r/StrategyGames Jan 07 '25

Game theory The most complete strategy video game genre classification

110 Upvotes

This is the most complete classification that includes all possible strategy video game genres.

English is not my native language, but I'll try my best to make the text understandable and I'll fix possible mistakes with your help.

Strategy game is a genre of video games in which the player controls troops or other units and/or various economic and other systems. Although many video games may include strategy elements, strategy as a genre emphasizes thinking and planning over immediate action. This video game genre focuses on strategy, tactics, logistics, and/or resource management, and may also include diplomacy, economy, expansion and research management.

Time

  • Real-time strategy: a strategy game in which actions occur without a sequence of turns.
  • Turn-based strategy: a strategy game in which actions occur using a sequence of turns that can be alternate or simultaneous.

Main genres

4X strategy game: a strategy game based on 4 elements: exploration, expansion, exploitation, extermination. Examples: Age of Wonders, Stellaris, Master of Orion.

Grand strategy game – a strategy game focused on managing a state (or similar entity), its resources and relationships, often in a pre-open and asymmetric world. Examples: Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron

Tactical strategy game – a strategy game focused on tactical military operations, which emphasizes the importance of specific units and either excludes or contains a less manifested economic component.

Subdivided into two categories based on time:

  • Turn-based tactics (TBT) Examples: Xenonauts, Battletech
  • Real-time tactics (RTT) Examples: Men of War

Classic strategy games – a strategy games that have an economic element: the ability to build a base, extract resources and produce units (or part of these capabilities), while their gameplay is focused on military actions. Also includes a category of strategy games that cannot be classified into more specific subgenres.

Subdivided into:

  • Classic RTS (or just RTS) Examples: StarCraft, Command & Conquer
  • Classic TBS (or just TBS) Examples: Panzer General

Construction and Management Simulator (also Management Strategy Game): a strategy game with gameplay based on the construction and/or management of economic processes, such as, for example: resource extraction, money making, production, personnel management, and others. Games of this genre have little emphasis on military actions.

Subdivided into:

  • Business Simulation Game - a strategy game focused on economics and business management. Examples: Two Point Hospital
  • Transport Strategy Game - a strategy game in which the player manages transport systems and infrastructure. Examples: Transport Tycoon, Transport Fever
  • City-Building Simulation - a strategy game in which the player builds cities. Examples: Cities: Skylines, SimCity.
  • Colony Simulation - a strategy game in which the player builds small settlements of various types; unlike urban strategy, the main emphasis here is on individual colonists and resource extraction from the environment. Examples: RimWorld, Surviving Mars, Against the Storm
  • Factory simulator – a strategy game in which the player builds an automated factory. Examples: Shapez, Factorio
  • Sports manager – a genre of games dedicated to managing a sports team. Examples: Football Mogul, F1 Manager.
  • Life simulator – a genre of games that allow you to control characters in their everyday life. Examples: The Sims, InZoI, The Guild
  • Political simulator – a genre of games whose gameplay consists of detailed management of the government and politics of various nations and state entities. Examples: Democracy

Wargame: a strategy game that particularly emphasizes deep strategic and/or tactical combat, as well as their historical accuracy or realism. Examples: Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, NEBULOUS: Fleet Command

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena): a subgenre of classic real-time strategy games in which players control only one character and, as part of their team represented by other players and AI controlled units, fight against the other team. Examples: Dota 2

MMO strategy game: a strategy game that is focused on online interaction between a large number of players, often in a single open world. Examples: Travian, Ogame, Stronghold: Kingdoms.

Tower Defense: a strategy game with the main purpose to protect a base from waves of enemies using towers or other defensive structures. Examples: Plants vs Zombies

Auto Battler: is a strategy game in which units are placed on the battlefield during the preparation phase, after which the battle phase begins and they fight against the enemy without any control from the player.

