use for scouting units, infrastructure units.”

Tim’s Clarification of the Existing Factions

Tim provides nuance. “They have a lot in common—all the basic things are either similar or exactly the same with some key differences,” he explains. “Sometimes the differences are really small but in very competitive play when you’re competing for the top these small differences actually matter a lot.” They end up making you choose one faction over the other just for the small difference in this one smaller unit.

The thematic distinction emerges. “Generally broad term speaking though, they do have some themes,” Tim notes. “One faction is more themed towards slow big AOE damage and the other one is themed for more sneaky attacks or things like that.”

The Third Faction’s Development Status

Tim notes the progress. “The third faction in development is getting quite to the finished stage lately,” he says. “It’s not fully released yet, although you can play with it obviously.”

Exponential Complexity Challenge

Tim explains the mathematical problem. “It’s incredibly difficult because especially since Beyond All Reason is a very competitive game, that means that people try to find the very optimal ways to play and the little ways that they can try to abuse the system to get ahead,” he says. “So that means a new faction exponentially increases the amount of interactions you have between factions and every new faction does that again and again.”

Community Testing Advantage

Tim credits collaborative development. “Thankfully we have an enormous amount of playtesters playing the game all day every day that are very opinionated, give a lot of feedback,” he explains. “So that makes it so much easier. It’s not on the designers’ time that this has to be tested.”

The Weird Faction Phenomenon

Tim identifies a common pattern. “I see the same thing happening in Beyond All Reason that I have seen for decades when it comes to, ‘Oh, let’s add a faction,'” he observes. “And that is—I love to see it at the same time—’Oh, we haven’t been able to do that with the previous two factions. Let’s try something new and different.'” Every single one of those ideas enters into that third faction. “And then that third faction becomes the weird faction.”

The positive spin follows. “It’s kind of fun also because it does mix up the game,” Tim says. “It does change the status quo and the paradigms that you’ve been building for so long.”

Iterative Refinement

Tim describes the evolution. “There has been some walk back from that,” he notes. “I think I saw the evolution of it. In the very beginning it was like every single crazy idea and now it’s gone to a little bit more of a medium. But it’s terribly fun.”

The testing philosophy emerges. “It’s iteration,” Tim explains. “You try it out, you test it out, you try to abuse it. I love personally doing that playtesting where you try to abuse something.” He gives an example. “Like, ‘Ah, this unit, it’s really fast and it’s quite strong. So what if I did this with it?’ And then you go away with it and then maybe you make someone else feel really bad about their game because they’re not having a good day.”

Anno 117: Innovation, Disappointment, and the Anno 1800 Problem

Ben’s Development History

Both worked on the Anno franchise. This provides insider perspective on the sequel’s challenges.

The Safe Choice After a Runaway Success

Ben frames the context. “Anno 1800 was a runaway success,” he says. “I don’t know how many millions—I think three or four million players, got ridiculous numbers. Amazing game.” But it should have been a niche game. “Logistics manager set in the industrial revolution. So the player numbers were amazing. It was a great success.” There was a mindset that followed. “Well, we’ve got that. Let’s not change it too much. Let’s make it a Roman version.”

The Disappointment

Tim expresses his personal letdown. “If it had been just as fun as Anno 1800 but in Roman, I would not be as disappointed as I am,” he says. “But I feel like it was a step back more than anything else. Maybe the DLCs will help in the future. But as it is now, I feel underwhelmed.”

Diagonal Roads as Innovation

Tim notes the celebrated feature with irony. “The diagonal roads. Yeah.”

Optional Needs System

Ben explains the designer-focused innovation. “The one that the game designers were particularly excited about was the optional needs that you could sort of choose to feed them—bread or fish, whatever,” he says. “I think a classic example of if you are an Anno obsessive, ‘Wow, that feels like an amazing innovation.’ If you’re a sort of casual city builder player, ‘Okay, fine.'”

The strategic options had drawbacks. “It gave you some strategic options—which need do I want to go for?” Ben acknowledges. “But one drawback of that is that it allowed you to not expand on other islands so much because you could just select the needs you already had and then you could just build your whole empire never really expanding much.”

