{"title":"Strategy RPG","description":"\u003cp\u003eA strategy RPG is a game whose two halves refuse to come apart. On one side is role-playing progression: named heroes who level up, spend points in skill trees, carry equipment that changes how they fight and anchor a story told through their choices. On the other is strategic command: armies, units, bases or resources that you direct rather than inhabit. Remove the progression and you are left with a strategy game where the characters are set dressing; remove the command layer and you have an RPG with an oddly large supporting cast. The form has two roots that grew toward each other. The Japanese tradition, which players there call the simulation RPG, was codified by Intelligent Systems' Fire Emblem in 1990 and refined by Final Fantasy Tactics in 1997: turn-based battles on a grid, fought by a roster of characters who earn experience with every exchange. The Western tradition came out of strategy instead, with New World Computing's King's Bounty in 1990 and the Heroes of Might and Magic series that followed it putting a leveling hero at the head of a stack of creatures, and Blizzard's Warcraft III in 2002 carrying the same idea into real time, where a hero with an inventory and a skill bar leads a base-built army across the map.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe hallmarks hold across both traditions. The unit of attachment is a person rather than a unit type, so losing a named character costs you story, an ability set and often a permanent gap in the roster, which makes retreat a real option instead of a failure state. Progression compounds: the hero who survived the early campaign is measurably stronger than a fresh recruit, and the game expects you to have planned for that. Two economies run at once, experience on the character side and gold, mana or production on the army side, and the interesting decisions live where they collide - whether to feed the kills to the hero who needs them or the one who can already take them, whether to hold back the army so the story characters get the fight they need. What separates a good strategy RPG from a competent one is whether the two systems inform each other. Handled well, a hero's build changes what army you recruit and your army composition changes which of the hero's abilities matter, so the campaign feels like a war with faces. Handled poorly, it is a strategy game with a stat sheet bolted on, or an RPG in which the army is only a larger health bar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis collection gathers the titles in our catalog that carry the Strategy RPG tag. It is the broad umbrella. It covers the turn-based tactical tradition that our narrower Tactical RPG collection names, where a squad fights on a grid and every move is a turn, and it covers the real-time hybrids where hero units lead an army on the same battlefield. SpellForce 3: Fallen God is a clear example of the second kind: heroes built from skill trees and abilities walk the same map as a sector-based RTS economy, and neither survives without the other. Most of these games also sit in our Strategy and RPG collections, since each contributes a parent, and the real-time hybrids appear in RTS as well. What qualifies a game here is that you are leveling someone and commanding something at once, and that the story would break if either stopped. If you want a campaign where the general is also the protagonist, start here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"spellforce-3-fallen-god-windows-pc-steam-digital-download","title":"SpellForce 3: Fallen God","description":"\u003cp class=\"lead\"\u003eSpellForce 3: Fallen God hands you the trolls, a race SpellForce 3 had only ever shown you across the battlefield. As Akrog, young chieftain of the Moonkin, you lead a nomadic troll tribe that is being hunted for its tusks and hollowed out by disease. When an enigmatic Elven stranger offers a way out, the price is nothing less than resurrecting a fallen god. Developed by Grimlore Games and published by THQ Nordic, this standalone expansion delivers a complete campaign of around 20 hours that needs no prior knowledge of SpellForce 3 or SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Moonkin's Last March\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMost fantasy strategy games put you in command of a rising power. Fallen God does the opposite. The Moonkin are dwindling, driven from their home and stalked by poachers who see nothing in a troll but the value of its tusks. Every decision Akrog makes carries the weight of a tribe that cannot afford another loss, and the journey across Urgath, a continent of Eo the series had never shown before, is as much about holding your people together as it is about winning battles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGrimlore Games gives the trolls a voice and a culture rather than treating them as fodder, and the result is one of the more affecting stories in the SpellForce saga. The Elven stranger's offer of salvation raises as many questions as it answers, and the campaign is built to reward players who pay attention to who is asking for what, and why.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhere Real-Time Strategy Meets Role-Playing\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe SpellForce formula pairs two genres that rarely share a screen, and Fallen God refines both halves. Missions shift naturally between intimate hero-led exploration and full-scale warfare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cdl\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eSector-based RTS warfare\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eClaim sectors, build camps, gather resources and raise a troll army in an improved sector-based system. Each unit type has distinct strengths, and making the best use of them against the right enemies is what turns a desperate skirmish into a decisive victory.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eHero-driven RPG exploration\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eBetween and during battles, your heroes explore Urgath on foot, talking to its inhabitants, uncovering its mysteries and using unique interactions with the world to open paths that an army alone could never find.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eCrafting from the fallen\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eThe trolls have no forges of their own, so they take what they need. Salvage legendary weapons and armor from other races and rework them into gear that gives your tribe the edge in the fights ahead.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003c\/dl\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eHeroes Shaped by Your Choices\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFallen God introduces all-new abilities and skill trees, and the freedom to combine them is where the RPG side of the game truly opens up. Build Akrog and his companions to suit the way you like to fight, whether that means a frontline bruiser who anchors the army or a support caster who keeps the tribe standing through a long engagement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe character-shaping mechanic goes further than stats. The decisions you make throughout the campaign shape who Akrog becomes and lead to multiple endings, which gives a 20-hour story a genuine reason for a second playthrough. Few RTS campaigns offer that kind of replay value, and it is one of the clearest advances over Soul Harvest.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eFour Factions, Ranked Play and Modding\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeyond the campaign, Fallen God carries the full SpellForce 3 multiplayer suite. The Trolls join Humans, Elves and Orcs as a fourth RTS faction with brand-new mechanics, and each faction fields two unique heroes that complement different play styles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCompete for glory in Ranked Play, where the four-faction roster and the asymmetry between hero-focused and army-focused strategies keep matches varied and demanding.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTeam up online in co-op, sharing the sector map with a friend against AI opponents or facing other players together in competitive PvP.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCreate your own maps with the included level editor and share them through Steam Workshop. The tools for building Custom Campaigns arrived alongside Fallen God, so the community's scenarios extend the game well past its own story.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAnswer the Stranger's Call\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUrgath is waiting, the Moonkin are running out of time, and a god lies buried somewhere in the wilds. Take up Akrog's mantle in SpellForce 3: Fallen God and find out what your tribe is willing to do to survive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"THQ Nordic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":33393174020182,"sku":"PC_4977988796502_DL_GL","price":9.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0875\/3268\/files\/card-spellforce-3-fallen-god-pc-steam-game.jpg?v=1789256464"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.pjsgames.com\/en-de\/collections\/strategy-rpg.oembed","provider":"PJ's Games","version":"1.0","type":"link"}