"What happened to all the good Real Time Strategy games (RTS) out there? Someone at some point decided that RTS games had to have 3D graphics in them. And by doing that, the bar was so raised that only a few companies bothered to keep making them. Why? Because RTS games don�t generally sell as well as one might think � not enough, anyway, to spend millions of dollars on. That is, unless you�re Blizzard or Westwood with franchises.

"So where does that leave us? For most players, what we wish we could do is take over the bodies of the guys at Westwood and Blizzard and have them combine some of their concepts together along with ideas from Total Annihilation into the mega game. But that�s not going to happen. And in fact, looking at where those two companies are going in their designs, the RTS genre is not likely to be making any great leaps forward (though I have high hopes on Empire Earth). But let�s say we, the gamers, got to make a game. Remember last article we talked about being wary of adding too many elements in, so let�s stick to the basics. What do we want in our perfect RTS game?"

Comments on Brad's column? What do you want to see in an RTS?

1. Units that are smart enough to defend themselves when under fire. I refuse to play a C&C game to this day, because C&C-1 had your guys just standing there taking a beating without shooting back. Shame. Still the same deal, so I hear. Has Westwood learned NOTHING?

2. Chain of command. I'm really tired of micromanagement. Let me have "sergeant" units out there with a command radius, and I put other units under their control. I could tell "sarge" to be aggressive and take that hill, then get reports from him periodically about his progress - but I DON'T have to micro manage every tank. I can if I want to, but it shouldn't be necessary. I'm a general, after all.

3. NO PUZZLE MISSIONS. Please, for the love of God. Tactics, not my Rubic Cube skills, should be the deciding factor.

4. Not a "click fest". Take a clue from #2. If you do #2 right, then this isn't a problem. It should never reach the level of:

Box-drag to select a bunch of guys, then shift the screen over, hold shift to pick some other guys. Now hold CTRL and click on 6 of your little ant-men who you don't want in the battle. Now press CTRL-F1 and make them group F1. Now, find your artillery, and do the same routine to them, making them group F2. Press F1, hold shift and click 10 waypoints up a valley to the base of a hill. Now, try to waypoint the artillery so they get there about the same time. Once you engage, you have to individually pick which enemy tank the artillery is going to shoot at, while trying to rotate damaged tanks out of harms way on the battle line.

You getting the point here?

Ok, now if we had a chain of command in place, I could double click a sergeant and get all the units currently in his command radius to highlight. I hold shift and click one of each type - so now he has all the tanks and infantry units around him. I click another sergeant and give him command of the arty. I tell sergeant 1 to be aggressive and take the waypoint - avoid enemy contact on the way, but hold that point. I select sergeant 2 and tell him "support sergeant 1's troops, from long range, attack the biggest threat to him. Try to stay in cover and not get shot at. Move out if you do." Then, by magic, it just "happens". Sergeant 1 might get on the radio and say "General, we can take it, but we need some reinforcements" So, I grab sergeant #3 and tell him "reinforce #1" and he assumes the same settings as sarge #1 and runs over there to join up with him. Once his units are passed into #1's control, he gets out of there and moves to the nearest leaderless units, and asks me "what next, boss?"

5. Base building sucks. Fixed units semi-suck. How about letting me spend *gasp* POINTS before the battle, kinda like Panzer General used to. I keep my old stuff and their experience points, and can add new guys from a pool. Folks, nothing is quite as dumb as the formula "Ok, we pour element X into this building and 2 tanks roll out the front door every 60 seconds." Gimme a break. No more "jiffy pop armies" ok?

6. Begone with the black fog. Use solid LOS rules, but do NOT hide the map from me. That's absofuckinglutely stupid. Ask anyone who plays Mechcommander. It's the 25th century, we're dropping from ORBIT, and can't get a simple photo of the terrain layout? Shoot me.

How about this... use scouts for what scouts DO. You tell sarge to grab a pair of jeeps and go up and scout. He radios back "Hey, I found some tanks. You want me to call the nearest arty unit or air support?" I tell him "sure, do it" and HE calls up another sarge and orders a barrage, then get's the heck out of dodge. From the woodline, where he can see them, but they only have a slight chance of spotting him, he calls in a damage assesment. THAT is what scouts do, not push back a black wall of fog.

ya know... expanding on those thoughts, perhaps the best interface for waypoints and such would be to do what the military actually does... draw arrows on the map. I can mark an area of ground as "Objective Bravo" and put a route mark on the map called "Route Charlie"... select the route and say "Tactics = advance + fast + return fire" and select the objective region and say "Tactics = hold + defend to the northwest + dig in + 20 minutes"

Then, I grab a group of tanks, put them under control of a sergeant unit, and tell them "route = charlie, objective = bravo" and watch 'em go.

Oooh... Yeah, I'm diggin' that.

"ya know... expanding on those thoughts, perhaps the best interface for waypoints and such would be to do what the military actually does... draw arrows on the map."

Yeah, not a bad idea. You need a way to add precision, though. There may be a narrow pass, for example, and you want your units to hug a wall as they go through it. You need a way of forcing that.

I do like the idea of just drawing on a map and saving it as a series of waypoints. That's pretty simple.

I agree with the C&C problems (and also avoid RTS games for those reasons), but you forgot one of the things that bugs me the most. How about a damn penetration model? I don't care how many guys you have shooting their rifles at my Mammoth Tank, they shouldn't be able to ablate the armor and eventually kill it! Enough with the unit hit points!

One problem with units that are too self-sufficient is that the game becomes boring. If all I do is set up general objectives, then I'm mostly just watching the game play itself. There has to be a degree of unit management to involve the player.

Combat Mission takes many, many steps in the right direction, so I play that instead. It is my pick for game of the year. MythI/II are good, too, but I like to be able to pause to issue orders, otherwise victory often depends on my alacrity with the mouse (and I am getting old).

"One problem with units that are too self-sufficient is that the game becomes boring. If all I do is set up general objectives, then I'm mostly just watching the game play itself. There has to be a degree of unit management to involve the player."

Yeah, I think this is one of the key balancing issues in an RTS games. The units need some self-sufficiency, but not too much. I'm happy with the type of management I have to do in most RTS games. The only thing I don't like about the Blizzard games are the spells. I need a way of taking advantage of those spell units without having to micromangage them.

There was one game that was otherwise awful that got some things right -- Tribal Rage. Not only did it let you design units to some extent by changing their weapon loadouts and saving the design as a new unit, you could select the default attack for each unit. This meant that you could select a "spell" attack as the default. That saved quite a bit of mousing around.

"The only thing I don't like about the Blizzard games are the spells. I need a way of taking advantage of those spell units without having to micromangage them."

That was one of the reasons I gave up on Warcraft II. I got tired of watching the AI instantly Bloodlust all of its ogres while the same task took me 30 seconds. This is another version of the "idiot subordinates" problem. That is why I like to pause to issue orders. If I have to think for 25 units on the battlefield, give me 25 times the amount of time to do it.

Unit production needs to be fixed as well. I want to be able to tell the thing to build me a kampfgruppe of a certain unit mix, send it to this spot, and maintain this formation. I don't play games to be a Construction Manager. I quit playing Age of Empires after trying the demo and seeing that my farmers would not replant unless I told them to do it (though I heard this was fixed in a patch). I think Strategic Conquest on the Mac was the last game with a production model I liked, as you could set it up to be almost completely automated.

