Strategy VS Tactics

The idea for this piece comes from Yahtzee’s video: Breaking Down My Dislike of Strategy Games, in which he explores the different types of strategy games he’s played over the years and why some appeal to him but the majority don’t. One of the comments pointed out that the main problem lies in the difference between tactics and strategy.

This comment was what led to the idea for this piece. Image obtained from: https://youtu.be/fmqPB03yaWU?si=19CmGiOYDl_3YZc7

Put simply, strategy is the overall big picture. What is your grand chess plan, what pieces do you want to have developed going into the midgame. Whereas tactics is the moment-to-moment decision making mainly focused on changing circumstances. So now that the chess game is in the midgame you have to respond to your opponent and change your tactics according to what they are doing.

Action / Realtime games

Because I personally play a lot more action games than turnbased or strategy games I’ll start with applying this idea to these types of games.

DDPSDOJ

The first game I want to talk about is Dodonpachi Saidaioujou or DDPSDOJ for short. This is a bullet hell game developed by Cave in 2012 and which was recently re-released on the Nintendo Switch in 2024. It’s the 5th game in the influential Dodonpachi series but specifically compared to 3 and 4 it’s more simplistic in terms of overall strategy.

For those unfamiliar, the Dodonpachi games are shmups or bullet hell games. Where you try to survive 5 stages on one continue while dodging a massive number of bullets and defeating enemies. Most games give you 3 lives per continue but allow you to increase that number by hitting certain score thresholds or some other specific requirements. You can shoot to defeat enemies, use a bomb to clear the entire screen of bullets for a short time and use hyper mode to increase your damage and score.

For the purposes of this piece the only mechanics we need to worry about are the hyper mode and the autobomb. Whilst playing you charge up a hyper meter which you can spend by pressing the bomb button. But it has different levels that build up. At zero you just use a bomb and as you defeat enemies it charges to level 1, level 2 until level 9. The higher the level the bigger the score bonus when activating it. But getting the meter to a high level takes time. In my case at the end of level 2 it’s around level 6 or 7 which is when I typically use it.

Two screenshots to show the point thresholds and gameplay of DDPSDOJ. Image obtained from: Dodonpachi saidaioujou, my screenshot

Now the strategy I use here is as follows. If I wait to use my hyper mode until the end of stage 2 or maybe even stage 3 I can use the level 6 or higher hyper mode which will give me a much higher score. So high in fact that I hit the threshold of 8000000 (somewhere in this zero range) and 18000000 points which both give an extra life. (The 1ST and 2ND in the above screenshot.) So, if I play the first part of the game whilst saving my hyper mode I am then able to use it to reach the score thresholds which will give me 2 extra lives over the course of the run.

That is the overall strategy I use in the game. Then zooming in a bit, the strategy I use is first learning stage 1 and 2, knowing what enemies to expect when, how to defeat the minibosses and bosses. When learning I develop moment to moment tactics for the stages, what is the safest place to be during the attacks of the miniboss, where should I be when I beat it? etc. Meaning I can eventually beat both stages without having to use bombs or hyper mode, saving them for stage 3 and beyond.

The other strategy I use here is the autobomb, once your hyper reaches level 1 if you press the bomb button you will use that hyper instead of a bomb. In order to give myself more chances to bring that hyper to level 2 or 3 I can use the autobomb. The autobomb automatically uses all your bombs if you get hit so it overrides the hyper mode and in this case it gives me one additional hit I can take during stage 1 and 2 without immediately ending the run. Then from stage 3 and beyond I play the game as normal, try to dodge all the bullets and only use bombs or hyper if I’m about to get hit.

Because Shmup’s are usually more on the simplistic side when it comes to mechanics, it becomes easier to think about strategy. What I’ve just described are almost all the mechanics of the game excluding character and ship selection. And because of the extremely high difficulty of these games, you are forced to think about and use all these mechanics in order to survive. To the point that even a mechanic that is usually glossed over like score becomes a major part in developing a winning strategy.

Nioh and Wo Long

Another genre of games where you can apply both strategy and tactics are soulslikes, in this case Nioh 1, 2 and Wo Long. While there are a few differences between these 3 games they all use the same gear system which is where the strategy comes in.

In all 3 games you have gear which has of course a damage value but also some perks. Things like +3% critical hit damage or increased healing or whatever. For the most part you just get the gear and equip what is most beneficial to you which is usually stats first and perks second. Near the end of the game the stats plateau and so the perks become more important, so the game gives you the option of moving perks from one piece of gear to the other.

And here comes the strategy. If you play a weapon that is mainly focussed on critical hits then you can create gear that has perks that all focus on critical hits. Perks like critical hit chance, critical hit damage, buffs after landing a critical hit etc. So that is the strategy: go for critical hits and you modify your gear in line with that strategy. But then you actually play a mission and start playing the game and now you have to use tactics in order to execute that overall strategy. Using backstabs for example, or focusing on attacks which reduce the enemy’s posture etc.

