I:R comparative performance with other GSG

[IsaacCAT]

This week is still declining for PDX (-3,68%) and other publishers (-6,95%) with an overall decline of -5,75%.

Good news for HOI IV that stays on top of all GSG one week more, the other games all decline or remain stable. Vic 3 with the delayed update changing so many things will keep many players from starting another campaign, we are all waiting for the 24th of this month release.

The small caps shows I:R softening a bit its decline although it does not look like a bottom, last one was in february with 1/3 less players, let's see if we can reach a higher bottom in the following weeks.

PS: old world rebounds this week as it is discounted 30% in steam.

 

[Brumes Wolf]

Have the Millennia and Old World names been accidently switched? Cause Millennia seems to be stable not on a rebound.

Maybe it would be a good addition to colour code the "legend" because when games are close together its sometimes hard to see which line is supposed to be which game.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Have the Millennia and Old World names been accidently switched? Cause Millennia seems to be stable not on a rebound.

Maybe it would be a good addition to colour code the "legend" because when games are close together its sometimes hard to see which line is supposed to be which game.

Oops my bad, you are right. My wishful thinking got me to read wrong the chart. When I get off the plane I will correct the post and chart.

PS old world is discounted 30% in steam rn:

 

[IsaacCAT]

Maybe it would be a good addition to colour code the "legend" because when games are close together its sometimes hard to see which line is supposed to be which game.

Good idea, but I do not know if I will get problems with colour blind users.

I am happy to rely with community checks to ensure there are no mistakes, I am happy to be corrected as this means that someone actually reads the chart.

 

[Brumes Wolf]

Good idea, but I do not know if I will get problems with colour blind users.

I am happy to rely with community checks to ensure there are no mistakes, I am happy to be corrected as this means that someone actually reads the chart.

If you use the same colours the lines have as either text colour or a backing colour for the labels I would assume useability for CB users wouldn't change.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Good afternoon,

This week there is a big increase of players due to the announcement of CIV VII that has made a lot of players to come back to play CIV VI. Overall players is up 15,57% with other publishers +23,83% while PDX increases only +1,80%.

The small caps seems to show a bottom for I:R this week, I am glad that this is the case. Other games remain stable. Millenia decreases players but I am hoping that after all the crazyness about CIV VII and the end of the open beta it may regain some player base.

 

[Chaostrian]

I:R had its short rise and is now slowly returning to the same numbers as in previous years. It hurts to see it again, but it also shows that only a few people are interested in ancient times.

I actually hope that Ubisoft releases a game with Anno 117: Pax Romana that gives the ancient era a shot and gets more people interested in it.

Will you be adding the game to your graph when it eventually comes out? As a strategy game and in ancient times it would fit well.

 

[sigismundus]

I:R had its short rise and is now slowly returning to the same numbers as in previous years. It hurts to see it again, but it also shows that only a few people are interested in ancient times.

I actually hope that Ubisoft releases a game with Anno 117: Pax Romana that gives the ancient era a shot and gets more people interested in it.

Will you be adding the game to your graph when it eventually comes out? As a strategy game and in ancient times it would fit well.

In this case, there could be also added the Anno 1800

 

[Gratak]

Adding it would make little sense for multiple reasons. One being Anno not really being Steam games... I mean you can get them on Steam, but most players don't.

For example, Anno1800 being released almost the same time as Imperator has actually been below the Imperator numbers for most of its life, only overtaking Imperator in 2023 probably due to some good deals on Steam.

 

[Brumes Wolf]

Adding it would make little sense for multiple reasons. One being Anno not really being Steam games... I mean you can get them on Steam, but most players don't.

For example, Anno1800 being released almost the same time as Imperator has actually been below the Imperator numbers for most of its life, only overtaking Imperator in 2023 probably due to some good deals on Steam.

Another being that anno games are really nothing like most of the games on this list, they aren't GCS's or 4X's, more just economy/logistics management games with some RTS stuff tacked on, so you wouldn't be able to really make proper comparisons.

 

[vilkas622]

What titles fall under GSG for this are pulled from Steam's definition as it appears in steamdb

The steamdb category comes directly from steam itself. In both steam and steamdb its the `tag=????` where that numeric value equals a category. This is visible via the search function in steam where if you narrow by tag = "Grand Strategy" go get "https[:]//store[.]steampowered[.]com/search/?term=tag%3D4364"
(fun aside, steam doesn't actually expose that tag via documented API paths so its a giant pain to programmatically get the list a games in a category via API calls and instead you need to scrap the site itself)

Additionally for why 4x games, the steam category is "Grand Strategy & 4x"

Related i expect a bounce on total GSG players this week as Manor Lords is now showing as a GSG in steam and will bring ~12-13 24 hour peak to the category.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Good morning, Manor lords has been included in the STEAM category of GSG. I have looked and the Anno 1808 is not included in this category but there is Anno 1701, 1602, 1503 and 1404 included. The biggest has 416 24h peak GSG players. It is up to steam to make the new Anno series included in the GSG category.

Overall numbers are stable this week -0,77% with PDX increasing +1,86% and other publishers decreasing -2,08%.

Civ VI keeps very strong from last week, while Manor Lords positions itself between Tier 2 and 3 of games. Age of Wonders 4 with the new expansion and the discount in Steam jumps ahead of Victoria III. Next week, Victoria III will release its biggest overhaul yet with 1.7, we will see its effect.