The Platform Problem

Ben challenges defensive attitudes. “I do see people saying, ‘Well, what do you expect? It’s the base game. If you’re coming from Anno 1800 that’s got 12 plus DLCs,'” he notes. “I don’t think that’s a particularly healthy attitude. I think we should be expecting more from games with very high price tags at launch.”

The Paradox example clarifies his point. “I remember buying Imperium Romanum because I’m a Rome guy,” Ben says. “And I was immediately appalled to discover that I had bought a platform for DLC. There was nothing there.”

Tim’s Experience Perspective

Tim reflects philosophically. “When it comes to innovation, Anno 117—it’s the same old question,” he says. “Do you risk it or not? Playing safe or not? And playing safe is a risk in and of itself.”

The Industrial Revolution Appeal

Tim articulates what works. “There’s something that I really like about the industrial revolution and the changes that goes through and the different feels of the eras and the different world parts and so on, the music that comes with that,” he explains. “I love when you go to the New World in Anno 1800 and you have this very Caribbean music playing in the background and you really immerse yourself in that.”

Anno 117’s shortfall becomes clear. “I didn’t—with Anno 117 there was some of that in the Gallic parts but not enough to keep playing.”

Civ 7’s Test of Time Update

The Year-One Anniversary Response

Jack introduces the update. “Another topic I wanted to jump on before we have to end this episode is I don’t know if both of you have seen the anniversary update announcements for Civ 7,” he says. “But I thought it was really interesting because I feel like they’re starting to add ideas that aren’t the most complex or crazy ideas that they could have had to justify a sequel.” The innovations exist in the existing formula of Civ. “But they’re coming about a year after launch.”

Same Civ/Leader Throughout

Jack explains the walkback. “The Test of Time update is going to introduce a way to play Civ 7 with one civ and one leader all the way through your match like previous Civ,” he notes. “They’re not removing the ability to switch off as they’ve done through the ages that they’ve introduced in Civ 7. They’re just adding in a way to keep your civ and leader throughout the match the same way that you did in previous games.”

Apex Era System

Jack details the innovation. “They’ve now categorized every single civ in the game to know historically and design-wise when the height of their power was,” he explains. “So in the case of the Roman Empire, there’s a particular era where they would have unlocked units naturally for the game design anyways.” At that point, their apex era isn’t just historical. “But it was also gameplay design-wise, the era in which all of their civ and designated leader bonuses as well as units would be available to the player for the first time.”

The scaling mechanism follows. “It’s something you need further technology for.”

Syncretism

Jack explains the cultural adaptation. “They’re making it so that past the apex age, you’re going to be able to receive civics that grow with the ages and allow you to adopt things from other cultures,” he says. “If the Roman Empire exists in the modern era, far past they would have in real history, it gives them an interesting idea of being able to adapt and adopt cultural and societal changes from empires that do receive more benefits in the modern era.” The Roman Empire will be able to play with units from other civs. “So long as you research in that direction.”

Triumph System

Jack describes the continuous rewards. “They’re removing the legacy path system and making it so that on a clear path to victory, it’s being made far easier to see the direction for victory,” he explains. “Not that necessarily makes it easier to win, but also the triumphs themselves are either long-term or short-form rewards for doing very basic acts in Civ.” This acts like a continuous tutorial or continuous reward system.

Examples clarify the concept. “Being the first person to research philosophy gives you an immediate bonus and becoming the suzerain of five city states gives you a long-term bonus compared to other empires.”

Jack’s Assessment

Jack frames the significance. “As a long-standing strategy franchise, we’re supposed to be seeing innovations like this on gameplay that feel like expansions or additions on top of the formula,” he argues. “Or proper changes to replace systems that we didn’t even know could be replaced from the ground up.” The timing matters. “And it’s taken them a year after launch and community feedback and an overanalysis of their own echo chamber inner circle to get these things.”

Early Accessification of Development

Ben’s Trend Identification

Ben articulates a broader pattern. “There is a general early-accessification of game development it seems where things are being released not necessarily in their final state,” he observes. “And this apparently is now to be expected.”

