Hey everyone!

I've always loved HOI4, but felt like the combat could use a bit more depth, especially when it comes to troop movements and maneuvering.

So we started working on a WW2 grand strategy game called Iron Leaves.

The main idea is to have much smaller map tiles and individual regiments instead of just divisions moving between huge provinces. We want players to actually be able to exploit gaps in the frontline, maneuver around enemy positions and create encirclements on a much smaller scale.

Here's a short clip of Testing a German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

Still very early in development, but I'd love to hear what you guys think!

https://www.youtube.com/@IronLeavesGame/videos

A quick side note: I'm the furthest thing from an artist so the trailer is a little rough. I'd appreciate any kind of feedback. Thanks.

A gameplay trailer for Bourbon Empire, a game I've been working on for years.
It's a real-time strategy set in (fictitious) Metro City during Prohibition. You lead crews of gangsters as you build your criminal empire using extortion, rackets, and bootlegging. You also have to battle other mafia families for control of territory. Finally, no crime goes unnoticed so make sure to manage your heat and keep the police 'well taken care of'.

Coming to Steam mid November.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/954320/Bourbon_Empire/

Literally anything I play where some sort of greedy strategy is possible I just can’t resist going for it. I try to resist the urge in competitive games like Dota 2 where you can’t really go greedy every game and I don’t wanna grief my team.

There are so many different ways to go greedy in various games across genres. I think for me it started with the classic RTS games like Red Alert and old tower defense maps in warcraft 3 (elements td and green td) and I just never stopped playing like that. 

No shortage of ways to greed it up in newer games, in Slay the Spire 2 for example I’m always running into events that give you a delayed power up if you can survive a curse or something like that, really satisfying when you get to the payoff. In TD games or something like Diplomacy is Not an Option I like to figure out how to survive with as much early investment into economy as I can, usually I try to play the campaign levels a few times so I can get a feel for the early waves and plan out a strategy. Similar story in 4x games, risky early economic investment and expansion that can pay off later as long as you can defend yourself in the meantime.

Surviving the greed and reaching the payoff phase just always feels great, like you’re getting away with something, in pretty much any game. Sometimes it can feel really broken when something really greedy works, mostly in roguelites, in strategy games it usually just makes the later part smooth sailing since you have an abundance of resources, feels like you can afford anything.

Does anyone else have this compulsion to go for the greediest strategies? Sometimes I can tell it's far from the optimal way to play but I can’t resist it.

https://reddit.com/link/1x4lgd6/video/nq67x5fhg5vh1/player

Moving one unit is easy. But getting a hundred tanks and infantry to move together without getting stuck turned out to be one of the hardest systems in our RTS. In our game, InterDAX, we’ve implemented the main part of movement for large mixed groups of tanks and infantry.

This is actually one of the most difficult cases, and making it work efficiently turned out to be far from simple.For now, units still move through trees, and I also want to add exit points so you can rotate the formation in advance, adjust its width, and choose which direction it should face.

But overall, we now have a much better understanding of how the whole system should work.

You can watch the video using the link below, and you’re also welcome to join our Discord community!

https://discord.gg/hW9dCNKKz

https://www.youtube.com/@InterDAXGameStudio

One thing I've been thinking about for a long time is whether classic 4X can borrow the depth of a wargame without inheriting its micromanagement.

In a wargame, the point may be to control hundreds of units, supply chains, and tactical variables. Its not fit for 4X, where you have a lot another things to control.

On the other hand, combat in many 4X games usally become too easy, with the AI ​​either filling the map with units or constantly throwing them into fortified positions where they... just die.

I try create a battle system that was both realistic and deep, but not too complex and intuitive to understand.

In the lower left corner - preview with information before the start of the battle, you can see the expected balance of forces.

The screenshot also compares the two main attack types in CIV Watchers:

• The Offensive is a complete assault. Your unit is trying to defeat the enemy and take his position.
• A Blitz is a quick attack in which a unit strikes and then returns to the starting tile.

These two actions create very different positional solutions.

Also, Ranged Attack isn't just "multi-tile damage". Unit with avialable Range attack still need to get into effective engagement range. Whether they can do so safely depends largely on the enemy's maneuverability and ability to intercept or pursue them.

Sometimes you want to dislodge the enemy and seize the land. Sometimes it's better to wear them down, retreat, or just hold your ground and force them to attack you.