The small caps shows a small recovery of Millenia but sadly I:R is yet to show a bottom:

 

[Troyen]

Adding it would make little sense for multiple reasons. One being Anno not really being Steam games... I mean you can get them on Steam, but most players don't.

For example, Anno1800 being released almost the same time as Imperator has actually been below the Imperator numbers for most of its life, only overtaking Imperator in 2023 probably due to some good deals on Steam.

Anno 1800 was available for pre-order on steam, then Epic swooped in and bought an exclusivity deal and the steam listing was pulled. So if you didn't pre-order, you couldn't play Anno 1800 (and I think 1400?) on steam. Ubisoft finally put the Anno series back on steam last year, but by this point most players of the game aren't on steam because we had to get it from Ubisoft directly or Epic or some other storefront during its entire supported life.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Good afternoon,

This week we have the results of 1.7 release for Victoria 3 and they are very good, getting ahead of all GSG tier 2. The other games in Tier 1 and 2 all decrease players, did all go to play Vic3 this week?

Overall GSG decrease week to week (-2,71%) with PDX increasing +4,21% and other publishers decreasing -6,27%.

Tier 4 games see a big decrease of I:R and other games except for CK II and Victoria II, probably after the interest created by 1.7 VIc 3.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Good afternoon,

First charts for july, the overall numbers are up +4,19% since last week with PDX decreasing -2,36% and other publishers +7,93%.

Tier 1 games increase this week with Warhammer III being in a category of its own. Tier 2 are all in the same spot with Victoria 3 keeping many players from the 1.7 big increase. Tier 3 see manor lords increasing players this week.

Tier 4 games see a big increase for HUMANKIND this week as they are doing a -90% price promotion in STEAM. The other Tier 4 games also increase players, including I:R that jumps after the new update of the Invictus mod with a new DD.

 

[IsaacCAT]

A bit late but just in time the numbers for 10/7/2024 week. There are lower than last week overall (-4,47%) with PDX (-2,25%) and other publishers (-5,62%) all losing players.

Tier 1 Games still see a big difference with CIV VI being the supreme leader, Warhammer III descends towards Tier 2 that sees all games almost together with Victoria 3 staying strong two weeks after 1.7 update. Tier 3 games stay above Tier 4 once more week.

Tier 4 all descend this week a bit except CK II that stay very strong after so many years without development.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Good afternoon everyone,

The GSG 24h peak players remain fairly stable this week from the previous one (+0,25%) with PDX increasing 1,23% and other publishers decreasing -0,27%.

Tier 1 games remain fairly similar while tier 2 diverge a bit with Stellaris and Victoria 3 going down and CKII, CIV V and EUIV up. Tier 3 hold on their own category not falling into the realm of Hades yet.

Tier 4 games see CKII pushing up big numbers almost enough to get it to tier 3 while the other games in the category remain stable this week. What is going on with CKII?

 

[IsaacCAT]

Welcome to the week of 24th of July. Overall GSG 24h Peak players have increased this week +1.68% with both PDX +0,38% and other publishers +2,39% contributing to the increase.

The trend seems to go upwards lately and two new games that I wasn't paying attention have helped the numbers:

• Norland: released on the 18th of July, it is similar to CK III (?)
• Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic: released on the 20th of June, it is similar to Victoria 3 + City Skylines (?)

Both games are located in Tier 3 with Total War Rome II and Manor Lords, will they keep their status after the novelty goes off? Only time will tell, I haven't played them and I cannot review them.

On the other hand, HOI IV is trying to close the gap with Civ VI that is decreasing this week but not enough. Warhammer III is already in Tier 2 with all the other games in that category that seem to show a divide between a strong CKIII, Civ V and EU IV versus a weak Stellaris and Victoria 3.

The tier 4 games show HUMANKIND going back to trend similar to Age of Wonders 4 with CK II keeping it cool on top after so many years and its sequel. A true testimony of how good is the game.

 

[Vohen]

Oof, Vicky3 took a big hit.
It looked like it might've been able to keep a new plateau, but this week makes me rethink that, time will tell if it'll fall back to pre-SoI levels.
That said, 4 weeks seems to be the average time for the post-DLC boom to die down, so maybe they will keep this plateau, very interested in next week's data.

 

[Herennius]

(...)

• Norland: released on the 18th of July, it is similar to CK III (?)
• Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic: released on the 20th of June, it is similar to Victoria 3 + City Skylines (?)

I haven't played Norland myself, but from what I haven seen in Lets Plays it is similar to Rim World in how it plays mechanically (e.g. how you place buildings or fight out battles), though it shares a certain RP aspect (e.g. characters having various skill values and develop relationships with each other), age and the feudal topic with CK3.

For Workers and Ressources I can tell from my own hundreds of hours of fun with it... It is a city builder in first line (so in terms of the genre CS would match) , but one with unmatched love to the detail in every aspect (e.g. where the usual city builder stops at having a simple garbage system, W&R has its own minigame with different waste sorts, vehicles, collecting/processing/reccyling buildings and trading options). IMO, they only similarities to Vic3 are the sophisticated production chains and economy, but it operates on a different level: Where in Vic3 you set the Iron mine in state X to rail transport and then simply have to ensure that the railway building there copes with the demand, you suddenly enter Railroad Tycoon in W&R then (lay tracks, build/purchase train and freight cars, make the schedule, dive into setting signals corretly on the track, caring to fuel the trains and so on...)

As good as Norland probably is and W&R is for sure (IMHO), I wouldn't insert them in the core GSG genre. Simulation/strategy game yes, but GSG is something differnt for me.