Turnaround Examples

Ben cites redemption stories. “Obviously there have been some famous examples like No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk, where it didn’t release in a good state,” he notes. “But they managed to sort of turn the sentiment around by adding in a really impressive amount of content afterwards.”

Civ 7’s Poor Reception as an Impetus

Ben connects to the current case. “I think that with Civ 7, because it was so poorly received on launch, I think perhaps that’s given them the impetus to put in as much as they have.”

Walking Back the Era Change

Ben notes the reversal. “I was interested to see them essentially kind of walk back on the changing civs between eras thing,” he says. “I never thought it was a great idea. Humankind had already done that one, so it’s not like it was necessarily a huge innovation in the 4X genre for Civ 7 either. And now making it optional.”

The Sequel Innovation Dilemma

The Entrenched Audience Problem

Ben raises a fundamental question. “I wonder sometimes because we talk about how much can you innovate with a sequel when you’ve got a crowd of people that know exactly what they want.”

Total War Three Kingdoms’ Dual Modes

Ben provides a precedent. “I remember when Total War Three Kingdoms launched and you could play it in classic Total War mode or romance mode,” he recalls. “Which was kind of the intended new experience where you had super powerful heroes because the idea was you’re playing the romance of the Three Kingdoms rather than history.” They knew from the start some fans would hate it. “So they had that option to toggle it right from the start.”

The Toggle Dilemma

Ben questions the practice. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure,” he admits. “Because on the one hand, if you’ve got a strong vision for what your game should be and what your new system is, then you should go in on it. You should make it as good as you can be.” Having it as some kind of optional toggle feels sad. “It kind of feels a bit sad to have to do that. But on the other hand, if you’ve got such an entrenched audience, maybe this is kind of what you’re going to have to do.”

Tim’s Vision Requirement

Tim emphasizes the necessity of leadership. “I think you definitely need vision,” he says. “And I think that’s really difficult to know if the right person, the right game design lead has the right vision or not. Like it’s hard to measure beforehand.”

The Subtitle Solution

Tim proposes an alternative. “I would say sometimes maybe it would have been easier for them not to make Civ 7, but XXX: A Civilization Game or something like that,” he suggests. “Not do the next game, but just a different game with subtitle ‘A Civilization Game’ if they want to retain the market name.” That changes player expectations. “Like, ‘Oh this is not Civilization 7, it’s a different game made by the people behind Civilization.’ And then that frees up so much creative freedom as well.”

Jack’s Inevitability Argument

Jack counters. “You can’t avoid the seven forever,” he points out. “And I think the problem we’re pointing out here is if you just look at Civ and its own echo chamber, there is this concept that Civilization players are entrenched in a particular type of arcadey Civ gameplay that you can’t remove.”

Ara History Untold’s Risks

Jack provides a contrasting example. “Another game I can think of would be Ara History Untold,” he says. “It foregoes the tile grid system of Civ and then goes for a much more abstract tile system with different shapes and sizes that actually give benefits to that particular tile.” There’s a lot more granularity. “When it comes to cities and district building and the way that buildings get placed with bonuses.”

The alienation concern emerges. “If they had added still far more granularity and complexity to the district building of Civ for Civ 7, there’s a chance that if you lean too far in that direction, lean far enough to justify it as an innovative change to the series, you’re going to alienate the people who like the arcadey Civ gameplay,” Jack argues. These players know when they’re playing with friends or playing alone against AI that they place these things on these tiles. “And that the game tells you which bonuses these districts give.”

The Inevitable Seven Problem

Jack’s conclusion addresses the dilemma. “I understand that, but you can’t avoid the seven forever,” he says. “So what happens when 10 years after that game, you come around to when you would have had Civ 8 and you’re releasing Civ 7 and you’re like, ‘Okay, well, what are we going to put to justify the seven?’ Because we did and tried the whole granular city building thing. It’s tough. And I get the position that they’re in.”

Ben’s Sequel Philosophy

Should Sequels Be Upgrades or Different Games?

