I love all sorts of video games but I make no secret of the fact that strategy games are my favorite. RTS, TBS, 4X, Grand Strategy, Tactics– I’ll eat up just about anything that falls under the big strategy umbrella.

It may seem like a bit of an odd genre to someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time in it. You’re managing not just one unit or character, but several; oftentimes you’re managing whole bases or countries as well, and winning or losing frequently comes down to who can get the biggest and/or most advanced army first. Defeating an enemy isn’t something you do by way of pressing certain button combos, rather, it’s something you do by way of planning and math.

So I was wondering why I prefer these types of games so much, and I think aside from the standard “I just plain like the style of play” answer, a lot of it just comes down to the fact that every single game is completely different. If I were to play through an RPG, it would be pretty similar each playthrough– the storyline would be the same and the characters would all follow the same growth and would say the same things. You’d run into the same enemies. Sure, lately there has been a lot of experimentation with multiple endings, different choice paths for the hero, and etc., which is adding a lot of variety to a a genre that has traditionally been very linear, but in my own personal view, nothing really tops a strategy game when you’re looking to sit down for three or four hours and have a game with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT OUTCOME than the last three or four hours you spent on the same game last time.

I don’t know if this is more evident anywhere than in Paradox games like Europa Universalis 3 or Hearts of Iron 2, where the possibilities for total global domination by Sweden or Inca or the Confederate States of America or something is entirely possible. Mister Adequate is the one to go to if you want hilarious stories like that.

And then there’s SMAC, where you might play one game where it’s all seven of the factions duking it out for domination the entire time and then this is followed immediately by a game where everyone dies in the beginning except for you and one other team.

Or maybe something like this happens:

I have only seen this happen once so far. I mean, I hope it happens again, because it’s pretty darn hilarious, but Miriam is usually willing to fight to the bitter end, so seeing this happen was new and seriously amusing.

SMAC does another great thing where each three or four hour game involves a self-contained story, which goes a bit differently depending on how you win, what order you tech things in, and et cetera. Every SMAC game plays differently. As does every Civ game, and every Hearts of Iron 2 game, and so forth. I love it, and that’s what continues to pull me back in and keep me playing even after I’ve dumped days of playtime into these games already.

What are your favorite genres? Why do you love them so much?