Breaking Down My Dislike of Strategy Games | Semi-Ramblomatic

This week on Semi-Ramblomatic, Yahtzee tries to explain to himself (and you) why he doesn't like strategy games.
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[@MitchCyan]

“I bravely sent wave after wave of my own men at the enemy”

[@JohnZ117]

Zapp Brannigan will be pleased.

[@johnstajduhar9617]

Few men would be brave enough to exceed a Killbot’s built in kill limit in order to defeat them, but Zapp Branigan is an out of the box thinker!

[@djmagichat1721]

Kiff, show them the medal I got for that battle.

[@SoftBank47]

Peak World War I tactics.

[@chrisosborn6401]

Kiff sighs and points at the metal.

[@aj.hardwick]

So i think the issue is, like yahtzee said early in the video, is one of terminology, but not in the way he jokingly suggested. As a former military officer I would posit that not every game has Strategy, every game has Tactics. The 2 are technically very different, though they are similar in execution. Yahtz hit it on the head when he pointed out the differences between the grand scale of a warcraft or halo wars compared to the small size of Xcom. Tactics are second to second decisions you make in response to the actions of the enemy/obstacles, strategy is the grand overarching goal you are employing tactics in order to achieve. Put simply, Strategy is the initial best laid plan, Tactics are what you use when the best laid plan doesn't survive contact with the enemy, to borrow famous saying everyone probably knows. And I think yahtz specifically, and a lot of gamers in general, are here for the Tactics, not the strategy. The Xcom example is actually perfect because the moment to moment gameplay of the actual fights and missions is Tactical, responding as you clear the map of the fog of war to whatever you find hiding in it. The Stategic action in Xcom is the large scale goals you set for yourself and the story sets for you, like capture an enemy alien to research them, or collect resources to build more fighters so you don't miss any alien ships flying around. The two work well together and you can very easily see how your Strategic Goals can benefit your Tactical Objectives. Or to put it more plainly, how the base management gameplay is going to give you more fun and variety in the turn based combat gameplay. This means that it is a good intersection between strategy gameplay like the RTSs of the world that require you to be making all the high level decisions and none of the tacitcal ones, and the shooters like helldivers where the Strategy is enitely handled by someone else, but the second to second Tactics are your decision alone, even if that decision does blow up 3 of your friends. Tldr: Yahtz prpbably enjoys tactics, and doesnt enjoy strategy, which is why he doesnt like most strategy games.

[@SGz_Eliminated]

You're exactly right and that was my immediate thought when he mixed up tactics with strategy. You can be a tactician and be bad strategy, you can be a strategist and be bad at tactics or you can be somewhere in the middle. In yahtz case he's just all tactics and no strategy. So games involving strategy aren't going to be well suited whereas in the most deicision making which Xcom does extremely well is very much up his street

[@megapussi]

Its worth noting here that a lot of people who like these games have also come to the same conclusions. "Turn based tactics" is a pretty common genre label for the fans of these games, and when talking about games like xcom, will distinguish between its "strategy layer" (aka the geoscape and longterm planning) and its "tactics layers" (aka shootin aliens).

[@onyhow]

You forgot to mention operations, which sits in between. Also that still doesn't quite explain his a bit of problem toward things like Fire Emblem or Tactical Breach Wizards. Your distinction of tactics vs strategy is right, but at least for Yahtzee specifically it doesn't quite completely fit his specific needs.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@SGz_Eliminated Strategy is way you plan to do thing. Example: Going fast Is that simple.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

@@onyhow true, but does yahtzee's conclusion explain Fire Emblem and Tactical Breach Wizards either?

[@SocksAndPuppets]

The moment you said "give the chess queen a submachine gun" and "tuck that away for later" I immediately thought "Oh, Yahtzee has played Shotgun King!" - and then it didn't come up.

[@crazytim8256]

That title might be an upcoming streaming game for Second Wind

[@TheGuardDuck]

Kinger with a shotgun!

[@ninja3212]

He hasn't said to take it back out yet

[@thereadersvoice]

I was expecting him to come back to that point, which he never did. Kinda felt betrayed, there, lol. 🤨

[@MegawackyMax]

Same. I wonder if he has played it. It's literally Chess with guns: namely, you are the Black King and you have a shotgun.

[@queengames8421]

The word you're looking for is "Tactics." Strategy, in the context of game design, is used to describe big picture planning and the overall "plan" you're setting up. It's why XCOM's Strategy layer is named the way it is. Tactics, meanwhile, is the moment to moment decisions you make to execute that strategy. I pretty much feel the same way. I'm not engaged as much by the longer term planning, but I love games that focus entirely on the tactics. XCOM is also a game that gives me great joy, because it gives me concentrated doses of tactics in between a strategy layer that isn't overly complex. The fact that the two feed into each other so well is just an extra bonus. I think it says a lot about me (and the fanbase as a whole) that most of the gameplay altering mods for XCOM 2 primarily effect the tactical layer. The only one I can even think of that significantly changes the strategy portion is something like Long War, which I find disengaging precisely because it emphasizes the strategy layer so much more compared to the base game.

[@StalkerSKT]

This needs more upvotes. I felt like he was describing Tactics every way possible without actually using the word which was terribly frustrating. :D

[@Romalac]

"My brain likes to solve the problem it's got, _then_ move on to the next." I *heavily* relate to this. There was a time in my life when I could multitask better, and obviously if backed into a proverbial corner I'll do what must be done as best I can, but I do my best work when I have a clearly stated set of objectives and can tick them off one at a time as I finish them. Having to split my focus very quickly generates stress and makes me less efficient at any one necessity.

[@ianism3]

very much the same here. never played XCOM, but I'm not really into turn-based stuff generally (it feels too tactical and not fluid), so I'll probably never try it.

[@SimuLord]

"Don't half-ass two things when you can whole-ass one thing." - Ron Swanson

[@shroomer3867]

I can kinda relate to this I think. Recently I'm playing the new Factorio DLC and I've noticed that I get longer sessions out whenever I play little by little, and quit out and take break after I finished creating a factory or blueprint with ratios in mind. If I keep going without breaks I just lose focus and get burnt out. Strangely this phenomenon doesn't apply to CRPGs and games like Cyberpunk for some reason, I can play those from morning to dusk with no issues.

[@Broomer52]

I work better under stress and counter intuitively stress is relaxing to me because once it’s over a weight has been lifted and you get to see the fruits of your labor. The idea that immediately springs to mind is during a casual stroll in Fallout 4 where I get attacked by Raiders and in the process of fighting them off I get attacked by the Brotherhood who just showed up and by the time the fight is over a horde of ghouls come barreling out at me and the entire mini war I went through end with me breaking a pipe over the head of a ghoul laying on the ground because I had long since ran out of ammo. Imagine that scenario in other game genres and it’s why I enjoy strategy games, fighting off multiple problems with all the resources available to me even if by the end of it all I have is a bloody pipe I happened to find during the struggle.

[@Romalac]

@@Broomer52 I _absolutely_ get that emotional high that comes after completing a stressful task- getting semi-addicted to that feeling is what helped me partially cure my longtime procrastination habits. XD But if the preceding stress is too high- which, for me, it usually is when juggling tasks- I don't tend to get that feeling, just irritated exhaustion.

[@N8Dawgg314]

There's a couple other things about XCOM that I, as a Yahtzee fanboy, feel appeal to his tastes. 1.) The storybuilding potential. Unlike an RTS where all your units are COMPLETELY disposable, or something like Fire Emblem where all the characters are fully defined and make their own decisions and you just kind of take over for the combat, XCOM has the overall story that you as the commander are making the decisions on, but also, as he's said many times, the characters have just enough of their own personality to differentiate them while being vague enough to fill in the blanks for yourself and can have their own completely randomly generated arcs. It's not just "infantry #1213" it's "Kembe Nganga from South Africa, who started out as a rookie who would panic at the first sign of danger, but came into his own after he saved the squad after the veteran got taken out by a berserker. Now 10 missions later he's Lieutenant Kembe "Killjoy" Nganga, Assault Specialist, always willing to run headfirst into danger to save a squadmate's life. I can't think of another game that does that half as well as XCOM does. 2.) How cinematic the games are. I mean pretty much every strategy game is going to be viewed from the same top down angle with maybe a little cutaway scene to show 2 characters fighting. In XCOM not only are you constantly shifting the camera angle and zoom to get the best view of the battle, especially in missions where your squad splits up, the little cutaways are PERFECTLY done. A cool angle to show running into cover, the "hold your breath" moment as the sniper lines up their shot, the moment when it cuts to an alien getting ready to throw a grenade and you realize you're about to get fucked up. Even the little dialogue quips back and forth, while simple, add a lot to the mood. It reminds me a lot of how he feels about Persona 5 where he doesn't like JRPG combat really but it's presented so dynamically and smoothly that it's just engaging.

