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!
Any Total War game is excellent if you want a balance between real time tactics and grand strategy elements. They separate the gameplay between a turn-based campaign map that is somewhat reminiscent of a more simplified version of 4x games; and real time battles with good tactical depth. So it can scratch both itches while never getting you tired of either.
With that said, you might want to take a look at the whole catalog of the series in case you find the historical-based entries more appealing than the Warhammer ones. And if you are more interested in Warhammer, of course keep in mind that 3 is the latest one and you might be able to find the previous ones cheaper/easier to get into.
Ultimately, the Total War games that you end up more interested about will come down to how modern you want the game to be and what setting you find most interesting. In case you need a summary of the choices:
Oldest/Earliest Total Wars - The ones that are partially 2D (Early 2000s)
Early Full 3D Total Wars (Mid 2000s)
Modern Total Wars (from late 2000s onwards)
As you can see there’s a miriad of choices but you can’t go wrong with most of them, and most will provide 100s of hours of game.
One last thing, if you go with Warhammer, you should know that by acquiring 1 and 2, you can play an expanded version in 3 that includes the maps and factions of 1 and 2. So if you get the third one and find yourself liking it, know that you can get even more content for it.