Gratuitous Something Else Battles

#1

Gratuitous Space Battles was a pretty good game a few years ago, which did something I don’t think I knew I wanted: to design a plan and then get out of the way. Apparently its developer, Positech, followed up with Gratuitous Tank Battles and GSB 2, but I’d love to know if there are other games which play similarly. I tried Legion a while back, and the strategies it let you design were so basic it wasn’t much fun.

I’ve never played Football Manager–does it give you pretty granular control over your team’s tactics? I’m not too fussed about the setting or topic of the game, I just like the idea of doing the setup work and the strategizing, but not the moment-to-moment stuff.

#2

You’re looking for Motorsport Manager 2. It just released a little while ago. The second in the series is so much more details as far as the managing goes. I was addicted to the first one on my phone a few years ago, and it was really just hire drivers and have some rudimentary race strategy.

They added a lot, like designing your car (not super noodly, it’s Goldilocks noodly), researching for next year, and a better driver progression system. It’s really a stellar game.

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#3

Is it weird that I feel better informed about sensible strategies in space or mech combat than racing? Might do this anyway, but I feel like I’m totally starting from scratch on the relevant concepts other than “go fast”.

#4

No that’s not weird at all. I feel like I could lead a multipronged naval invasion in zero gravity, but if you asked me how to win a race, I’d say just go faster than the other guy.

A quick primer to racing strategy is softer tires equal more grip equals faster cars equals faster tire degradation. It’s all about when to pit and change tires. Can you get away with harder tires if you pit less? Maybe. It depends on the a lot of conditions that you can intuitively guess. Hotter days mean faster wear, etc.

This is completely missing a discussion of whether to tune the car for cornering speed or straight line speed. That really depends on the course.

The good thing is, you’ll get to run some laps in qualifying and test some combinations before the main race. Your fastest time will place you on the grid for the main race. It’s pretty simple, but it has enough choices to make it interesting. Especially when you start to consider changing driving styles in the middle of the race and the particular strengths of your car and your driver.

I’m just a casual F1 fan, and I picked up enough strategy in the first couple of races to hook me on the game. It’s a really great game.

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