"I don't play games to be a Construction Manager. I quit playing Age of Empires after trying the demo and seeing that my farmers would not replant unless I told them to do it (though I heard this was fixed in a patch)."

I think you can "buy" a certain number of replants to keep the farm going when it runs out.

I still like the resource model in TA: Kingdoms. You plant a mana rod (or something like that) in a lodestone spot and that's it. The mana just flows in a rate fixed by the number of mana rods you have. No muss, no fuss. No farmers to create who in turn need to be told to farm.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it's infinite resources. I'd like to be able to toggle the game from infinite to a fixed amount.

"I still like the resource model in TA: Kingdoms. You plant a mana rod (or something like that) in a lodestone spot and that's it. The mana just flows in a rate fixed by the number of mana rods you have. No muss, no fuss. No farmers to create who in turn need to be told to farm."

And they just took that concept from TA itself. Set up metal mines (which would create more or less depending on quality of location), or various types of power plants. After that, you only have to protect them from harm, not run them. Of course, protecting them from harm might mean a huge assault into enemy territory to knock out that Big Bertha...

The infinite resources in TA led to a defensive orientation. I liked to do multiplayer skirmishes against the AI, but if you didn't quickly attack you would end up in trench warfare. The unit cap kept you from building a favorable ratio of attacker:defender (you would be stuck at 1:1), and the defensive units could be anything - scads of laser towers or whatever those giant things were called. Offensive units, OTOH, are inherently smaller & have less firepower. The result would be losing 100 units to knock out 10 of the enemy installations. Those would be replaced before you could build another army to follow up the previous attack, and now you are back where you started. The hit point damage model didn't help, as you could not build something that could ignore fire from lighter units. Stalemate.

Brad Wardell, where are you? Brad's a nationally ranked TA player. I'm sure he'd have some interesting things to say about TA and your comments.

I really should play TA again. It's been a couple of years since I last played it. I bet it holds up well, and it sure would play smoother now on my PC. I think when I first played it, I did so on a P-166 w/32 megs.

Don't get me wrong, TA is by far my favorite RTS game. It did lots of things right, its just that you could create a nearly invulnerable hedgehog. It would be nice to see it again on this machine (P3/733, 128MB, Voodoo3) - I remember it bogging my PII/266, 64MB & Voodoo2 pretty bad in heavy action. Or was that the P90 that came before it? Oh, man, I am getting old.

For me, I think of logistics as half the fun. It's not base building, I don't care for that so much, I just think resource management needs to be a key ingredient. The person who knows how to generate and use resources the best should be just as rewarded as the guy who knows the hot keys to using special "spells" and what not.

I don't like unit micro management. I want to put the armies together, send them into to battle and provide general goals for them but Id on't want to be instructing individual units what to do unless absolutely necessary.

I wonder if you guys have ever heard of the Seven Kingdoms series by Enlight? IMHO the two games handle many of the problems your talking about beautifuly.

1.) For recusres there are the princiaple resocurses Food, and Gold people of course. Then there are minerals (3) witch are mined then manufatured and can be sold for gold. People breed (as people tend to do) and when left as peasants they grow food for your empire.

2.) Each race has diffrent atributes some have good armor other good range or meele attacks. It works out pretty well. (The only problem is the second game has some balence issues)

3.) Becasue people of differnt races are ussualy readily avaialbe veterans use certina races together to maximize effiency.

4.) You can queue units an the builders are cheap enoguh so you can build several building s at a time.

5.) Towns can be built anywhere but most other buildings require workers from towns so they must be withinh linking distance.

6.)There is no real limit to how many people or food you can have. The mines do have a maximum but they respawn elsewhere when a mine runs dry. So there are unlimited resourses but you cant be a mole.

7.) no elevation :( and the waypoints were disabled in multiplayer.

8.)Soldiers are reqruited from towns and trained in forts the people multiply natulay so its not birth on demand.Of course you must leave enoguh people in the town to multiply and to grow food for soldiers/workers.

9.) One concripted into a fort the units train to a combat level of 20 (combat levle *2= hit points) Then if there is a general in the fort he will contiune to train the units in his command speed is depenadt on his leadership ablities (wich grow as he trains) up to 100 they also gain expiernce much faster in combat.

10.) Does include a technology tree

Other elemets that are improtant in an RTS i think are Diplomacy and other non-millitary based victory conditons wich The SK series has too :)

They are not perfect games by far but i think they are a cut above many other games and are sadly little known. if anyone wants to know more email me.

Nationally ranked TA player? I was in the final 16 of the PGL Total Annihilation tourney. And I would have been part of the final 8 and gone to Atlanta if I didn't have to install an E911 system in Oklahoma the day of my last tourney match. Ah well.

As much as I adore TA-- I once got Chris Taylor to call my house, but that's a story for another day-- it had some major flaws.

Remember I'm talking about competitive TA play here; as a casual player TA can be much more open ended. But "pros" who played all the time knew there were really only a few paths to sure victory and everything played out as variations on the following themes.

The primary flaw with TA was that it was always more efficient to be producing a zillion units than it was to take a small number of units and use them effectively. This led to "I need to build a zillion of (x)" confrontations that were hardly strategic. The other major factor in TA was "the rush." No matter how good you are, if the other player can get in and destroy or slow your production facilities early in the game, you are completely and utterly screwed. Because by the time you can muster 10 tanks your opponent can muster 30. It was all about damaging production.

I'm beginning to think the only effective RTS games are those where you cannot build units. It inevitably becomes a building contest rather than a strategy contest, and that's really not that much fun.

That said, TA is by far the best "building" RTS I've ever played.

wumpus

"As much as I adore TA-- I once got Chris Taylor to call my house, but that's a story for another day-- it had some major flaws."

Hey, do tell! Sounds like an interesting story.

-Tom

This was fun to read. I appreciate all the comments about TA, good and bad. I hope to one day design an RTS which solves the problems you guys mention. I just need more hours in the day!!!

Great article that is geared toward the TA style of RTS. . . (which has been sadly neglected in RTS games . . . ie. therock paper scissors is my main beef with current rts games)

I think though were a few RTS that did it right this year. . . though weren't particularly groundbreaking. . . of note for me were

Warlords battlecry - has the best RPG feel, and it makes a difference as well. . . not as clicky as some would think

Dark Reign 2 - great rts with not too many units. . . still too much of the rock paper scissor for me though. the graphics in it were just perfect and ran well on a modest system. .

Earth 2150 - had cumbersome views and a little too involved unit and tech upgrading designing, but it did the 3d/CnC feel just right.

. . . anyhow one game i think got sorely missed from RTS games and was 3d was MS/Terratools Urban Assault. . . it didn't have the exact rock paper scissors (like TA), had tons of units, plus the action side didn't detract too much from the RTS side of the game (you can actually comand while in your units). an updated Urban Assault with better graphics would be a game i'd love.

in regards to TA rush tactics. . . it is true . . . that once you get the resource buildup right you can crank out so and so of a lvl 1 unit (ie Arm Flash or Core lvl 1 rocket bot (forgot name) it is a rush game. . . but at that time most rts games are catered to rushing. . . in fact i haven't played a building RTS where rushing WASN't a tactic. .. except AoE. . .

anyhow, just hope somebody would actually comment about UA. . . was a great game imo

etc

"I just need more hours in the day!!!"

