Creating less sucky games: What is the ideal RTS game?

Good Game Design

by Brad Wardell

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?

1) We want there to be multiple resources. (Note to Blizzard: Don�t debate it.) There should be at least two different resources in the game, but no more than four with only two common ones required to make most of the units.

2) Rock-Paper-Scissors? No. Throw that out as an absolute. You do not want to have Unit A able to hit Unit B with Unit B having no chance at doing anything back. Nothing is more frustrating to a gamer than having a ton of Unit Bs that are reasonably good units but have them all liable to be killed by a single Cheap unit A. Even Patton could shoot down a helicopter with a machine gun if he had to if it was hanging around long enough. Ten thousand guys with machine guns could bring down an airplane probably.

3) Combined arms. Most RTSs end up just matter of swarming the other guy. The R-P-S design is meant to take that away but it tends to make it worse. Total Annihilation got it right. A good attack used several different types of units. [The "R-P-S" that Brad refers to is the "roleplaying strategy" concept Blizzard announced for Warcraft 3 - ed.]

4) Unlimited unit/building queuing. I should be able to tell my factory to build 10 tanks, five jeeps, 10 infantry, and five missile trucks and then direct the manufactured units to go to point A. Similarly, if I have a unit that builds buildings, I should be able to direct him to points A, B, and C where he is assigned to build a factory, a look out tower, and a hospital (or whatever). And he�ll do it. A good RTS should not be about totally micromanaging the units; it should be a balance between tactics and logistics. Babysitting factories and construction units should not be part of �the strategy�.

5) You should be able to combine the Starcraft/TA/AOE style of being able to build anywhere with the C&C design of only being able to build in specific spots. How? Well, have a type of building, like a power plant, that one has to build and require that buildings be within a certain distance of it. If the power plant is destroyed, the buildings go on battery power for awhile and then eventually will run out of power if the plant isn�t repaired. This combines both concepts. I can�t just build a barracks right outside your line of sight without first building that power plant and it�s at least a bit realistic but at the same time I�m not stuck having to have �a single base� like you tend to have in C&C (in RA2 there is some improvement but it�s still weird having things built in thin air and be able to plop them down when built).

Cont'd