"Real" Real Time Strategy?

Mr. Fluffyhead writes "This hardcore RTS gamer's rather thoughtful wish list asks the question, if somebody made a 'real' war sim, would anyone want to play it?" From the fake Newsweek cover story about the "Ultralisk Rape Scandal" to Mr. Wong's yearning to break the Geneva Convention in pixel form, this one's a humourous yet realistic look at real time war games.

Comments

Hmmm...

[SuperMo0]

Now where have we seen the "Fog of Bullshit" before.... *wink* *wink*

Real Real Time?

[Vargasan]

I don't know about everyone else, but I don't want to play a game that takes 5 - 8 real-time months to build a barracks. Might lose it's feel.

Re:Real Real Time?

[cgenman]

Yes, but it would be great to use a percentage of your units to shuffle around some nosy reporters, keeping them away from any real carnage (except for returning boxes) and thereby getting your enlistment numbers up. Use all of your military to fight, and you aren't harvesting that resource.

You could have an amorphous fog of war, where you could see that something is there, but you can't be sure it's a bomb factory or a house. Your roving reporters, vulnerable to crossfire (and shuffling) by either side but attackable by neither, could report back questionable locations and information, but can also turn the tide of public opinion when gathered by your enemy.

Negotiating with "private" corporations could also be fun, as a resource which either side could utilize. "asshole allies" are already in the game, but nurturing that competition could provide a lot of fun. As for friendly enemies, there might be trade relationships with an ally of the enemy, or "side deals" for percentages of land. Without absolute victories or defeats, such negotiation could become very interesting.

Friendly fire is an interesting concept that could help counter the "Mass a million man army" problem that all modern RTS games have.

In short, there are a lot of interesting things in real life that could go into a more real RTS.

Real != Fun

[I_Love_Pocky!]

I have always thought that a realistic real-time war sim would be nothing like the Warcraft/Comand & Conquer type games, because those give you way too much control. In real warfare you can't control individual soldiers. As a general you can map out a very general battle plan, and then kind of sit back and hope it works out. Even with the best communcation systems in place at best you could give orders to individual soldiers, but you wouldn't have any control over how they carried them out.

Now, how much fun is it to play a game where you basically sit back and watch the action, rather than being able to interact with it?

Re:Real != Fun

[{8_8}]

I suppose you could adapt the current RTS interface. It'd pretty much be like the article says. You'd click to build units. These units may or may not have defects, psychological issues, anti-war beliefs, etc. etc. Corruption might or might not result in your shiny new BigEffingTank8000 being sold to street gangs somewhere in Asia, or that vital shipment of anti-aircraft batteries being delayed until Senator Bob gets his vital SUV legislation passed. You select the units and tell them to go to area X and kill anything along the way. Along the way, the aformentioned problems might kill some, none, or all of your units, or maybe your units desert and go searching for Saddam's hidden gold cache. Once they reach area X, they sit there until you tell them to do something, unless those ugly problems rear their heads and new orders conflict with the heroin smuggling operation on the side. When you give the units an objective, they'll try and follow your orders until things go to hell, at which point they bail and return home. Once again, inherent unit problems might result in friendly-fire casualties or an aspirin factory explosion instead of a chemical weapons factory explosion.

This actually sounds like a fun game, if really frustrating.

Re:Real != Fun

[stienman]

I agree with you, and add that games are mere simulations. Any simulation of a 'real' activity is, by definition, simplified.

You can't account for all the random acts that may occur in any simulation. You can try to program in as many as you can think of, but how many game designers want to add the "Stupid soldier smokes while filling vehicle and blows up fuel depot" option? Now imagine that there are thousands of people, each with their own misadventures. Then you get to account for random environmental factors (more predictable than humans, I bet) and only then can you start looking at random enemy actions.

Even if you could program a large portion of these things in, gamers don't want them. Gamers like predicatability. You've seen, I imagine, all those "Perfect run" videos where a gamer practices a game until they can run through it in a short period of time, gaining maximum points? They don't want to fail a level because of something they can't control such as the aforementioned chainsmoking fuel depot lackey. Further, once they remember that the lackey blows up the depot they want to assume that it'll happen the same way every time they go through that level - that way they know they should frag him first.

