2020 – Crusader Kings 3 – 91
I knew that Crusader Kings 3 was fairly well received, being pretty much Crusader Kings 2 with all the content and a new coat of paint, but to see it’s averaging in the 90s surprised me a bit. Even the Steam player review score is 91%, very nice. What I love about Crusader Kings 3 is how the team decided to go all out with the role-playing aspect of the game, and it’s now as much a grand-strategy title as it is an RPG. Recent expansions, like the Wandering Nobles and Roads to Power reinforce this, by detethering characters from lands, holdings and reals, and making them people that inhabit medieval Europe as individuals.
2021 – Mini Motorways – 87
I love Mini Motorways, and it’s a title that I always have installed on my machine, be it my desktop at home, or my laptop on the go while travelling. Mini Motorways is a mini-strategy/management game where you’re tasked with building the road network for a city that’s constantly evolving. Buildings spawn, and it’s your job to connect them with their offices/malls/stores of the corresponding colour. Every couple of days you get to pick up some pieces, like roads, roundabouts, stoplights, and highways, and as long as you can keep your city going and the traffic doesn’t accumulate, you’re golden. Inevitably, something is going to go wrong, and your roads are going to clog somewhere, cars won’t be able to get to and from their destinations, and the game will be over. Despite this, it’s a very relaxing game once you internalize that you’re going to lose, eventually, and that all you can do is your best.
2022 – Total War: Warhammer III – 86
People really love Total War: Warhammer III, don’t they? It’s not hard to see why, by infusing the Total War formula with the fantastical elements of the Warhammer Universe, the trilogy of Warhammer games offers an experience much different from the ones its historical counterparts can muster, and I’m a massive fan of it. Tired I was of countering cavalry charges with well-placed spearmen, of using arches to counter these spearmen, and of using cavalry to kill those archers. Total War: Warhammer takes the rock-paper-scissors approach to warfare and adds elves, dwarves, pirates, vampires, lizardmen, the Chaos Gods and their minions. You might not enjoy the Warhammer Universe, but one thing is certain, battles seldom feel boring or uninspiring. The unique faction goals and play style also add a lot of flavour to the grand strategy layer. I think the best thing Creative Assembly ever did was to go into fantasy, as their attempts at historical titles haven’t worked out all that well.
If it was up to me, the winner of 2022’s best game award would be Marvel’s Midnight Suns, a game I called “perfect”, but to each his own.
2023 – Against the Storm – 91
Against the Storm came out of nowhere and stole the heart of everyone who enjoys city-builders with its unique rogue-like approach and fantasy setting. In Against the Storm, you’re the Queen’s Viceroy leading humans, beavers, lizards and foxes (each with their own traits) in conquering the wilderness against the Blightstorm. The game is divided into two layers, the city-building and the more meta-layer aspect of the game, where the resources acquired will help you upgrade the Smoldering City. You’re under constant pressure from the Queen to expand and keep on growing, so make sure to plan well and ahead. Against the Storm does something lovely with city-building, as the team realized that the most exciting moments of building your city are those early stages where the challenge is at its highest, and by matching the roguelike aspect of retrying and constantly building new cities, it manages to keep those early moments coming again and again. It’s a lovely title, and one of the best city-builders ever.
2024 – Tactical Breach Wizards – 87
Having played Tactical Breach Wizards, I can confirm that’s a great game indeed. However, for it to be considered the best strategy game of the year in 2024 is a bit of a stretch, but this isn’t my game of the year, it’s the overall consensus, so there’s that. Tactical Breach Wizards is such a neat concept: you command a team of magical special forces operators, but instead of using weapons to dispatch your foes, you use wands (with silencers!), brooms, staffs, and all kinds of magical chicanery to outsmart your, more often than not, numerous and better-equipped opponents. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and every bit of dialogue is as entertaining as it’s funny. Oh, and in almost every mission you’re challenged with defenestrating your enemies. For those of you who never picked up a dictionary, “defenestrate” means “to throw (someone) out of a window”.
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