Thanks for stopping by, Chris. Good luck with Dungeon Seige. I think a lot of us have high hopes for it.

I never played Urban Assault, but another good RTS that was overlooked was Warzone 2100. It was quite innovative, with a design-your-own unit approach, veteran units, carryover between scenarios, a campaign that actually reused some of the bases you built in previous missions, and so on.

The 3D graphics were pretty fuzzy and the game had a bland feel about it that a lot of RTS games suffer from, unfortunately. Still, Pumpkinhead did a real nice job of supporting it with extensive new material after the release. I was sorry to see them go out of business.

"I'm beginning to think the only effective RTS games are those where you cannot build units. It inevitably becomes a building contest rather than a strategy contest, and that's really not that much fun."

BING!

Add that to the points that were brought up in the beginning of the thread and you're on the way to making an RTS that even hardcore anti-RTS types like me will play.

Not building units? That's the thrust behind Warcraft 3, although there will be some of that, it will be minimal.

The problem is trying to exercise tactics when you're controlling multiple units in real-time. It's tough. Pausing and giving orders helps, but sometimes the pace of the game that way is just too slow. The thing about turn-based is that the battles are then designed for that and they don't take forever.

You guys shut up. I want some humility in the presence of the RTS master himself, Chris Taylor!

One question for you, Chris. Is the "Siege" series going to become a group of titles for Microsoft, much like the "Madness" games? I am not digging for confirmation of future titles, only that the word "Siege" is being vetted for further use inside MS.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

"You guys shut up. I want some humility in the presence of the RTS master himself, Chris Taylor!"

You know what's amazing is Total Annihilation was his first RTS game. That's like a rookie pitching a no-hitter in his first start!

I took the liberty of relaying Wumpus's question to Chris. Here's his response.

"Currently our only plans include Dungeon Siege and the liklihood of a sequel or two. Hope that helps!"

I didn't think he'd check back here, which is why I did that. He's just too nice to say no though.

Just to comment on the rush method. This is where the desire is to get in early and disrupt production.

This could be fixed by making the production system very resistant to damage. Maybe a certain inbuilt armour value that stops damage caused by light weapons and reduces other damage.

This would make early rush tactics with cheap troops difficult as they can not seriously harm the enemies production. They can still take and deny territory but can not completely wreck the opposition by shooting up a single key facility 2 minutes into the game.


Another thought I have is the supply cost of all those units. A method needs to be in place to limit the maximum number of units. The method that exists in real life is supply. A similar system is needed in games. TA had the power cost of weapons usage but it was a flawed system as during periods of little use it rapidly built up again and energy was hardly a scarce resource for most players after the first 10 minutes. A continuous drain system based on a component type (In a TA eg. a Class 1 Engine drains # energy all the time) could work.

This supply system also works against early horde attacks as large numbers of light vehicles will use a lot of supply even though they don't cost much to build.

A benefit of this is that it can cause (because of different resource requirements for supply) certain restrictions on unit ratios etc, and on the desired direction of attack. You have limited oil so you can supply fewer engines and oil is more important too you.

Just some ideas.

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This would make early rush tactics with cheap troops difficult as they can not seriously harm the enemies production. They can still take and deny territory but can not completely wreck the opposition by shooting up a single key facility 2 minutes into the game.

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Quote:

Another thought I have is the supply cost of all those units. A method needs to be in place to limit the maximum number of units. The method that exists in real life is supply. A similar system is needed in games. TA had the power cost of weapons usage but it was a flawed system as during periods of little use it rapidly built up again and energy was hardly a scarce resource for most players after the first 10 minutes. A continuous drain system based on a component type (In a TA eg. a Class 1 Engine drains # energy all the time) could work.

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Having read (skimmed) this thread, I have a very simple solution:

EVERYONE GO AND BUY EARTH 2150. Now...

Seriously, it covers most points brought up here aside from the sargeants and 'militarty style commands'.

To give a few examples:

Unit intelligence: use 'advanced battle unit' script, set to 'hold area' and unit(s) will engage any enemies within a certain area, and return to the same point after destrooying the enemy or the enemy leaving the area.

Resources: three races, three mining techniques. ED have mine, refinery and units carrying 'crates' from mine to refinery to be converted to credits. UCS have 'drilling rigs' that mine resources and return them to a refinery. LC have mining buildings which turn resources straight into credits. And if you don't like mining, you can set the game up to give you x credits every y minutes.

Huge amounts of units: user-definable unit COST limit. Not 'you can have 100 units', but 'you can have 30,000 WORTH of units'

Rush: Doesn't work anyway cos starting units are pants vs buildings, research takes a reasonable amount of time (depending on research speed setting), building units takes quite a bit of time, defenses are quick to build, and, as suggested, some buildings have armour which reduces damage from projectile weapons, but not energy weapons which come later. However, you can research sheilds to absorb damage from energy weapons but are no use against projectile weapons.

As you can tell I do rather like this game :P

"EVERYONE GO AND BUY EARTH 2150. Now..."

Charmaka,

I agree with you on Earth 2150, which was one of the best RTSes in a year replete with great RTSes, with one caveat.

"LC have mining buildings which turn resources straight into credits."

This breaks the game. The Lunar Corporation's advantage at making money will win them the game EVERY TIME. How this got past playtesting in an otherwise fairly balanced game is mind-boggling. I hope TopWare's Moon Project expansion does something to fix this.

-Tom

The main 'advantage' of LC mining buildings is that the AI is usually so moronic that when it runs out of minerals it tries to drop one into your resource field. Problem is it only has 60HP till it hits the ground. Rinse and repeat :P

Seriously though, there are some disadvantages to the mining building, namely that it's so damn slow. USC, one they;'ve done the research, can have one harvester carrying 1000CR offloading all the time if you've got enough.

And hey, if you don't like it - play skirmish with cash injection instead :P

"Seriously though, there are some disadvantages to the mining building, namely that it's so damn slow."

Yep, but you can more than up for this by clustering a bunch of mining buildings around a single ore area. Try it. You'll be unstoppable.

"And hey, if you don't like it - play skirmish with cash injection instead :P"

True. But I really like the economic aspects of my RTSes, which is where the LC breaks Earth 2150. :(

-Tom

Okay, I'll go out on a limb here, and say that I think AOE2 (with the Conquerers add-on) may be the best RTS I've played. I think the one flaw with it are the farms. As mentioned, they have to be built, at a cost of resources. They then have a large yet limited build queue, for which you are required to pay in advance. Convenience vs. immediate access to resources. Ack. For my $.02, I'd suggest farms as strict resource generators. Charge a cost to build them, then have them work in perpetuity after that. Maybe slow down production, to require players to build more of them for the same production. The same idea could be applied to lumber gatherers. Trees could sprout around lumber camps, and slowly replenish, even as the gatherers were cutting down other trees. Eventually you'd end up with a string of lumber camps, and your villagers would move between them as the trees matured.

I like that the AI in AOE2 allows you to pick how aggressive or defensive units are. Aggressive units just go, and risk be damned. While this might be frustrating when your cavalry attacks a castle, it is actually fairly realistic. Just look at history. How many times have armies failed to win wars because the troops just kept following the last order they received?