Even RTSs with 'random' events (such as sim city) are extremely predictable. You just have to have a set of rules you follow, and 'stay ahead of the game.' Of course the real issue with the article is not how real the scenario is, but how the public, at a distance, interacts with the war. This is something gamers don't want - to be judged and scored according to a set of rules that they not only don't know, but that are dynamic.

-Adam

Re:Real != Fun

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Now, how much fun is it to play a game where you basically sit back and watch the action, rather than being able to interact with it?

Fun, fun... when you introduce the concept of taking turns.

America's Army works like that, albeit at the squad level rather than the campaign level. Every "turn," i.e. every engagement, one of the players gets elected squad leader, and he's responsible for coming up with the plan of battle and ordering his fire teams around.

Now, the squad leader is basically just a guy with a pair of binocs in addition to his M-16, so it's possible for him to go running off into the fray. Some players, especially inexperienced ones, do just that. At that point, the game devolves into Counterstrike.

But the real fun happens when the squad leader finds a good place to oversee the battle and gives his fire teams orders. Suppress this enemy position, advance under cover to that position, circle around to the rear, lob a smoke grenade, storm the compound.

It's about as realistic as squad-level combat gets, I think. No god's-eye view or anything like that: just a pair of binoculars and some radio channels to communicate with your teams.

It's wicked fun.

It has to be said...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's been said better, that we need moral authority over the world. We really are better than the rest of the world, not perfect, just better. Naked human pyramids, guard dogs, and hoods, while not even half as bad as what our enemy does to us, nevertheless severely erode our moral authority.

I don't think it's unreasonable for the Congress to provide a check over the executive branch when there's ample evidence that our moral credibility is slipping away, especially in a battle for the hearts and minds of the people climbing out of the ruins of a failed state.

Re:It has to be said...

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking troll. Sure, he didn't say "the events in Abu Ghraib require Bush to commit hara-kiri on live TV". Nor did he say "we were right to use torture because it might have prevented one of our soldiers stubbing his toe on a concealed brick". He presented a fair and balanced view: that the actions of the American troops were not as bad as some of the things Saddams have done, but at the same time, they were still inexcusable. In other words, they were neither purely good nor purely evil.

I realise people like you have difficulty understanding that the world contains shades of grey, but keep at it. Try listening to Rush Limbaugh as well as Michael Moore, or even better find someone moderate and balanced to listen to.

Listen to this: Bush isn't stupid and Saddam wasn't evil. Both left and right-wing extremists will say I just said something ridiculous. But I didn't. Come back when you've grown up enough to accept that.

Re:It has to be said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush isn't stupid

Surely you would agree that such a strong statement requires some sort of proof? All evidence thus far has been to the contrary. Please feel free to point out any evidence I have overlooked.

Re:It has to be said...

[dangermouse]

Which is, of course, crap. It is not only possible but also moral to make value judgments. It's not only possible but moral to say that killing a hostage brutally and cruelly on videotape is worse than putting a bag over a prisoner's head for three days.

I keep hearing this. I guess you're the thousandth person to have said it or something, because you're the lucky winner of my response.

1. Bags over the prisoners' heads was the least of it. Prisoners at Abu Ghraib were attacked by dogs, isolated for long periods of time, and tortured to death. So let's not pretend the torture at Abu Ghraib was some minor infraction of niggling rules.
2. You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate the torture of prisoners by pointing out the barbaric acts of an unrelated group of people.
3. You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate the torture of prisoners with events that happened after the torture occurred.
4. You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate torture.
5. Judging the unquestionably barbaric actions of one group relative to the unquestionably barbaric acts of another is a really shitty way to go about morality.

6. Call me a "radical leftist", I guess.

Re:It has to be said...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

You can't justify torture, but you can point out hypocrisy and put said torture in perspective.

Of course you can justify torture. It's not even hard.

Example: you have, in your custody, a person who set a bomb. You don't know where that bomb is, but you know it exists and you know that the person in your custody set it. You also know that it's going to go off at some point in the future and kill people. If it's a nuclear bomb, it might kill millions of people.