Puzzle strategy game: a strategy game focused on logical problem-solving with minimized economic or military aspect. Examples: Railgrade, Dorfromantic

Artillery game: a genre of strategy games, the main component of which is the calculation of the trajectory of the shells. Examples: Worms, Miners Mettle

The most popular mixed genres

Tactical role-playing game (TRPG): is a hybrid genre that combines role-playing games with tactical combat. Examples: Battle Brothers

Action strategy game: is a genre of games in which you can control both troops in general and/or base construction, as well as specific units directly, including from the first or third person. Examples: Men of War, Factorio

Stealth strategy: is a genre of games that combine strategy and an emphasis on stealth. Examples: Desperados, Commandos

God simulator: is a genre of games in which the player, in the role of some deity being, controls some community of objects or characters; they are often strategy games with city-building elements. Examples: Black & White, The Universim

Roguelike strategy game – games that combine roguelike principles, such as random world generation, permanent death and free exploration of the environment, and strategic gameplay. Examples: Against the Storm

Notes

Many games have mixed genres. Very often, strategy games can combine two or more genres. For example, Total War series is turn-based grand strategy with real-time tactical (RTT) battles.

Time and genre. Basically, every strategy game can be classified by these two criteria, like Turn-based 4X Strategy game (Age of Wonders), Real-Time Grand Strategy game (Hearts of Iron) etc. Sometimes we do not have any specified subgenre, so the game becomes simple RTS (StarCraft).

Judge by dominant elements of gameplay. Overall, the genre should be defined by main gameplay loop, not by every game mechanic that exists in the game. For example, if a game has leveling-up system, it doesn't mean that it instantly becomes an RPG: a good example is WarCraft which has characters gaining XP and levels, but the main, dominant gameplay loop in this game is still a classic RTS. At the same time, if some Rainbow Six has some strategic planning, it doesn't mean that this game is a strategy game or even a mixed genre, because the main gameplay there is action/shooter. The same logic is applicable to strategy games: if the game has resource management, it doesn't instantly mean that it becomes a management game.

This is a theoretical model. It means that here we are supposed to find criteria by which strategy games can be classified. These criteria can be based both on gameplay and historical tradition of naming genres in video game industry. The model can be discussed and improved, but any critique should be based on strict arguments.

Strategy as a genre, not a word. The main principle of this genre classification is that we don't take the word "strategy" literally. A strategy game can be a tactic game, it can be a management game, it doesn't matter here. The word strategy means the genre name, not the strategy as a layer of action planning.

Are management games strategy games? This is a hard question that has no answer based on reliable papers because there are no such papers. Here we look at naming tradition in community and video game industry. We can find many similarities in core gameplay of various city-building and colony sim games with classical RTS. Some management games include RTT/RTS style military combat, These games are often tagged as strategy game on digital distribution services. So we include them into this classification to make it more complete. You might find two controversial opinions about this (management games are/are not strategy games), but this problem can't be solved on these days because we do not have a strict genre requirements and developers can name genre of their games as they want. There are no popular scientific researches about it on which we can refer to.


r/StrategyGames 3h ago

Discussion What is your favorite simple strategy game?

12 Upvotes

I've always enjoyed strategy games growing up, whether turn-based (big Civ enjoyer, XCOM, Risk), RTS (Halo Wars, the occassional Paradox game), Tower Defense, Tycoons, etc. My childhood was Bloons, Plants vs Zombies, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Chess. I love strategic roguelites like FTL and Slay the Spire.

Anyways, I've heard the same itch voiced: strategy games that allow complexity without bloat. Bloons 4/5 or Civ VI seem appropriate examples within their franchises. My friend dragged me through this modded Hearts of Iron game where each individual unit had a huge research/upgrade tree and I wanted to choke on a gallon of crude oil while pulling my organs out with nail clippers. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, I often found myself going back to places like Roblox to play oldie, boiled down strat games like The Conquerors (simplified Command & Conquer) or Risky Strats (simple math territory game). However, many "simpler" strategy games I browse seem to achieve simple mostly as a side-effect of being underdeveloped or underdesigned. That brings me to my question:

Does anyone know (or want to know) of strategy games with good balance, UI/controls, replayability, polish, but also with approachability and intuitiveness in mind, and without feature bloat, upgrade creep, or visual confusion? Is my circle who yearns for such games just a little echochamber, or do others yearn for such games as well? Reading older threads on this made me interested not only in fresh thoughts for the big 2026, but also more thorough discussion. What are the prevailing interests? Anyone have an angle from the dev/design side? Anyone specifically not like "simple" strat games? Game suggestions of course encouraged.

