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Making Strategy Games with...Strategy?
KaB0b0 asks: "Many people I know play primarily RPGs and 'Strategy Games' in their free time (and even sometimes when they're pressed for time). But this arises a question. Is there really any such thing as a 'Strategy Game'? Most of my enemies online seem to think 'build a lot of troops, attack early' is a good strategy for their gaming advantage. In fact, you'd be very hardpressed to find someone who uses actualy tactics in a strategy game." Of course, most RTS games are vastly oversimplified which allows this type of "blitz" game. If games had the concept of supply lines, morale, and other such ignored aspects of battle mechanics, then maybe this would be different. Turn-based strategy games, also suffer from this to an extent, however it's less of a problem there. If you were to create a strategy game with real strategy, what would you implement?
"Take, for instance, StarCraft. The last time I played with someone actually used a strategy besides simply building a lot of medium units and some large units and then sent them all as soon as possible was.. well, never. What could a game developer do in order to insure actual use of strategy in a game intended for it? I realize there's always going to be people who play the game so they can get a good record for some stupid reason, but how can you actually make a game for the real strategist?"
Control of certain choke points (cities, military bases, depots, etc), determine where your supply lines are and where they flow. This determines what equipment, weapons, and troops you are able to spawn at particular cities. Eventually, supply lines will be visualized with train and truck convoys moving between cities. These lines will be able to be disrupted, disrupting the supply lines and the availability of units.
Real world tactics have actually proven very effective in this game. It's not a perfect game yet, but it's getting there.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Games like Starcraft do have a lot of strategy:
the science and art of military command exercised to meet the enemy in combat under advantageous conditions
but usually degrade heavily when it comes to tactics:
a method of employing forces in combat
The problem is that it's easy to implement strategy into RTS games. Sure, things like supply lines are lacking in most RTS games, but I think there are a few of them out there that have it. The strategy of the average RTS player is build a bunch of troops, send them in. The send-them-in part is where the improvement is needed. Advanced tactics like, "flank to the north with long range artillery to afford cover to our ground troops moving into position" are almost impossible in an RTS because the action is so quick and there are so many units. In real battles, the tactics and strategy are imparted to respective commanders who then handle the minutia of getting each unit where it belongs. You just don't have time to do that in most RTS games and even when you manage it, they don't provide enough of an advantage to you for doing it. The horde of medium troops often still wins.
Unfortunately, the only solution I can see would also kill the game. Slow it down. Some (like me) would still play and love it, but the vast majority of players (13-year-old hothead trash talkers) would get bored and frustrated when they get beaten by smarter opponents. And we all know the gaming industry is about selling to as many people as possible. That's why turn based strategy games take such a backseat to RTS games.
I wish it wasn't so.
--- Don't be a player hater: I meta-mod ALL negative mods as Unfair.
...It is called "Civilization III". I think Civ III will have many of the elements of strategy that modern RTS games are missing, so much that it might even start to tread over the line into a "turn-based strategy" game.
BTW, I agree that many RTS games lack strategy. The killer strat in Command & Conquer: Red Alert was "Build tanks. Build nothing but tanks. Build lots of tanks. Then go crush the other guy." The dominant strategy in Warcraft 2 is, "Build Ogre-Mages. Build nothing but Ogre-Mages. Build lots of Ogre-Mages. Then go crush the other guy."
I think Starcraft has a bit of this in it (Carrier or Battlecruiser "Victory Fleet" tactics), but SC also has strategy. There are units that counter each other. A huge Zergling swarm can be deadly, and will overrun Dragoons, but the same Protoss's Reavers will demolish the 'lings cost-effectively. I think it's well balanced with enough give and take that it retains at least a semblance of tactics by means of unit counters. These unit counters force you to build a force comprised of many different unit types, kind of a "combined forces" army.
The other thing strategy games need, to have more intelligent tactics, is more intelligent units! Let's face it, micromanagement is difficult and the more you micro, the less attention you can pay to your bases. A strategy game with more intelligent units would mean you can send them on specialized, pre-programmed missions while your attention is devoted to your economy and map control. This would be more like a real war, with a commander who delegates authority between thinking sub-commanders, rather than C&C type games where you just hurl clumps of stupid troops at each other, and win by attrition.
Comments?