Ta-da: torturing that guy is justified.

Sure, that's an extreme example. I made it simple so we don't have to tackle the question of what "torture" means exactly.

Example: is putting somebody in a cell and leaving him there, without light or human contact, for an extended period of time "torture?"

What about depriving somebody of sleep for an extending period of time? Is that "torture?"

When we think of "torture," we think of a car battery to the scrotum or bamboo shoots under the fingernails. We think of injury, and in the worst cases, life-threatening or permanently crippling injury.

But there are lots of ways to make people uncomfortable that don't involve injury. Sleep-deprivation is one. Exposure to heat or cold is another. Extended periods of solitude, or nakedness, or loud noise. None of these things is harmful in any physiological sense. They're just unpleasant.

Have you ever had a toothache? It doesn't hurt very much, but the thing is that it never stops. It never lets up. So it's a killer.

You can convince somebody to give you information by exposing them to a low level of discomfort for a long time. Is this "torture?"

I have no problem at all with torture, in the sense of the application of non-injuring discomfort. It's prison, not church camp. You shouldn't expect to be comfortable.

Now, cutting off limbs or applying electricity or fire... that's another question. Sure, it can be justified under certain circumstances, but it's much harder to excuse at least.

Re:It has to be said...

[gangien]

You cannot justify, excuse, or mitigate torture.

You can't? I can, if by torturing someone, you get information that saves countless lives, I'd call that justified.

That said, I have no idea what they have/would/could of gotten out of this instance. And nore am I condoning it, but I'm not for outlawing it either.

Re:It has to be said...

[Colazar]

It is definitely immoral, except in situations where it's morally imperative. And it's actually a very good way to get information, which is why we do it. And by "we" I don't just mean Americans. I mean human beings in general. We learned thousands of years ago that torture is a great way to get to the truth, so when we need to get to the truth, that's the method we use.

Here's the problem. The kind of torture that actually works to get information is slow. The kind of situations that might actually justify torture are situations where you need the information quickly. If you have the time it takes to properly torture someone in such a way that you have enough confidence that you can actually *trust* the information, there was almost certainly a more morally defensible way to get that information.

Another big problem is when you *don't know* whether or not someone has any information at all. Torture is not a good way to do your sorting, either morally, or from a resource allocation standpoint.

Interesting way to make a political statement

[the morgawr]

Guys, in case you didn't realize, he's not talking about any game; he's making a political statement. I did find the satire and the backdrop of a video game a very interesting way for the author to express his opinion.

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[I_Love_Pocky!]

Yeah, he made some really good points. But because he came at it from the angle he did, it made me sympathize with Bush about how hard it would be to win a war like the one we are engaged in in Iraq. All of the various things that come up that make it so you lose no matter what you do (even if you defeat the "enemy" you still haven't "won".

So what? Real war is not a game. But to quote Wargames, "the only way to win, is not to play." The article was written as though Bush was forced into some horrible situation he has little chance of winning in. Who forced him to go to war with Iraq? Sometimes I think maybe he wanted to have a real war game, so he made one.

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[protohiro1]

No kidding. To that I say to Mr. Bush: "oh, you mean you are really damned if you do, damned if you don't and you are trapped in an unwinnable quagmire? Well boo hoo, if you'd listened when we told you this was a bad idea and not lied your way into this situation you wouldn't have to deal with it."

I really disagree with him on a lot of his political points, but you've gotta love the "you can't handle the truth" hot key. I love that movie and I really love that scene. But I always interpreted the point of the scene differently. I thought the general looked pathetic, that he really believed that his mission to protect freedom made the ends worth the means. Of course, his mission was to protect Gitmo from cuba, which is a pretty damn useless missions.

But I really like the idea of Donald Rumsfeld, standing in front of some congressional commission:

Senator McCain: Mr. Rumsfeld, did you order the homorerotic abuse?

Rumsfeld: I did the job you sent me to do.

Senator McCain: Did you order the homorerotic abuse?

Rumsfeld: You're goddamn right I did!

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[Rayonic]

Frankly, I find it frightening that some people can just assume the worst about the President of the United States.

