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Bruce Shelley On Future Of The RTS
Thanks to GameSpy for posting an interview with Bruce Shelley of Ensemble Studios, talking to the strategy game veteran about his work on the Age Of Empires series, as well as the forthcoming Age Of Mythology expansion. However, Shelley also talks about the future of real-time strategy titles, suggesting: "There is a risk that gamers will become tired of the explore/build up/fight model for RTS games. The industry has now explored most of the good topics for an RTS game. Future excitement has to be generated largely by gameplay innovation."
You should check (if you haven't already)out the Total War series of games.(Shogun, Medeival and upcoming Rome) These games are all about tactics and formation. THere is no real-time resource management either, if your playing the campaign you have to manage you empire but when battles arise you must fight with what you have available. Two people playing with the same army could have the battle turn out completly differently everytime they play it just based on the tactics employed.
ANother game that took a decent and unique approach to RTS is the Kohan series; also fairly decent if not a little dry.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
You talk more about a war simulation than about a RTS, but nevertheless every feature you mentioned is tested in other games yet.
Those features were dropped in WarCraft3, because they don't add much to the fun of the game. They make it more complex and harder for casual and new gamers.
When I play an RTS, I want to be the general, not the accountant. Let the computer worry about agriculture, trade routes and all that crap -- I just want to fight.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.