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
In the beginning, we had Dune 2... A fairly straightforward rts.. Not particularly strategic, and completely lacking in multiplay..
Then came warcraft 1.. Multiplayer was added, so the depth, or lack thereof of the game became evident.. It was still based around minimal strategy.. (Very little unit differentiation, fairly unbalanced)
Then came command and conquer.. Still unbalanced, but slightly more strategic.. The true precursor of rts victories involving overwhelming force as opposed to subterfuge or attrition..
Then came warcraft 2.. A good logical extension.. SLightly simpler game dynamic, but similiar concept.. Some slight skirmishes, some resource allocation and research, but still based around the idealogy of overwhelming force.. You either crush someone, or you lose.. No battle lines..
Then the big one.. Total Annihilation (From the now defunct Cavedog)
Based around a HUGE number of units, dramatically different resource harvesting model, and a more "warfare" like playstyle.
TA was one of the first games to truly represent the idea of defensive gameplay, and a war of attrition.. battle lines became drawn, conflict ocurred in that geographic area, and you had an ebb and flow of combat..
Winning a TA match didn't usually involve overwhelming force deployment and steamrolling over someone, but instead sneaky tactics and superior resource management.
The inclusion of battlefield recovery of destroyed hulks, and extreme range indirect artillery only added to this feel..
Development continued along the "clickfest" or faster paced route with Starcraft, the rest of the Command and COnquer series, and I assume Warcraft 3..
Development on the flipside continued with Earth 2150, Moon Project, and should be continued by Empire Earth (At least by my take on the beta)
We've seen a few "Crossover" types.. Age of Kings springs to mind.. and to a greater degree, Cossacks..
And then we've got the true extremes.. The introduction of turn based depth in a real time environment.. I'm not entirely clear what the root for these games were, but its developed from the simcity style Transport Tycoon, through Pax Imperia, Railroad Tycoon to games like Europa Universalis, Starships Unlimited, and even Monopoly Tycoon(I'd highly reccomend looking at Europa Universalis 2 when it releases.. Especially if you're a history buff)...
There are plenty of RTS games that require insane amounts of strategy.. and a lot of them even have the interfaces to support it..
AH discontinued it's line about 3 years ago and were bought out by HASBRO - The AH name is owned by Hasbro who now uses it to pimp their Axis and Allied titles, etc...crappy simulations...
They manufacture a few of the titles...Advanced Squad Leader and a few others went to Multi Man Publishing...www.advancedsquadleader.com
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
I remember some of the older network sci-fi war games had some really interesting features similar to this. You did get perfect information, but it was time delayed, as were your orders. It was very hard to fight distant battles because it might take 8 turns to find out how a battle is going, and then another 8 turns to issue new orders to the units that (may) be left there.
It was kind of a cool feature because as you beat an enemy back to their home world you might have a production advantage (as your industrial base is expanding, or at least not contracting), but you are at an increasing information disadvantage.
I'm sure that is a wonderful game. I do want to plug a (now fairly old) nice real-time game. Total Annihilation, most for it's fine use of terrain. You can hide from arty behind hills, and many other somewhat realistic effects (as realistic as any game featuring huge robots has a right to be at least). Of corse that is mostly tactical, not strategic, but it is more interesting then just picking the types of units to make, and attempting to make an attack as fast as possible...
Anyway, want real strategy games? Try enlisting in officer school, they will let you play some very realistic war games. Of corse it does imply a career change that might be a little life limiting, but aren't you willing to make the sacrifice?
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this: there are true strategy games, but they suffer from two factors. First, they tend to be short, or repetitive. A lot of effort goes into the realism, and so less effort is spent on making it a fulfilling game. Second, they tend to be complex. With Warcraft and its brethren, the rules are simple, and there's very little you have to do to set up an attack. With highly strategic games, they often have manuals as thick as the encyclopedia explaining all the different factors that affect morale, the relative strengths of units, the types of commands you are allowed to give, and so forth. So, there is a steeper learning curve than most people are used to.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Examples of real world use of attrition as a strategy. See Japanese kamikaze, WW2. See Russians at (I believe) Stalingrad, or virtually any other reasonably modern Russian conflict. See current Chinese military theories. If you have the ability to create the resources, you can usually spend them - ESPECIALLY in a dictatorship.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.