Don't get me wrong. TA was brilliant. I'd never played anything like it when it came out. It was hard, frustrating and horrifyingly addictive, all at the same time. But I do really like the "Feel" of AOE2. So what's the next one? "AOE3, The Age of Sail?," playing through the American revolution period?

Last, I really like the "arrow on a map" idea. Colonization had a system like that. It was strictly a strategic-level graphic, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for tactical-level movement, particularly if the AI has units that automatically seek to take advantage of cover (I still have yet to see anyone stumble across that particular idea, but my exposure is admittedly limited).

Hear, hear to AOE2. The AI is beautiful. I'm a die-hard fan of WAR2, but the AI leaves a lot to be desired. Hopefully WAR3 will fix some of that, and I've got my money on it as best RTS of 2001. AOE2 is a little on the complex side for casual gamers, but the AI is phenomenal. It's defitiely one of the most intelligent games I've played.

And, while I'm talking, I've got to defend C&C. Particularly with Red Alert, Westwood has tried to make it a perfect game. (Tried.) Sure, it allows rushing, but in most other respects it's a strong game.

For those of you sold on the general idea, let me remind you that WAR3 will have heroes who will act in very much that fashion. It sounds like there's going to be a lot more customization as to how much micro-management is needed, and Blizzard is saying that rushing will be very difficult to achieve. Here's hoping!

Here we goes again... :P

I can see that if you like resource management then E2150 is probably not your game :P


I still like it though, and I'm still finding new bits. For example, not only can you issue it a chain of any (and I haven't found one that it won't do yet) orders, so you can order a construction unit to build an entire base in one go, or give a nice detailed list of waypoints, but it goes one better - you can use the record mode to set up any set of commands you like, and the units will stay where they are until you press the X key, whereupon they will execute the entire set. Haven't tried it yet, but I igamine it could make for some interesting ambushes and stuff - give em all different orders, select everything and hit X...

A thing I found yesterday is that changing the unit script to advanced unit gives it a whole stack of new options - free fire/return fire/hold fire, retreat not at all/50% damage/25% damage/low ammo, chase enemy/hold area/hold position - and the're on top of patrol, escort, attack move, resupply etc. And I haven't mentioned platoons yet - now THAT's a nifty feature.

The other cool thing is harder to show. I was playing around in the map editor, which is completely done with the game engine, and found a rather cool trick. Make a mountain in the middle, put some water on top, and dig a trench to let the water out - the whole map fills with water... Any game engine which lets me do that has got to be pretty good :P

Apologies if I seem to be droning on over one game - I bought it before christmas and I still can't get over how cool some of the bits are :P

I'm a big Myth fan, personally. The missions never degenerate into a war of attrition. Strangely, getting rid of the resource aspect seemed to make all the difference. Maybe it's just that I'd rather spend my time fighting instead of building.

I love Myth too, but the single-player missions are a bit puzzle-oriented at times. I don't really mind that, but many of them aren't exercises in tactics.

Man, I should install that again. I bet there's still a good multiplayer scene going with Myth 2. Multiplayer was really a kick.

One rule for 3D RTSes:

DON'T MAKE ME HAVE TO CONTROL THE CAMERA.

Having to control the camera adds nothing and makes me waste time I should be using commanding my units.

3D RTS' may have something going for them. But I have yet to see a 3D RTS with as transparent an interface as a 2D RTS.

if only Myth had a skirmish mode, would be one of my top games ever. . .

etc

I think Myth probably didn't have a skirmish mode because the unit AI was lousy. They had to tightly script the missions.

Pretty smart in a lot of ways. It likely saved them a lot of development time for a feature that probably wouldn't have sold that many extra copies.

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3D RTS' may have something going for them. But I have yet to see a 3D RTS with as transparent an interface as a 2D RTS.

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I was wondering when someone was going to mention Ground Control. I was poking around this wonderful website and decided to read some of the threads start to finish, like this one...

Anyway, I think GC is a great game. I've sent away for the Dark Conspiracy expansion that costs only the $4.95 for shipping. Nice idea Sierra!

I agree that for 3D RTSs, camera control is a tricky problem. Do I need to mention Force Commander? *shudder* GC's tutorial does a great job of introducing its camera. The trick to getting good with it is to find the mouse sensitivity setting that you're most comforable with. Set it too high, and you'll be rotating the camera spastically, but too low and you can't look around quickly enough.

GC does have some of the rock-paper-scissors problem, but not too much. A marine squad can shoot down an aerodyne that hangs around for too long. Also, marines can take out the heavy tanks, but only if they can out-flank them, which is a nice touch. (And the tutorial shows you this right at the beginning). That addresses the issue someone mentioned about infantry vs. tanks in C&C.

Anyway, I've just got some time on my hands, too much I suppose, so I thought I'd try to get this thread going again...

Hey Mark!

One of the common complaints I remember about the full game, besides the lack of the ability to save and pause the game, was that at some point artillery was godlike. In other words, it was the ultimate weapon and threw the game balance out of whack. Any comments on this? I'm curious.

You know what would make me just plain happy? Age of Kings with just a few mods:
-Instead of queuing farms they perpetually regenerate.
-Trees would regrow in forests over time.
-Economic victory was a real possibility, rather than a road to victory.

For the renewable resources, I'd suggest making farms a little more expensive, and having them produce food more slowly. This would result in more farms and a higher overall resource commitment to them, but less fiddling. The same applies to lumber camps. Make the player build a string of them. Villagers will work their way up the string of camps, then go back to the beginning (which has regrown) and start over. Again, the extra camps mean extra resource commitment. If you have trees only grow back around camps, then the player will also not have a disinterested attitude towards the destruction of old, not-so-useless-now camps.

Last, wassup with gold and stone just disappearing? Lets have some salvage capability here. Gold might be reinvested into the economy in another way. Researching something at the blacksmith and spending that gold might help your overall economy, perhaps speeding the villagers a little (better equipment and working conditions from prosperity), or accelerating gold generation from relics (tithes). On this subject, it might not be a bad idea to have markets generate gold. Kind of odd that they don't already do that, it seems to me.

"You know what would make me just plain happy? Age of Kings with just a few mods:
-Instead of queuing farms they perpetually regenerate.
-Trees would regrow in forests over time.
-Economic victory was a real possibility, rather than a road to victory."

You know, that would be a cool version of that game. It seems really doable, too. The first two are easy, and the last could just be a victory condition that's a combination of total resources, although that's probably too simplistic.

"Last, wassup with gold and stone just disappearing? Lets have some salvage capability here. Gold might be reinvested into the economy in another way. Researching something at the blacksmith and spending that gold might help your overall economy, perhaps speeding the villagers a little (better equipment and working conditions from prosperity), or accelerating gold generation from relics (tithes). On this subject, it might not be a bad idea to have markets generate gold. Kind of odd that they don't already do that, it seems to me. "

This was one cool thing (among many) about Total Annihilation. Everything you destroyed could be salvaged for metal, as long as it wasn't blasted completely to bits. Energy tended to dissipate, but you could "salvage" it from trees and other ambient lifeforms.

I suppose this is the peculiar joy of being an armchair designer, but it does seem that the ideal combination of RTS gameplay elements is tantalizingly close to existing already, if we could just combine them in the right game. ;)

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Mark, you asked about saving and artillery in Ground Control...