Ben frames the core question. “That’s a question of what should the sequel be?” he asks. “Should it be an upgrade—i.e. this is the next Civ, modern innovation—or is it just a different game? And previous games continue to exist, but here’s something that feels very different.”

Technical Limitations Don’t Apply

Ben notes a genre advantage. “It’s a turn-based strategy game,” he observes. “It’s not like an FPS where graphical improvements or technical improvements after 5 years are really going to change your capacity for what you can do with the game. Civ 7 on a mechanical level could have been made 15 years ago.”

Publisher vs Player Interests

Ben acknowledges the commercial reality. “Obviously for publishers, people are going to want to shift people onto the latest title,” he says. “So the idea that five, six, seven, eight can all coexist at the same time is maybe not going to be so attractive to them. But maybe that’s a healthier way to think of it.”

Jack’s Support

Jack agrees. “I’m a big Civ 6 player multiplayer, but for Civ 7, it’s something I would be 100% interested in trying out, especially with these changes,” he says. “It’s interesting that it takes a year and it makes sense naturally to me as someone who follows game development and understands how that process works from the outside and a little bit on the inside. Of course it was going to happen a year after launch with the feedback that they’ve gotten.”

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Episode Verdict

This episode provides a comprehensive examination of the innovation paralysis across strategy gaming. Ben identifies how RTS developers are typically nostalgic veterans creating for audiences wanting “the good old days back.” They produce endless spiritual successors of Command & Conquer, Supreme Commander, Warcraft 3, and Starcraft 2 rather than pushing boundaries despite their genuine passion. Tim and Jack distinguish turn-based strategy’s relative success through cross-genre pollination. Examples include Menace’s alternating activation, Endless Legend 2’s RPG systems, and XCOM’s base building. This contrasts with RTS’s derivative stagnation. The hosts debate whether tactics games merit a strategy subgenre classification given their increasing infrastructure focus.

The conversation reveals Paradox’s UI innovation failure despite mechanical experimentation. It examines Anno 117’s disappointing safe choices after Anno 1800’s unexpected success. Diagonal roads and optional needs proved insufficient to justify the sequel. The hosts dissect Civilization 7’s controversial changes that required a year-one Test of Time update. The update walked back era-switching while adding apex systems and syncretism to address community backlash.

Tim contributes invaluable game design perspective. He argues for simple mechanics that create complex systems using the Go versus Chess comparison. He reveals Beyond All Reason’s third faction development challenges. Introducing new dynamics to a competitive two-faction balance that has been refined over decades proves difficult. He emphasizes how expansion complexity creep kills games. It makes them inaccessible to newcomers while the existing player base inevitably shrinks.

Ben addresses the tutorialization crisis that systematically excludes new players. Text dumps instead of interactive learning create barriers. Here Comes the Swarm’s voiced demo serves as the gold standard. He identifies setting and theme innovation as an overlooked dimension. DORF and Dustfront generate hype purely from cool aesthetics. He questions whether “early-accessification” represents a healthy evolution like the No Man’s Sky redemptions. Or does it represent a problematic normalization of releasing unfinished products at premium prices?

The episode’s most valuable contributions emerge from several key discussions. Ben’s distinction between derivative content in other media and RTS stands out. Other media suffers from exec-driven safe bets. RTS suffers because passionate veterans simply can’t escape nostalgia. Jack’s provocative Helldivers 2 thought experiment proves interesting. He suggests that live service strategy games could achieve mainstream success if developers overcame their commercialization fears. The three-way debate about sequel innovation dilemmas provides insight. Entrenched audiences knowing exactly what they want create impossible situations. These require either toggle systems like Total War Three Kingdoms’ romance/classic modes. Or they require subtitle variations that free creative vision from numbered sequel expectations.

For developers wrestling with how much to change established franchises, this episode offers guidance. For players wondering why everything feels like spiritual successors, it provides answers. For anyone questioning whether strategy gaming’s apparent renaissance actually produces meaningful innovation, this episode provides an essential framework. It distinguishes genuine evolution from nostalgic replication.

Next Episode: Strategy Board Games