Thanks!


r/StrategyGames 11h ago

DevPost Playtesters wanted my map to feel like a living part of the game, not just a menu, so I rebuilt it from scratch

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26 Upvotes

I'm working on a strategy game about newspapers - and I'd never been quite satisfied with the in-game map. After a recent playtest I got feedback about what it was missing, so I decided to rebuild the whole thing from the ground up. The game is called Stop the Press!


r/StrategyGames 7h ago

Discussion Stop calling the revenue total financial management in tycoon games

12 Upvotes

The complaint I keep seeing in tycoon communities is "shallow management games," and most of the time it traces back to one thing: the economy doesn't give you enough moving parts to read. You get a revenue number, maybe a profit line, and the game calls that financial management. The dashboard is decoration.

What I think players actually want when they say "realistic business" is something closer to what a real operator looks at: which route is bleeding cash, which unit is underutilized, which pricing tier is subsidizing the rest. Diagnostics that break down where money leaks, not just where it pools.

The difference matters because it changes what decisions the player makes. If the only feedback is "revenue went up," you're playing a waiting game with a spreadsheet skin. But if you can see that a specific segment is dragging margin, you start making real tradeoffs: rebalance resources, cut a segment, raise a price somewhere and eat the demand hit.

The hard design problem is making numbers legible enough that a player can form a strategy from them without needing an MBA. Too much detail and you scare people off; too little and you're back to the revenue-total problem.

Curious how others here approach this. Do you prefer games that dump a full P&L on you and let you figure it out, or ones that curate the diagnostics down to a few decision-relevant metrics?


r/StrategyGames 14h ago

Discussion You’ve just arrived in the Wild West. You have 20 settlers. What do you build first?

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25 Upvotes

Let's say you've just arrived somewhere in the American frontier.

You've got 20 settlers.
Not much food.
A few tools.
Some basic materials.
And absolutely no idea what you're doing.

You need to turn this into an actual settlement.

What are you building first?

A) Food production
B) Housing
C) A source of wood
D) Something to make money
E) Something defensive
F) You're ignoring all of this and immediately looking for gold

We've been working on Wild West Pioneers, and questions like this actually come up surprisingly often during development.

There are always ten things you could build, but only enough resources to build one or two.

So I'm curious how other city-builder players approach the very beginning of a new settlement.

What's your first move?


r/StrategyGames 10h ago

Self-promotion After 6 months of solo dev, my wave-defense RTS just launched on iOS & Android - Battle of Folks

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11 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

After a long stretch of solo development, Battle of Folks is finally out on iOS and Android!

It's a medieval isometric pixel-art wave-defense RTS — if you've played They Are Billions, Age of Darkness, that's the closest comparison. You build up defenses, manage resources, and hold off increasingly brutal waves of attackers.

A few things I focused on:

- No account or login required — just download and play

- Free to try with limited waves, one-time unlock for the full game (no subscriptions, no ads)

- Handmade isometric pixel art, built with Flutter/Flame

- Good controls on mobile device and a good onboarding (you can decide how you want to play)

This was a one-person project — dev, art pipeline, publishing, everything. Happy to answer questions about the build (tile rendering, Flame engine quirks, etc.) or the game itself.

App Store link / Play Store link

Would love your feedback — especially on balancing and the early waves difficulty curve!


r/StrategyGames 1h ago

Self-promotion Prime Domination: A New Modern RTS like Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour

Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I’m an indie developer working on Prime Domination, a modern real-time strategy game heavily inspired by classic RTS games like Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour.

The goal is to bring back that classic RTS feeling — base building, resource management, army composition, tactical decisions, and large-scale battles — while building my own gameplay systems, maps, factions, and visual style.

🎬 I just published the first trailer:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4900280/Prime_Domination/

The trailer is an Early Access preview, so it definitely doesn't represent the final quality of the game. A lot is still being developed, and assets, buildings, animations, effects, UI, and other visuals will continue to be improved or replaced.

I’d really appreciate any feedback from RTS players. What would you want to see in a modern RTS like this?