Yeah, there is no in-game save. I was trying to think of no-so-good things about GC and for some reason this one slipped my mind. This is definitely a sore spot for the game, and I agree that leaving out this feature in any RTS is just plain dumb.

As for the artillery, yeah, it can be a little god-like. The main reason is that you can array your forces in front of them and make them pretty much untouchable, except by a concentrated air attack, which the AI never seems to consider. They also never bothered to try to rush you after you start pounding on the perimeter defenses.

On the other hand, the artillery behaves like artillery and is not very accurate, but relies on firing for effect, (though you can get a one-shot precision warhead as the special weapon). They probably should have made the units themselves more vulnerable to attack to offset the imbalance, or increased the flight time of the shells. Another good thing is that while you can use your infantry to spot for the artillery, the shells take long enough to get there that if you're shooting at parked vehicles, they usually can get out of the way. On the other hand, if you see some advancing steadily, with a little practice, you can learn how to lead them and score really devastating hits.

Another thing to note, the artillery falls in the support squad catagory, along with the anti-air vehicles and the rocket/beam vehicles. While it would be great to take 4 artillery pieces, that uses up 4 of your support squads, and usually you have to take with one of the other types for air defense, and you get 4 of those for each 1 artillery piece you trade for it.

One last thing all my experience is with the single player campaign, I haven't played GC with multiplayer. I got DSL a few months ago, but haven't taken the time to try it yet.

Mark

"I suppose this is the peculiar joy of being an armchair designer, but it does seem that the ideal combination of RTS gameplay elements is tantalizingly close to existing already, if we could just combine them in the right game. ;)"

heh -- for some reason RTS games seem to bring out the armchair designer in me more than other genres. I guess they're quite a bit more complex than most games. It's easy to see ways to improve them.

True dat.

Agreed. On all counts. The thing that irks me more than anything else is the way most RTS games degenerate into a war of attrition.

- Alan

"heh -- for some reason RTS games seem to bring out the armchair designer in me more than other genres. I guess they're quite a bit more complex than most games. It's easy to see ways to improve them"

I agree with you there, and I think you're right that there's something about the RTS genre that brings out the armchair designer in gamers. I've noticed that while I've read articles complaining about Q3 as far as features go when it's compared to UT, no one seems to comment about how they would _fix_ it, instead they say to just play UT. The same idea seems to be true about other genres, but with varying degrees.

I haven't played Age of Empires / Age of Kings... I'm not familiar with them at all, what's the relation if any between the two?

I read QT3's 60 second preview of Empire Earth. It looks really promising. I hope they can pull it off.

"The thing that irks me more than anything else is the way most RTS games degenerate into a war of attrition."

I've been spending time lately with the Earth 2150 expansion, The Moon Project. One of the things I really like about that series' basic model is the way research works. If a game comes down to attrition, one side or the other can usually use technology to trump his enemy.

-Tom

Bussman: I haven't played Age of Empires / Age of Kings... I'm not familiar with them at all, what's the relation if any between the two?

AoK is the sequel to AoE. Both are basically Bruce Shelley productions, developed by Ensemble, published by Microsoft.

IMHO, AoK plays very much like AoE, but they tweaked many of the play parameters in response to feedback about AoE. Essentially, AoE and AoK are four phase RTS games, where you can spend resources either to build things, or to progress to a new game phase (thus enabling better units, etc.).

While I enjoy the game and find it fairly well balanced, I have trouble accurately jumping around the map to manage everything. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Starcraft and being able to tap the space bar a lot. This gets back to the whole micromanagement problem. 'nuff said.

- Alan

Thanks for answering that Alan.

After I posted that message, I figured I'd just look for a demo. I d/led the AoE2 trial and have played through the first 6 missions in the "learn to play" part. Now I understand what people were talking about when they complained about farms not replanting themselves. It is pretty damn annoying. I'm still getting the hang of using and developing the units and weapons. I tend to play more sci-fi or modern time era games (this goes for all genres, not just RTSs), which is probably why I'd never played AoE2 before. My first impression of this game is that well, I'm very impressed. I like how the peasants are smart enough to help finish building something if they've just completed a building near it. The interface, the tech tree and the infrastructure all are very intuitive. I don't think I'll ever like it as much as Ground Control or the Homeworld games, but now at least I see why others rave about it so much. AoE2 deserves it.

The first step in improving RTSes is to break with C&C. I have no emotional connection with all these anonymous futuristic worlds. (The Fune series is another matter; it has a huge background mythology that can makes it feel quasi-real.) Bring us back down to earth. Games like the Age of Empires series, America, Sudden Strike and forthcoming Empire Earth and Fate of the Dragon is the sort of stuff I'm looking to play.

"Fune series"?

Dune series; sorry.

PO

Starcraft was an "anonymous futuristic world" also, yet it was well realized.

I don't think it's the SF setting as much as the backstory getting short shrift in many of these RTS games.

BTW, Strategy First told me that Sudden Strike is doing very well -- 250,000-350,000 units in Europe and probably 150,000 here in the US.

Mark,

I liked Starcraft; I just didn't love it, and I think that, ultimately, it suffers from the same problem. In other respects, the game was superb--polished, consummately balanced, with a wonderful story. But I something nagged at me about it: Even though I liked its characters (which was a considerable achievement), I couldn't quite connect with it on a fundamental emotional level.

I'm probably in a minority of one here, but I've been there. :-D

Peter

I think that Starcraft had a pretty good story and characters, it was obvious that Blizzard spent at least a good amount of time on them.

However, I think the sci-fi RTSs with the best stories are Homeworld and Homeworld Cataclysm. The manual for each game has a fairly long section dedicated to backstory and the history of the people of Kharak and Higara (respectively). These two games were espeically good at drawing me into the story, so that not only was I gratified by finishing a mission for its own sake, but by knowing I was about to find out what was gonna happen next.

I also think that the voice acting in both of these games was very well done, though Cataclysm's is a little better than HW's. This is especially true of the guy who is the voice of "Fleet Command" in Cataclysm.

"However, I think the sci-fi RTSs with the best stories are Homeworld and Homeworld Cataclysm. The manual for each game has a fairly long section dedicated to backstory and the history of the people of Kharak and Higara (respectively). These two games were espeically good at drawing me into the story, so that not only was I gratified by finishing a mission for its own sake, but by knowing I was about to find out what was gonna happen next."

Martin Cirulis, a former CGW freelancer who did those "What's the deal with..." columns, wrote the manuals. He's also a SF writer. I don't know what he's doing now? Anyone know?

I didn't like Homeworld that much. I felt it was akin to C&C with a 3-D interface, complete with puzzle missions. The story would have held me better if I didn't have to conduct a 3-hour war of attrition in between each section.

- Alan

Alan

I think I disagree about Homeworld being about attrition, but I haven't played it in a while. Besides, you could be right, but I wouldn't know it because I don't analyze games when I play them, I just try to enjoy myself. You said somthing earlier about a lot of RTSs just turn into wars of attrition. In your opinion, what RTSs don't do this? (Besides AoE/AoK)

Mark

Bussman: Besides, you could be right, but I wouldn't know it because I don't analyze games when I play them, I just try to enjoy myself.

