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Preview by Sam M.

The Banner Saga was a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2012 and now the full release of the game is right around the corner.

The appeal of The Banner Saga is immediately obvious; it brings the same gameplay elements found in games such as Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics. Drawing from Norse culture, The Banner Saga also brings a fantasy world to live thanks to its stunning hand drawn art style.

Review by Matt S.

Strategy games on PC are a different beast to strategy games on consoles. On consoles the likes of Advance Wars and Fire Emblem are considered complex strategy games, but these pale in comparison to PC titles like Europa Universalis IV. Conversely, the PC game community, weened on the likes of Civilization and Europa Universalis, has difficulty playing the simplified and accessible strategy structures that we typically see on consoles.

Preview by Mike B.

Frozen Synapse is a title that is heavily regarded among the Digitally Downloaded staff. It's such a simple concept, but executed to a level of precision that we rarely see at any level. The player plans the movements and actions of a small unit of troops which after finalised play out against the actions of enemy forces within a five-second period. When that time interval is over, the player can reevaluate their plan of attack and change their soldiers' movements and actions to fit the current situation. The game system actively encourages a metagame reiteration of strategy, making tactical planning as exciting as when that strategy is executed successfully.

Review by Matt S.

Drive on Moscow, the follow up to Shenandoah Studio's previous wargame, Battle of the Bulge, is a near carbon copy of the engine that ran the team's previous effort. That's a good thing because there are still far too few genuinely serious wargames available on the iPad, let alone ones that are as replayable and rich in depth as this.

As with Battle of the Bulge, Drive on Moscow follows closely a real conflict; in this instance the push of Axis forces to occupy Moscow before the winter could set in during World War 2. Of all the conflicts that marked World War 2 this is one of the most fascinating for students of history, as it pitted two supremely evil men (Hitler and Stalin) against one another, while desperate soldiers on both sides fought and died in a conflict that would mark the turning point in the war for the Allied armies.

Review by Sam M. 

In yet another casual strategy game for tablets, Galaxy Factions tasks you with commanding an outpost that has been charged in getting rid of the pirate colonies that have illegally settled nearby. Galaxy Factions takes the basic attack and defense formula we’ve seen before, and tries to mix it up.

You first have to build a base, your home of operations. From here you mine for resources that can be used to build defensive weapons, troops to attack other bases and buildings that will help your base function. The more walls and turrets you build the harder your base will be to destroy. That being said if your base lacks offensive power, then you won’t be able to destroy enemy bases.

Review by Matt S.

The only criticism I could possibly come up with with the original Ace Patrol game was that its free-to-play structure was a little expensive and didn't really gel with the serious strategy game structure.

So the fact that Pacific Skies is content to charge a small premium (around $6) and then lay off from begging for money makes Pacific Skies the perfect iPad strategy game. Literally, there is no possible criticism I could see anyone with their head screwed on correctly leveling at this game. Pacific Skies is accessible tactical strategy with enough depth to keep the most hardcore of strategy players hooked for quite some time to come.

Interview by Matt S. 

You likely haven't heard of Slitherine or Matrix Games (they're the the same company), unless you're an aficionado of serious strategy games. If being a armchair general appeals to you, however, it is very likely that you've played a title like Battle Academy, or one of the Commander titles.

What's fascinating about Slitherine is that is is one of the few companies that absolutely insists on the value of its content. Sales are few and far between, and in fact its Battle Academy release is one of the most expensive games you can pick up on the iPad. And yet, even as the rest of the corporations in the industry look to batter one another into submission with slash-price cutthroating, Slitherine has succeed, making a strong argument that it's more sustainable to find a niche and supply it with quality products than try to appeal to a mass market without really engaging with the players.

We sat down to have a chat with the Director of Slitherine, J.D McNeil, about his frustrations with this flight to the bottom, the retail system, and the challenges that niche publishers face with console manufacturers and audiences.

What I found really interesting is that for all the rhetoric around being supportive of indie developers and publishers, Slitherine's experience with Sony's approvals system is still something of a business risk. After going through the energy of developing a game for the platform, to have it denied release, despite being deemed of standard enough for other markets, is a very real risk of a failed investment. Luckily it worked out well for Slitherine in the end, but it's a sign that the console platforms are still not a guaranteed avenue to success.

As the digital market continues to grow and strip production costs out of game development, it is going to be interesting to see if more independent and niche publishers are able to find similarly sustainable business models. If McNeil is right, they should be able to succeed, as long as they don't treat their content as a throwaway commodity.

