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Real Time Strategy Games: A New Style?

Started by wardekar Jan 1, 2001 at 12:06 AM 19 replies 1.5k views

Original Post

Jan 1, 2001 at 12:06 AM

The Game: A Real Time Strategy Game in veign of the WarCraft series. The Problem: RTS games are over simplified into killing games, with units popping out of nowhere. The Details: Most RTS games have "units" appear from nothing. While not inherently bad, this proposes a question, rather than having units just appear, why not have a full-fledged society? Why not give the player complete dominance of his domain, assigning each newly-born baby a specific task to with which he will fulfill in his (or her) lifetime? Why not have a completely independent society which produces at rates appropriate to the player''s behavior and decisions? This would introduce new elements of strategy into the game. Is it better to create a tyrantial tribe in which your people don''t necesarily produce at their highest, yet you have more complete dominance and are more war-like, or is it better to create a more friendly group, with production high, yet not as powerful? How Would It Work? In veign of the WarCraft series, this game will be set in a more medieval setting. Starting with the basics of a townhall along with several buildings such as a couple farms. At this point, your town has a very low "income" of taxes, as well as a slow but steady supply of new persons to train. At this point you can increase/decrease the percentages of different types of units to create. In the beginning, you have options of construction crew, farmers, and a basic military unit. Then from this spawns other units as new buildings are created, such as miners, lumberman, researchers (blacksmiths etc.), and more advanced warriors. Each unit is grouped into a category, such as peasant, merchant/handyman, warrior, and noble. At any point in the game, if the player finds himself with an excess of any given unit, that unit can be converted into another unit as long as he stays within his class. Also, unit production is based upon output in the society, as well as state of mind of the citizens and economy. Why Do This? It will create a new style of RTS games, and introduce a completely new concept. Also the addition of this new system allows for much more realistic style of gameplay, and added strategy truly creating it a RTS game, and not just some "create 100s of warriors and kill" game. To Wavinator: Sorry I stole your style of posting, I just figured it always produces such good discussion I''d try it

Gregor_Samsa

Jan 1, 2001 at 12:22 AM

something similar has already been done. See lords of the Realm 2 (I think it''s the second one. Been a long time). Also civ had that aspect somewhat as well.

"When i was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of
the corner of my mind. I turned to look, but it was
gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child has
grown, the dream has gone." -Pink Floyd

wardekar

Jan 1, 2001 at 12:27 AM

I haven''t played Lords of the Realm 2, but as for Civ, that''s turn-based and a lot slower-paced. I was thinking of more of a fast paced game, and something that could be done in a campaign style like Blizzard''s and Westwood''s RTSes. Civ is more of a long-term game that has you controlling the same empire the entire game.

NightWraith

Jan 1, 2001 at 5:04 AM

So what you''re basically talking about here is (in my mind) a hybred of a City management sim, and an RTS...

kind of like the Settlers III which does pritty much what you''re talking about.

A few questions though...

* How much empasis would u put on resource managment??

* If you''re trying to prevent things from "poping out of no where" does this include the weapons you equip your troops with? The Iron and coal required to produce them... etc...

* What about ammo (for your archers and artillery) In all the RTS''s I''ve played every unit has an infinite store of ammo... (ok this is really just simplification for the player) How is ammo handeled in your idea

* Supplies... It''s all very well having these farms that produce food, but the food seems to magically get to your army that is several miles away. I would really like to be able to A) Attempt to cut off my enimies supplies by attaking his supply wagons, rather than his hevily fortified base, B) loot any unprotected enimy farms for food, and C) if he''s got better level of weapons, capture them for my own troops.
Which model would your idea use?

And finnally one othe quibble of my own about RTS''s I only have 1 choice when it comes to an enimy building... Rase it to the ground. Which seems completely pointless to me when I burn down an enemy blacksmith, only to put my own up in its place!! [from the point of view of capturing a town]

I like the idea though...

Aragorn

Jan 1, 2001 at 6:29 AM

In my opinion it would be nice to have a system which works like this:
first you have only pesants who can be trained in using weapons (you could set the time they will spend training every day), but they would spend most of the time working on the fields. But one day when your society is big enought you can tell some young men to train the whole day and not to work any more on the fields, so they will become better then the others in fighting and so on.
This would mean that you don''t have classes of people and let them only change their job inside of the class but you can let everybody do everything but some would do it better then others. (Don''t ask me how to implement it)

Faradhi

Jan 1, 2001 at 7:38 AM

Two of the games I''ve played that might spark ideas in someone''s head...

