Three Moves Ahead

Three Moves Ahead

Three Moves Ahead is the leading strategy game themed podcast on the internet. Every week a panel of knowledgeable gamers with strong opinions meets to talk about the strategy and war games of the day, design issues and games in the wider world.

Episodes

Three Moves Ahead 654: Summer Catch-Up 2026

August 29, 2026 • 66 mins
Len and Nerium are joined once again by special guest Diana to discuss a lot of the smaller games we played this summer that didn't make it into a full episode, our varying levels of EU5 addiction, and mechsploitation. Games Discussed: Sovereign Tower Dispatch Suzerain EU5 Civ 7 Test of Time Mortal Shell II Elden Ring: The Convergence Big Walk The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily Twisted Tower Endacopia Openfront.io
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Three Moves Ahead 653: Corsair Cove

July 31, 2026 • 65 mins
Len, Jon, and Fraser set sail with Corsair Cove, a pirate city-builder with a reckless disregard for building codes. We discuss our different buccaneer building styles, the card- and dice-based ship combat, and try to answer the eternal question: what DO you do with a drunken sailor?
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Three Moves Ahead 652: ZeroSpace Early Access Interview

July 17, 2026 • 73 mins
Len sits down with Game Director Marv Gouw and Consulting Art Director (and Relic co-founder) J. Aaron Kambeitz to talk about ZeroSpace, a new RTS inspired by the greats of the genre with BioWare-style cutscenes and story decisions. We dig into the odd place RTSes find themselves in the industry right now, how the "Homeworld look" relates to typefaces, and how the changes in the games industry today echo those the film industry wen...
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Three Moves Ahead 651: Age of Empires II in 2026 feat. Hera

June 12, 2026 • 60 mins
Len and DM are joined by the current Age of Empires II world champion, Hera, to discuss the state of the game in 2026. We try to explain its longevity, examine what it takes to be a top-level esports player, and discuss Hera's streamer invitational tournament, The King's Gauntlet.
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Three Moves Ahead 650: Slay the Spire 2

May 9, 2026 • 69 mins
Len and Jon are joined by PC Gamer's Evan Lahti to Slay the Spire once again in the roguelike deckbuilder sequel. We discuss why our intrepid host is so bad at this game, if she can even be helped, and what the wackiest combos we've seen so far look like.
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Three Moves Ahead 649: Xenonauts 2

April 22, 2026 • 73 mins
Len, Jon, and Sin gear up and get ready to die on the first turn to some BS in Xenonauts 2, a sequel to a throwback to a classic tactics game. We discuss how it stacks up to the old school UFO Defense, the Firaxis reboots, and the best Noah Wyle show, Falling Skies.
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Three Moves Ahead 648: Heart of the Machine

March 27, 2026 • 70 mins
3MA is finally embracing AI! Okay, not really. But Len and Jon do have many thoughts about Heart of the Machine, a fascinating, story-driven strategy RPG about becoming the world's first sentient computer.
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Three Moves Ahead 647.5: Len and D.M. Join the Yakuza (WtHTI Patreon Preview)

March 14, 2026 • 62 mins
Len is joined by long-time friend and collaborator, real life video game lawyer D.M. Schmeyer, to reconnect over tales of nearly 30 years nerding out together and discuss what we're currently in to and up to. Games Discussed: The Necromancer's Tale Amorantus Esoteric Ebb
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Three Moves Ahead 647: Menace Early Access

February 22, 2026 • 70 mins
Len and Jon get tactical with the squad-based space marine (in the classical sense) platoon simulator, Menace. Because war is actually about Family.
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Three Moves Ahead 646: Whiskerwood

February 6, 2026 • 79 mins
This week, Rowan and Luke contemplate the inherent class struggle implied by feline-rodent relations in another delightful, furry-adjacent city builder with Whiskerwood. In this world, the cat tax doesn't simply mean posting a pet pic to thank people for reading your wall of text modding tutorial. It's wealth extracted from the whiskered workers by feline overlords in a distant land. The solution, once again, might be trains.
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Three Moves Ahead 645: 2026 Look Ahead

