Episode 80 is a community-led episode. Al is joined by Adam, Jack and Tim to work through fifteen listener questions submitted via the Critical Moves Discord, covering biggest gaming disappointments, steep learning curves worth the investment, the perennial argument about what a 4X actually is, how strategy games generate emotional investment beyond cutscenes, the best Total War entry point for a newcomer, the game sitting untouched in everyone's backlog, a Frankenstein exercise in building the perfect strategy game from spare parts, whether BAR can ever achieve mainstream appeal, randomness versus determinism in strategy design, the best soundtracks in the genre, what stops people engaging with competitive multiplayer, and all-time favourite factions. Joe was supposed to be here but was under the weather, which was a shame because someone had a very important question about his hair.

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