[@LordShrub]

To your points I think there is a difference between RTS like Warcraft and Age of Empires. Warcraft is also more cinematic, you have less units, but each individual unit feels less disposable and more important and they all have their own abilities and personalities. Additionally you have Hero units, which makes it sort of like an RPG. On the other hand, Age of Empires has more faceless units that act as cannon fodder. Spellforce is somewhere in between. This is why I find Warcraft more enjoyable.

[@InquisitorThomas]

3.) XCOM is also functionally a Survival Horror game. The Aliens don’t have resources or logistics to worry about while you do, and any decision you make has a risk of catastrophically out of your control while the Aliens will gradually ramp up with the threats they pose regardless of if you’re ready or not.

[@shayneweyker]

​@@InquisitorThomasI think the aliens do have resources and they expend or gain them based on whether they UFOs are downed, they safely land them without XCOM responding, or XCOM wins/loses fights on the ground. It's just all done in the background. Don't know how much of that is the Long War mod versus vanilla XCOM though.

[@hoodiesticks]

Regarding your first point, I wonder if Yahtzee has played Darkest Dungeon. That game also has roughly the same level of characterization for its units, and it also has a "solve problems now" approach to strategy. The genre is completely different, though.

[@andersjjensen]

It's been 30 years since I played the original... your story about Kembe Nganga made me remember why I loved it. I'm going to expend the enormous sum of €6, for the complete package, and see your second point for myself!

[@johnsnow5125]

Xcom is a "real" tactical game with dynamic back & forth combat. Tactical Breach Wizard is essentially a puzzle game in disguise with a limited number of "solutions". Xcom is also accessible and not all that complex, but neither is Fire Emblem

[@danieladamczyk4024]

YES! Tell them the truth! Real tactical game has to be randomize!

[@strongii98]

I really like the changes Mario Rabbids did reducing the hit chance rng but them giving challenges of "win in X turns" really tells you there is a correct way to play which is annoying

[@11clocky]

I don't get why people talk like puzzle-oriented tactics games are inferior to "real" tactics games. I personally prefer the puzzles, and tend to gravitate towards tactics games that focus more on them. Also, I am not a huge fan of dice rolls in tactics games. I'd rather focus on finding a solution to the problem than risk management.

[@SwissCheeseMann]

​@@strongii98I mean, there is a 'right' way to play Mario Rabbids. The problem is years of tactical games tell us to take it slow, stay behind cover, group up, and wait for enemies to come to you. Mario Rabbids is most fun for most people when you use all the tools you have to bounce around the map for crazy flanking. So the turn timer is there to signal "hey, we should be progressing at this speed. You should dive in, flank them, and be ok with half cover instead of sitting near the start with full cover and shooting them with 50% accuracy"

[@eskurian8565]

I don't know, XCOM sure feels like a puzzle game to me. You get to walk around freely on the map, but as soon as you reach an encounter the kind of bomb-disarming-puzzle of what sequence of moves works out best begins anew. The only thing is that you get a spanner thrown into the works every now and then due to the hit chances.

[@Jinballify]

Let's not forget that Xcom also dips its hand ever so slightly into the Horror cookie jar. Nothing shoots your nuts up to your intestinal cavity quite as fast as rounding a corner to see two berserkers at charging range covered by four agents, and all you brought were three rookies and your best medic because the mission was supposed to be a "standard op."

[@TheGuardDuck]

"Well, fuck."

[@nicholasvinen]

The original XCOM did it even better. Your rookie rounds the corner and BLAM, SCREAM, darkness. You often don't even know what you're dealing with yet...

[@domaxltv]

@@nicholasvinen Yea, but in that game what ended up happening was you would have rookies that you end up giving a shitty gun to (even at end game, tho mainly bc of memory limitations) and then using them as a roomba to 'clean' areas you dont know about so you know if an enemy is there, the XCOM reboots tend to make you care more about the individual losses (though, imo, they are faaaaaaaaar too easy, my second ever run of both games at max diff were both deathless...)

[@electricdoor]

"...and I don't feel like I'm building a city. I feel like I'm painting by numbers." No that's exactly how city planning works here in the US. 🙃

[@SharienGaming]

nah city planning in the US feels like they looked at the "painting by numbers" picture that once done will form an image and decided to just randomly fill it with squares of whatever colour and size they feel like

[@VNdoug]

Your main road needs one more lane. Just ONE more lane, bro.

[@aturchomicz821]

And you dont think that when the City of Vienna tore down Rose Gardens in the 1920s to build affordable modern Housing on top that it didnt look at any numbers beforehand? I genuinely have no idea what youre trying to say, besides trying to diss US City planning obviously.

[@iller3]

If your Bike Lanes don't look like an Afterthought to an Afterthought, you might be a Manchurian plant

[@TommyDeonauthsArchives]

And trump is about end your careers.

[@anomaloushumanoid]

I think I know the exact issue, and that's that Yahtzee and gamers like him don't like planning. That is the common ground between RTS and various management games; you cannot just go in and start make decisions willy-nilly expecting to get anywhere. Part of the dopamine hit in strategy games is not in handling the problems that get thrown at you, but rather in cutting them off before they even happen; it's there to make you feel clever and competent. The trouble is often there is no immediate feedback on decisions: you make the decision now, and maybe you find out if that was a genius move or an idiotic blunder an hour later. Do something stupid in a shooter, and you know pretty much immediately, and it's immediately over. Do something stupid in strategy/management, and you may not know just how bad it is for an hour of game-play. Likewise, strategy/management has death marches, where after a bad decision has cost you the game, you still must go on for some time -sometimes hours - to determine if it's truly fatal or not, whereas if you fuck up in Dark Souls, whether the error is fatal or recoverable is going to be immediately apparent.

[@KSignalEingang]

That's definitely a big part of it for me. Although I wouldn't say I *dislike* planning, I'm just not necessarily equipped for it in general. Once I figure out *how* to plan in a game, or what a plan even looks like, it's a different story, but I'm not good at getting to that point myself in RTS, and I'm not gonna spend hours listening to jargon-heavy tactical breakdowns even if it might enhance my enjoyment. Why waste time in video game school when I can just play something that's in a genre I already enjoy? Case in point: When I finally read the strategy guide that came with my copy of StarCraft way back when, (out of frustration with some level or bonus objective I couldn't get past), it entirely changed the way I understood the game. The larger patterns started to click, as far as fire teams, synergizing units, effective counters, etc... Instead of being purely reactive and scattershot in my approach, I was working in a more "supertask-y" kind of way, with a mental library of squad compositions and build patterns that made engaging in the strategy part much easier. Of course I was able to beat the campaign pretty easily - with the right walkthrough, anyone can - but what surprised me is how much it upped my PvP game. Me and my circle of friends were all pretty evenly matched, casual players before, but suddenly I was just dominating them almost effortlessly most of the time. Ironically, that level of success more or less ended my dalliance with RTS games because I didn't care enough to get as good as the terminally online players who were miles ahead of me in skill and strategy - I play games to relax! But, playing with my friends wasn't fun any more either. I've tried picking up a few other RTSes over the years and just bounce right off them every time.

[@RorikH]

This is partially true, but I would add that long-term planning is much more satisfying if you know what the long-term plan is supposed to be. XCOM Enemy Unknown's Base Building became a lot less intimidating when I realized that the best medium-term goal was to cover the whole world with satellites so there wouldn't be random attacks that caused countries to abandon you, and thus had something I could work towards, with the long-term goal of using the safety that created to focus on creating better gear and leveling up soldiers. If a game tells you to plan for the long-term but doesn't easily convey how to do that, then it can be extremely intimidating. Granted a lot of things can be googled in this day and age, but some of us don't really like to google all of our decisions because then it seems like google is playing the game instead of us.