Review by Nick H.

The idea behind Arma Tactics appeals to me on many levels. Having played and enjoyed the Arma shooting titles, I liked the idea of a tactical game based on the series. Described as a turn-based combat strategy game, Arma Tactics drops you into a scenario without any guidelines to necessarily follow - simply try to complete your story-based missions (with some randomised objectives sprinkled in) in whatever fashion suits you best.

Review by Matt S.

Well, Dominions 4 is rather quaint. It's a game that I actually needed to delve into its manual to understand how to play it... and the manual is over 100 pages long. Am I showing my age to say I actually remember doing that with the strategy games of old (like, say, Civilization 2?)

The menu interface is from about 10 years ago, and the graphics are about 20 years old. In fact, the game would have been considered ugly 20 years ago. Sprites barely animate, the map is a blot of colour broken up into regions via lines, and watching the combat play out is like pulling teeth as units stutter along at a snail's pace.

Review by Nick H. 

Generally when a game tries to mix a load of different features from varying genres into one title, it tends to be poor to decent in executing a lot of these features while proving to be excellent in none. They tend to become classic examples of spreading development resources and talent too thin, offering thing slices of features that seem appealing at a glance, but fail to pan out in the end. I am pleased to say that Space Rangers HD A War Apart is not one of those titles.

Review by Nick H.

Just in case HeroCraft's title for this game did not give it away, what you are looking at here is yet another World War II strategy title. Coming up with something noteworthy in this genre was always going to be tough as the iOS platform has been inundated with quality strategy games.

Review by Matt S.

Well, it was inevitable that Worms would eventually make its way to the PlayStation Vita. The folks at Team 17 have adapted the insanity to every other platform, so why not also Sony's powerhouse?

Now, these games don't have a good track record on the handheld consoles, it must be said. It wasn't until the Nintendo DS that a portable Worms title has been even playable, let alone entertaining. But, after the iPad's rather excellent Worms 3 release, and the sheer quality of the original Worms Revolution, I had high hopes for this Vita title.

Have you ever played Harpoon? Possibly not, it's a rather old game and even when it was new it was a niche within a niche.

But if you're a fan of strategy games then Harpoon, even now, is an accurate simulation of real military strategy and conflict. It's also clearly the inspiration for space strategy game Tactical Space Command, a new iPad game that is almost overwhelming in terms of both depth and reward.

Review by Rob P.

I’ve played this game before, and so have you.

Well, perhaps not this game, precisely. But certainly one like it. Allied Corps is the latest standalone expansion in the venerable Panzer Corps series, which is itself the successor to the Panzer General franchise of the mid 90’s. Tracing the thread back even further, the format is squarely based around tabletop wargaming conventions that first made an appearance in the early 19th century. Move and attack. Attack and move. If you’ve played any turn-based game – ever – you already know how it goes.

Have you read Matt’s masterful review of Europa Universalis IV? If you have, I’m pleased to award you a permanent +0.15 modifier to your Administrative Power and a congratulatory text message from me. If you haven’t, do it now and receive a one-time bonus of +0.3 to your Diplomacy rating. What’s that? You’ve still not read it? Then I’ll have to slap the ‘dishonorable scum’ Causus Belli on you and declare that a state of war exists between us. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Earlier in the year we reviewed a little iOS exclusive strategy game from the great man himself, Sid Meier. Ace Patrol absolutely blew us away, and now it's available to people without iPads.

Ace Patrol on PC is in-app purchase free, and contains all the content of the iPad game unlocked... for a very friendly price of just $10 on Steam. This game is a fresh new tactics IP with plenty of depth in how it recreates a early-era military plane dogfight.

It's well worth a look for strategy or tactics games fans. Enjoy!

For the past week my sleep has been badly affected. In fact, for the first time since I was at university and in the habit of putting off writing essays that I had three months to do for the night before they were due, I have found myself going completely without sleep.

For the first time since Civilization 2, I actually lost so much time playing this game that the sun came up, and I hadn't realised that it actually set the day before.

I'm not sure what miracle it was that convinced Tecmo Koei to release a Romance of the Three Kingdoms onto the Wii U Virtual Console, let alone in the West. What's even more miraculous was that it was released in the Australian Wii U Virtual Console too, and we never get those kinds of games out this way.

Let me begin by saying that I'm always a little wary of browser based Real Time Strategy games. I'm a big fan of the genre and yet many RTS games aimed at casual audiences abandon strategic depth for accessibility.