What was the first strategy game in the world?

There's no single "first" strategy game, because strategy games are ancient. Board games like Senet and the Royal Game of Ur are thousands of years old but rely heavily on dice, while Go, from ancient China, is often cited as the oldest pure strategy game still played today. Among video games, the answer depends on the genre: computer war and empire games appeared in the 1970s and early 1980s, and Herzog Zwei (1989) and Dune II (1992) shaped real-time strategy.

Ancient and tabletop strategy

• Senet and the Royal Game of Ur. Among the oldest known board games, from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia; they mix strategy with chance.
• Go. Played in China for well over two thousand years, with no luck involved.
• Chess. Developed from the Indian game chaturanga around the 6th century and spread through Persia to Europe.
• Kriegsspiel. A 19th-century Prussian war game used to train officers, an ancestor of modern wargames.

Early strategy video games

• Mainframe games of the 1960s–70s like The Sumerian Game and Empire introduced resource management and conquest.
• Utopia (1981) on Intellivision is often credited as an early real-time strategy and city-building game.
• Herzog Zwei (1989) on the Sega Genesis is frequently called a key precursor of RTS.
• Dune II (1992) set the RTS template: base building, resource harvesting and unit control with a mouse.
• Civilization (1991) popularized the turn-based "4X" empire game.

FAQ

What was the first turn-based strategy video game?

Several early computer games used turns, including mainframe titles in the 1970s. Commercial turn-based war games became common in the early 1980s.

What is the oldest game on Earth?

Senet and the Royal Game of Ur are among the oldest known board games, dating back several thousand years.

What is the appeal of strategy games?

They reward planning, adapting to opponents and seeing long-term decisions pay off.

How do strategy games affect the brain?

They exercise planning, working memory and flexible thinking; studies suggest some benefits, though transfer to everyday life is modest.