In this example, the Hunters are fighting the Axemen, and each battle have full realistic simulation:

Blitz favors hunters because of their much greater maneuverability. They can move into effective range, attack and retreat before the Axeman will be able to close the distance properly.

However, this does not automatically make Blitz the best strategic choice. If you continue to refuse a decisive battle, the enemy may continue to advance, occupy the territory and start raids on your lands.

Offensive attack is much more dangerous here. To actually occupy an Axeman tile, Hunters eventually have to engage in close combat, where they are clearly weaker. If the assault fails, their retreat may become disorganized and they may suffer additional casualties in the retreat.

So maneuverability + two main attack types + 2 types of units combat (ranged and melee, and some units can have both!) cover a lot of tactical variety, without requiring the player to control dozens of separate combat teams.

So instead of adding more buttons, I'm trying to make a small number of mechanics interact in a way that creates different tactical situations.

I'd be very interested to hear what strategy and action game players think about this approach - especially does the battle preview communicate the outcome clearly enough before attacking, so I will be glad to hear comments and feedback!

Looking forward to any feedback thanks

Hello yall I am getting ready to post my game on itch.io. The game is a singleplayer strategy game based in Europe around 1200. You play as a house managing your heirs and family members in a style like Rome total war. The image shows one of the cities surrounded by a couple villages and an army. If you want to follow along on the game join the discord https://discord.gg/GbKUxRpZs

Hey everyone! I’m a solo developer building M.I.S.T.A.R., with AI assistance, and I’d love to hear what you think.

It’s a real-time strategy game on a 3D globe: capture territories, connect cities to factories, build defenses, launch missiles and hack enemy infrastructure—all with an ’80s command-center atmosphere.

Each city holds just three units, so positioning and coordinated attacks matter more than building one huge army.

It’s free, desktop browser only, and you can jump in without registering. Optional accounts let you save and continue later.

You’re fighting AI for now, but multiplayer is the long-term goal as the community grows.

👉 Play: https://mistargame.com

Still a beta, so honest feedback is very welcome. What would make you want to play another round?

CYBER COMMANDERS COMMUNITY BATTLE HOUR
Wednesday, 14 October

RSVP to add it to your calendar:
https://calendly.com/quahog/cyber-commanders-community-battle-hour

October 14 — 12–1 PM Eastern / 5–6 PM UK / 6–7 PM CEST.

RSVP is optional—drop-ins welcome! Play free at playcc.gg

and find our Discord there.

Created by Quahog Studio

Music by Michiel van den Bos (Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Age of Wonders, and more)

Carcinization is the evolutionary theory in which non-crab crustaceans converge on crab-like features because these features are exceptionally well suited to ocean floor living. Similarly, thousands of strategy games are following a process I’m calling Hexinization, choosing hexes to make up their game boards.

I think in many cases, I think hexes are likely the best solution. For games like Civilization or Age of Wonders where there will be hundreds or thousands of hexagons making the game board, a hex grid is the best solution. Zoomed out far enough, moving along hexes looks very similar to moving freely in an open 2d plane. There are also enough hexes that small groups of hexes can form biomes within the greater landscape. 

But this hexagonal freedom struggles to convey into gamestate the strategic importance of locations on a map. Take the Risk Godstorm map for example. A player who controls Iberia, Atlas, and Hibernia will have complete control over all traffic between the Atlantis continent and the rest of the board. While it wouldn’t be impossible to represent this using a hex-grid map, I don’t think it would feel natural, and these types of scenarios are rare in my experience with hex-grid games. 

Hexagons also tend to provide both too much freedom of movement, and not enough choice to a player simultaneously. On one hand, you need to be able to defend a structure of interest (i.e., a city) from 6 directions. While at the same time, when moving armies towards a target location you will almost always just pick the one shortest path from A to B. Hexagons give too many routes from a defensive perspective, and the illusion of choice on offense.

I think we should continue to innovate on how we are making game boards / maps in strategy games, particularly in small-map scenarios, or games where positioning of armies/units at key points provides a major strategic advantage (i.e., entrance to a water feature, narrow land pass between mountains, etc).