Usually I just try to enjoy the game, unless I find that I'm not having fun. That happened about four hours in to one of the mid-game Homeworld missions. Maybe that one mission soured me on the game.

The war of attrition thing is the problem I have with building (and managing) hordes of units, and throwing them at an opponent until one of you runs out of resources. Myth gets around this by not letting you build anything. (However, I seem to remember someone commenting that it wasn't RTS if you couldn't build stuff.) Similiarly, I enjoyed Shogun and the Close Combat series.

- Alan

Kohan! :) A couple folks dragged me into getting Kohan kicking and screaming (I generally can't stand RTSs yet I keep buying the Big Ones hoping to force myself into liking them).

I've found it really is the "RTS for People Who Can't Stand RTSs". It also proves you still don't really need 3-D for a good fun RTS.

I mourned the loss of cavedog. Although I did not care for TA:Kingdoms, I still think TA was/is the best RTS ever made. I wish I knew why it didn't do as well as starcrat, but I suspect it was because starcraft was more 'pretty'.

Anway, onto the topic at hand, I have had some ideas for the ultimate RTS, although I can't post most of it here, It would take many pages to do so. However, here are two of my ideas:

1. Lots of resource types on the map, but only a few would be needed by any race. For example lets take dwarves, elves, and humans. Elves being magical might need lots of manna crystals, lots of gems, some metal, and a little bit of wood. They would not need any stone, gold, or (any 3 other resources). Where as dwarves might need lots of stone, lots of metal, medium wood, and medium gold, but have no use for gems, manna crystals, or other things.

The idea is that even if you conquer territory, it may contain an abundence of stuff you do not need. Also it would help balance out everyone from playing one race. Imagine if only Zerg needed minerals in SC. If you have 4 zerg players, that is a lot of competition for limited resources. You might consider not playing zerg and playing terrain if you know that 80% of all the resouces on the map that you need are unusable by everyone else.

Finally, if your territory has unusable resources it might be good to ally with people who use them so you do not need to compete with them. I think 10 resource types, but each race only need 4 to 5 of them in varying quantities is the way to go.


2. Ulimited unit types, units by design. I do not mean you have 3 tank chassis, and 6 tank guns, and 4 tank engines and you can re-mix them any way you want. For reference think of the pen-and-paper games GURPS or Champions. In it you have powers and power modifiers, costs and energy consumption.

Example: You want a sniper gun that does 10d6 of damage. Look up ranged damage: It costs 5 resource units per d6. So you need a base of 50 to get 10d6. Snipers can also aim really well at long distances so you add the Advantage: No range penalty and thats a +1/2 advantage. 50 x 1.5 =75pts. Snipers also fire slowly, so give that the slow rate of fire disadvantage at -1/4. The new total is 50x(1 + .5 -.25) = 62.5 of Resource cost. Now the energy to fire a weapon is based on its cost, say 1pt of energy for every 5pts of cost, in this case 13pts of energy to fire each shot (of course this can be ammo, or just some other limiting factor).

Now we have a sniper rifle. We then design a soldier who has health, speed, armour, and skills with a sniper rifle. Add both the costs together and you now have a sniper which you can make in your barracks.

With such an open ended system with lots of powers, skills, advantages and disadvantages you can make any thing you want. The best part is that people can brign new units to the table and you would have no idea what they do. Each battle would be a new experience.

Futher limits Id like to see is tech research and tech levels.

Research:
After you design this sniper unit, you still need to reseach it to 'invent' it. Really the design is saying what I want to make, and the research is the actual invention of the unit. You would need labs and stuff (and lets not forget the ability to research better reasearch) to make this stuff.

Tech Levels:
Assume your civilizations tech level is rated 3 (modern day) and you want snipers who use lasers rather then bullets. Unfortunatly lasers are tech level 4 and up. You need to advance your tech level to use lasers. Advancement comes simply by doing R&D on stuff. When you invent a normal sniper it takes a certain amount of R&D to do that, and whatever costs it took to do that goes toward your total R&D pool. For every order of magnitude your pool is, your at that tech level. So between 1000 and 9999 R&D is tech level 3, 10,000 and 99,999 is tech level 4, etc.. Of course inventing better reasearch is critical since each tech level takes 10x the research of the previous one. You also will need to invent more difficult things to push R&D forward. You can assign Pure research (not inventing anything in particular) but that should be between 10% and 1% as efficent as actually inventing something specfic.

Finally tech levels reduce the cost of lower tech level units by 1/2 for each tech level above the level of the unit. A tech level 5 socioty would be able to make laser snipers at 1/2 the cost of a tech 4, and modern day tanks at 1/4 the cost of a tech level 3 socioty.


Anway, just a few of my ideas. Maybe one day Ill be rich and be able to pay some company to actually make this.

Interesting ideas.

BTW, anyone remember the name of that multiplayer-only RTS that was in the works. Was it Ethermoon? Or being made by Ethermoon? I haven't heard anything about it in months and was wondering if they folded.

The Ethermoon guys are working on Strifeshadow. I suppose I ought to check up on them. (heh)

I like the resource idea, where different factions prioritize resources differently (or ignore certain types completely). I think it would help to offset the "war of attrition" that usually ensues.

Mostly though, I wish modern RTS games would incorporate more from their predecessors. This list includes things like: salvage, veterancy, infinite resources, tactical terrain, deformable terrain, interactive neutrals, and the ability for ground turrets to shoot at planes (albeit poorly).

- Alan

The research idea, while intruguing, seems like it could be a real headache. I'd almost think you'd have to design outside the game itself, as once the game gets started, it would be hard to ignore the game for three or four minutes to design a new unit. It definitely has potential, though -- the idea of not knowing what's coming could really be interesting. It would help you conform your attacks based on their defense, and you're right -- no two games would be identical.

I like it in theory. I'm worried about implementation.

The resource idea is cool, too.

There's a lot of great suggestions in this thread, however, I think I've noticed a common bit to all of them:

"RTSes need this feature. Coincidentally, this feature is either in turn-based strategy games, or logically should be."

Except for giving orders to commander units to carry out with taskforces and letting them go off and fight strictly on those orders without your intervention, literally everything in this thread is already in turn-based games.

So tell me: why should the above features be in a real-time game? What's the chief point of something being "real-time?"

For me, I'd say it's to a) make the game more reflex-based/"actiony" and b) to cover up fundamental flaws in the gameplay by providing artifical time constraints on planning. Maybe c) waste the players time by making miniscule differences in production efficiency win the game, too.

This post turned into "RTSes suck," and I wasn't planning on that. Hrm. Still, what's so damn great about them? I installed Kohan and just couldn't care about the game at all; I gave it away to a friend. Mind you, this is after I played Warcraft, Warcraft II, C&C, Red Alert, and Age of Empires all to death, so I'm suspecting I've seen all the entertainment this genre can give.

Whoops, I forgot Homeworld and Starcraft, too. I've played all of them except the ones released in the last year or so.

I'm with you on Kohan, though I know that's practically blasphemous around here. I've only played the demo, and openly confess that, so I could be missing out on some greatness, but...It just didn't appeal tremendously to me. I love Warcraft 2, though, so it's not the genre. I dunno. It just didn't have as much personality, to me. Can't really put my finger on why.

---

Quote:

So tell me: why should the above features be in a real-time game? What's the chief point of something being "real-time?"

