If you've ever fancied becoming the mayor of your own city, a member of European royalty, or the rule of your own space empire, then you're in luck—this week you can do it for less than the price of a takeaway. Publisher Paradox Interactive is running a week-long sale on Steam, with deep discounts on its best games.
You can pick up Cities: Skylines—easily the most accomplished of Sim City's successors—for just $9 / £7.50, with loads of its DLC similarly slashed in price. Excellent space strategy game Stellaris is just $10 / £8.75, and you can pick up Crusader Kings 3 for $25 / £21. Similarly robust discounts on Hearts of Iron 4, Europa Universalis 4, and Age of Wonders: Planetfall make this an absolute feast for anyone who loves staring at a big map as much as I do.
Easily lost in all that tactical treasure is the fact that you can also grab the wonderful and oft overlooked Shadowrun games for a pittance too—not only are they all on deep discount individually, but you can grab all three for $10 / £7.40. That's a stunner of a price for three of the best modern isometric RPGs—Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a particular favourite of mine.
This week, Steam is running Tacticon, a "digital convention celebrating strategy games", which means there are a few choice non-Paradox games on sale too, if mostly at smaller discounts. It's 20% off The Last Spell, which is very good; ditto Mechabellum which friend of the site Jon Bolding recently described as a "masterpiece". I'd also recommend streamlined RTS Northgard at 70% off, puzzley roguelike Backpack Hero at 20% off, and innovative 4X Old World at 25% off.
Alternatively, if you've already played all of those, maybe it's time to just try taking over the real world instead?
