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Three Moves Ahead

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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.

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  • 25 episodes
  • fortnightly
  • Avg 1 hr 12 min
  • English

Episodes 25

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  • Wednesday · 1 hr 8 min

    Three Moves Ahead 658: Shadowstone Developer Interview

    Len sits down with Secret Door's Shane and Alan Dabiri, two Blizzard veterans currently working on tactical RPG Sunderfolk and its roguelike sibling, Shadowstone. We reminisce about the golden age of the RTS and dive deep into designing abilities and enem

  • October 18 · 1 hr 6 min

    Three Moves Ahead 657: Total War Warhammer: Lords of the End Times

    Len and long-lost prodigal cohost Ian gird themselves for the apocalypse in Total War Warhammer: Lords of the End Times. We discuss the new factions, the new crisis mechanics, and how not even a walking god of death is scarier than what happens when you o

  • September 29 · 1 hr 3 min

    Three Moves Ahead 656: Endless Legend 2 Interview

    Len sits down with Endless Legend 2 game director Derek Paxton and game designer Julien Gueguen to talk about the 1.0 release of Endless Legend 2, how 4X devs iterate on feedback, and how they managed to put out 60 major updates in the course of a year.

  • September 16 · 1 hr 18 min

    Three Moves Ahead 655: Star Wars Zero Company

    SPOILER ADVISORY: This episode contains character spoilers throughout (if you don't want to be spoiled on which classic Star Wars archetypes can be recruited, or which movie characters make cameos). PLOT SPOILERS for the big mid-game time skip begin at 48

  • August 29 · 1 hr 6 min

    Three Moves Ahead 654: Summer Catch-Up 2026

    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

  • August 1 · 1 hr 5 min

    Three Moves Ahead 653: Corsair Cove

    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

  • July 17 · 1 hr 13 min

    Three Moves Ahead 652: ZeroSpace Early Access Interview

    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 pl

  • June 12 · 1 hr

    Three Moves Ahead 651: Age of Empires II in 2026 feat. Hera

    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 tourna

  • May 10 · 1 hr 9 min

    Three Moves Ahead 650: Slay the Spire 2

    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.

  • April 23 · 1 hr 13 min

    Three Moves Ahead 649: Xenonauts 2

    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, Fal

  • March 28 · 1 hr 10 min

    Three Moves Ahead 648: Heart of the Machine

    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.

  • February 22 · 1 hr 10 min

    Three Moves Ahead 647: Menace Early Access

    Len and Jon get tactical with the squad-based space marine (in the classical sense) platoon simulator, Menace. Because war is actually about Family.

  • February 6 · 1 hr 19 min

    Three Moves Ahead 646: Whiskerwood

    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

  • January 24 · 1 hr 4 min

    Three Moves Ahead 645: 2026 Look Ahead

    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!

  • January 1 · 1 hr 49 min

    Three Moves Ahead 644: 2025 Strategy Games of the Year

    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 lo

  • Dec 13, 2025 · 1 hr 14 min

    Three Moves Ahead 643: 2025 Catch-Up

    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

  • Nov 22, 2025 · 1 hr 12 min

    Three Moves Ahead 642: Anno 117: Pax Romana

    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 a

  • Nov 1, 2025 · 1 hr 32 min

    Three Moves Ahead 641: Europa Universalis 5

    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 wa

  • Oct 9, 2025 · 59 min

    Three Moves Ahead 640: Endless Legend 2 & Friends

    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.

Showing 1–20 of 25 episodes