[@BFedie518]

That last part can also apply if you win. Victory can be guaranteed but you still have to go through the motions for an hour. It's like the Design Delve on puzzles--the moment the puzzle is actually over being too far from the moment you solved it can ruin the experience.

[@cattysplat]

@@KSignalEingang Starcraft is an RTS where the build times are slow but the kill times are fast. Thus any mistake is massively punishing since rebuilding those lost units takes too much time to make a comeback. Identifying where and when to engage is perhaps the most important skill, harassing the enemy's harvesters and keeping them on the defensive lets you expand and take over the map. Crashing your army into the enemy head on without intel is just going all in playing Poker, no guarantee of success.

[@BalthasarGelt-x2d]

@KSignalEingang I feel the need to push back against you on behalf of those “terminally online” players. They’re probably not playing too often. They’re probably just playing consistently because they enjoy the game.

[@P1ankt0nb0y]

I have stress dreams about being overwhelmed in RTS games, but for some reason I still enjoy them

[@tobiasbehnke939]

Me too. I remember having a nightmare after playing Stronghold as a kid, but I loved playing it like a tycoon game. I like RTS games who focus on the context (storytelling, settting) instead of the challenge.

[@solidjb]

@@tobiasbehnke939 Me too. I've came to realize that the reason I suck in RTS in my dreams is the same as having a nightmare about having a sudden high school exam. I think it's cause you can't read in the dream. Or more precisely, you ki-i-inda can but text always changes up. That frustrates you ,which in turn affects the dream to be more stressful, like having a huge enemy army showing up while you tried out to figure out the shortcuts for unit production. same in the school nightmare, you might not even be able to find your way to you classroom cause numbers on doors don't make sense, you get frustrated and suddenly in the dream you realize that you don't have pants on or something.

[@iller3]

stress dreams eh? ... How bad does it get when you play RimWorld?

[@EggBastion]

I had one about shooting Squares once during a fever. Just scads of them, pale neon squares breaking into smaller _closer_ squares, crushing waves of the things. Like Geometry Wars meets Asteroids. Carving despesperate paths to powerup after powerup that never really push them back but to just survive an ever madder press. Radical. I didn't enjoy it but I'd have it again, maybe only once

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

@@tobiasbehnke939 This. As much love as i have for titles like Warcraft 3 and age of empires 2, playing those games competetively have a tendency to cause panic. Stronghold is such a nice blend of citybuilding and citydefending.

[@meanmanturbo]

2:28 Thats actually a misuse of words, comon for games. In a military sense, strategy is winning wars, tactics is winning battles. Xcom is a good example of the difference between strategy and tactics actually. The tun based battles are tactics, and all the base management and research prioritization is strategy. Startegy is long term, tactics are here and now. The classic rts like Starcraft is kind of light on tactics.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

No. You got all wrong.

[@simplysmiley4670]

At the same time you do need to worry a bit about the "tactics" of what you're doing in combat in an RTS like starcraft. You can't just tell your army to attack move and expect it to work most of the time. There is also the difference of 1v1s and team games. In team games you're much more free to focus down more on the micro level of things with less care about the macro. For example Zero-K, in a big teams game you can focus mostly on supporting somebody else in your area with artillery and not worry much about your economy (somebody else is focusing on it), or defenses (somebody else is making a proper army for it), or army much beyond token defending units for your artillery, or scouts for your artillery.

[@meanmanturbo]

@@danieladamczyk4024 I might have been a bit to dismissive of the strategy part of rts, build order and where to push for resources is strategy

[@danieladamczyk4024]

@@meanmanturbo That what you said are actions. Strategy is way, you want to achive something. It can be SAFE it can be RISKY, FAST or SLOW. Better watch "WHat is strategy? " by David Kryscynski.

[@DigiMatt52]

RTS also has the problem of, what I will call, delayed reactivitiy. If you don't have your macro set-up as fast or faster than the other guy, then by the time you send units or they send units, you are woefully outgunned even if you made the right kind of units. You also are punished for being where the battle is. Are your units and their units engaged and you've que'd the appropriate micro? Get back to managing your villagers and production buildings. If you enjoy watching your bombards take down a castle, you're punished for not doing the macro.

[@chrisosborn6401]

Age of Empires was my first childhood joy, and heavily nostalgic, yet I since then bounced off of all RTS games, including AOE. Your explanation answered why, thank you.

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

as someone who loves rts games thats definitely one of the reasons why i cant play them competetively.

[@Daemonworks]

Related, I liked RTS enough as a single player game. When multiplayer became the expected norm, and the games started being designed around that it just entirely died for me. The winning strategies in multiplayer are often the most boring possible way to play if you aren't at all driven by competition. And that's probably what more or less killed the genre. Hmm... Same thing happened with fighting games, really, though they're holding on better, at least partly due to a few holdouts like Smash that insist on being friendly to folks who don't care about competition serving as the equivalent of street hockey or pickup basketball over in the meatsport world.

[@dohnjoe1545]

So you're basically saying that playing an RTS requires doing the exact same stuff everyone does but faster AND staying focused on the chores and never watching the fun stuff. Right. Is it still a game at this point ?

[@boarfaceswinejaw4516]

@@dohnjoe1545 ranked rts games are basically fighting games on crack.

[@RightHandElf]

"I wonder why we can't clear out the pawns and give the queen a submachine gun. Tuck that in the back of your minds for now." I was fully expecting a joke about a queen with a submachine gun later in the video.

[@christianj2361]

I assume he's teasing an indie review for Shotgun King.

[@GuyYouMetOnline]

My reaction was more 'isnt that kind of already how it is?' The queen is the strongest piece in the game, after all.

[@m0j026]

low-key thought he was gonna pivot into somehow talking about FPS Chess once he mentioned that

[@timgreen9677]

@@christianj2361 He's gotta be, right?

[@johnh-n2524]

Aim glad you finally talked about this. I remember thinking when I started watching your videos over a decade ago that it was weird you never reviewed even the most popular strategy games, but I can say now that I get your preferences and feel no need to abuse you for not liking my favorite type of game.

[@Nacimota]

Actually my first thought about X-COM when you compared it to RTS games was not the turn-based aspect of it, curiously enough, but rather the fact that you keep soldiers from mission to mission and invest in their skills/equipment and so on. They're not as disposable as most units in a typical RTS like Starcraft or whatever, and I think that gives the game a whole different feeling because you become more attached to them as individuals. Homeworld is an example of an RTS that sort of does this, and yeah decision making feels a lot more impactful in that game than in most RTS games I've played where you're mostly just managing time and economy. That's not to say it's necessarily a good or bad thing, it's just different. I find it a lot more intense, which is sometimes an experience I'm looking for but other times I'm just not in the mood for that and would happily play something like Starcraft or Supreme Commander instead.

[@meej33]

I believe that total war did that from its earliest version, although at a different level of attention (each soldier in each unit had its own stats).

[@Dratio]

Doesn't explain why he doesn't click with Fire Emblem, where you also keep units from mission to mission.

[@yetanotherkeyblader3572]

@@Dratio Or Tactical Breach Wizards where you keep your 2 to 5 wizards throughout the story and give them more abilities as you progress. Hell, that one doesn't focus on a big scale during missions either. The only thinking ahead you need is maybe what reinforcements you have to face in future turns or which enemies you can afford to spare for the turn due to a lack in firepower.

[@Ploist]

That could explain why he likes ftl as well

[@davidvvn]

@@Dratio I think Fire Emblem is best understood not as a strategy game, but as a large party RPG with a combat UI that mimics a tactical map. There are VERY few times where I've been able to do things in Fire Emblem more complex than bait enemy charges, retaliate, sweep the local field, recover, and repeat.

[@Chaosrain112]

These psychological breakdowns of individual genre quirks being likeable or not are IMMENSELY interesting. I would listen to these nonstop, learning the intricacies behind what is "fun" is so wild.

[@EmptyGoat]

Audio from the Lemmings video drowning out Yahtzee out was a bold choice. I look forward to future experimental metaphors.

[@Shakes-Off-Fear]

Um actually, Yahtz, the line “I’m a man with a one track mind, so much to do in one lifetime” in the Queen song ‘I Want It All’ was sung by Brian May, rather than Freddie Mercury.

[@mechanicalTurk0]

Ah yes but you see he meant the writer of the lyrics (also Brian May)

[@Zullia]

@@Shakes-Off-Fear i scrolled down looking for this and now im ashamed i wanted to jump on the avtschually train.

