Command Lines: Searching For a Good Death in Grand Strategy Gaming

I spent my 29th birthday playing Flotilla, Blendo Games' turn-based space-combat game about a terminally ill starship captain who uses his last seven months to go tearing across the galaxy raising hell. No matter what you do, he dies of his disease.

Because birthdays make me morbid, I couldn't stop playing it. I kept trying to set a new high score but really, I was trying to find a way to extend my captain's life. I was trying to see whether Blendo Games had left a Northwest Passage through mortality, a way to keep my captain's adventure going strong with more and better ships. I was so strongly programmed to "win" that I almost convinced myself there was a way to beat death.


Of course, "winning" in Flotilla is really about making the most of the brief time you have. There is no saving or reloading; it's all over in one session. That's what gives Flotilla its meaning, and why the stakes in those space battles are at once so high and so low. If you lose a battle, you perish with your entire fleet and your adventure is over. But it was going to end soon, anyway, so why worry?

This is 180 degrees from most strategy games, which are in many ways a denial of death and decline. "Build an empire to stand the test of time," is the final instruction at the of start of Civilization game, as you play a deathless, incorporeal ruler who supervises a civilization for several thousand years of history. Then you ascend to the heavens on a rocket ship.

Larger-Than-Life Thinking

One reason that strategy games go for grandiose victory conditions is because their scale and subject matter make it hard to think of other ones. When you can make a decision in the year 1600 that will pay off in 1875, how can you not think big? Your capacity to plan and endure is effectively limitless.

This is one reason I find Crusader Kings 2 so fascinating: its small, personal stakes create so many more possibilities within every game. You can play Crusader Kings 2 as the head of an empire, and play a major role on the international stage, but that what your game has to be about. If I want to, I can play a rural noble whose only goal is to make a good match for his eldest son or daughter, and perhaps add a single county to his territory.


No matter the stakes, however, Crusader Kings 2 remains riveting because no matter what scale you're playing at, that scale defines almost your entire sense of the world. I once had three generations consumed in a quest for revenge that culminated in a beautiful, bloody rebellion against the King of Scotland. The grandfather was betrayed and nearly ruined, but he managed to survive and start rebuilding his family fortunes. The father spent 35 years helping the King raise money and win wars, all so the family could get back in a position of trust and prestige. It was the son who finally shattered the King's power and took his family's vengeance.

It was a huge payoff for me, the player, but I was fascinated by the way the father and grandfather spent the majority of their lives serving people they hated, concealing their plans for a future they would never live to see. It became tragedy about a grudge, especially after England steamrolled over the newly weakened, divided Scotland. The great thing is that Crusader Kings 2 didn't pass any judgment on my decision. It let me set aside any dreams of world conquest so that I could play out my own, personal drama.

Small Victories

I love that freedom to define success on my own terms, and maybe that's why I've become increasingly fascinated by games incorporating some element of roguelikes into their designs. Games like Flotilla, FTL (a starship command-RPG where your odds of survival are so bad that even C-3PO couldn't discuss them), or even Diablo 3 on hardcore can stop at any time. You are not guaranteed a victory, and victory isn't even really the point. By design, total victory is unlikely or impossible. I know I'm doomed, and yet I still play, restarting after every inevitable death to take another tilt at the windmill.


Perhaps it's because many of these games don't have an endgame. You won't live long enough to reach that depressing point in a game where you're no longer challenged, no longer mortally threatened by small mistakes or even the most powerful enemies. You have to remain in the same state of heightened awareness and constant worry, because complacence will kill you fastest of all. That's not a place most strategy games demand that we operate, because victory in your average strategy game means spending a good portion of the game being dominant in some fashion. Even if the competition is still close, it's not quite the same as having your back-against-the-wall.

When in Rome

Maybe that's why one of my favorite Total War experiences is Rome: Barbarian Invasion. Playing as the Western Roman Empire, the game starts with the majority of Europe under your domination. But the moment you end the first turn, half of it goes into revolt, your treasury is empty, and your armies are expensive hordes of under-trained troops. To top it all off, all the tribes of Germany and Asia seem like they're ready to come pouring over your borders.

That scenario stays with me because it is so fraught. You come to Rome with half the map under your domination, and yet your first act must be one of acceptance. The empire is over, you have to let most of it go. You have no resources and the entire world is against you, so you take a deep breath and start abandoning cities and frontiers, knowing that you may never be able to retake them. Then, presiding over the shambles of an exhausted empire, with waves of enemies descending on a few beleaguered strongholds, you begin to play. I never felt like I would win, the entire test seemed pretty unfair. But I win or lose, I wanted to see how this story would play out. Survival, even if just for a short time, was victory enough for me.


Spy Guy says: Like they always say, if a plan doesn't take multiple generations to come to fruition, it's not worth plotting. Well, they don't always say that right now, but it will be a common saying when Emperor Spy Guy VII rules over your descendants. What's your favorite grand strategy game?