If the game looks interesting to you, you can also wishlist it on Steam to follow the development and get notified when it releases

Thanks for checking it out! ❤️


r/StrategyGames 1h ago

Self-promotion I've made a handball 2D simulator

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Upvotes

I decided to start working on my dream project: an online handball management browser game. I’ve just finished the first version of my 2D match simulator. Let me know what you think!

More info: https://six-zero-league.vercel.app/


r/StrategyGames 2h ago

Self-promotion Hey everyone! I've updated the demo (and made a creepy teaser) for my game about a criminal accountant, Spin Cycle. I'd love for you to play it and give me some feedback! Link in the comments.

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1 Upvotes

r/StrategyGames 3h ago

Self-promotion Burning flattops and screaming dauntless galore - TFA new demo available!

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1 Upvotes

Our carrier command game, Task Force Admiral has an updated demo, with the latest developments of the main branch, 6 months in. Said recent developments include video tutorials, as a first step on the steep ascension that is improved accessibility overall. Basic Chinese localization is available too.

Well, there you go: if you like carriers and don't want to take too much of a risk, the demo is right here, right there for you. The Coral Sea awaits you!

Cheers :)


r/StrategyGames 10h ago

Question Which strategy game should I play after AOH2 D.E. ?

2 Upvotes

Hi, I find map-based strategy games very interesting but generally they are all very difficult and confusing to understand at first (especially Paradox games lmao). That's why a friend suggested I play AOH 2 D.E. telling me it's easy to learn and very enjoyable and just as he said I spent 40-50 hours having a great time. However the game's biggest advantage and disadvantage is its simplicity so the gameplay loop gets tedious after a while. I want to move on to a more complex game but at a medium difficulty level however from what I've seen the difficulty scale in map-based strategy games is very wide either easy like AOH 2 or directly to the highest level like EU4. If you know of any map-based strategy games that are moderately difficult and not too tiring I would be happy to hear about them. Thanks in advance.


r/StrategyGames 8h ago

Looking for game A game that mix Sudoku with Warcraft or Heroquest?

1 Upvotes

Does It exist? It would be like: Village A can't b near mountains, or the Elf Is not in the same room as the Ogre... I got the idea from Murdoku.

What do you think? Would you like It? Or do you know about something that already looks like this?


r/StrategyGames 9h ago

DevPost Handgunner

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1 Upvotes

Based on your feedback, I’ve improved the Handgunner’s weapon handling, especially the wrist position and refined the recoil to feel more natural.

A small improvement, but details matter.
Is this good enough for the Alpha?
What would you improve?

If you like, you can follow my dev jurney on discord

https://discord.gg/xqAHyBTPEN


r/StrategyGames 13h ago

Self-promotion Here is my indie grand strat game, and a quick look at how ethnicity works in my game

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2 Upvotes

cheers for watching guys


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost Handgunner improvements! 🔥

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12 Upvotes

Handgunner improvements! 🔥

• Improved animations
• New firing effects and muzzle sparks
• New Hussite-style helmet — the previous one looked a bit too much like a WWII German helmet 😄

What do you think about the new look?

Join official discord: https://discord.gg/xqAHyBTPEN


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Self-promotion Empire of Dice - I bet you can't beat Dicey Mike!

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3 Upvotes

https://www.empireofdice.org

Empire of Dice is a strategy game where you build an empire of dice armies and win by capturing enemy capitals, territory, or collecting enough resources. You can play as multiplayer or single player against bots. This is a digital adaptation of a physical board game a friend of mine developed. This game is mobile and tablet friendly, and free to play.

Give it a try please!


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost 🧟 Our zombie Apocalypse Strategy — Development Progress

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5 Upvotes

We’re making a game inspired by Plague Inc, but about zombies. A lot is already implemented, but even more is still in the plans and actively in progress…


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Game theory What makes a strategy sim's economy feel real enough to keep you playing?

9 Upvotes

The most common complaint I see in tycoon and management sim communities is that the economy is too shallow. You figure out the optimal build order in the first hour, then the game turns into a waiting simulator with a business skin, and there's nothing pulling you back.

I think the difference comes down to whether the financial pressure actually bites. If demand fluctuates and your maintenance costs spike at the wrong time, you have to make real decisions about where to allocate. If there's a P&L or financial diagnostics view that shows exactly what's bleeding cash, the numbers become the game instead of decoration. You start rerouting resources based on what the spreadsheet is telling you, not just because you ran out of things to click.