[@spacecentergames]

3:32 "...my jam just didn't spread..." After all these years, why does that feel like the dirtiest thing I've heard Yahtzee utter? 😂

[@Ekgladiator]

I am glad I wasn't the only one thinking that. I started impulsively typing out "that's what she said" 🤭

[@fipachu]

Why, It’s obviously because of the Belgian techno anthem “Pump up the Jam”. [the music video starts playing]

[@cereal_chick2515]

I love so much how Yahtzee applies such rigour to his introspection, how he explicitly calls what he's looking for a "theory", and he knows Queen's relatively deep cuts like "I Want It All". He's a man after my own heart.

[@SpaceLordof75]

My entire job, and the job of millions of others, is basically getting the lights on a glowing box to be in a pattern I deem to be correct. So not really that different. Except it’s almost never fun.

[@Qe2egg]

I'm an idiot so I have no clue what job this is

[@TurbineGoat]

The one strategy game I ever really got into is Into the Breach. Thanks to a combination of small maps, and enemies which are both predictible and manipulable, it often feels like a puzzle game moreso then a strategy game. And, like the examples you mention, it's a game moreso focussed on dealing with immediate problems, instead of with thinking ahead.

[@brianmckee2267]

Pacific rim chess

[@shadowscribe]

My old favorite strat in Lemmings was cordoning off all the lemmings as close as possible to a single mass, except one. That industrious one dude built the bridges, mined the tunnels, baked the biscuits to the exit. Then I'd release the horde to merrily nom their way along the path. Best part was collecting them into a single quantum of lemming allowed it to walk through slow traps that couldn't deal with a mass of them at once. Got me at least half way through until time or survival limits became a factor.

[@justinsinke2088]

Frankly, why people like the things they like is a far more complicated matter than a lot of people give it credit for. Total Annihilation used to be my jam, but I've since sort of drifted from that sort of strategy game over time.

[@Chaosrain112]

I'm gonna guess it had to do with being able to think a little quicker on your feet for being young, and being able to play against bots at lower skill levels to screw around with friends. That was my use for RTS games when I was younger; nowadays I'm echoing Yahtzee.

[@WhiteFangofWar]

It helps that at least in the modern XCOM games you can get so close with the camera that you are practically down there with the troops, watching them struggle and freak out alongside you (and then there's the XCOM2 final mission). What I think turns a lot of people off RTS is managing resources and combat simultaneously, something that requires a lot of practice. I prefer the Warhammer games' approach to it where you just capture resource nodes just by being there and don't need to build tons of workers to mine them.

[@RorikH]

I've heard that the reason RTS games aren't as popular nowadays is that the market kind of got split into the micro-heavy MOBAs and the Long-Term grand strategy games, as most fans preferred one aspect of the game or the other.

[@jeremiahmorin1867]

@@WhiteFangofWar to add to this, the customization in xcom 2 makes them feel much more like they're your people. Or if you're like me, you have characters from your favorite games downloaded from the workshop which makes you get attached to them

[@WhiteFangofWar]

@@jeremiahmorin1867 Same. I love customization and will always customize my troops more as they advance in rank.

[@kdas7590]

Combat in XCOM is great and brings a wonderful host of emotions. Your character will miss that 95% shot 1 out of 20 times and when it does happen, it is devastating and painful because of my choice for ironman mode. On the flipside, it feels tremendous when you're backed into a corner and your character hits that 25% shot saving the squad and the mission.

[@RFC3514]

Without some bugfix mods, your character will actually miss 95% shots about 12% of the time, due to a mismatch between the code that shows the percentages and the code that's actually applied to most shots. It's like when Rimworld tells you that you have a 100% chance of success at something and it still fails, because it didn't bother to include several factors when showing the percentage, but still applies them when actually performing the action.

[@kdas7590]

@@RFC3514 I think you are right, but it still does not detract from my original statement. It is damn fun, IMHO

[@ehoffart529]

Darkest Dungeon does the "holy shit how did that happen" by making it so nothing is fully 100% the highest anything goes to is 95%. They even hide some stats like how in DD1 afflictions are always det to 80% at base so unless you know that fact you truly don't know how often you go virtuous. So when it happens you cream your jeans.

[@RorikH]

@@RFC3514 Huh. I really thought it was just a meme, like how 90% of D&D stories are about people rolling nat 20's doing the impossible because those are the ones that stand out. It turns out our annoyance was justified the whole time.

[@RFC3514]

@@RorikH - There are some mods to fix it (and big "overhaul" mods like The Long War, Covert Infiltration, etc. have those fixes built in, I think). They won't make you hit more, but they will show you a more accurate percentage.

[@SigfriedTrent]

Nice self insight. I think one common thing I don't like in many genre is time pressure. I like taking my time and doing things at my own pace, be that fast or slow. Games that put me under time pressure on a consistent basis are more stressful than fun.

[@bird3713]

Very insightful and personal video - I liked Yahtzee's recommendation at the end about learning something about yourself from the kinds of games that you like

[@flawlesssock8153]

I really like this fornat of "I dont seem to like these games - lets ask why that is" very well written video

[@TheSpearkan]

I think both Frostpunk and Frostpunk 2 adds another kind of wrench to the management genre (the games are settlement building and city building games respectively) by hammering home a post-apocalyptic setting that gives you a reason to care (or not) for the people you're managing and, particularly for Frostpunk 2, what kind of society you want to build from the frozen hellscape and whalloping you with the consequences in excruciating detail.

[@aturchomicz821]

You would think that would have worked but like 28% of Steam users found it dogshit, fucking psychos I tell ya!

[@biliousvicarduds9089]

@@TheSpearkan I played a couple hours of the first Frospunk's campaign as a non-strategy gamer, was pretty immersed in making decisions on a knife's edge...and then a scripted event occurred which I could not have prepared for which crippled morale and resulted in my leadership being overthrown. Apparently I was meant to build even more churches than the two or three I had already, in order to maintain the hope meter, but the game gave no indication that I would need to throw precious resources into building churches, so my run ended. It was so incredibly cheap that I never picked up the game again. I've heard that you also ought to ignore all requests from your citizens because if you give them an inch they'll take a mile, but why would the dev include such a system for you to not engage with it? Those two thickskulled design choices totally put me off the game and made me even less willing to try out strat games in general

[@pieoverlord]

The one Fire Emblem game I'd be really interested in hearing Yahtzee's opinion on, in light of this video, is Path of Radiance. Since it was the first 3D one, a lot of the map design fits that "solve the problem in front of you" mentality, especially early on, and the Base mechanic is stripped down enough (when compared to Three Houses) to potentially tickle that X-COM itch without feeling like a chore.

[@ianleather5699]

I was thinking this exact thing, Path of Radiance may just be the best fire emblem game to start with, so its a shame its so hard to find these days

[@mattmuir2160]

Yeah. Path of Radiance was my first Fire Emblem game and it's still my favourite to this day, and, apart from the obscureness of trying to recruit Stefan and Shinon, it is definitely a very good first Fire Emblem game.

[@mattmuir2160]

@@ianleather5699 It's a real shame that Path of Radiance is hard to find. It's one of many acclaimed GameCube titles that sadly is still confined to the GameCube. A remake would be nice, but, as Path of Radiance is my favourite Fire Emblem game, I can't help but fear that a remake would change things I think should be kept the same (Ike's dialogue with Elincia in the North American localization, the artwork in various important scenes, etc.) and leave intact things that should be changed (biorhythm, Sothe not having a promotion, etc.).

[@Xaero188]

There is a nice Lemmings-like game from 2016 called *Zombie Night Terror,* loved it a lot. Seems easy enough at the beginning, but turns out to be pretty damn brainy closer to the end. Also if one likes XCOM but doesn't like strategies, might I recommend the Mimimi Games "trilogy": Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Desperados III and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. I know this type of games is a whole genre of its own, starting with *Commandos,* but I just can't help admiring Mimimi's top shelf tight gamedesign.

[@AceofShadow]

Yahtzee's brother lore break spotted. Early ZP had Yahtzee be very clear he moved far away from his family and cut them off by the time he was in his late 20's and now he's making jokes about his brothers actions while Yahtzee was in his 30's.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

That just means they eventually patched things up, or maybe would meet only at birthdays, adding insult to injury

[@BFedie518]

That's what made it especially egregious. His brother would travel thousands of miles just to blow out his birthday candles then immediately leave.