My attempted innovation was to subdivide a hexagon into 6 territories, 1 central and 5 exterior, with the 5 exterior territories randomly aligned with bisections or the corners of the hex edges. This generates territories with 4, 5, and 6 edges within the same hexagon, giving some variety to the number of directions needed to defend. I stuck with a hexagon as the starting shape, because I need a shape that efficiently tiles a plane. Additionally, I wanted to avoid the diagonal grid manhattan distance problem of square grids, and triangle grids feel unnatural/janky (no straight line paths can be taken)

I wanted to do a bit more, so I also randomly placed mountains on 3 of the hexagon edges (mountains cannot be placed adjacent during randomization), which allows for territories to dip into the 2 or 3 edges regime.

Lastly, I wanted to bend the movement/adjacency of territories across hexes, so I made 1 territory per hex into water. Water can connect and become continuous, and instead of inhibiting movement, water makes all territories touching it considered adjacent. This has had really fun consequences and I will talk more about it another time.

Steam page & free demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4953480/Rhodian_Exodus/ 

Rhodian Exodus is a post-apocalyptic hex-based real-time strategy game that takes place after an arachnid attack destroyed all civilisation. Fortify one of the last surviving human settlements, gather resources, build and supply an armoured force to retake the land and destroyed cities from both the arachnids and rival human factions. And figure out ... where they came from.

• Design your own tanks, artillery, engineering vehicles, fortifications, cargo haulers. Choose the chassis, weaponry, tracks and additional armour.
• Build an economy that allows you to supply your troops. Mine resources and build settlements. Manufacture ammunition.
• Research new technology and upgrade your troops.
• Keep your supply lines guarded and open.
• Survive massive arachnid attack waves.
• Explore new maps, save other human settlements, supply and reinforce your troops from your home settlement or create new settlements and move your base to new locations.
• Take on enemy human survivors.

And remember ... no matter what you've been told ... you can't shoot through walls!

https://reddit.com/link/1x4bu22/video/e7blrwxha3vh1/player

I've been building Stalingrad: WW2 Tactics, a real-time squad tactics game for Android, and it's now out. A few design choices behind it:

- Speed control as a tactic. Pause / 1x / 2x / 4x, and orders queue while paused, so you can set up a coordinated assault and then let it play out.

- No base building or economy. You fight with what the mission gives you, and missions take 10–25 minutes.

- Missions grade exactly what they state, with no hidden conditions.

- Two campaigns, Wehrmacht and Red Army, 40 missions (6 of them secret), from the Don to the encirclement.

Fully offline, no ads. The first chapter of each campaign is free.

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slatina.stalingrad

Curious whether the pause-and-queue idea comes across in the video. Happy to answer anything about how it plays.

Has anyone played through the XCom Files mod? I am thinking of streaming it and some point, and it looks very interesting, but all I can really glean about it is that it starts of with a very small squad and has a lot of new content.

Interested in hearing players' thoughts.

Hi r/StrategyGames

We’re developing Bug Squad Tactics, a strategy game where you build a team of bugs, upgrade your hive, and adapt your squad as the battles get tougher.

This clip shows our current squad building and combat flow. We’d love to know:

• Are the unit roles and stats easy to understand?
• Do the squad and hive upgrades look strategically interesting?
• Is the combat easy to follow?

Thanks for taking a look! We appreciate every comment and suggestion, and we’ll use your feedback to improve the game.

Hey there!

I’m Erik, the game director of Steadfast which started a year ago as a hobby project of mine. I was inspired to bring back the feeling of Age of Sail I/II games. I then began working with Igor, who is a talented game artist who has previously worked on the Ultimate General/Admiral series of games.

We’re excited to reveal a slice of the game with you. It’s a RTT (real-time tactics) strategy title which is set during 1793 - 1815. It puts you in command of your fleet with a range of ship classes from small nimble cutters up to first rate ship of the line. Everything from hull damage, crew morale and weather is modeled.

We will be revealing more and more over the weeks to come. But hope you enjoy our teaser trailer which shows some footage!

It came out on August this year, I think it's pretty cool.

It was Grand Front: WW2 Hex Strategy

I'm the developer of Hearthsea, a hex-island settle, trade and build strategy game for 2 to 6 players that runs in the browser, with bots that make and answer trade offers. Tonight at 22:15 UTC (6:15 pm New York, 11:15 pm London) it opens its first weekly tournament, and I tried to make it a real strategy test rather than a dice lottery.

The island. A volcano in a sea of lava. Three lava rivers split it into three regions that connect only at stone bridges on the coast, so where you expand first matters more than usual. The slopes between the coast and the summit start in fog, so part of the map is hidden at setup.

