Core Strategy games

Strategy games focus on careful planning and skilful resource management in order to achieve victory, and are therefore classified as “thinking games”. These games may be Turn-based or Realtime, but there are some that mix the two types of play (such as X-Com).

This genre has had a consistent following since the mid-1980s. Though a large portion of Strategy games tend to be wargames, many are not based or focused on war. Common alternatives are simulation and management of economic transactions, of building things, of managing large-scale affairs, some known as 4x games.

Game Mode

Most Strategy titles though tend to be wargames and are either turn-based or real-time games.

• Real-time wargames are generally of real-time strategy (RTS) or real-time tactical (RTT) game types.
• Turn-based Strategy (TBS) games were originally the more common form of strategy game: the computers of the time being too slow for real-time interaction.

Game Missions

Real-Time Strategy and Turn-Based Strategy games
The vast majority of strategy games could be called “strategic war games” as they have heavy focus on military combat. Of these one major subtype of titles is usually classified as real-time strategy games, the focus of which is generally on simplified and stylised military battle tactics (e.g. reconnaissance, flanking, massed rushes, etc.), while turn-based games are more focused on strategy (i.e. looking at war from the perspective of a general or even the leader of the nation). Both these distinctions tend to place great emphasis on logistical aspects of battle: resource and economic micro-management and base and unit production. There is a recent trend towards hybrid games that include components typically associated with turn-based and real-time strategy games.

Examples of games in the real-time strategy genre include Warcraft, StarCraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires and Total Annihilation. Examples of turn-based games include Sid Meier’s Civilization, the Heroes of Might and Magic series, and Shattered Union. Examples of hybrid games include Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, and  Age of Empires III.

Real-Time Tactical and Turn-Based Tactical games 
A different genre which focus on a set number of units, and do away with the resource gathering and unit production aspects of RTS/RTT, games. Noteworthy examples are the fantasy Warhammer: Dark Omen game, one of the first purely RTT titles, the futuristic Ground Control and Ground Control 2, which distilled the combat operational aspects of Command & Conquer and Total Annihilation into a purely tactical form, the Close Combat series, where the player controls units in the Second World War, and the Total War series, reasonably realistically recreating empire building and epic battles in various historical eras

These games place greater emphasis on purely tactical aspects, contrasted to the production-economical focus of RTS games, and consequently have much more advanced facilities for operational-tactical unit control and planning and implementation of more advanced battlefield tactics, which is intentionally stylised, simplified and naïve in RTS titles. There is also a relatively small genre of turn-based tactics games predominantly consisting of skirmish-oriented versions of popular computer role-playing games.
 

Online Strategy Games

MMORTS Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) is a category for computer games that combines real-time strategy (RTS) with a large number of simultaneous players over the Internet. It is a type of massively multiplayer online game played with a client and has many degree’s of persistence. Example MMORTS games include Boundless Planet and Mankind.

MBBRTS Web browser based strategy games are a popular variant where the player does not need any additional software installed at their computer because the games have web site interfaces. Such games often last for several months, before the round ends and the game restarts. Some of these games are extremely popular and have  thousands of players. Examples of web based strategy games are Planetarion, Dawn of Myth and Terra Incognita.

4X Games Though the denomination has not gained popular recognition as a genre, with notable examples such as Master of Orion, Galactic Civilizations and Sid Meier’s Civilization, games of this category are known as 4x games (short for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), 

Hosted RTS Games which are multiplayer but exist within a persistent universe which reflects activity and achievements. A growing evolution of multiplayer RTS – this allows a more casual game whilst still being persistent enough to cultivate a feeling of continuity. 

MMORTS/FPS A growing genre, allows players to ‘drop’ into moments within the battle and affect the battle. Project Visitor, for example, combines overhead army control of RTS with first-person combat (for defensive/offensive respectively) and Urban Empires allows FPS moments on raids etc. 

MMORTS/RPG Another genre which combines an RTS game with Avatar elements to personify the player. Allowing growth of this character to alter the armies successes in battle and many more interactions limits the God aspect of most strategy games.

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