January 24, 2026 • 64 mins
Len and Brian "Chef Lu Bu" Smawley are joined by friend of the show Diana to peek into the near distance at the strategy games we're interested in that have announced or probable release dates in 2026. It's going to be another big year for city-builders! Also, is Total War 40K even a good idea? Games discussed: Total War: Warhamer 40,000, Dawn of War 4, Menace, Slay the Spire 2, Nova Roma, Norse: Oath of Blood, DarkSwitch, Battles...
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Three Moves Ahead 644: 2025 Strategy Games of the Year

December 31, 2025 • 109 mins
Len, Mike, and Luke pop the champagne and discuss the Strategy Games of the Year for 2025. And we can't really talk about the year in strategy without dwelling on the big theme of Disappointment. But all is not woe, because we played plenty of stuff we loved this year, too! Stay tuned after the main show for a chunky, free preview of this year's final Patreon bonus episode! Games Discussed: Civilization 7, Endless Legend 2, Europ...
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Three Moves Ahead 643: 2025 Catch-Up

December 12, 2025 • 74 mins
Len, Nerium, and Mike kick back to highlight some of our favorite strategy and non-strategy games of 2025 that didn't make it to a full episode. There were how many Roman city-builders this year? And yes, sports management games do count as strategy. Even that one. Games discussed: Nova Roma Look Outside Lisa the Painful Total War Warhammer: Tides of Torment Skin Deep Ambrosia Sky Demonschool Phantom Brigade Eriksholm: The Stolen ...
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Three Moves Ahead 642: Anno 117: Pax Romana

November 21, 2025 • 72 mins
Len and Jon are joined by But Why Tho?'s Kate Sánchez and CGMagazine's Dayna Eileen to build Rome in a day with Anno 117: Pax Romana. We discuss the series history and our jumping-on points with it, what's different about this one, and how it serves as an interesting lens through which to view the height of the Imperial Era.
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Three Moves Ahead 641: Europa Universalis 5

October 31, 2025 • 92 mins
Len, Rowan, and Jon are at last granted the liberty to speak on their experiences with Europa Universalis 5, Paradox's latest and most ambitious grand strategy game. Is it actually good? Is it even possible to evaluate it in a that straightforward of a way at this point? And why has it turned Rowan into The Joker?
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Three Moves Ahead 640: Endless Legend 2 & Friends

October 9, 2025 • 59 mins
Len and Mike are joined by Ruth Cassidy and Sin Vega to give some early impressions of Endless Legend 2's Early Access launch, as well as a whole bunch of other stuff we've been playing, in this chill variety chat.
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Three Moves Ahead 639: The Past and Future Dawn of War

September 19, 2025 • 64 mins
Len, Ian, and Fraser are placed onto the battlefield from strategic reserves to talk about the past and future of Dawn of War. The past: the recent Dawn of War: Definitive Edition and how well it holds up for a 20-plus-year-old game. The future: Dawn of War 4, which Len and Fraser both got some hands-on time with.
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Three Moves Ahead 638: Timberborn

August 15, 2025 • 65 mins
Timberborn is one of those Early Access games that we missed covering at its original launch, and we're not sure when it's going to be actually done... so what better time to talk about it than now, honestly? Len, Ian, Mike, and Sin sink their oversized incisors into the beaver city builder to discuss its ecological themes, potential for hydrological urbanism, and where it's at in its development journey.
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Three Moves Ahead 637: Stormgate: Ashes of Earth Interview

August 5, 2025 • 61 mins
With Stormgate leaving Early Access alongside the release of its first full single-player campaign, Ashes of Earth, Len chatted with Frost Giant's Top Tims, Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, about what has changed in the last year and what this new chapter means for the RTS. Check out this wild custom map made without triggers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSjGR4HGuiU
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Three Moves Ahead 636: Civil War Midlife Crisis

July 31, 2025 • 111 mins
Aftermath's Riley MacLeod has developed a sudden interest in the American Civil War, and we've assembled a 3MA all-star team featuring Rob Zacny, Rowan Kaiser, Len Hafer, and Luke Plunkett to walk him through this difficult and confusing time. We use Ultimate General: Civil War as a launching pad to discuss the conflict itself, the games based on it, as well as the tricky elements of adapting it for an entertainment product through...
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