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RTS "World in Conflict" From a Design Perspective
Game Designer Manveer Heir has another installment of his "Design Lesson 101" series where he takes a look at a game from a designer's standpoint and attempts to learn something in the process. In this installment he takes a look at the RTS, World in Conflict that has an interesting twist on resource management. "World in Conflict has a simple resource management system. The player is given a fixed amount of resources to obtain units with. Shortly after you requisition units, they are air-dropped into the game, eliminating the need for building bases. Immediately, this leads to a unit-centric, tactical feel to the entire game. [...] When a unit dies, however, the resources that were allocated to obtain the unit are not lost forever. Instead, what World in Conflict does is return the resources to the player. Not immediately, however. Instead, the resources trickle back in over time. Your resources aren't constrained by how well or poor you are doing in the game (at least not constrained for very long). By doing this, World in Conflict avoids the snowball effect that exists in many real-time strategy games."
That seems like it would lead to long-drawn out games where one side, and then the other, manage to grab temporary advantage, only to be pushed back to a state of near-equilibrium. Even good tactical thinking isn't really rewarded, as a stunning tactical victory can't be leveraged into anything other than a fleeting advantage.
I haven't played the game, FWIW, but that's what I imagine a game with those constraints would be like.
I want to reply to a number of posts but when I hit "reply" it just sits there, broken, so I'll try to sum up my thoughts here instead...
Having played everything from the original Command and Conquer all the way up to and including World In Conflict I can say that WIC is actually a refreshing break from the usual - spend 90% of the mission grinding out a base and building up a huge army and then just rush and clobber your enemy - style RTS.
The resources you have for building units are just half of the game. There are, in fact, tactical aid points which are awarded to you for accomplishing various objectives. Using these points wisely is almost always a deciding factor in multiplayer games. Players can also switch between different roles - support, infantry, armor, and air. Your team's balance and how you respond to the opposing team's mix definitely requires some good tactics.
Finally, I think that the ground control style game play is more realistic. Let's be honest, very few real battles are a "Rush the enemy and kill / destroy everything - causalities be damned". Kamikaze missions in WIC don't work. Neither do lone rangers. I think there's more strategy in WIC than in most of the "build crap like crazy and then rush" RTS games. I'm not saying I haven't spent hours enjoying those games - just that this is a new, more realistic, type.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
A problem shared with most RTS games is that effective defense is almost impossible, in spite of the belief of Klausewitz (and others) that the defensive position is the stronger. Overwhelming defenders with hordes is a very poor strategy. Think of Thermopylae, Khe Sanh, or any place on the Western front in the first World War. Truly overwhelming firepower along with a lot of artillery and a demoralized opponent were necessary to gain even a few hundred yards.