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?"

Comments

Sim War?

[TopShelf]

Perhaps one model to consider would be from the Sims - various military units in the field would have ratings for Hunger, Morale, etc. that would update on an ongoing basis. This would require commanders to assemble a complete force, rather than just send in the mob.

For me, the hallmark of a good strategy game is that multiple "styles" are available and effective...

Re:Sim War?

[JabberWokky]

Unfortunatly, there are plenty of cases of soldiers doing just that. Plus soldiers who commit suicide by ignoring orders and thowing themselves into crossfire. The latter generally earns their family a bit of metal on a ribbon.

The biggest problem about unit level control is that units are *highly* unpredictable. Some get themselves killed quickly, and some crew though territory with novel solutions to the various situations that hit them. Sometimes a cut in supply lines utterly destroys a group, other times they find some way to eat (generally by looting the locals).

There is no one "mind set", and different cultures produce completely different sets of soldiers, even between generations. You can generalize a bit - the Huns were masters of psychological warfare, the Japanese defended their homeland to the last breath and were highly heiarchal, the Americans tend to be much less rigid and more innovative, the British consolidate gains well, etc. But how much of that is due to a few men, both on the field and directing the battles? Americans in the Revolutionary war were innovative due to their own initiative... in WWII, they had the likes of Patton and Doolittle, who were reckless fools compared to Monty.

But what about in Warcraft and other non-history based RTSes?

RTSes are a game, not a simulation. For one thing, battles seldom are "won" as soon as an objective is reached, and, while human history is full of wars of genocide (they were the most common form in early history), they have become increasingly rare (Osama's jihad being a good exception), but are common in RTSes.

--
Evan

probably "Operational Art of War" or Road 2 Moscow

[ruebarb]

This has been debated forever in wargaming forums...Is a game a real strategy game if you actually can control individual units? Realistically, a real simulation would have the same intelligence as a battlefield commander (not much and mostly misleading) - and you wouldn't be controlling individual units...you'd give orders for objectives...and then you'd wait to hear if you were successful or not ... Right now, the way most games are (RTS or Turn based)..you know right away and you make decisions based upon 100% accuracy of the battlefield...which almost never happens.

Computer games have fixed this somewhat...you can be a bit more vague or have battlefield "fog" - but the same issue remains...the typical wargamer has a hell of a lot more knowledge and control of his tactial situation then a real life commander..(at least back then...maybe not so much now)

The closest we were coming was Road To Moscow...a real time corps based simulation of the WWII Russian Campaign with flexible AI...problem is...game got shuffled so many times there is no publisher...the developer is currently MIA...I guess it's a good idea in the trash heap...although there are still discussions on www.wargamer.com

Otherwise...the best tactical game i can recommend is Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War (talonsoft....www.talonsoft.com) - a great tactical simulation that covers supply, replacements, generic troops...and although it's turn based...you never really know which attacks will end the turn.

Man versus environment

[Sludge]

Making a bunch of troops that sap your enemies resources indirectly through killing their troops can only go so far and for me, only be so fun. A lot of responses to this story are going to refer to larger online games, perhaps with an interesting motif such as World War 2.

I don't really care about presentations when coming up with gameplay ideas. The theme can come later. Too many people in the game industry think they're in the movie industry as it is. :)

That said, I think an interesting strategy game would be one where you build a fortress in a 3D world out of blocks much like lego in a round turn much like the classic game of Rampart. Once the turn is up, each side is presented with a number of units (which grows every turn) to infiltrate and attempt to demolish the newly created base.

The game ends when all of the resource generating 'units' have been destroyed. The number of resource generating units depends entirely on the level chosen for play.

What is cool about this game:

• The harvesting of resources is automatically done until you fuck up. This is the opposite of a lot of RTS games, and removes an initial learning curve.
• The game varies wildly with each opponent that you play, as their architecture, traps and strategies therein allow for a far larger variant than a normal FPS 'tank rush' game.
• The gameplay allows you to set up "fun moments". This is a key aspect to multiplayer gaming these days. With games like CaptureStrike, the style of game allows you to set up conditions.

  For example, the basic premise of CaptureStrike is that one CTF team is entirely on offense and one is entirely defense. Both teams are loaded up with all their weapons and told to attack. Now you are a) Attacking with full health and armour and b) With teammates assistance. This gives the player an opportunity to do something incredibly worthwhile for his team, and keeps him riveted to the game. And, it's guaranteed to happen approx. once a minute. (CaptureStrike is really fun, by the way. You can grab the ThreeWave Q3CTF mod at this URL if you're interested in trying it out.)