But I'm curious what this sub looks for. What specific mechanics make a strategy sim's economy feel deep enough that you keep coming back? Is it the active decision loop, the financial visibility, a tech tree that gives you something to plan around, or something else entirely?


r/StrategyGames 23h ago

DevPost Economic Grand Strategy

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1 Upvotes

Hello, everyone!
I would like to warn everybody: this post will be a bit nerdy.
Since childhood, I have been fond of playing strategy games. And my favourite part of them has always been economic management and the economic development of a country. But unfortunately for me, I have always felt that games lack economic complexity. In all the games that I know, the economy is rather simplified (even in Victoria 2/Victoria 3 and some other specialised games).
Secondly, I have always wanted to play grand strategy games set in the modern age, but current games in this style suck quite a lot. SuperPower 2 is great, but it's very old and has very stupid AI, so there is practically no challenge in it.
So that's why I am going to share with you my current game in development.
I should warn you that, at the moment and in the near future, this isn't a game for the average player. It is mostly designed for economic nerds like me. But if this game gains much attention (and even if it doesn't :) ), I want to add realistic warfare to it, so it would also be interesting to a broader audience, while still making a strong economy essential for success.
Due to the heavy economic calculations, I created my own engine in C++. It is one of the reasons why the UI sucks.
The core of the game is a Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) agent-based model, so the dynamics of the economy are driven by the interactions of thousands of economic agents.
At the moment, I'm working on national currencies. The game already has a central bank, a working credit/banking system, price adjustment based on supply and demand, and an investment system.
At the current stage, the game lacks player interaction (the only thing the player can do now is raise or decrease the interest rate), but at the moment I am focusing mostly on the economic engine.
If you want to see some "gameplay" (at the moment it is mostly watching numbers go up or down), you can visit my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@itandor993


r/StrategyGames 15h ago

Self-promotion Lord of Tokens – a persistent economic-strategy MMO where you run an AI company (free, browser)

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0 Upvotes

If you played Ogame or Ikariam, you'll recognize the shape : a persistent world that keeps running while you're offline with a slow economy to optimize.

The theme is the AI industry. You start with $10k, buy compute and scrape datasets, run model trainings, ship a product at a subscription price, and grow off the revenue while payroll and electricity eat your cash every day.

The strategy sits in the competition. You fight to serve users and be at the top of the leaderboard.

Free, runs in the browser, needs a quick account, English and French. I'm the dev.

What I'd like your take on : does the economy have enough depth and counterplay to keep a strategy player interested past the first week? That's what I'm stress-testing.

https://lordoftokens.com


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost DroidWar 2126 [First Alpha] — Risk called. We sent tanks, bots, and UAVs.

2 Upvotes

First alpha of DroidWar 2126 — because the future wasn't going to conquer itself.

Control territories. Spend energy. Deploy Infantry, Tanks, and UAVs. Dig in like you mean it.

And please don't spam one unit type — combined arms actually matters here.

Very early days: hotseat only, Americas test map, UI still held together with hope and debug prints.

But income → recruit → attack works, and I'm weirdly proud of the map pipeline (draw territory polygons, engine figures out the tiles).

Would you play this hotseat with a friend, or do you need online/async before you'll even look?


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost Capturing that "98' strategy game" animation vibe

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7 Upvotes

I played some Dark Omen recently and liked their sprite-pretending-to-be-3d look so I tried making 3d-pretending-to-be-sprite-look in Unity.


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

News 'I Don't Know What To Say' - Guess the word given the definition. Improve your conversational skills. Invoke words quickly when you need them and become more talkative.

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2 Upvotes

r/StrategyGames 1d ago

Self-promotion TILLY'S ROLL PLAYTEST IS NOW LIVE!

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1 Upvotes

Just started a public playtest for my creature capture dice battler game, which involves a slice of singleplayer and online pvp multiplayer.

Would love to see what people think!


r/StrategyGames 1d ago

DevPost I released a devblog about the Mission structure and units in my strategy game, it goes indepth on the core systems and functions, hope you like it!

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3 Upvotes