I am looking for minimalist strategy games. So, tight focus and streamlined without bloat mechanically or even graphically, though cool graphics are also fine, especially if they cleave to minimalist aesthetics while still being engaging. I will list some I have played>Cursed Kingdom- Itch.io gamejam game about managing a plague. Very short but fun.>Death Crown- Tower defense RTS where you order your guys down lanes and use towers to fight off the other guy's lanes. Really nice aesthetics.>Desolation Tycoon- post-apocalyptic trading/caravan sim where you build up riches and armed forces to make a profit until you retire or die. Surprising amount of worldbuilding for such a simple game, but meta-progression takes forever>High Strategy: Urukon- Minimalist GSG that filters me every time I try to play it and I can't tell if it is skill issue or the game is bad, would like to see what other people think of it. It has a sequel that I have not played so I can't say if it's good.>Immortal Defense- Another tower defense strategy game with a schizo kino plot.
>>1749318Tooth and Tail
>>1749318Ozymandias
>>1749318https://www.stephanebura.com/warandpeace/doesn't get more minimalist than this
>>1749339I've actually played this one and enjoyed it but thanks>>1749343Will check this out>>1749346This also looks fun.Just to throw another one in the pile there's also Territorial.io, which is an .io grand strategy game. It fun for a few hours and there's probably some silly metas to figure out if they haven't been found already.
>>1749350>Territorial.ioNot strategy.
Militia 2 is a fun tactics game where you need to clear the board with unconventional and often indirect attacks.
UNIRONICALLYSOVL
>>1749318Mini metro? It's quite polished but still minimalistic
Line War. Pure essence of real time strategy game.
>>1749318The Great War Of Prefectures is as minimalist, while still being enjoyable, as it gets.
>>1749318Mahjong Soul.It's Riichi Mahjong with catgirls.
Slay is super fun>>1749318I tried Urukon but couldn't understand how to play it. It's confusing as fuck
I finished Urukon once couple of years ago. Should probably play it more with other factions at some point. It was reasonably fun and felt rewarding, but the game also highly favors either trading or plundering resources instead of making them yourself, it favors playing wide instead of playing tall. By what I recall it was reflected in win conditions of harder factions too, some of them get gold just for managing to hold onto their immediate surroundings and exist.
>>1749343Seconding this. Also has a killer soundtrack.
>>1749318Infested Planet, Egypt: Old Kingdom (from the dev who made Precivilization Stone Age Flash game), Kingdom: Two Crowns, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, Bad North, A Dark Room, Massive Assault, Slipways, Rusted WarfareAlso some mobile games like: S-kladom, Vodobanka, Iron Marines, Antiyoy, Achikaps, Xenowerk Tactics, Drevepsina>>1749386Based. That dev made a bunch of cool games but went completely MIA. Those could be played on a smartphone too but because of the lack of updates, Google removed them from the store.
Defense of the Oasis
>>1749398this is rapidly becoming my addiction
>>1749863>That dev made a bunch of cool games but went completely MIAHe still drops occasional patches on Steam. Just doesn't seem to have more new games in him.
>>1749318Go into boardgames. For a lot of the abstract or small scale ones are forced to be minimalist by virtue of having to fit in a box.>Homeworlds32 pyramids of varying size and color, plus an optional "it's your turn" tile, create an absolute blast of a space war with simple rules yet huge ramifications.>War ChestDeckbuilding war where you use disks to either put the disks on the map as a unit, or use that units' disks to move and attack with it. Rewards strategical thinking for the future, as anything you recruit is only going to come online after your current bag/deck is empty, AND you reshuffle and draw it.>Undauntedleast abstract I recommend here but it's still minimalist, has a few WW2 variants and an upcoming sci-fi variant for those who like lazer guns. Also a deckbuilder like War Chest, with the key feature being that dealing damage removes cards from the opponents' deck or sometimes their hand, which limits their actions now and in future.>anything by Splotter (Bus, Food Chain Magnate, The Great Zimbabwe, Roads and Boats, Horseless Carriage)Not a war strategy, but an economic one. Rules are always simple but lead to great interactions which you usually realize only when seeing them in action. These games are so tight that a mistake on turn 1 can and will eliminate you from the competition fully and entirely, whereas in other economic strategy games that waits until turn 3 at least.
