Strategy games and personal development - investing time in games to gain benefits

Games are a great way to relax and de-stress after a hard day at school or work. They provide a lot of positive excitement, enable relaxation, reduce stress levels and, on top of that, time spent playing them is just plain fun. But can they give us something more - can they help us learn new skills and improve them? Today we will focus specifically on strategy games and see what exactly they can offer us.

The impact of strategy games

Whether you choose games from your Steam account or ones you find at BeepBeep Casino Online, these productions can have a really big impact on you:

• They develop strategic thinking - games of this type, as the name of their category itself, require us to be very strategic in order to be able to think about success at all during the game. Very often in such productions we will have to deal with dozens of units and resources, while competing with other players, or computer enemies. The right approach to all aspects of the game will require focus and good management, as well as anticipating the next events on the board or map. If we don't master such a skill quickly, we will probably have a lot of problems during gameplay!
• They teach us how to manage resources properly - especially at the beginning of strategy games can be difficult, as we have very limited resources for further development. We therefore have to make difficult decisions, choose which improvements or technologies to give up, decide whether we want to develop our army or perhaps our economy and trade with other players. All these decisions will have an impact on further gameplay, so being able to anticipate upcoming events in the game will also come in handy here.
• They allow us to learn to cooperate - whether we play over the internet or choose to play exclusively with computer-based, artificial rivals, many strategy games will allow us to form alliances and cooperate with others. However, in order for cooperation to be successful, we will need to properly negotiate and manage our relationships with others, often deciding on settlements that may not necessarily be 100% in our favour. Such a skill will undoubtedly come in handy later in work or private life.
• They show us how to make decisions under pressure - the game does not always have to go our way, which is why strategy games are often also about how we deal with emotions and unfavourable situations. They can therefore teach us how to manage a crisis and how to make decisions under high pressure, such as the spectre of losing or losing a large part of the resources. The proper management of such a situation and a certain ability to anticipate the further consequences of our actions in such a situation will come in handy at many points in our lives.
• They will show us why it is worth being patient - in strategy games you do not always win, and the games themselves can be really long. When faced with a campaign that lasts for hours, losing at the very end can be really disappointing and brutal. However, there are quite a few lessons to be learned from this - it is worth being persistent and not falling into despair even after losing. Strategy games show that, in order to succeed, you need to put long-term thinking and great commitment into play - something that will come in handy in every aspect of our lives!

Which strategy games to play to learn the most lessons?

There are really a lot of strategy games on the market. In our opinion, you should start with, for example, the Civilization series, which has a huge fan base worldwide. It's a strategy game with multiple levels of difficulty that will test us on virtually every level we've written about before - from making decisions under pressure, to thinking several turns ahead and carefully analysing the moves of our rivals. The game will also allow us to use a variety of resources and raw materials, which are severely limited in number, which in turn may force us to cooperate with others.

Another good example of a strategy game is the StarCraft series and other RTS games - i.e. real-time strategy games in which the gameplay continues all the time, without the possibility of stopping it or dividing it into players' turns. In such games, the most important thing is active decision-making and a constant overview of the playing field, so that we don't miss even the smallest thing: missing resources, the movement of enemy units or the under-utilisation of all our buildings. These are difficult games, definitely more difficult to master than the aforementioned Civilization - but the satisfaction of winning a round in such a production will be incomparable to anything else!

There are also many board games that can also be a great source of learning. Games such as Risk: Global Domination or Pandemic, and even chess require very similar skills to those we have written about - anticipating your rivals' upcoming moves, managing your units and constantly analysing all the events and mistakes you have made in previous moves or turns.

Learning skills through strategy games

Many people still associate computer or board games only with entertainment, and that is worse than watching films and TV series. However, the truth is somewhat different - there is a lot to be learnt from games, especially logic and strategy games. Of course, this is not the only place where you can learn analytical thinking or resource management, but for many it will be the ideal way to start learning this, or to further improve these skills!