[@theritchie2173]

@@BFedie518 What a bastard. It's true what they say, you can't choose your family.

[@rzyr]

I love strategy games, but the one I recommend to everyone is a 2001(and still getting updates) cult classic Original War. It is smaller in scope and each character is more like an RPG rando than a chess pawn. And the gameplay is just fun

[@sufficientlyadvancedplagiarism]

Just from the thumbnail, I was coming into this expecting the RT vs TB distinction, but that's largely because that *is* what it is for me. Although to tie back to an early part of the video, about everything being strategy in one form or another, perhaps it's relevant to consider the idea of strategy vs. tactics. A lot of the items mentioned as strategy here come across more as tactics to me with the difference being pretty close to the eventual distinction of big picture/juggling lots of problems simultaneously vs. close-up/sequential problem solving.

[@Zejgar]

Early strategy games had briefings and debriefings that attributed your victory/failure directly to you, the player, while keeping your units as mere tools for success, like ammo in shooters.

[@theherohartmut]

The first Advance Wars and Fire Emblem games that released in the west did something like this, too. You, the player, were directly addressed by other characters as the tactician who managed maneuvers on the battlefield, and would laud you for doing well. Future instalments dropped this concept for whatever reason (though Fire Emblem Awakening did bring it back in the form of Robin being your customisable avatar).

[@MasterOphSky]

​@@theherohartmut It's not necessarily that the concept was dropped, more that the tactician idea introduced in the GBA game evolved into customisable avatars, which became a staple for a lot of the modern entries, and often fulfil the same purpose in the story; a protagonist who's either implied or outright stated to be directing the flow of battle, and gets the credit for the victories.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

All games are like that.

[@moldinmolders]

​@@theherohartmutthree houses does something similar, to a potentially annoying degree. They really glaze you, the player, in the beginning, but they stop doing it so much later on.

[@TheKlink]

1:45 its STILL funny

[@FortressWolf97]

Siblings will always act like children towards their siblings.

[@gasparsigma]

"Making real-time decisions on a battlefield from afar shouldn't be any more stressful than having to make real-time decisions in a firefight in a first-person shooter" I strongly disagree. FPS requires very few elements to consider at a time and heavily relies on instincts. RTS has exponential possibilities and things to consider to optimise, that makes it way more stressful for me who overthinks everything.

[@NomenLuni1975]

I'm with you there. I grew up playing Lords Of Midnight (which is part strategy game and part text adventure) and Julian Gollop's (he who created the X-Com series) earlier games such as Chaos and Rebelstar, and I loved them all. On the other hand, I never really got on with RTS games like Warcraft etc. I also discovered in recent years that I love CCS wargames on the ZX Spectrum.

[@DrownedInExile]

It's not just the turn-based tactics of XCOM that appeals, although that's a big one. The tense dark grim claustrophobic mood of the game, the nebulous alien agenda that we're constantly learning new little things about. It's the complete package. And that's what she said!

[@Cosmitzian]

I've dealt with this before and i've hashed it out pretty easily. It's tactics (puzzle solving on a move by move basis) vs strategy (puzzle solving on a macro level of a bigger challenge). The bigger the number of inputs and outputs i need to figure out in one go, the bigger the problem. I jive best with games that put in tactis with a layer of vague but few variables when it comes to 'macro' puzzle solving. Like managing resources in Xcom since that was mentioned in the overworld, or gear. Those are much fewer elements to manage and of a limited quality of 'depth' than what goes on in the actual mission aspect of Xcom. I explored a lot of this in boardgames as well, i prefer games where the move right now has a much bigger impact than executing on the moves/goals i set out at the beginning of the game. Other games, stuff like Satisfactory/factorio.. i love when i'm exploring, but once i realise it's all about executing a perfect plan on the macro level... i lose ALL interest as it just becomes very knowable and just.. executory? Similar to your issue with Cities Skylines for example, or stuff like any of Zachtronic's games, which starts out fun for me, but then ends up in this 'ok, i know all the small bits, now time to pull out excel and frame them all in a structure'. Alternatively, i'm not one to be into the dexterity challenge of a game if it goes on multiple axis. Dodging in Soulslikes, fine. Doing precise unit micromanagement in Starcraft or any Eugen Systems games? No. Hades' or Doom 2016's levels of semi-precision is the most i'll jive with, landing sniper shots in PUBG? No. So i'm not averse to dexterity challenges, but like with the macro puzzle solving elements, i have a cut off level where it's just too much. I /liked/ the hero-missions of the Starcraft franchise, similarily to how i liked very basic DOTA, but like you, the big scale base building/expansions/managing frontlines etc, just.. whizzes past me. But at the end of the day, it has to do with what are the basic tugs that a game can effect and how it dishes them out. For all my love of turn based strategy, sitting 2 hours for a whole turn plan in The Last Spell felt absolutely /grueling/ so even the most 'i like this' tug can be too much sometimes.

[@thesquishedelf1301]

Question: What’s your thoughts on Against The Storm? It’s a “city builder”/“colony management” game that treats each small settlement as a tactical spell in an overarching strategy (collecting macro resources and aiming for specific settlements on the world map in a time limit.) Just curious, if you haven’t heard of it no need to respond 😊

[@Cosmitzian]

@thesquishedelf1301 I played it for more than i thought i would. The roguelike aspect and fixed play timers kept me invested for the run but i knew it just didn't matter in the end, so i could focus more short term. I did drop it when stuff started getting a lot more dense but i enjoyed the pseudorandom starting conditions, the approach to teach you to be agreessive and generally the smart approach to the very aged citybuilder genre.

[@cinemasaur]

tl:dr Yahtzee doesn't like managing or teamwork

[@Powerhouse1]

Explains allot, doesn't it?

[@Akela987]

or planning ahead

[@ehoffart529]

​@Akela987 I feel like that's not fair to Xcom. You have to think ahead quite a bit once you get into the harder difficulties. If you're not gearing up for the first Sectopod on the hardest difficult of Xcom 2 congrats your run is done. Add in The Chosen and you're really needing to plan out 4 weeks ahead.

[@Akela987]

@@ehoffart529 Sure, but I don’t think Yahtzee plays Xcom on impossible ironman. On normal you absolutely can play reactively. Especially the first one, without timers.

[@grafphal5103]

Jup, sounds like a skill issue

[@AkiRa22084]

Wouldn't Warcarft 3 Campaign be perfect for you? You (the Hero unit) are on the battlefield, fighting directly, Everything is hidden by fog of war, so you get to explore. The campaign has much less multitasking than a multiplayer skirmish.

[@RemUchiha]

Hmm... I admit, as someone who loves Fire Emblem and XCOM, the distinction between the two drawn here was a bit tricky for me to wrap my head around, because they typically scratch the same itch for me. I had always assumed Yahtzee didn't like Fire Emblem because he's got a low tolerance for anime shit, but on reflection that explanation never held water, he loves Persona 5. It's odd that the lack of fog of war in (most) Fire Emblem maps would be the make or break point.

[@Cruxin]

It wouldn't just be the fog of war but the overarching design elements that form as a result

[@jegger2143]

I think part of it could be because XCOM kinda makes you bond with your team subconsioisly. Sure, at the start hes just a random assault class. But by the end hes William "Boomer" ohalley, a tanned scottsman with a strange obsession with shotguns and a violent hatred of floaters. The game conditions you into treating them like characters in an RPG, made worse when your brain likes making little stories for them. Essentially, XCOM is probably a bit closer to Baldurs gate or Wasteland in spirit than Command and Conquer

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Care is the answer. If you don't care about your troops they life is meanigless for you, and so the game lose stakes. In RTS units are numbers and xcom they people.

[@thesquishedelf1301]

This is a really easy hack for making you care about squads/troops that doesn’t get done often enough. Even in something like a standard RTS or Total War, if your squads aren’t just Pikeman 5th from the left and are instead the 501st Pike Brigade from [region] it lets you build stories with them. Maybe the 501st actually struggles against cavalry but are oddly proficient at avoiding aerial attacks. It lets you build a story. One of my favourite games back in the day was Battle for Wesnoth, where _every_ unit you recruit gets a randomly generated name and combat is heavily randomised. It’s such a quick shorthand to the kinds of stories Fire Emblem was built on, where two units that have unexpected synergy you try to keep together just for the headcanon instead of actual tactical value.