An example of the different types of skills a weapon can have and just how many stats each piece of equipment has in this game. Image obtained from: Wo Long; fallen dynasty, my screenshot

For me at least, the fun of the game is in the second part and the fiddling with perks to maximize my gear efficiency is just not interesting. What I’ve laid out here is a very simple example but honestly even this is something that I’m not going to do whilst playing the game. During my time with Nioh and Wo Long I pretty much completely ignore the perk part of the gear system and only focus on the raw stats. This piece of gear has a higher defence stat than my current one, so I equip that one, and the exact perks I leave to the wayside. This puts me at a disadvantage of course but at least on my initial runs through these games this disadvantage is small enough that I can just brute force through it. If I’m struggling with a boss fight then I could focus on gear that would work against that one boss and maybe use elemental magic or whatever. Or I could just learn the moves of the boss better. Learn when to dodge, when to parry and just try to make fewer mistakes in the moment. That is the solution that I tend to go for, just be better in the moment.

I tried to pick games that were considered difficult for this section because the more difficult the game the more strategy and tactics you are forced to use. But these two games also show how the number of mechanics can influence difficulty. In DDPSDOJ you only have 4 verbs, or things you can do on a moment-to-moment basis. Shoot, move, bomb, hyper. Because of that the difficulty is much more focused, and you are forced to use all the mechanics the game has. Whereas Nioh and Wo Long are 3d games, which means they have much more verbs and even when looking at the same verbs as movement, movement on a 2d plane and on a 3d plane are two very different things. What this all means that there is much more wiggle room in Nioh and Wo Long. Allowing for more variation in the moment-to-moment tactics and thus lessening the level of strategy required.

Turn based games

Now in action games like the two just discussed you can make up for a lack of strategy by better moment to moment tactics but of course not all games work this way. An example is of course strategy games which is what the above-mentioned video focusses on. But I don’t play a lot of strategy games. I haven’t played Xcom or Starcraft. I have played Fire emblem and City skylines but in both of these games I’m still very focussed on the moment-to-moment tactics and not on the strategy. And also, I haven’t played those games in a good while. So, I’m going to focus on games that I have a bit fresher in my head. Mainly Atelier Sophie and Trails of Cold Steel 2 & 3.

Atelier Sophie

Because this game is a turn based rpg it does lean more into strategy than the previously discussed games. You can’t just beat the game at level one because you are good at dodging. In this game the split between strategy and tactics is very simple. You have the standard rpg battle system that is the tactic portion. Then you have the alchemy portion where you make items that determine your battle strategy.

In the atelier series you play as an alchemist and your goal is to synthesize items to fulfil requests or for use in battle. For the sake of this piece I will be focussing on the items that have a direct effect on battle. So, equipment and consumables. This game has a very similar equipment system to Nioh just instead of finding gear on the ground you craft gear using alchemy. But the important part is that both games use a similar perk system were depending on the ingredients you use in alchemy the items you make have different perks or effects. This goes for both the consumables and the equipment.

The ability menu from Atelier Sophie which allows you to enhance a character’s base stats. Image obtained from: https://eruciform.com/games/atelier/atelier-sophie/atelier-sophie-guide/#gold-exp-rewards

During the alchemy section you can synthesize items which you then use in the rpg section. For me this led to a problem because I didn’t really use the synthesized items in battle. I mainly just created equipment and what was necessary for story progression. So, when I reached the end of the game I struggled a lot with the final boss and because I was at the final boss I didn’t want to go back and synthesize new items.

Instead I grinded my way to max level and unlocked the skill tree. Which allows you to use the excess experience to give yourself stat boosts or upgrade your special moves. With this system I was eventually able to beat the boss just by pumping my numbers hard enough until they were high enough to defeat the final boss.

This is obviously not how the game is supposed to be played but it shows that even in this situation I will still focus on tactics instead of going back to the drawing board to create a strategy. Though on reflection it would probably have been smarter if I focussed on creating attack items to use in battle, maybe I’ll do that in the sequel.

The legend of heroes: Trails of Cold steel 2 & 3

The Trails series is a long running series of jrpg’s about which I could easily write a number of articles. For now, I will only be focussing on the battle system of these games. All these games use a similar equipment system during battles, namely the quarts system. Because this system has slight alterations each game I’ve chosen 2 games. For this piece I will be focusing on the cold steel sub series, and specifically Trails of cold steel 2 and 3. I haven’t played 4 yet and 1 & 2 are basically identical.

In these games every character has their own grid that you can insert quarts in. Quarts can do things like give access to healing spells, give a +5 to your attack stat or the rarest quarts can do stuff like start every battle with a damage boost. So, in these games the strategy is your quarts load-out and the tactics are how you use quarts in combat. It’s basically a more in-depth version of the materia system from Final Fantasy 7.

