Strategy games hold a special place in our hearts as a community. Not all gamers enjoy the genre, but even those who are not fans can respect it. It's contributions to the industry overall span a vast section of gaming history. From the classic 4X games on the first home entertainment systems, to the modern, real time experiences like Halo Wars, this venerable genre stands up to the test of time.
One of the most important aspects of strategy games is the ubiquitous presence of lore. In Civilization, we had the Civilopedia, which taught us about the real world and the important actors that have vied for it's control throughout history. In Age of Empires, we saw much of the same, with a vast, in depth archive of information for each unit and faction in the game. The Age of Mythology spin off is very much the same, but with mythological lore being the focus, while maintaining the facts about how those myths affected the lives of the people that held them. You could spend hours digging through information on these codices, and many have.
This might seem a bit pointless to someone who prefers their games on the action-packed side, but it's an important quality nonetheless. These archives are an important resource for gamers young and old alike. They offer a chance to learn a lore, which, even if it's fictional, can help with understanding how certain aspects of these games work. They can also be used to help draw a player into the world, immersing them in a wealth of information that can help build an attachment to a certain unit or faction. It also only makes sense to separate the bulk of the story so that you can focus on the game play in the moment
Strategic games are steeped in the concept of critical thinking. You cannot play a strategy game seriously and not apply logical solutions. The rock paper scissors approach to the old 4X games and their predecessors still remains strong, but even this basic idea can help strengthen critical thought processes.
You see a bowman? Send a shield unit or two. Shields ahead? Perhaps a cavalry charge will smash them. Keeping these sorts of situations in mind sharpens your reaction times as well, since you're learning to predict and prepare for your enemies movements. Forethought is key to a well played attack or defense, since you won't have time to prepare when the enemy is knocking on your gate with a ram.
Resource management also takes a pretty large role in the genre. As the leader of a faction in classic 4X titles, you often find yourself at odds with your own ledger. Many a gamer has met his demise in Stronghold by not having enough apples or gold to survive the upset. From shoveling gong from the streets, to mining nova crystals on the surface of an asteroid, keeping your resources in line takes a front seat in this sort of game.
This is as much a blessing as it is a curse, honestly. Since the games in this category often rely on resource gathering to balance progress, you can learn to maximize efficiency in your task management. If you know you'll need stone to build walls around your granary to keep the enemy's pesky bauernkrieg at bay. Know you'll need a ton of gold to buy all the mercs you could want? Rush the gold mines and focus on trade if you can. Being prepared with resources can make or break you, especially in the real time subset of the genre.
While the world of gaming moves into an ever-expanding realm of possibilities in terms of what game developers can accomplish, it is important to remember the roots of gaming. Some of the most successful and influential early games were the 4X games like the X series and Civilization. They paved the way for entire sub-genres of games that now dominate the e-sports scene, paving the way for normalizing gaming as a sport. Fan or not, it's important to remember this often overlooked and underappreciated genre of game. Without them, who knows what the landscape of gaming would look like today?
-Ben
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