head to head

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura cover artvsNew Star Manager cover art

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick ObscuravsNew Star Manager

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); New Star Manager leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).

EXECUTION2 /10READS1 /10VARIANCE5 /10OPTIMIZATION9 /10
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick ObscuraNew Star Manager

Axis by axis

Execution2 vs 2

Even - both lean on execution about the same.

Reads1 vs 2

New Star Manager leans harder on reads: AI opponents follow systems, not adaptive mind-modelling

Variance5 vs 5

Even - both lean on variance about the same.

Optimization9 vs 8

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura leans harder on optimization: Magic versus technology stat split and schematic discovery are deeply optimizable

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

full breakdown

New Star Manager