Two examples. Very simple examples, because it took me until game 7 to really get the hang of this system. In cold steel 2 I used Laura a lot. She is one of the strongest physical damage dealers in the game, so my strategy was very simple: augment that physical damage as much as possible. Give her strength 3 which raises her strength stat. The quarts that make her start every combat with a 50% power boost that lasts for 5 turns. A quarts that makes the first special attack deal double damage. And with all of those stacked on her she completely deleted some of the later encounters. Even the bosses. I would simply start the battle and just immediately user her s-craft (special attack) which would often either one shot bosses or delete 2/3rds of their health. I abused this especially in the final boss because beside Laura my team strategy was very lacking.

These are two examples of the types of quarts that I had equipped on Laura, her strength stat was the highest of any character with the main character Rean coming in second place with around 2400 strength. Image obtained from: The legend of heroes: trails of cold steel 2, my screenshots

Aside from the strategies for each character, you can also build a team that synergies with each other. The ending of Cold steel 2 really encourages forming team strategies seeing as it gives you one final dungeon and access to every playable character to create whatever team you want. Now for me this is a step to far. It already took me 7 games to figure out individual character strategy so that is just not for me but that also meant that I struggled quite a bit with the final boss. Until I remembered that I had a shit-ton of items lying around so the final boss simple became Laura constantly using her s-craft and every other character giving Laura healing items which filled her special meter.

Now in cold steel 3 I also stumbled upon a character build though sadly less broken. In the game I noticed that one of the guest characters had a quarts that was just a full heal for the entire party. It costs a lot of mp (magic points) of course, but it fully heals everyone on the field and revives everyone that is down. So I immediately stole that quarts and gave it to Altina one of the main characters. So that one spell was the strategy of that character, if ever a battle is going wrong I have Altina cast that spell and everyone is back to full health.

In order to make that strategy viable I equipped her with quarts like cast speed reduced, mp cost for all spells reduced, if the casted spell is of the space element halve the recovery time, more mp etc. In her case every single quarts in her kit is used to make casting that one spell as cheap and fast as possible. And then I also gave her the master (basically a super special quarts) quarts that revives her once per battle if she dies because as long as she lives she can revive the entire party. Then the actual tactics in battle are to have her attack from a distance and to make sure she stays alive at all times.

In this case the strategy and the tactics are pretty simple, but they still helped me to make my way through the game. And of course, seeing as I now have a full heal spell that I can use around three times in battle without using mp recovery items I can afford to make a lot more mistakes. So it isn’t that big a deal that the rest of my party isn’t optimized or doesn’t have a thought-out strategy besides just do as much damage as possible.

Seraphic ring is the full heal quarts and the rest of the equipped quarts help her cast it. EP cut 2 and EP 3 to give her more magic and Cast 3 and golden bell to reduce the cast time. Image obtained from: The legend of heroes: trails of cold steel 3, my screenshot

Both cold steel games and the Trails series as a whole offer a lot of strategy that you can use as a player but personally it’s still a bit too much for me. So I mainly stick to simple strategies per character and don’t worry too much about group synergy. If you want to you can, but especially in the case of the legend of heroes series, I am there for the story and characters. I use the characters that I like, in these cases Laura and Altina, and then I figure it out from there. I’m sure that there are better characters to use for the roles that I want but I care more about using my liked characters than the optimal strategy. And thankfully the games allow this, aside from the multiple difficulty settings all the games also have a feature where if you die in battle you can lower the enemies’ stats on the next attempt. A feature that I’ve used a lot throughout the series and will keep using. And for the people who actually want to focus on strategy they can have fun in hard or nightmare mode.

Closing thoughts

One interesting trend across three of these games is that its possible to not really engage with the Strategy aspect. DDPSDOJ being the only exception because of it’s high difficulty and limited verbs, basically forcing the player to think out a general strategy. The other games all have enough verbs, mechanics, and wiggle room that it’s possible to largely ignore the strategy aspect of them. You can beat Nioh and Wo Long by playing better, Atelier Sophie by pumping your stats and Cold steel by having 1 good character and lowering the difficulty.

This is why a game like DDPSDOJ and Shmups in general are considered “tightly designed” games. Because the high difficulty forces the player to use all the possible verbs to their maximum. There is no wiggle room, there is no one mechanic that allows you to ignore the other mechanics. A full playthrough of DDPSDOJ lasts around 45 minutes and the developers have made sure that these 45 minutes force you to use everything you have in order to make it to the end.

That is not to say that these other games are badly designed, arguably giving the player more options to play the way they want has been the general trend for games since the SNES, see chrono trigger and FF5 for example. And considering all of them have a play time of at least 20+ hours (or triple that as you can see in my cold steel screenshots), it’s not surprising that they feel less tightly designed. And it shows how difficult it is to encourage the player to use all verbs that a game offers and how hard it is to design a game where verbs don’t overshadow each other.

In the end, a lot of games have this conflict between strategy and tactics. The strategy the developer wants you to use, customize a build, synthesize specific battle items, or create a team strategy. But because of the amount of different tactics the player can use it’s often possible to bypass the intended strategy. Which in some cases leads to optimizing the fun out of a game.

Written 25–03–2025

Edited 08–04–2025 & 22–04–2026