Ask for the shape of the challenge.

A storyteller AI aims raids at whatever you are worst at, and mood is a second economy that collapses faster than the defensive one.

Armour has to be stripped before any control lands, surfaces do more damage than swords, and the game explains neither. Act two is where under-levelled parties stop entirely.

The town is gone, so there is no bank of spare heroes to absorb a bad decision — a run is four people and every relationship between them is a mechanic.

Hundreds of hours of interlocking systems with a mid-game crisis on a timer. Most losses happen fifty in-game years before anybody notices them.

Division templates, supply and production efficiency are the game, and none of them are on screen when you start. The front line is only ever a symptom.

The failure state is a confused kind of boredom — you will rule for two centuries before you work out what you were supposed to be doing.

Every run is decided by about ten card choices you made while thinking about something else.

It barely tests your hands at all; it tests whether you can walk away from a dungeon you have already paid for.

Orbital mechanics with no tutorial worth the name. It is endlessly patient about failure and completely unwilling to explain a delta-v budget.

You do not lose fights here, you lose campaigns — and usually about three missions before you notice.