Strategy: Real-Time Strategy News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Yesterday, coinciding with the release of the Thrones of Decay DLC, Total War: Warhammer 3 jumped 90 places in the Steam charts, trailed closely by the three lord packs that make up the strategy game's latest expansion. Those lord packs are now the three top rated expansions in the series’ history, and the base game itself saw a huge uptick in positive reviews. The last day also saw a peak player count of around 66,000, putting it ahead of giants like Palworld, Rimworld, and Fallout 76. None of this would be especially notable, however, if this wasn’t a complete turnaround from how things have been for the best part of a year now.

I don't have a lot of interest in VR these days, but I do have an interest in the beautifully realised miniature doings of your villagers in Manor Lords, the city builder that is currently rather popular on noted purveyor of ye finest interactive entertainments Steam - and which now has unofficial VR support care of Flat2VR and Praydog's UEVR.

Manor Lords developer Slavic Magic, aka Greg Styczeń, has laid out the broad strokes of the game's first proper patch in early access. This follows a boisterous opening weekend that has seen the new city builder top purchase charts on Steam, causing Valve's mighty servers to crumble under the strain like overloaded oxen.

“Given the opportunity, players will become a merciless egg baron and sit chuckling on a throne of shells while medieval Europe cowers beneath their imperious yolk,” is what I assume Soren Jonson once said, and it looks like Manor Lords is proving this timeless adage right once more. Despite shifting over a million units and hitting the highest concurrent player count of any ‘city builder’ on Steam, creator Greg ‘Slavic Magic’ Styczeń is already looking to the future of how the building game handles trade.

Historical strategy sim Manor Lords - which budding feudal despot Nic Reuben has deemed "a sturdy and immersive builder that feels incomplete yet alive with promise" - is now available on Steam, the Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store and GOG. It was Steam's most wishlisted game before launch, and it's so popular right now that Steam's servers are struggling to keep up: there's an official developer post on the game's Steam forum warning that "the store is overwhelmed from all the people buying, it may take a couple tries for a bit while things calm down".

I can feel some kind of sore throat bug coming on. It must be the baleful influence of Creative Assembly's latest free update for bellowing strategy bonanza Total War: Warhammer 3. Out 30th April, the update introduces Epidemius, Proctor of Pestilence - a new Nurgle Legendary Lord who gains rewards based on how many ickle diseases you’ve spread to other factions (already my favourite aspect of playing Nurgle in the game). Does Epidemius also get buffs if the player is infected by something? I hope so. It would be a consolation to know that my ailing trachea is contributing to the Nurgle cause.

The former multiplayer lead for RTS giant StarCraft 2 is working on a new real-time strategy game that he promises will mark a “paradigm shift” for the storied PC genre.

While Manor Lords may at first glance seem similar to the Total War series, its developer has said the upcoming strategy game should not be seen as a competitor.

Slavic Magic, the sole creator behind anticipated (sub genres forthcoming) strategy game Manor Lords, has written a transparent and refreshingly to-the-point blog post on Steam addressing both expectations and future updates. Specifically, Slavic Magic aka Greg Manor Lords has taken time to outline exactly what his game - currently the most wishlisted on Steam, ahead of Hades 2 - isn’t.

The original Gigantic blended MOBA and hero shooter ideas together at the height of the gold rush in both genres, but failed to carve off a large enough audience of its own and sadly shut down in 2018.

Sega and Creative Assembly have released the first proper trailer for Total War: Warhammer 3's forthcoming Thrones of Decay expansion, which pits the human Empire, Chaos Nurgle faction and industrious Dwarfs against each other in what the press release terms "a showdown of mohawks, maggots and machines". Alliteration, is it? Well, two can play at that (strategy) game: the new expansion explodes upon the extensive environments of this elaborate ex-tabletop experience with an eccentric... ensemble of new legendary lords, battle units and campaign features, plus various free bits for owners of the base game.

Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment has said it will make further layoffs, following its sale by Sega announced last week.

Thrones of Decay, the upcoming expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3, will now be available to purchase as either three separate faction packs, or as a bundle at a discount. So, if you don’t fancy shelling out the full £19.10 for all three factions, you can grab new bits for either Nurgle, the Empire, or the Dwarfs for £7.49. If you do buy just one to start off with - say, to get a feel for the quality of Thrones of Decay as a package - you’ll get a 15% discount on the remaining two packs in the future.

