Hey PCGaming folks! I don’t know what happened this year, maybe reaching my mid-thirties finally unlocked the “dad game” part of my brain, and I started to all of a sudden get super into tactics games, after only having a passing interest in them my entire life.
Tactics games have been fun, but I want to sort of branch out and play some strategy games. 4X games like Civ have gone right over my head, but a friend said that Total War: Warhammer III would be up my alley.
I have had a look at it, and it does look pretty cool. But is this a good starting place for someone who is completely new to the strategy genre? Outside of the original Red Alert that I played when I was like 8 and just liked watching tanks going BOOM, I am basically a strategy baby and need some guidance!
Total War is probably the deep end.
I’d direct you towards XCOM 2 or Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children instead. These are more tactics games, rather than strategy.
You might also try Against the Storm or Starsector.
I agree that total war is very much a complex game, but man XCOM2 is very challenging for a beginner and even moderate strategy gamer.
I think that total war: Rome 2 is a little less complicated that warhammer and easier to digest. Also, a good real time strategy game that is not too feature complex but deep on strategy is the new age of empires
Personally I think if Civ was a little daunting I think the TW series could be too.
Whatever you do, I’d consider your own interests first before picking which to start with. Are you into ancient Rome? Go with Rome. Napoleonic era Europe? Go with Empire. Fantasy? Then Warhammer. That’ll help you stay engaged while getting over the learning curve.
If you’re into space or sci-fi you could try Sins of Solar Empire or even Stellaris. They aren’t TW but are good space fleet strategy games. Stellaris would be the tougher of the two to get into.
Total War Warhammer is great for “watching tanks go boom”, but it has a pretty steep learning curve if you want to play well.
The stats on units, spells, and abilities are comprehensive, but not necessarily intuitive to read. It will take a while before you can tell what’s good just from reading the stat card.
You’ll also be spending plenty of time on the map screen, trying to figure out which building to build where and how to use that weird faction-specific resource you keep earning.It’s not cheap either. You have to buy the older games and dlcs to use the factions that came with them, and most of the most interesting lords were added by dlc.
All that said, I love the game and I think it’s a really fun strategy game. Once you understand what things do, the battles are pretty simple, and it’s really fun to blow up a unit with a magic volcano or charge your army of tyrannosaurs into a horde of rat men.