Knights and Merchants (a lot like settlers, but with better military IMO) required you to build a tavern and keep it stocked with food. Units had a hunger bar, and when this reached a certain point they would stop what they were doing and head for the tavern to eat. You could send serfs out with food for your military units too.

Megalomania allowed you to start each level with a certain number from your population pool for the stage. You could assign these people to doing nothing, researching, building, or being in an army. The more people you had doing nothing, the faster your people breed.

IMO - If you are going to design a game using this Realistic-RTS style, you''ll have to use either an alien species or a futuristic human race. In either case a faster method of breeding and training is required. I believe this because a human has to be roughly 15 years old before they become any good in combat and will begin losing their edge at about age 50. If you compress the time frame enough to allow training a human to occur in a decent length of time, you compress their active life into a space of time only two to three times as long as their build time. Admittedly most units in an RTS game don''t last much beyond that time in a decent battle anyway...

Hope something in here helps someone...
Faradhi

Wavinator

Jan 1, 2001 at 2:59 PM

quote:
Original post by wardekar

To Wavinator:

Sorry I stole your style of posting, I just figured it always produces such good discussion I''d try it .

LOL!!! That''s cool, I don''t think we need to involve the lawyers!!!

One major thought about your suggestion, tho'': Bounce back. The quicker your production cycle, I think the more potential you have for strategy-less rush games. But OTOH, the slower your production cycle, the harder it is to bounce back from a defeat.

This is a significant issue the newer the player is to the game. If I build mostly archers (as a newbie) and suddenly find that I need calvary, I''m in trouble. How does the player quickly change strategies? If it takes them a long time to grow troops, and the ruinous effects of a bad decision are only detectable late in the game, that''s a recipe for frustration.

BTW, is your goal to move past oversimplification, or to move past killing as the only end goal?

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Forcas

Jan 1, 2001 at 3:34 PM

Another game like that is Cultures. Published by THQ.

wardekar

Jan 1, 2001 at 11:27 PM

* How much empasis would u put on resource managment??

A lot

.

* If you''re trying to prevent things from "poping out of no where" does this include the weapons you equip your troops with? The Iron and coal required to produce them... etc...

Yes, all resources are mined/refined seperately, which requires a player to concentrate on a single or vary little kinds of societies, and not just one build all/destroy all society.

* What about ammo (for your archers and artillery) In all the RTS''s I''ve played every unit has an infinite store of ammo... (ok this is really just simplification for the player) How is ammo handeled in your idea

Ammunitions are produced at their respective buildings, assuming resources are present to produce them. Ammunitions must then be taken to the field of battle in order to supply them.

* Supplies... It''s all very well having these farms that produce food, but the food seems to magically get to your army that is several miles away. I would really like to be able to A) Attempt to cut off my enimies supplies by attaking his supply wagons, rather than his hevily fortified base, B) loot any unprotected enimy farms for food, and C) if he''s got better level of weapons, capture them for my own troops.
Which model would your idea use?

Again, food is the same as ammo, it must be taken to your forces, for if they go too long without food they will perish, or be drained significantly of energy.

And finnally one othe quibble of my own about RTS''s I only have 1 choice when it comes to an enimy building... Rase it to the ground. Which seems completely pointless to me when I burn down an enemy blacksmith, only to put my own up in its place!! [from the point of view of capturing a town]

Yes I meant to mention that before, however I forget if I did or not.
When attacking and taking over an enemy, all their resources and buildings can be converted, unless you do not have that technology. Also a possibility of that town''s citizens can be enslaved.

Jan 2, 2001 at 12:31 AM

These ideas almost go into the realm of a wargame.

BTW I thought about making a game like that, and in terms of training troops (for the human-like side) what you did was get peasants (generic people with no specific skills), and train them with the basics - then they became simple soldiers - cannon fodder etc, from there you''d progress in a tree like manner in training your troops for more specific tasks,

i.e.
A pesant -> Soldier -> Archer -> Ranger
Soldier -> Pikeman

And if in a hurry you can always quickly downgrade to the soldier and retrain them from there. so if you made one bad descision it wouldn''t hurt you incredibly, and as a bonus the skills would still be there.

Weapons were also the other factor in the game, you could have as many knights as you wanted, but if you only had 1 sword + shield then you''d be buggered just as well..

Dæmin
(Dominik Grabiec)
sdgrab@eisa.net.au

NightWraith

Jan 2, 2001 at 3:01 AM

From the point of capturing things, even if you hadnt discovered the technology yet, you would still gain a research bonus in finding those things.