>>1749398It's WHFB but in vidya form, not very minimalist if you ask me.
>>1749318>Cursed Kingdomplayed this, it was fun, but it seems like someone smarter than me who can think ahead could just solve this game easily and get a win every time. but even i managed to beat the plague with 65% survivors on my third or fourth attempt by just going with my gut feeling.
>>1750058>played this, it was fun, but it seems like someone smarter than me who can think ahead could just solve this game easily and get a win every time. but even i managed to beat the plague with 65% survivors on my third or fourth attempt by just going with my gut feeling.actual spoiler for solving the game If you have two healers within two settlements of the two outbreak sites you can move each one twice on top of the outbreaks and they will never spread and you will get the highest possible score.
>>1750063huh. didn't know you could do that. i had one dude able to stamp on one of the outbreaks. still only got 65% survivors though. i wonder how i was able to manage that without knowing this trick. must have had an easy starting state i guess.
>>1750065>>1750063eh, i guess one trick to get consistent wins is to line up your healers on a rough diagonal between one part of the map and the outbreaksi'm sure there are better ones too but this is just what i was able to arrive at within a few games. fun little game though, just what i needed to amuse myself for a bit
>>1750065you can definitely save 90%+ of the population with a good enough start
>>1750071cool, i'll probably be revisiting this game from time to time when i have a few minutes to kill.
Warlords 1 & 2 are very simple but engaging. 3 started to make it a bit more complex, and while not a bad game, I like the first two better. Every faction sharing the same unit pool in them meant that production of cities had actual strategic value.
>>1750071>>1750073damn, i thought that would take me longer. just booted it up for my lunch break and sure enough i got this as a result. guess once you familiarize yourself it's a piece of cakeguess my original post stands
>>1750086Based. Warlords 1 and 2 are wonderful in their simplicity.
I bought Warlords 3 after finishing a playthrough of Age of Wonders 1 and wanting a quicker game. It fits the bill, a massive fight in a large map should take an hour or two while in AoW a similar scenario would take several days. And all the combat is automated, you just worry about army composition and movement.
>>1749343fun game, this is a great thread>>1749686can confirm this also, very comfy
>>1749376it's literally eu4 without the bloatit's as much of a strategy game as any other paraslop
>>1752255confirmed never played a paradox game before
>>1750048Undaunted is a fantastic table top. Is there a video game now?
>>1749318Mother Of All Battlesminimalist graphicshas explorationhas management of units productiononly "resources" are captured towns where you can produce more units
>>1750048>a mistake on turn 1 can and will eliminate you from the competition fully and entirelyThen why doesn't the game just end on the 1st turn? Why bother having multiple turns?
>>1755135Steam says there's gonna be a vidya Undaunted soon but it looks to be just Normandy while the board game you can play via Tabletop Simulator has Normandy, North Africa, Stalingrad, Battle for Britain, and who knows what else>>1755176No anon you're thinking the wrong way aroundin a typical point salad board game the first few rounds don't matter, and nothing you do there can really raise or lower the chances that you win. If you can't fail with your first move, then why even have a first move at all? Why not skip all that crap and get to the interesting choices that actually influence the game and player standings? Splotter games don't have that waiting period. They are full game from the word "go". Though I am exaggerating for effect, yes, as if you know how the game plays, you rarely will make a game-ending mistake in turn one. It's possible, like stuffing your factory floor in Horseless Carriage full of research departments, not leaving any inch of space for the actual car manufactring, but if you know that the game is about making cars you know that not making cards does not win the game, and so you should focus oin the cars.