Arguably, we were doomed to re-invade Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War. Obviously Saddam wasn't interesting in holding up his end of the cease-fire agreement, and the sanctions/no-fly-zones/etc weren't meant to last for all eternity.

No, something about the fact that he created a giant international web of corruption around the Oil-For-Food program kinda tipped me off that Saddam wasn't planning on ever playing nice.

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[protohiro1]

You know what, you're right. Saddam was never planning on playing nice. But I still don't see why that means we were doomed to re-invade. I know its a tired arguement, but there are a lot of not nice governments and we aren't invading their countries. Saddam does not seem to have posed any serious threat to the United States, immediate or otherwise. There is no evidence to suggest any relationship between Saddam and Al Quaida, and if Saddam had any deployable WMDs (which is unlikely) they were certainly far from a state of readiness at which they would pose any threat to the even the neighbors of Iraq, let alone the United States.

I assume the worst because their is no evidence to suggest otherwise. The lead up to war and the intelligence supporting it demonstrates either gross incompetence or deliberate misleading on the part of the administration. The handling of Iraq since the invasion has been a complete disaster, mostly due to an (apparhent) complete failure to anticipate anything but the most rosy of post war senarios.

So its not an assumption. I wasn't against this war because I'm naive, stupid or ignorant. (although its possible I'm all three and don't know it...) This war never struck me as necessary. If it was the administration has completely failed to demonstrate that it has been worth the cost in lives, money and international esteem.

If that frightens you, well, sorry. The president frighens me

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[Wubby]

Like the Vx rockets found by the Brits?
Huh? source?

The (probable) Serin bomb that went off yesterday?
Already shown to be unexploded ordinance from Gulf War 1.

And that VX likely came through Saudi Arabia, who are known to support terrorism, have links to the 19 highjackers and family ties to GWB!

I see it from the other perspective:

The scant information that DOES support WMD is the little that could be found and the press is hawking it for all its worth.

The truth is Pres. Bush said Saddam had tried to buy uraniam from Niger.. AFTER being told it was NOT true (Translation: lied)

Al-Queda/Saddam links are non-existant. There is not one credible source that says there is and plenty credible ones that says there isn't (CIA, Brit Intel, UN).

I think that the US media has painted the brightest picture possible and still be considered independant. There are plenty of documented cases of government planted news stories that make seem a lot better than it is.

If you wanting Soldiers, Marines, and Sailers to die over known lies that's fine... but I've served my country and would rather the friends I know are there to come home safe. Disregarding international law on the treatment of prisoners will only put them in danger. That is why the US Military has ALWAYS supported the Geneva Convention and fought against the current Administrations attempts to side step it. Real fighting men know how the world really works: "Senetors Son (GWB)" and deferment takers (VP) don't!

Try thinking for yourself for a change.

I see the US media trying to make it seem better than it really is.

Side note: You can't force a democracy. History has shown that only creates terrorists. (Haiti, Somalia, Viet Nam, Korea, etc.)

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Then, they tell you that they aren't going to sell you any food

That never happened. The sanctions imposed on Iraq never covered food or medical supplies. What happened is that Iraq wasn't allowed to sell its oil on the open market, which was its only significant source of revenue. So a program was set up through which Iraq could sell some oil and use the revenues to buy certain things, like food and medical supplies. Only instead of, you know, doing that, they handed oil vouchers out like bribes instead.

But it seems silly to expect anyone in Iraq to not be cynical and incredibly suspicious of US foreign policy after that, don't you think?

Nope. That's tin-foil-hat talk.

Educate yourself. You are ignorant of the facts.

Re:Interesting way to make a political statement

[Dr. Manhattan]

Okay, let's game it out. It's post 9-11, and Saddam actually has WMDs. What are his options?

• Attack one of his neighbors, either conventionally or with WMDs.

  Result: Gulf War II, only with full international support, and they don't stop short of Baghdad.

• Attack Israel, either conventionally or with WMDs.

  Result: At least airstrikes. If he actually used WMDs, I wouldn't be shocked if Israel used nukes in retaliation. Conceivably Gulf War II.

• Attack the US, with or without WMDs.