[@Daemonworks]

6:40 it exists, it's called Date Like Goblins

[@c4r151]

0:26 No that's tactics you are applying there not strategy.

[@edfreak9001]

what's the difference, is it just a matter of scale?

[@luya8610]

​@@edfreak9001to some extent. It's similar to the difference between winning a battle and winning a war. Capturing a chess piece using a fork or a pin is a tactic. Using that tactic at the right time in your plan for winning the whole game is strategy. A tactical air strike might weaken an enemy flank to allow your troops to attack that area. A strategic air strike might take out your enemy's munition factories so they are less well armed in the longer run. Flipped the other way: the strategy might be to capture an enemy hill, in order to control a key supply route. How your troops dislodge the enemy's defences on that hill is then primarily tactics. But yes, it's big picture vs focused picture, so it is somewhat about scale. Point is, an FPS often requires tactics but rarely strategy. Real time strategy games usually require both.

[@Spamlett]

​@@edfreak9001in very simple terms: Strategy is working out which goals are most important to accomplish, tactics are the way you accomplish/execute the fulfilment of that goal

[@CookiesRiot]

In fairness, a majority of "strategy" games are tactics games. Civilization would be strategy, but X-COM and pretty much any RTS are largely tactical.

[@SkyEcho751]

Well, thanks to this, I now understand why I don't like visual novels(For the most part). I'm someone who prefers to be doing stuff, rather then just reading responses. I'm fine with games which is heavily story based, something like Nancy Drew or Ace Attorney, which is nearly identical to the Visual Novels, however they still keep me active, having puzzles and problems I'm supposed to be solving. As opposed to visual novels, where you need a graph and flowchart that analyzed the hidden values, to find the 'correct solution' for what you want. If the game boils down to managing values, some of which I'm not even allowed to see, I don't find it engaging. I just can't find sitting and managing a story without much else fun.

[@davidvvn]

I feel the same way. I've gone through a couple VNs, and while the experience was overall enjoyable, I felt that way because I went in expecting a choose your own adventure novel, not something I would truly call a video game.

[@sabbywins]

There is game currently in development called Settlings which is a heavily Lemmings inspired. Might be worth checking out to scratch that particular itch.

[@ihappy1]

At the end of the day people are going to like what they like, and I don't think anyone will like 100% of every genre that's put there, and that's just how humans are. I love strategy and management games because to me I get a nice bit of enjoyment out of making something that all functions together. But I also understand how that could be overwhelming or unfun to someone else. What's annoying is when people make broad, unhelpful statementd about a genre or game mechanics that just shows that they don't understand how others work. If someone says "all turn based combat is bad" then that just rings hollow for people like me who like turn based combat. It's a good lesson for any aspiring game critics or those that want to have a discussion about games (or any form of media really) to push past personal dislikes and at least try to understand why someone would like something that you may not gel with. You may never even fully enjoy the things out of your comfort zone but at least understanding why it appeals to others is important for empathy, media literacy, and just being a fun person to talk to.

[@ThePCxbox]

The thing I really dislike about rts games is how theres this unspoken thing where you pretty much have to go in with a gameplan and a backup plan. You cant just "vibe" with your little minions, build up an army slowly and then attack. You need to plan before the game even starts. Something i really appreciate about a game called northgard is the fact you have to play around the winters and random events, meaning you're more incentivized in theory to go slow. Of course gamers found a way to optimize and year 2 rush you with massive armies but the concept is there

[@georgehornsby2075]

The chess-RTS correlation is definitely strong. I've lost count over how many people I meet playing RTS games who ask you if you play chess... and yes I fit the stereotype also. In a way RTS games are similar to fighting games in that people are playing primarily for the gameplay mechanics rather than story, art style etc. Scratches a different itch to your classic RPG or linear narrative game.

[@KingOfElectricNinjas]

There's been a lot of comparisons made between the competitive Starcraft scene and fighting games, with a focus on memorisation of strategy and moves and executing them correctly. Fighting games just make for a better spectator sport.

[@thevampire100]

4:00 Funnily enough there is a chess game called "Shotgun King" which is exactly what it sounds like, you play chess but you only have your king and he has a shotgun. It is a ridicously funny little game which Yahtzee might even like

[@larshoffmann2594]

That leads me to the question: Have you ever played Valkyria Chronicles? (Valkyria Chronicles 1 to be precise) It is turn based strategy, were you control one unit directly in real time through a 3D landscape, shoot manually and then get back on top to select another unit to control directly. One Problem a a time, not the silent almighty overseer, characters - not just units.

[@thekiss2083]

VC was the game that got me to enjoy 3rd person shooters despite hating them in the past. It blends genres really effectively

[@Fnorgh]

He reviewed the original game when it came out in 2008. He mostly liked the combat, hated the story and characters. The game made him realize he might enjoy turn-based strategy games, which proved to be true when Xcom: Enemy Unknown came out 4 years later.

[@Numek1324]

@larshoffmann2594 He has, I believe in 2009. He's done a zp about the game

[@PanzerfaustBR]

Well, this is why I love "factory" games (Factorio-esque)... there are a lot of big problems happening, but you can discretize each of them in a sequence of small problems in which there is a clear order of priorities to serially tackle

[@merman1974]

A whole demographic chants at once, "Has this man never heard of Advance Wars?"

[@shayneweyker]

Watching years of Beaglerush play X-COM taught me that the game on the tactical layer rewards you for always thinking about risk vs. reward in when, who, and where, and in what order you move soldiers and when to use their ammo/abilties. Which very much includes thinking about where pods of unseen nemies might be. It has puzzles but often they are emergent rather than designed-in. The game is about keeping the amount of active enemies you face at one time at a manageable level so they always run out HP first. Beagle's X-Com kitchen runs with double alien counts on top of max difficulty show just how powerful mastery of all those things can be.

[@madspet9106]

It's gratifying to hear just how similar Yahtzee's feelings about strategy games are to my own, even as far as his opinion on chess. And I've been accused of having a one-track mind by my family all my life. And as someone who bounces off strategy games, but with a bunch of friends who love them, I appreciate this video.

[@masterplusmargarita]

What I've realized is the dividing line for me with strategy games is attachment to each individual unit. In something like XCOM your units are faceless randomly generated mooks, sure, but the game requires you to invest heavily in a handful of them and they can be killed off, so you really care about them surviving. Plus, the game has robust systems that lead to memorable emergent stories that give them a sort of systemic personality. I still remember my Sniper from my Classic Ironman win, Pete, who consistently missed easy shots with his sniper rifle and got me in trouble, but had a knack for getting incredibly lucky and saving the day when backed into a corner and forced to take out his pistol. I love Fire Emblem, and every unit in those games (at least the modern ones) is a fully fleshed out character. On the other hand, I find Advance Wars incredibly tedious despite the gameplay being very, very similar, because you're commanding armies of completely faceless, interchangeable soldiers who you're expected to pump out during battles and not care about individually. I've never been able to get into an RTS, and I suspect it's for the same reason. I'm invested in the fate of Edelgard or Dimitri, I'm not invested in the fate of identical Light Tank number 489, even if mechanically I might make almost the exact same decisions with Light Tank 489 as I would with Edelgard. Come to think of it, the only management game I've ever liked has been HunieCam Studio (yes, I know), and in that game you're also managing predetermined characters with distinct personalities (most of whom got a lot of writing and characterization in the HuniePop games - yes, I know).

[@SimuLord]

When it comes to genres I don't like, I can reduce it fairly simply to "the more decisions I have to make per second, the less I like a game." First-person shooters, most RTS games, twitchy action games, those don't press my fun button. Slower-paced, more relaxing games are much more my jam. American Truck Simulator, 4X games like Civ, slower-paced games like Medieval Dynasty and the My Time series, city builders that let you build while paused (that's a major distinction), even specific sports like baseball and golf that I don't enjoy watching on TV but I love playing on my computer.

[@Grietiem]

I like that the performance in an individual mission of XCOM can have a knock-on affect in the R&D side of things, base development and engineering. It give purpose to each mission, rather than starting from a blank slate in each mission when playing an RTS. Your choices have an affect on the world you're in.