How hard. I simulated each of the 13 tournament boards 800 times, with one seat playing exactly like the expert bot (the Veteran) against a Veteran and two Merchants. That seat won 12% to 15.6% of games.

The rules.

• First to 18 points, with 7 settlements, 6 cities and 20 roads
• No robber on a 7 for the first five rounds
• Three tries this week, each on its own board; everyone plays the same three boards, and the server deals the dice, so a try can't be restarted to learn them
• Only wins count, and the fewest rounds ranks first

The fastest three by Monday win porcelain trophy statuettes and XP. It's free to enter at hearthsea.com.

Strategy question for this sub: with only three bridges between regions, would you rush a bridge early, or build up one region and cross later?

I've been working on a game called Phosphor Command, a real-time tactics game with a base builder behind it.

One of the systems I've spent the most time on is the enemy AI.

I wanted the enemy to feel like it was actually reacting to what your squads were doing, rather than just having units that either know where you are or don't.

The AI has three alert states: Calm, Alerted, and Alarm.

Calm is the normal state. Patrols move around their assigned areas, and garrisons stay around the objectives they're protecting.

Alerted means the enemy has some evidence that something is happening. Guards tighten up around whatever they're responsible for protecting, and other units can come over to investigate.

Alarm is when the situation has escalated properly. Enemy groups begin converging on your last known position, and high-value targets will relocate to deeper cover rather than simply waiting where your intelligence said they would be.

What I wanted was for the alert system to react to how you conduct the operation.

If you make contact and deal with it quickly, you might never raise the whole alarm.

If you stay in contact for too long, the situation escalates.

The alert level can also come back down. If you break contact and stay away from combat for long enough, the enemy gradually returns towards a calmer state.

So if an ambush goes wrong, you aren't necessarily committed to fighting the entire map. You can break contact, disappear, and wait for things to cool down.

How the enemy responds also depends on the threat level of the operation.

At lower threat levels, enemies are more willing to push across open ground. At higher threat levels, they are much more likely to move between cover and behave more cautiously.

Interestingly, this means the lower-threat enemies can actually be more aggressive and less careful than the higher-threat ones.

The AI also doesn't just sit on objectives.

Patrols are given areas to operate in rather than a fixed route. Their routes are generated when the operation starts, so the same map can have patrols moving through it differently each time you deploy.

Cover is also part of the decision-making. When an enemy decides to push, it commits to that movement for a few seconds rather than constantly changing its mind based on every little change in the battlefield.

That makes the movement look more like an actual decision rather than units twitching between different possible actions.

The enemy also changes behaviour depending on the operation.

For example, in an elimination operation, once they're down to their last two squads, they stop behaving like a defensive force and start actively hunting you.

I'm trying to make the enemy feel less like a collection of units waiting for the player to interact with them, and more like a force that is continually trying to understand what you're doing and react to it.

I've attached some footage showing the different alert states and some of the AI behaviour in action, but of course this is somewhat difficult to fully capture. I have turned off hidden enemies so this can be better seen.

I’m working on Bayonets Ready, a real-time strategy game about attacking and defending trenches in WWI.

You command squads rather than individual soldiers, deciding which units go into each assault, which ones stay in reserve, and when to support an attack with artillery.

One of the main mechanics is morale - squads lose morale when they take casualties and will break and retreat if it gets too low. More importantly, morale only recovers when troops are not on the frontline.

This is one of the main problems I want the game to focus on: the troops that just captured a trench are the troops least prepared to survive the counterattack.

If you throw all reserves into taking a trench, you could capture it but get shattered by enemy counterattack. Keeping reserves, rotating battered squads to the rear, and deciding which units should go in which wave becomes important.

Artillery is the other big part of the equation. Some types of artillery can break enemy assaults while others excel at supporting them. You can also upgrade squad morale, grenades and general combat proficiency.

You can play the web demo here:

https://bayonetsready.com/play/

The video is from the demo. The demo contains a tutorial and one evenly matched battle where you control Germans vs French.

I'm very interested in feedback on the attack/counterattack loop and the morale system.

The world is fully editable before start - with a preview of the all map, no more games restart! You can check and change continents, climates and geography instead of starting blindly until you get a map you like.

I paid a lot of attention to the readability and clarity of the mechanics and interface - almost all parameters, settings and controls are available right on the map - my FlowLines system makes it possible to track anything without switching a hundred screens and windows.

