Parents' Guide to A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia

This real-time strategy game simplifies the elements of its long-running franchise, but the sudden, random events that pop up on battlefields can ruin your planning -- and your play experience. A Total War Saga: Thrones of Brittania is one of those titles that's tailor made for strategy gamers. And if you're a fan of tactical military games, odds are pretty good that you're already familiar with the Total War franchise. For nearly two decades, the series has given players unprecedented command of huge numbers of troops while challenging them to operate not only as military strategists but also as diplomatic leaders, building and maintaining their rule over vast empires. A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is, technically, a spin-off of the popular franchise, taking the mechanics and gameplay elements of the Total War games and scaling down the scope to a smaller but no less turbulent battlefield. It makes for a much denser and more intimate theater of war, with a stronger focus on the individual aspects of the varying factions. Whether you're following history or creating a new "What if?" sequence of events, you can't help but feel more engaged in what's going on.

But one of the major drawbacks of the smaller setting is that the victory conditions for any given side are much easier to accomplish. While this might sound like a positive, it's actually more frustrating than anything. It's entirely possible that, while carrying out a strategic plan of attack or preparing to take a key stronghold, you'll win (or lose) because of some random event somewhere else on the map. Once it happens a few times, you can't help but feel less motivated to get involved in a game when you can just as easily let it play itself. After all, what's the point of all that planning, all that setup, and all that waiting when it winds up being all for nothing because of something you never had any control over?