[@gzwiceskoski3421]

I'd say old school Fire Emblem are some of the most "straightfoward" and "moment to moment" strategy games that i've ever played. There's a degree of long term planning, but i wouldn't say it's that significant in most games. however, i will say: midgame and lategame chapter CAN be fresh servings of hell with multiple objectives and unfair bullshit.

[@mattmuir2160]

Indeed. Path of Radiance would be the Fire Emblem game that I'd recommend to newcomers if it wasn't currently trapped on the GameCube; it's very straightforward and it has the best story of all the old-school Fire Emblem games.

[@ampersAndyUA]

Damn, you've given me a great insight into myself as well. I'm just not a big picture kind of guy! Thanks for the push into the right direction, such moments of realization are great)

[@athroughzdude]

Huh, I wonder if Yahtzee not liking big picture thinking is part of why he never goes independent and always teams up with people that can do the management stuff in his place.

[@Ceekur]

I think Yahtz would likely enjoy Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate, where the King gets an actual shotgun to deal with the enemy pieces (because his entire kingdom i.e. the rest of his pieces has abandoned him). It's turn-based and the positioning of your King as well as the angle of your shotgun matters due to the spread. It has surprising depth, along with some RNG.

[@joseaca1010]

Ive always enjoyed strategy games, even as a kid, but as i grew older i realized i dont like getting my guys killed, i dont like it if they feel expendable, so i prefer games that reward keeping ypur guys alive, ergo i gravitate more and more towards SRPGs, thats also (among other reasons) why my favorite RTS is company of heroes, your units level up as they get kills, atleast US army units do, to the point losing a lvl 3 riflemen squad late game can be crippling

[@Maffia7]

I just found out about this channel thanks to this video and I'm so happy about it. I can very much relate to this, but I do like more "strategy" games like you. I wonder what you'd think of Endless Space. It's one of my favorites, since it has great music and a very slow and comfortable pace.

[@Raindrop_2401]

"I wonder why we can't clear out the Pawns and give the Queen a sub-machine gun"- A man who hasn't played a Fire Emblem game with a Jagen

[@TheBabaloga]

Lord knows I'm not an expert but I always thought magical realism referred to more vibey surrealist stuff like Haruki Murakami's work, or Welcome to Night Vale (sorta). I think Tactical Breach Wizards would be Urban Fantasy.

[@TyHunterX]

0:48 that’s tactics, not strategy, but that’s a whole different story

[@BlueHawkPictures17]

what's the difference? 😂

[@Tojeaux_]

@@BlueHawkPictures17to be very pedantic, Tactics are usually on the unit level, individual or squad level actions for 10 or so people, Strategy typically refers to huge tactical operations where you’re commanding hundreds, hence the Strategy game vs Tactics game divide. Xcom is a tactics game with a Strategy layer

[@TyHunterX]

@@Tojeaux_ It’s a bit more, Strategy is how I walk into the war, how I plan and expect to win, and what is even winning (what are the goals), is sometimes also broken into acts / mini goals, such as taking a fort to have a forward base. Whereas Tactics are the execution of the plan, How to fight the battle, the adjustments of the goals and tasks and the operation itself. Picking Zerg and rushing is a strategy, doing it in the game is tactics. Going for diplomatic victory in civ 6 with Rome is a strategy, where to place the cities, and which tech to go for is tactics

[@prrrromotiongiven1075]

@Tojeaux_ I mean it makes very little difference if you're clicking to send 100 soldiers or clicking to send 1 soldier, I would say the difference is in time to payoff. A strategic decision is one that pays off at the bare minimum several minutes later, in games that is. For example deciding what to research or where to put up a satellite in XCom, or deciding on an army comp after some early scouting in a game of StarCraft, or picking whether to send your armies east or west in Total War. A tactical decision sees payoff in moments, such as casting a spell in StarCraft or taking a shot in XCom, ordering a cavalry charge at a critical moment in Total War, etc.

[@josephhooton7781]

I have an intresting memory of someone, but i can quite remeber who, saying that Starcraft is at its heart a rythm game. Its about timing and rythm, a-b-a-b-a-c-a-b and so on. You have all these small tasks that you have to do on differnent timers and you have to find the rythm to get to each one. Over time that gets more and more automated and you can handle ever more complex rythms and find that you are no longer thinking about the basic beat of the game and can think much deeper. And finding that zen state, even if only for a few moments is so intoxicating. The fact that you managed to keep so many plates spinning at the same time makes you feel awsome.

[@venahtmusic]

This is splitting hairs and probably not the point but it sounds like yatzhee generally doesn't like city builders, 4X, and RTS games but he does like tactical games. And there are tactics games like Alien: Dark Descent that are real time but allow you to pause, and there are tactics games that aren't for everyone. As annoying all the genres are, we get granular because we have pretty specific preferences. I mean shit, I'm not that into city builders either but if you pair it with roguelite gameplay like Against the Storm, I eat that shit up.

[@bananasean5145]

I have felt the same exact way about strategy games and I finally found 2 that clicked with me and why. 1st one is Kingdom Under Fire. You control the Battlefield but can also jump down and control your leader and swing a big sword. 2nd is Iron Harvest. I love Mechs and Steampunk so the world and environment were enough to keep my engaged. Really wish I could have at least had a first person comera to see from inside my mech or from the ground looking up at the mechs in aw.

[@FinDan07]

Its funny because I have the exact polar opposite problem. Almost every game I play is a strategy game, and I struggle to enjoy games that aren’t.

[@daveraschke]

My condolences

[@FinDan07]

it really is a curse, all these ”game of the year” games come out with amazing quality and i couldn’t care less because I want to stare at a map instead

[@JordanManfrey]

It’s called being bad at video games

[@moosemaimer]

There's an old DOS game called Ultrabots that's ostensibly a big stompy robot RTS, where you can assign specific AI routines to your units and let them run around; but you can also take direct control of any of them whenever you want and play it like MechWarrior.

[@RorikH]

That sounds fun. When playing Starcraft II I've often wished there was some kind of "general order" feature that lets you say something like "unless directed otherwise, siege tanks should focus on ultralisks, firebats should target zerglings, and marines should focus on hydralisks", especially since while there is a button for "select all of unit X on screen", there's no "target all enemies of type Y on screen", so you have to individually click on the targets to prioritize in real time.

[@blackironslayer7228]

Watching Warcraft 3 online matches is very interesting, as you get to really get a full grasp of metas, strats, timelines, and keybindings which makes it great to watch but actually playing or even worse playing against would be frustrating.

[@bird3713]

My big hangup with competitive games like Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 is that the really cool looking, exciting things (hero ultimates from War3, Battlecruisers/Carriers/Ultralisks from Starcraft) just aren't really meta - the course of the game is generally decided in the first few minutes, and you rarely get to see the things that you think are cool and exciting. You normally see "mass this unit and throw it at the enemy"

[@SimuLord]

I watched my then-wife play Starcraft online and she explained to me the idea of the meta and the build order and how it was important to execute things precisely and quickly and I concluded that she was basically engaging in a mouse-clicking contest. I failed to see the strategy when the strats were all pre-determined, solved, and posted online-especially since I played tabletop wargames in high school, which are MUCH more strategic like actual warfare.

[@PlayMoGame]

I'm not into most strategy games, but an RTS I played recently called Empires of the Undergrowth is an exception. It may not be for Yahtz since there is a fair bit of multitasking, but you control groups of ants to take down larger and tougher enemies like tiger beetles, mantises, whip scorpions, and even a massive bullfrog. The story was really enjoyable too, with good voice acting

[@Twitchy_McExorcism]

I like the part in RTS games where you gather up all your forces and just march around the map killing/destroying everything with overwhelming force, but that's maybe 10 minutes of fun for the hour or three it takes to get there and it really just replicates being a one-man army going in guns blazing with an actual army. The only RTS-specific fun part of it I can think of is all your little soldiers uniting their fire at a single target, destroying something big, imposing, and otherwise too tough to take on by themselves like they're summoning Captain Planet.

[@untuxable5076]

Your personal taste reminds me of my dad's favorite line every time he saw me play a game with a complicated UI: "That looks too much like work."

[@richardvlasek2445]

it's truly fascinating how most of yahtzee's genre dislikes can be simplified down to "they take a lot of time to learn and i cannot be bothered"

[@starmaker75]

Atleast he better at explaining then some, *cough* egoraptor *cough*

[@TheGoukaruma]

Which is fair. People want to play games to relax and creating another job for yourself isn't for everyone.