Having read Wavinators post,

One potential solution to the problems is to allow your farmers to fight for you (all be it at a very basic level) and allow the player to train them in the use of various weapons and stuff, turning them into the required unit. That way it would be possible to convert from archers to cavelry as long as you had the resources (ok the cavelry wouldnt be great... but there u are)

Jan 2, 2001 at 5:12 AM

NightWraith: Well those cavalry troops would fire arrows considering their archer background right?

They way I figure that is to have each unit, or squads of units be like an individual rpg character, which has its own stats, morale, equipment and skills!...

So that way you could invest money in making a wide diverse army, or have a bunch of low class soldiers / farmers and some awesome elite shock troops

Dæmin
(Dominik Grabiec)
sdgrab@eisa.net.au

NightWraith

Jan 2, 2001 at 5:43 AM

Yeah.. unless you equip them with another weapon, and take away thier bows. (Note: it also depends upon the type of bow you equip them with... its impossible to use a longbow [for example] properly from the back of a horse)

BTW: what you said Daemin, about units. Thats how I think they should be, also by catgorising the different weapons, the unit can gain skills in using certain weapons, I mean after all, if you can swing a club, it dont mean u can fight well with a sword, which allows u to specialise your units...

BTW A pesant -> Soldier -> Archer -> Ranger isnt quite right in my book (cut out the Soldier stage, or rather make it an pre-requisit for formation movement or something like that... as anyone who can shoot a bow [properly and accuratly] is an archer)

morfe

Jan 2, 2001 at 5:51 AM

I agree with you about the peasant->soldier->archer->ranger thing.

You''re more likely to have:

Peasant->Infantry->Pikeman
Peasant->Infantry->Cavalry->Heavy Cavalry(Knights)
Peasant->Archer->Ranger

Plus other variants, like Sappers, Scouts, etc.

"NPCs will be inherited from the basic Entity class. They will be fully independent, and carry out their own lives oblivious to the world around them ... that is, until you set them on fire ..."
"When you are willing to do that which others are ashamed to do, therein lies an advantage."

DungeonMaster

Jan 2, 2001 at 6:10 AM

About food supply, you could allow an army to collect food from the captured towns, farms and villages and also allow the food to be destroyed before the capture...

NightWraith

Jan 2, 2001 at 6:35 AM

I agree, you should be able to raise your own buildings/destroy weapons and supplies to prevent the enemy getting hold of them.

Not sure about the Infantry -> Cavelry thing morfe. Fighting on foot is different to fighting from horseback, also depending on the historical time frame (if u have one) it is more likely that the nobels will become your cavelry... with the possible exception of scouts...

Although just having a think, in a medieval time frame, it would be

Noble -> Squire -> Knight

Also, Mounted units would probably recieve some ground combat training, but this would probably be in parrallel to Horseback training. (both covered by the Squire step in the above model).

Note: I''m thinking about training steps here, rather than just the progression of a unit (my prefered way of working...)

Jan 2, 2001 at 6:09 PM

If you want morfe I coudl try and dig up my whole unit tree form somewhere - and post it up sometime...

But yeah I agree that there must be supply wagons supplying the armw - even with ammunition, repair kits, food, etc, and some stuff to take the loot back home

I mean wasn''t napoleon defeated by russia on his way back home?

Dæmin
(Dominik Grabiec)
sdgrab@eisa.net.au

jman12

Jan 2, 2001 at 6:34 PM

generally you make games so they can be fun on the other hand if you are trying to make a realistic life sim from the medevil times it would be great the problem i see here though is that it will be hard to manage your economy efficiently like in outpost 2 by sierra studios babies were born and over a period of time they turned into the workers you needed the problem with this was that all your workers died before you could asses how to get your moral and economy up.

jman12

jman12

Jan 2, 2001 at 6:46 PM

on the other hand you could try to put in the new development of weapons. In this case i think it would be an interesting idea. throughout the game you could have technology upgrades (no research required as in age of empires) and new weapons would be developed.

NightWraith

Jan 3, 2001 at 3:03 AM

I''m not sure about the development of new weapons within a game, but the exisitng weapons should get better and better with the skill of the armourer (or blacksmith making them)

Some other things I thought of last night... (I do all my best thinking when I''m asleep) What about camp followers Wardekar, Blacksmiths/armourers following the army to re-shoe horses, hammer dents out of armour and all that. Fletchers to produce new arrows for your archers, etc.

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