Poll of the Day > What's the shittiest strategy game you can think of... strategically

(+) Yeah! (+)

Don't go just sayin' Warcraft just because you can... we're looking for strategy games where the strategy is terrible, even if the gameplay is ok

The recent Total War games in which there is a built-in trait where other countries, even ones on the other side of the map, despise you for taking land, no matter what your reasons were. Like, "Buddy, I just spent the past ten years striking down your enemies--yes, plural--and securing your border while opening trade that has helped you flourish; and your plan is to attack me when I haven't had one year of peace? Just because I hold too much land?"

Command & Conquer 4.
The game just sucks in every way imaginable.

Does Blitzball count as a strategy game?

Probably the remake of Fire Emblem 2 for the 3ds. Good writing and characters, great visuals, but strategically every map is a flat rectangle with random trees and etc to stand on for free evasion chance. It doesnt help that there are some enemies who can infinitely summon more monsters either.

First one that came to mind was Tails to Tiara 2.
Random PS3-era SRPG where only the sequel was localized in the west. Picked it up because some guy on /r/JRPG would NOT shut up about it (I've given the guy like 50 downvotes by now) and it was absolutely awful. Played it for like 15 minutes. There is zero hook or context as to what the hell is going on at the beginning of the game.

I guess you can put Disgaea in here. It's a strategy RPG, with some strategy elements, the game is super fun, but you can just grind yourself up massively and one-hit everything - so the strategy can be pretty non-existent.

Tic-Tac-Toe

technically correct uninteresting answer is probably MOO3. though I didn't really play it enough to tell for sure. (I remember it being almost fun to build up your planets, but there wasn't much beyond that.)

otherwise, maybe Earth 2015? if I recall, it has no upkeep or farm-space. the limit on how many units you can build ends up being a limit of physical space and room to move, even for air units. units, even air units, can't overlap. (maybe air can overlap with ground). so the end result was that your army can always be larger and more unwieldy, which was not a great way for a game like that to play IMO.

(in retrospect I suppose units taking up space and having to deal with the logistics of moving them is in itself a logical cost to pay for having a large army, but there needed to be some other kind of penalty for overly large armies, like upkeep. the way it was, you can pump out units till the game crashes and then find that you can't move them because they can't path and are just flooding your entire base.)

Global Thermonuclear War

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/3/AAQwHjAADGgb.jpg

The only winning move is not to play.

I dont play much rts, but to hear my husband talk about it, you'd think Rome total war 2 was an affront to god and humanity

Valkyria chronicles. The amount of xp you get at the end of each mission is determined by your rank, which is determined solely by how many turns it took you to beat the mission. There's also no way to grind xp, so the system strongly rewards you for ignoring enemies as much as possible and bum rushing the objective. I've never played another strategy game that sabotages itself so thoroughly.

Tic tac toe

funkyfritter posted...

Valkyria chronicles. The amount of xp you get at the end of each mission is determined by your rank, which is determined solely by how many turns it took you to beat the mission. There's also no way to grind xp, so the system strongly rewards you for ignoring enemies as much as possible and bum rushing the objective. I've never played another strategy game that sabotages itself so thoroughly.

I mean, there is strategy in that, it is just not the traditional "Wipe out the enemy" strategy. Plus having played all of the first game and about half of the 4th, I don't know of many maps where you can completely ignore the enemies, you need to just be smart about who you use to take them out and doing it as efficiently as possible.

Of course, me defending this game is probably just the fact that it is my favorite Strategy RPG series...

My answer would be an old and long forgotten DOS game called Star Legions. Sure, it pre-dates Command and Conquer by 3 years and came out the same year as Dune (The game many people think started Strategy PC games), but it doesn't excuse the fact the "Strategy" is just deciding where to put units and when to nuke a planet. Also doesn't help the fact that some of the later levels can take upwards of 12 hours to complete, and the game has a bug where if you save/restore your game in the middle of a mission it causes the game to crash when you complete said mission. Yay!!

