What is the best PC Strategy game? The genre was first invented way back in 1938 when Winston Churchill looked out of an aeroplane window over France and thought, "Hey, this would make a really cool videogame, whatever that is."

Since then there have been about a hundred million different Strategy Games, simulating about as many different kinds of fighting as we humans have had reasons to fight one another. From the all-encompassing broad strokes of the Civilization series to the individually rendered blades of the Total War games, and from the unflinchingly realistic depictions of Europa Universalis to the far flung fantasy tech of StarCraft, the genre is as diverse as they come.

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But which are the absolute top strategy games on PC? Which are the best strategy games on Steam? Are any of them free? Well just drag a selection box over our bodies and right-click on the horizon, and we'll all be on our way to finding out.

Civilization VI