After delaying the launch of Homeworld 3 by two months to address criticism of the spacefleet shoot-o-strategy game's demo, developers Blackbird Interactive have now laid out what they're changing. Improved controls, tougher ships, more useful formations, better Attack Move command, more HUD options, and more types of War Games mode objectives are among the tweaks and improvements detailed by game director Lance Mueller in a 3000-word blogblast. "This past month, everyone was heads down discussing every post we saw from Steam, social, Reddit, Discord and beyond," he explained. They have plans.

Tomas Sala's Falconeer series will be a trilogy, the developer has announced.

As if colony sim RimWorld doesn't already have enough ways for your sci-fi frontier adventurers to die, a new expansion titled Anomaly is goiong to add "all manner of monstrous, mysterious, and maddening threats". It's out in around a month, and will be paired with a free 1.5 update for the base game.

RimWorld, the acclaimed sci-fi colony sim from Ludeon Studios, will soon be besieged by «monstrous creatures, mind-bending mysteries, infiltrating parasites, and sanity-shredding phenomena» when its new horror-themed expansion, Anomaly, arrives on Steam next month.

Over 25 years into Age of Empires’ history, it seems the storied strategy series is riding a high. Developers World’s Edge have announced their plans to follow up last year’s The Sultans Ascend DLC for Age of Empires 4 - said to be the best-selling expansion in the entire series’ history - with some new additions to the latest RTS instalment this spring.

Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition has revealed its next DLC. Victors and Vanquished will apparently be the remastered RTS’ first “campaign-focused” expansion, offering up more playable scenarios than any of its previous packs - many based on popular community creations. Oh, and it’s out next month.

Good news, star admirals with decent CPM! Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive's strategy escapade Homeworld 3 has a demo on Steam. It's been live for a few days, actually, but whether due to the bombardment of other Steam Fest goodies or my being led astray by the similar-but-nerdier Nebulous: Fleet Command, I didn't try it till last night. The demo includes a tutorial mission, four maps and the War Games mode, a one-to-three player affair which essentially turns Homeworld into a roguelike - pitching you up against unpredictable opposition while unlocking new fleets and doling out Artifacts that augment your vessels.

UPDATE 11.46pm: With a launch tantalisingly close for developer Blackbird Interactive's oft-delayed Homeworld 3, it's happened again: the studio has announced it'll be pushing back the real-time sci-fi strategy's release once more, this time until 13th May, to «ensure that we're making the final tweaks needed to deliver at the level of quality that we strive for».

Homeworld 3's release date has been pushed back from March 8th to May 13th 2024, in order to build on player feedback to this week's Steam Next Fest War Games demo, which will be available till February 12th, 10am PT or 6pm GMT. The associated joint statement from developers Blackbird Interactive and publishers Gearbox arrived within hours of me posting about said Homeworld 3 demo and saying that while I am fully onboard with many aspects of the new space strategy game, I do have reservations about its controls.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, the next game from The Falconeer developer Tomas Sala, will be released in March.

Creative Assembly has announced a free update for strategy game Total War: Pharaoh will be available from next week.

Back in December, Creative Assembly posted a lengthy apology to players for their recent handling of the Total War strategy series, in particular Total War: Warhammer 3 and Total War: Pharoah. Seeking to smooth down feathers ruffled by overpricing and buggy launches, to pick out two of the biggest fan complaints, the developers offered to - amongst other things - make Pharoah’s first paid DLC pack a free update.

Move over, Henry Cavill. Your time as PC gaming's celebrity uber nerd is under threat. There's a new faction leader in town and he's coming to take your RTS lunch money when Stormgate - the very Starcraft 2-looking strategy game that's being made by ex-Starcraft 2 devs - launches into Steam Early Access in summer 2024. Yep, it's Shang-Chi actor Simu Liu, who took to the stage at tonight's Game Awards to announce he's not only a dab hand at Starcraft (handy), but that he's also the voice of its demonic Infernal Host chief, Warz. Yes, they actually named him Warz. Never changes, does it?

Infinite Borders – «one of the most popular mobile strategy games in East Asia», according to publisher/developer NetEase – is now available on mobile and PC worldwide.

Homeworld 3 will launch on 8th March 2024, developer Blackbird Interactive and publisher Gearbox have now confirmed, two decades after its predecessor.

Homeworld 3 will launch on March 8th 2024, completing a development journey that began with crowdfunding back in 2019. To give some insight into that journey, developers Blackbird are going to release a documentary this December, a clip from which you'll find below.

Atlus and Vanillaware have shared fresh details on its forthcoming tactical RPG Unicorn Overlord.

A bunch of MMO veterans led by one of the original producers of genre granddaddy EverQuest are working on a new online game that will use AI tools to create characters and have them interact with players. There's also mention of blockchain-like asset ownership and ambitions of being the next metaverse.