Honestly Fire Emblem, all of them eventually turn into smashing your highest level troops into the enemy like an action figure battle while your low levels serve as sacrifices or meat shields, or certain characters solo the map so it's a struggle to keep everyone on par with the level increases. I feel like if one of the highlighted features of your game(Three Houses) is a rewind mechanic you've failed as a strategy game. The Monster enemies in Three Houses made me want to quit too.

I enjoy the franchise but I've never played one that didn't feel like a slog mid-way through the game.

funkyfritter posted... Valkyria chronicles. The amount of xp you get at the end of each mission is determined by your rank, which is determined solely by how many turns it took you to beat the mission. There's also no way to grind xp, so the system strongly rewards you for ignoring enemies as much as possible and bum rushing the objective. I've never played another strategy game that sabotages itself so thoroughly.

I wanted to like Valkyria, I thought it was a fun Anime WW2 themed game, but I absolutely lost it when the first game introduced the Magical anime bullshit powers, I've never felt so suddenly disconnected with a games plot to the point where I quit like I did with VC.

funkyfritter posted...

Valkyria chronicles. The amount of xp you get at the end of each mission is determined by your rank, which is determined solely by how many turns it took you to beat the mission. There's also no way to grind xp, so the system strongly rewards you for ignoring enemies as much as possible and bum rushing the objective. I've never played another strategy game that sabotages itself so thoroughly.

if that's the game I'm remembering, what I didn't like about the game was that is was supposedly about your tank and how great it was, when actually it was your single biggest liability. the game wasn't hard, except that you immediately lose if your tank gets hit too much, and it's always a sitting duck.

Probably Sword of the Samurai. It looks like there is going to be a strategic layer when you get armies and provinces, but the easiest way to win is to just run around as a ninja and kill all the other leaders. It is pretty much just a glorified action game

Centurion Defender of Rome had very little strategy as well. Pretty much make a bunch of money in the Circus Maximus then steam roll the barbarians with your massive army that you made from your gambling proceeds.

Fire Emblem 8 also could be largely soloed by Seth, an overpowered Jagen character you get right at the start of the game.

Entity13 posted...

The recent Total War games in which there is a built-in trait where other countries, even ones on the other side of the map, despise you for taking land, no matter what your reasons were. Like, "Buddy, I just spent the past ten years striking down your enemies--yes, plural--and securing your border while opening trade that has helped you flourish; and your plan is to attack me when I haven't had one year of peace? Just because I hold too much land?"

I feel like it's become much less worse in recent years because the trend at endgame is large alliances. Compare Shogun 2 to Three Kingdoms, for instance. Realm Divide sabotages the player's relations specifically once you pass a certain threshold, and 3K allows for alliance victories by making everyone a lot more willing to follow you at endgame if you hold a capitol and they don't.

Warhammer situationally avoids this by just making racial hatred and friendship more pronounced. So it's harder to do funny shit like skaven and high elf alliances but especially once chaos comes to town all order factions instantly love each other. This makes it end up that the order factions are all rather close and all the evil factions end up liking their evil neighbors because alliance play makes an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation. Troy pushes the big alliance war pretty hard early on in each campaign, so you're on one of two sides most likely.

No game has had as horrific diplomacy since Shogun 2, and that game's 11 years old. 3K diplomacy is downright amazing, honestly.

funkyfritter posted...

Valkyria chronicles. The amount of xp you get at the end of each mission is determined by your rank, which is determined solely by how many turns it took you to beat the mission. There's also no way to grind xp, so the system strongly rewards you for ignoring enemies as much as possible and bum rushing the objective. I've never played another strategy game that sabotages itself so thoroughly.

You can absolutely grind exp in that game, very early on and very easily. One of the extra maps can be completed in 1-2 turns with a scout. Scouts in general are insane in 1.

Man I remember in Valkyria 2 when you get the light body for your tank and suddenly it only takes one activation point instead of two. Game balance flies out the window at that point. Who needs more life when you can double tap anything that might actually hurt you?

To answer the question though, of games I've played, Warlocked on the GBC. I mean it's amazing that the GBC could even handle an RTS, but it's super basic.

Arc the Lad series. You can get through them without much thought.

DocDelicious posted...

Arc the Lad series. You can get through them without much thought.

I wouldn't even call Arc the Lad an SRPG series. It's just a JRPG with light SRPG battles.