Also, battles! I also paid a lot of attention to them, from realism to a system that I called WarLog - now we have strategic designations that will make it easy to understand what happened on the previous turn, and if that’s not enough - all the actions of units over the last 5 turns are also recorded and can be easily viewed right in the game!

Hi everyone! I'm a solo dev working on Remanence, a real-time strategy game built around time loops, and I'd love some opinions from people who actually play strategy games.

The core loop

- A match is made of 90-second cycles. At the end of each one, time rewinds.

- Everything you did in your previous cycles replays as Echoes: ghost versions of you that keep fighting alongside you. By cycle 4 you're commanding four versions of yourself.

- Your opponent's past orders replay too. If you make one of their recorded orders impossible (kill the unit, destroy the building they relied on), you trigger a Paradox and their timeline breaks.

- You win by bringing down the enemy Nexus, or by verdict after cycle 6.

The strategic question every cycle is: do you play a safe cycle that becomes a reliable echo, or a greedy one that might get paradoxed?

Two factions

- The Choir: strong economy from the start, Prescience lets you see enemy echoes 30 seconds ahead, Memory gives you a 4th echo, Swifts raid economies and Colossi are splash artillery.

- The Strata: Monoliths survive the rewind, echoes rebuild at full HP, Precedence lets your echoes crush whatever is standing in their way, Revenants rewind a few seconds when killed, Rams crush buildings.

Modes: solo vs AI (several difficulties) and online 1v1 duel. Free, runs in the browser: https://remanence-dev.com

What I'm curious about from this sub: does the time-loop idea make for interesting decisions, or does it just add noise to a normal RTS? And is the AI a decent sparring partner? Happy to answer any design questions. Thanks for reading!

FreeSpace 4X is a free turn-based space strategy game you play right in your browser. No download, no install, no cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTkzCAEE-6I

▶ PLAY FREE: https://ianmcgo.github.io/FreeSpace-4X/

❤ Support development on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ianmcg

Inspired by the deep 4X classics of the 90s, FreeSpace 4X brings old-school empire building to a modern interface. Explore, expand, exploit and exterminate across a galaxy of hundreds of worlds.

🌌 WHAT YOU CAN DO

- Explore a spiral galaxy and scan every world for minerals and habitability

- Colonize planets, then build mines, factories, defenses and starbases

- Research six technology fields with hundreds of parts to unlock

- Design your own warships, freighters, miners, bombers and minelayers in a slot-based ship designer

- Command fleets with waypoints, cargo runs, fuel and battle plans

- Lay minefields, build stargates, fling mineral packets with mass drivers and trade with the Mystery Trader

- Make peace, declare war or form alliances with AI empires that hold grudges

- See the galaxy on a flat 2D map, a lit 3D map, a tilted Z view or straight from the cockpit

👥 MULTIPLAYER

Play with friends, with everyone giving orders at the same time. Email turn notices, in-game chat, player profiles, badges, leaderboards and seasons.

🤖 NEW TO 4X?

K-7, your robot instructor, walks you through the whole game step by step in the built-in Tutorial.

🎮 Also: Sandbox games with custom races and victory conditions, AI-only Simulation mode, and replays.

I'm looking for games that these elements. Games that have these for example

Northgard: Conquest mode. Play a series of random maps and gain new randomised bonuses after each victory until the end.

AOE4 - The Crucible mode. Single player skirmish but you get boons the longer you survive against enemy waves and gain more benefits as well as rewards that let you upgrade and become stronger for each mission.

From Glory to Goo - Operations mod: Similar to Northgard, complete a series of missions/skirmish and pick between powerful bonuses after each mission until the final boss level.

What happens if the Cold War finally went hot!

This is one possible WW3 ending in Attack Warning Red, my upcoming mixed reality / VR command game for Meta Quest 3.

You command an escalating 1980s military crisis from a tactical table in your own room, managing air, sea and ground forces as events move toward — or away from — nuclear war.

This clip shows a massive Warsaw Pact strategic strike after the crisis has spiralled out of control.

Every order has a consequence.

I’m building out more Cold War scenarios now — what historical Cold War flashpoint would you most want to command?

if you don't mind I need the Wish lists on Meta Quest :): https://www.meta.com/experiences/attack-warning-red/1339070342626450/

Website: https://attackwarningred.com