---

Oh yeah, real-time is great, and pretty much necessary, for multiplayer. However, the vast majority of computer game playing time for everyone is single player, as Wardell has pointed out.

I'm not much on multiplayer gaming anymore, myself. Maybe this is why I can't get excited about new releases in the genre.

I think real-time can be great for single player, too. It's simply a matter of getting the control of the units to a manageable level so that players don't feel like the computer beats them because it can work faster.

Kohan had this potential but it's mired in a fairly boring campaign. Hopefully the expansion (now a full release I think) will rectify this.

What I can't figure out to this day is how any real-time strategy game can have units that don't know they're being destroyed and just sit there! How hard is it to put a trigger on a unit where if it gets hit, it fights back?! The most rudimentary of first person shooters had beasties that woke up when they took a bullet. Why is it that this genre has so much trouble with it?

It's one of Total Annihilation's strongest points IMO. Units FIGHT for their lives even if their decisions aren't always the best ones with regard to target.

All that said, I love the genre. I'm not tired of it in the least. Multiplayer still grabs me and even Kohan's weak campaign was fun.

--Dave

'I think real-time can be great for single player, too. It's simply a matter of getting the control of the units to a manageable level so that players don't feel like the computer beats them because it can work faster.'

The point of the genre is that you can't control everything, near as I can tell, or that it's really hard to do so. Most of the suggestions on here are "we need more control" types. Therefore, why real-time?

Because it's much more urgent. I don't really want every game to play in turns. It's good for some games, bad for others. I'm sure you've heard this before, but turn-based games are somewhat "unrealistic" because I have all day to plan a move. I wouldn't have that choice on a battlefield. Therefore, despite the failings of some RTS games, I don't want that choice in all my games.

I mean, I can just as easily cite points and say "why turn based"? Many find turn-based games dull and there are a great many of them that are just that. So the answer isn't simply discarding the genre out of hand. I think it lies in giving units the autonomy to at least respond when pressured. Let me then jump in where I feel the need to direct...obviously I can't do that on every front, but as a commander, I wouldn't have that luxury in any conflict.

Kohan is a great example of how to do things better. Warlords: Battlecry is another. In some ways Sacrifice is better than both because I'm forced to direct from a position in the field. If I'm under attack, I can't direct as well. That makes perfect sense. Yet, you have nothing like this in turn-based games. It's a different type of design and clearly you don't enjoy it. Just bag the genre and move on?

--Dave

Oh, I'm not suggesting turn-based is necessarily "better" for every game. It just strikes me as odd that the chief reason for real-time gaming is "urgency," and all of the compliants everyone has with RTSes are that they're too "urgent!"

Aszurom's suggestions are great, and supposedly Earth 2150 implements a few, but.....is that still a RTS? A full "commander" style game wouldn't play at all like RTSes do today. I'd say people buy RTSes for the adrenaline rush of trying to command every little thing on a huge map in under thirty seconds. If that's gone, it'd probably be more fun, but an entirely different class of game.

"I love Myth too, but the single-player missions are a bit puzzle-oriented at times."

I think any game with prescripted missions is ultimately going to be at least a little "puzzle-based." The problem is that there is always a "best way" to handle any tactical situation. Because the starting conditions are set, the best way to solve any given mission in Myth is always the same. If you play the mission through enough time, that becomes very obvious.

The only way to make things more tactical is to make missions more dynamic, add more variables, or make them completely random.

Personally, I think Kohan did a lot fo the things that people are asking for in this thread. I love the interface and the regimental grouping and scale of user control in that game.

I've read several times that orientals were the worst drivers, but that there was a reason for it. Apparently, their traditions of politeness and face don't apply if you don't actually see the person. Cars become big, anonymous power machines to them, and all of the politeness demanded by their cultures disappears.

I don't know the full truth of that, but it does remind me of multiplayer gaming. Too many people out to cheat, insult, be rude or just plain mean. I'm sure there's good folks out there, too, but I hardly ever seemed to meet them. Seriously, why go LOOKING to be abused by what is probably some teenaged punk in another state? Feh.

So far as RTS games go, I've always been a little skeptical of the whole resource thing, except in "ancient civilization" games. Starcraft is a perfect example. Given the speed and efficiency with which the various races burned through resources in each scenario, there would not be a snowball's chance of any resource remaining on any of those planets after thousands of years of development and warfare. Mines, maybe. But not just laying about on the surface. I know, it's just a game, shaddap Kazz, but it's the little things that bug me sometimes.

The research would primairly exist outside of the typical multi-player game, however you could still do it in the typical multi-player game.

One of the starting stats is what tech level you want to start at, and then you would be given some amount of research points worth of stuff you could bring into the game already researched.

Offline or in a lab mode you could design any units/structures you want then in multi-player you add those items to your library of techologies you can bring into the game.

However there would be some research in game too, mostly to hopefully counter some of the other players stuff. If you bring in high tech labs, you might have time to design and research a countermeasure to something unexpected. I would not think players would start off in the stone age and then run up to some super sci-fi future. Really would would start as some pre-agreed tech level then maybe if it was a long game you might gain a tech level or two.

Another thing I was thinking about adding was the capturing of enemy units (alive or dead) and then the capturing player could research the unit. If the unit was the same tech level of the player the research speed would be 100x as normal. If it was 1 tech level higher it would be 10x as normal, however, the player could only make the unit not get the basic techology. IE: A Modern day tech 3 player gets a laser rifle from a tech 4 player. He can research that laser rifle and manufacture it (at 10x the normal cost since its so high tech relativly). However, he can not research other kinds of laser guns until he is tech level 4. Finally if the item is 2 tech levels or more to the player he can do nothign with it until he gains a tech level.

I guess I should review my posts better before the final submit. That last sentance should read:

Finally if the item is 2 tech levels or more to the player he CAN'T do anything with it until he gains a tech level.


PS. In a game where the creator sets the tech level, players CAN come in at higher tech levels, but everything costs 10x the research and 10x the materals cost initally. However, once the game starts the higher tech player no longer has penalties to research or manufacturing.

How did this old chestnut of a thread get resuscitated?

"Personally, I think Kohan did a lot fo the things that people are asking for in this thread. I love the interface and the regimental grouping and scale of user control in that game."

Except that it doesn't work. Kohan is a great game, a truly noble and worthy effort-- but unfortunately it boils down to the same production contest every other building RTS does (this judgment is based on extensive multiplayer experience). He who builds the largest army, wins. There was a very long discussion about this in another thread so look that up if you're interested in lots of specific details and examples.

I consider Sacrifice much less successful than Kohan-- it isn't even a RTS game. It's more akin to Quake with a few additional rules, but no strafing. A deadly combination.

The only real answer, IMO, is to remove production or introduce serious production caps. No more creating 8 companies of footmen and wizards-- force the player to use unique units.

Go back to Counterstrike you great-game-hating infidel. There's no way I'm going back over all the reasons why you are dead wrong about Kohan. Ten times was enough. And now you have the gall to slight Sacrifice? Back into your cave (dog) TA toadie!

"I consider Sacrifice much less successful than Kohan-- it isn't even a RTS game. It's more akin to Quake with a few additional rules, but no strafing. A deadly combination."

I really want you to back this statement up. *Why* is Sacrifice so much less strategic or tactical or whatever than, say, Command and Conquer? I'm honestly curious - a good argument could persuade me. Is it primarily because you're not an omniscient observer?