  Result: Gulf War II, squared. Probably not nukes, but every single 'palace' is a smoking crater and few if any are willing to hide him.

• Give Al Quaeda WMDs.

  Result: If it's ever traced back to him (and keeping secrets like that isn't all that easy), see above. He was mostly a secular leader anyway; hooking up with religious fanatics who didn't like him much wouldn't be a great idea.

• Maintain the status quo.

  Result: Pretty good, from Saddam's perspective. He's still rich and comfortable. He can jerk the price of oil around a bit by rattling sabers if he wants to tweak the U.S. He gets a bit of support from his neighbors by appearing to stand up to the 'Great Satan'.

Saddam's a sick, evil SOB, but (a) no sicker than a lot of other Thugocrats in the world that no one seems to care about, and (b) he isn't stupid. He can see the consequences of the above actions the same as anybody. They'd be hard to miss after Kuwait. He was, pretty much, contained by the status quo. He certainly posed no serious threat to the U.S. except by his influence over the price of oil.

He had no connection to 9-11, and I call BS on anyone who claims different. And, as has become increasingly clear, he didn't have vast stockpiles of WMDs. He just didn't. He had some, but I think he was mostly running a bluff. He tried to make it at least seem possible that he did have a signficant amount, to make invading Iraq seem more costly.

But he didn't think the current U.S. administration would use that bluff, along with the specter of 9-11, to ram through PNAC's war. He overestimated us.

A side point: we had plenty of support for, and little to no active opposition to, our invasion of Afghanistan. We had a population that didn't like the existing theocracy and were willing to go for a more secular government. If we'd spent the kind of money there that we are currently hemmoraging in Iraq, where would we be now?

No, it didn't

[why-is-it]

we need moral authority over the world. We really are better than the rest of the world, not perfect, just better.

Time to feed the trolls...

I suppose that the only thing holding you back from perfection would be arrogance and an apparant lack of humility...

Given your obvious superiority, why did you feel the need to post anonymously?

I see better option . . .

[Nomihn0]

Why emulate the world when you can be an active participant in the real thing? Sure, this functions as a political statement (and a good one at that). But I don't need to see the world in a videogame to be able to laugh at its irony.

In the article, Wong says "I want an RTS game that will give me a stress headache after an hour and an ulcer after a week."
Why bother with a game when you can easily get this from watching any fine news station. You'd even get a bonus shot of ignorance for watching Faux News! For blood-loss, watch Al Jazeera! For contrast watch CNN Headline News (the only station on which body pyramids are followed by what dress Troy McClure's husband wore to the Oscars).

If you're really angling for some pain, you can even try to participate in the political arena itself at either the Democratic or Republican National Conventions!

Forgotten feature

[Wubby]

He forgot the '"Info-tru" Generator' that can be used to update the information being disseminated through the news media (which have the "CIA Influence" option set to true).

This of course has the default settings of "Constantly Change" and "Optimize on Personal Agenda".

And don't forget to select the "Blame the victim" option, so that when poor civilians get thier heads cut off by religious psychos, you can defame their families without having to reset your "Look like I actually care" level.

Good news! Chocolate rations are UP!

Let the FPS'ers play the soldiers

[raygundan]

I've always wanted to see a multilevel MMO game that was playable as RTS (decides where units are sent), FPS (play as an individual in the unit), vehicle sim (pilot or drive something), or engineer/artist (create more buildings/items/stuff).

At the simplest level, you'd have RTS'ers engaged in some massive war at a high level, ordering troops around and sending out objectives, while the FPS'ers charged in with the vehicle players to try to take their objectives. The depth and randomness created by making all the footsoldiers real people would be almost like reality, although you'd probably have more "i'm stuck running in a corner" than in real life.

A crock I say! A crock!

[WinnipegDragon]

Umm... What a thinly veiled pro-Bush, pro-Iraq-War rant. Sorry, I'm not trying to derail, but basically half of his points are essentially taking shots at those that question things like the abuse of prisoners and civilian casulties.

The fact that he is doing it in the form of a questionably 'funny' video game list, and that it was posted here as a games topic is pretty lame.