Bad things about this game style:

• Infiltrating the enemy's base would probably be best done in an FPS style manner, but that only allows you to control one person at a time by conventional logic. If there are many people on a team, who is going to build the architecture?
• It would be possible, but tough to prevent architectural traps which lead to impossibilities. For example, you could make your base have a drop down ledge which you cannot get back up. When leaving your base to attack the enemy, you leap down, but cannot get back up. Now your fortress is impenetrable, but you cannot go home. Solutions to this are some algorithm intensive work, or perhaps a game style much like Capture The Flag, where you HAVE to go back to your base.

It's about time a new multiplayer gameplay strategy game style came to be. And these days, a game where you only need two players to be fun can be considered low risk- A lot of games aren't popular because they aren't popular. You need a bare minimum of four players to make a team game fun.

Close Combat series!

[benwaggoner]

It sounds like what people are suggesting is pretty much what the Close Combat series of 2D, top down, real time WWII games has offered since version 2.

I've been playing the fifth in the series lately (Invasion Normandy, about, natch, D-Day and the rest of that campaign), so let me breifly describe how that works. The strategic element is a map of Normandy, where you can give move orders to your groups of troops. Certain areas of the map include supply depots, and your troops need to be connected by a road to a supply depot to fight effectively, and cutting off your opponent from supply is an important strategy.

While you (realistically) don't build anything, you do have a force pool of units that you distribute between the various groups fighting, before the battle. So if in a given operation, you only have one tank, but three battles, you have to carefully decide where to deploy it. At the strategic level, you also decide where to give air, artillery, and shore bombardment support. This strategic element is essentially turn based, and doesn't take up much of the total time.

Most of game time is taken up by individual real-time battles. For the UI, you give a series of commands like "Move Here, attack there, wait in ambush" to squads (like a rifle team, a tank, or sniper). Unless it's a one person unit, you can't give commands to individuals. Each person has it's own AI, so they can go catatonic under pressure, drop behind the rest of the group from exhaustion.

The whole mindset is extremely different from classic *Craft style RTS games. Since you have a limited number of soldiers and armor, you just can't throw them into battle as cannon fodder. The soldiers you keep alive in one battle are the soliders that will fight your next. You also can't rush positions - unless they have very high morale, a single team just flat out won't rush a machine gun nest. You need to supply covering fire from other units, preferably from multiple angles to make it hard for the MG to find cover. They you might lay in some smoke grenades to provide cover, and then have a third team rush the MG.

Also, people get tired. If you have a unit run across a third of the map, they'll be fatigued. Run them farther, and they'll be exhaused, losing even more effectiveness. And they can run out of ammo. And if their sargent is killed, they can run away and cower in the rear, not responding to orders.

The interesting thing is the unit and individual AI is the same for both sides. If you're playing the computer, you're really playing an opposing AI which is giving its own orders to its own semi-reliable units.

Anyway, it's an extremely playable, addictive, and tense alternative to traditional RTS games. And catch this - you lose battles all the time. And losing doesn't mean you fiight it over, it means you just lost that map, and have to fight for it back. Much more tense than having to play the same map over and over until you get it right.

Re:World War II Online

[onepoint]

Not only are you correct about the "choke points and supply lines", you should also mention the work that helps the supply lines "logistics support".

In fact most major battles of land war have been lost due to "bad" logistics.

IE: moscow, nazi tanks needed huge tons of fuel and fighter aircraft were used for bombing ( no 4 engine bomber ), Normandy, nazi did not move the troops fast enough to stop the advance. The german advances in the "battle of the Bulge" Where, logistical failure kept the nazi's from fully advancing ( troops ran out of ammo and some troops ran out of fuel )

The supply /convoy routes to england were a great example of logistics at it best from both sides.

the USA carrier support fleets in the Pacific Ocean, Always on a full tank of petrol.

In the american civil war, Confederate troops made it all the way to NJ, but the supply lines were not well defended and they had to pull out.

-ONEPOINT

StarCraft and WarCraft are both excellent RTS's

[Wavicle]

The problem with StarCraft (and WarCraft) is that people play it on the FASTEST setting. They give assorted reasons for doing so, but ultimately it changes the game from developing Strategy as you play, to "decide what strategy to use when you start the game".

It also makes certain powerful and useful units nearly useless. For example, how often do you see a squad of Ghosts turn somebody's mighty armada of Carriers into Wraith fodder? You just can't micromanage the Ghosts successfully when the speed is cranked all the way up.

Fast *Craft games have their place. Kind of like chess: speed chess helps your game, but the highest rated chess games are played slowly and carefully.

If you want to play a good RTS: fire up an online game of StarCraft on low speed and a map that doesn't have 100 mineral patches of 50000 minerals each. Hunters isn't such a bad map. Big Game Hunters isn't such a great strategy map.