More to the point: in your mind, could any game in which you must observe and control the action from the viewpoint of a single unit be considered anything other than Quake with a few additional rules? This assmues that the viewpoint is one of your major problems with the game. If that's not true, then ignore the question.

But not the question in the post before the previous post. That still stands.

Wolpaw, stop poking sticks at the troll. You'll just wake him up.

Before you expect any reasonable assessment of Sacrifice from Jeff, you should understand that he hasn't actually played it. He confessed earlier to getting frustrated and giving up somewhere during the third mission.

-Tom, lover of Sacrifice, who's played through the entire game 1 3/4 times and has also whupped much booty, including Wolpaw's, in multiplayer games

"Tom, lover of Sacrifice, who's played through the entire game 1 3/4 times and has also whupped much booty, including Wolpaw's, in multiplayer games"

I've played it twice and some change, which is unprecedented for me. I can't remember the last game I played through more than once.

Also, you might want to check the credentials of whatever hypno-therapist recovered those crazy memories for you. I can't be beaten at Sacrifice, or at least couldn't in my prime. And you can take that to the bank because - unlike Tom apparently - I've got one foot planted firmly in reality. Which leaves my other foot free for planting other places, such as UP TOM'S ALTAR'S ASS!!!!

I'm going on vacation tomorrow morning at 6am, if I wasn't I would be challenging you guys to a four way death match (apparenty there are plenty of Sac fans on this board so we could find another). I guess it will have to wait.

See you from St Lucia!

Jeff Atwood wrote:
"Try playing Ground Control-- this is a GOTY contender in my book. Amazing interface, easily the best in a 3D RTS to date."

This made me remember how much I liked Ground Control, so I just reinstalled it and played for a while. The camera control is pretty good, but it does have a big oversight: no freelook button. All 3D RTSs (and all 3D games in general) need to have a freelook key. Making me either map 4 extra keys or drag the mouse pointer all the way to the edges of the screen just to reorient the camera, when a freelook is one thousand times easier, is just stupid. Ground Control doesn't even use the middle mouse button for anything! Expect a more complete manifesto soon.

"More to the point: in your mind, could any game in which you must observe and control the action from the viewpoint of a single unit be considered anything other than Quake with a few additional rules?"

Answer: install Battlezone. You never need to leave your favorite unit to win the game. So the answer is yes. It is certainly possible, even desirable, to have a supremely power player avatar on the battlefield (see Total Annihilation).

I do think you've isolated the primary problem with the game. Sacrifice tries too hard to please Quake players and forces blinders on everyone in the process. And what the fuck is up with no strafing? It's not like I'm asking for rocket jumps. But no strafing? Are they on crack? Even friggin' *Battlezone* had strafing!

I'm not saying Sacrifice is a bad game. It definitely isn't. But it's far from being a RTS of any type-- it's more like a really cool mod for Unreal Tournament. One of those mods where they try to tack strategy elements on the gameplay. I'm sure Tom has played a bunch of mods like this, since he's a founding member of the mod-of-the-week club and everything.

I'll re-install Sacrifice and post more thoughts on it. I need to install Windows XP tonight but I promise to get to this over the weekend.

Ethermoon is alive and well. We are extremely close to done, and the beta is virtually over. You'll hear a lot more from us real soon.

-- Tom Cadwell
Lead Designer
Ethermoon Entertainment

"Try playing Ground Control-- this is a GOTY contender in my book. Amazing interface, easily the best in a 3D RTS to date."

Because we all play interfaces, not games. Interfaces are more important than AI and mission design and play balance and stories and presentation. That's why all shooters are GOTY contenders; they all have the same interface!

And don't get me started on gamepad games that use two buttons! Game of the Year, all of them, because damn, there's nothing better than a two-button interface.

My buddy Annie did the multiplayer voices for Ground Control, so I'm biased toward liking the game. So there.

Thanks Zileas. Be sure to let Tom and I know so we can give the game a whirl. It looks interesting, sort of an RTS player's RTS.

Strifeshadow - looks like a direct competitor of Kohan. Whoever did the website did a great job putting in a lot of detail. I like your description Mark, it does look like a fanatic's game. I'm sorta psyched if they really have some tactical decisions included in their game.

Although, after further review I would say that Kohan's twist on economy/unit building is better.

Shattered Galaxy by Nexon. I'm no huge RTS fan or even much of a multiplayer gamer but I have to confess this looks pretty cool. My Babbages guy was in on the beta testing of this and got me curious. The reviews I've seen have been positive but not comprehensive. There's very little other than previews and and a trickle of news coverage on major sites. Has anyone here tried this one?

The persistant world, unit design options, politics, character development and teamwork/combined arms aspects I've read about look like something new but this isn't my forte and lack of coverage has me wondering if it plays as good as it looks.

Yeah I was in the open beta testing for about three months. Money was plentiful so it never really mattered how much land you took over you would never run out of resources. there really wasnt really much of a stragic shell. You just attacked all over and tried to win the battles. Though at times overlords told players where to assist and defend and to keep guard so at best there was some high level stratagy. Tacticly (in the actual battle) It was great each unit had its role from anti air guns artillery tanks carpet bombing pigeons. It seemed like one big orgy of death at first but after about a dozen battles you realize theres a huge amount of stratagy in those battles you had to adept to what your enemy was doing or you would get toasted. And even if you killed alot of units if your team loses the battle you get almost no exp. Exp of course is used to get more powerful and different units/upgrades/items.

Rambled on there a bit If you want to know more about any specific part of the game just ask.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I'd be surprised if it got much of an audience. It seems to run contrary to some of the basic tenets of an RTS. At any rate, the Gamespot review I wrote should be going up shortly.

Doug's right that money/resources aren't important. The far more important spoils of victory are the experience points. However, I have to disagree with the comment that there's not much of a strategic shell. If anything, I think the strategic shell is *too* important. There are a mind-boggling number of ways you can develop your character and improve your units.

If any of you guys are playing, I'd be happy to meet up on the server.

-Tom

Hey Tom, thanks for the Mongol Invasion recommendation. Best $20 I've spent on a game in the last month or so.

I'm heading out to the store to pick up a copy of Shattered Galaxy. Maybe I'll see you on the servers. I'll try to recruit my friend at Babbages as a native guide. He's also got some spiffy exclusive units from the beta.

And I'll certainly have more questions, Doug, thanks! :)

Sure thing Brian. Oh and yeah I should thank tom to for recomending shogun total war. I finally bought the game and I'v been playing the hell out of it. Campaign mode is really great I'v been experimenting with the units alot in custom battle to. Multiplayer falls a bit short though mostly you just mass your units up wait on a hill till someone gets tired and charges. Oh and for the most part upgrading units is absolutly not worth it mob tactics rule.

Well, did the tutorial and fought my first real battle. Spent some time just getting comfortable with the features. I'm TheHazat on the newbie world they just made. Factions reset at midnight on that planet so I guess that's irrelevant for beginners.

I'm really impressed with all the features they put in to this. Even command mode works, with battle commanders, overlords and lots of bits that make disruptive players heel. Everyone seems to use cooperative tactics and I haven't encountered an obnoxious player yet. That alone was something I had to see to believe. :)

Just started though.