[@Gen-o3j]

A very nice explanation on the difference between tactics and strategy in the comments. I also understand that planning is not fun for everyone to do, especially if you do nothing but plan during work hours. My belief is also, a videogame needs several things you like to make you want to play it, but there only has to be one thing in it you dislike to lose interest.

[@kerricaine]

Honestly, one thing for me is just... perspective. I really dislike top down, fixed camera games like classic fallout, diablo, StarCraft. Modern games are better but...XCOM is way more pulled in. It feels more like you're over your troops shoulder instead of just high in the sky. You see the world, enemies and combat way more closer, and it feels more visceral, less detached. When s soldier gets melted by an alien ray gun, you feel that sense of "oh he's dead and it's my fault" Combined with XCOM relying more on units being unique and not necessarily replaceable. Even If you don't see them as characters you still care because you've invested in levelling them up.

[@pixelpeek9963]

I found this fascinating, as strategy games of any kind are my favourite. Interestingly though, I do see them (predominantly) as solving one puzzle at a time, it’s just that the next puzzle is based on whatever units you think your opponent will throw at you next. Then you get something like Rimworld that also has me laughing. Witcher 3 is a game I just cannot get into, and I’ve tried! I love RPGs of all kinds, and I love strong narrative games (legacy of kain being another favourite of mine), but there’s something about the combat in Witcher 3 that is so monotonous that I bores me to tears. This is an interesting idea to think of where exactly the enjoyment line sits.

[@hidood5th]

It's ADHD probably lol, it's why I never got into them and the same reason I never got a drivers license, too much information at once with too little time to properly process it all.

[@utisti4976]

Dude, same!!

[@MrShukaku1991]

The fact you're in a multi ton death machine surrounded by other multi ton death machines all moving at very much lethal speeds doesn't help either. Its the number 1 non-medical cause of death in the world after all.

[@TheLloydLightning]

You just have to filter the information you need from the information you don't.

[@SimuLord]

@@TheLloydLightning The inability to do this is practically the definition of ADHD, so make of that what you will.

[@TheLloydLightning]

@@SimuLord I have ADHD and have been driving years before I've been medicated and know lots of people with ADHD that can drive. I just read up on it and I'm assuming it has to do with the severity of it.

[@Novodantis]

I consider myself an Immersive player type, primarily. While I like strategy games, I've never been that great at them; and can very much relate to the stress of fighting on multiple fronts. In an RTS I find myself often torn between "I want to watch this cool firefight, but if I do my base is gonna be cooked". That aspect is not fun for me, but that's why I probably mostly play coop and/or turn-based strategies, by and large.

[@DasGanon]

I'm surprised you didn't like Breach Wizards, the writing was worth it on its own. That said I'd also say it's a puzzle game disguised as a strategy game

[@ProfVaharrak]

As someone from the times of the Atari/C64 I also share the nostalgia for Lemmings, only thing relatively close (besides the mentioned Humanity) was Zombie Night Terror and hoping the upcoming Settlings can revive that spark although I know in my heart it just won't be the same.

[@mahieuwim]

So basically: you like tactics, not strategy.

[@MravacKid]

The bit about Lemmings is easy to explain - it's a puzzle game, not a strategy game. Sure, there's multiple strategies on how to solve some of the puzzles, but still.

[@Jonahv10]

ive not watched the whole video, only the first minute, so i apologise if you address this later, but from the examples of what a strategy game is, you only described rts (real-time strategy) games, which are VERY different from a lot of other strategy games. personally i dont like rts either, im more of a turn based strategy game player like xcom, or slay the spire. and i love ftl, even though its technically a rts, is very small scale, and you can pause whenever and queue moves as you want, which really makes it less overwhelming. edit: nvm you talked about xcom, but again, xcom is turn based, so it seems you just dont like rts games, not stratey games as a whole. edit edit: haha you literally just said what i said edit after watching vid: i would highly recommend FTL: faster than light. its a 2d strategy game roguelike in real time (but not really an rts as its solo and you pause whenever), where you're goal is to get through "sectors" in space (kind of like floors in isaac), trying to get to the final 8th sector and fight the final boss, the rebellion flagship , as you are the federation (reverse starwars). you control what your ships' weapons target (like shoot their shield room, or weapon room, maybe their engines to reduce their dodge chance), and micro manage your crew of (1-8) crew members, to man systems (like weapons or shields) to boost their effectiveness, or do repairs/ put out fires, or fend off intruders when needed. most of the time you just stick them in a system room, and move them when something gets hit and needs to be repaired. its really fun and if you make sure to constantly use the pause button, it essentially turns into a turn based game, where you pause, queue actions, then unpause, and whenever you get hit or hit them, you pause to think about what you want to do next. there's a lot of ship variety when you start a run, each with different starting weapons, crew, and systems, and the money you earn from doing events or beating enemies is used to buy stuff from shops, or upgrade your ships systems.

[@terrordarky]

if he hasn't played FTL, one of the most noteworthy indie games of its year, my jaw would hit the floor

[@XDieKillDieX]

He loves FTL. He did a Zero Punctuation on it.

[@Jonahv10]

@terrordarky idk, I feel like ftl isn't nearly as well known as games like Isaac or slay the spire. I wouldn't be too surprised tbh. There's also only like, 5 or 6 let's play playlists in KZbin, compared to many playlists for other indie games.

[@Jonahv10]

@terrordarky ans it's a pretty old game, with no new content since the advanced edition, since they moved on to into the breach.

[@agreatmanlookingtotheright]

Dude he literally rewieved FTL

[@chasesmay7237]

I really enjoyed mutant year zero and Miasma Chronicles as well. I hope that dev team sticks with it, bc they are so close to being a gold standard. I wasn’t in love with Miasma Chronicles power fantasy but the world and combat were top notch ‘x-com’ style games. Wasteland 3 is also fantastic, and the exploration in that game was a blast on its own. I’m a big fan of strait ‘tactics’ style grid combat as well. I agree with a lot said here, and all the things I love about those games (the chess-like feel) is something my brain chases for and rarely finds

[@JJJackson777]

i feel like Valkyria Chronicles 4 could be his thing, it's a turn based strategy like XCOM, but you control your team one at a time.

[@DragonNexus]

I feel like he reviewed it and wasn't keen.

[@Skythikon]

Nice video, I think you're really onto something. I say that as someone who grew up on RTS (Brood War and AoE2) and on the chess tournament circuit. Then I did a master's in philosophy, focusing on systems theory and the importance of holism. I love precisely what Yahtzee doesn't, it seems.

[@RakastanPorkkanakakkua]

In this video; Yahtzee makes a 7-minute video explaining why he is a complete pleb.

[@tripodranger7873]

I have a somewhat different problem with strategy games (particularly RTS), where I really really like the idea of them, building up a base, creating an army, sending it out to destroy someone else's base, etc, but I just cannot get a good handle on playing them. You often have to pay attention to multiple things going on at once, which is something my brain struggles keeping up with.

[@BuscadoresdelaVerdad-e8u]

really enjoyed your breakdown of strategy games, it’s refreshing to see someone challenge the genre! however, i have to say that i think strategy games can actually offer some of the most rewarding experiences when you invest the time to learn the mechanics. i get why they’re not for everyone, but for me, the satisfaction of outsmarting opponents is unbeatable.

[@xdeser2949]

There was a video you did like a decade plus ago where you basically called rome total war something like "Spreadsheet the game" and from that moment on I knew my tastes would diverge pretty drastically from yours so this is almost a dream video for me

[@VioletteZero]

I am an enormous real time strategy fan and the biggest hurdle for anyone getting into strategy is learning to multitask, and to me that seems to be your big hurdle. You don't just manage your army or manage your base, you do both at the same time. Often times someone is trying to screw your base up. So now you have to simultaneously command your units and get your base back to the way it was. But there is one unifying track between these two aspects: Get more money to make more dudes. Once you've conceptualized that, your brain will meld the two concepts more cleanly with each other. In strategy, it is better to have more dudes than it is to have the dude that counters the other dude. Paper may beat rock, but paper won't beat three rocks. So if you get more money to get more rocks you'll beat your opponent's paper army.

[@storymark]

A "Princes of the Universe" reference? From the part of the song usually cut off? Well done, Yatz!!