Critical Moves - Strategy Gaming

This week Jack and Al sit down with Matt, Creative Director at Saigon Dragon Studios, to talk about Space Tales — an early access RTS inspired by StarCraft, built by a Vietnamese studio with 11 years of outsourcing experience and a whole lot of passion for the genre.
They get into the game's retro-cartoonish art style versus its surprisingly dark Lovecraftian themes, the failed Kickstarter that became a learning curve, the decision to ditch publisher pitching and go it alone, and why the team hired a professional screenwriter to save their first mission from being five minutes of dialogue nobody was reading.
Space Tales is available now in Early Access on Steam, with a full 1.0 release targeting end of July 2026.
🔗 Space Tales on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457960/Space_Tales/
🔗 Saigon Dragon Studios Discord: https://discord.gg/4be9rucj22
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Critical Moves examines strategy games through weekly Friday episodes and Monday news updates. Six hosts across multiple continents analyze recent releases, forgotten classics, and industry developments without the typical podcast theatrics. We cover real-time strategy, 4X civilization builders, turn-based tactics, and hybrid games that blur genre boundaries.

Jack and Adam dive into Crusader Kings 3 — where it stands six years after release, what the DLCs have added, and whether it's worth picking up if you've never played a Paradox game before. Adam comes in as a CK2 veteran with zero CK3 experience, which makes for a genuinely useful breakdown of what's changed, what's new, and what's coming. They cover the adventurer mode, the stress and traits system, the recent free update adding old age mechanics and a Kingdom Come Deliverance crossover, and the two upcoming DLCs that could change how the game is played entirely.
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Al, Jack, and Joe dig into the Stellaris Season 10 announcement: the Nomads expansion arriving 15 June, the Willpower ethics rework coming Q4, four new scenario packs introducing standalone game modes, and a rebrand of ascension perks to ambitions. They also weigh in on the Beyond All Reason commercialisation controversy, what it means for a game built by volunteers over two decades, and why the backlash may be missing the point.
More from Critical Moves Podcast:
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Newsletter: https://criticalmoves.beehiiv.com
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/CriticalMoves_
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Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalMoves
Critical Moves examines strategy games through weekly Friday episodes and Monday news updates. Six hosts across multiple continents analyze recent releases, forgotten classics, and industry developments without the typical podcast theatrics. We cover real-time strategy, 4X civilization builders, turn-based tactics, and hybrid games that blur genre boundaries.

Episode 80 is a community-led episode. Al is joined by Adam, Jack and Tim to work through fifteen listener questions submitted via the Critical Moves Discord, covering biggest gaming disappointments, steep learning curves worth the investment, the perennial argument about what a 4X actually is, how strategy games generate emotional investment beyond cutscenes, the best Total War entry point for a newcomer, the game sitting untouched in everyone's backlog, a Frankenstein exercise in building the perfect strategy game from spare parts, whether BAR can ever achieve mainstream appeal, randomness versus determinism in strategy design, the best soundtracks in the genre, what stops people engaging with competitive multiplayer, and all-time favourite factions. Joe was supposed to be here but was under the weather, which was a shame because someone had a very important question about his hair.
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Jack is joined by Tim and Joe for a full episode on Victoria 3. They cover how the game has changed since launch, what the Charters of Commerce and subsequent DLC updates have done to the economic and political systems, and whether it now stands as Paradox's strongest title. The conversation moves through the learning curve, the best nations to start with, the true cost of war, and what the upcoming Russia and China expansions might bring. If you have bounced off Victoria 3 before or are wondering whether now is a good time to get into it, this is the episode to start with.
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