RTS innovations

[Covenant]

No matter what military movie or show you watch, there is always a Kowalski. I use them in conversation to refer to officers the same way we call low-end forces Redshirts. Sending a Kowalski and some redshirts off on a mission is almost a sure fire bet that you're gonna have a buncha dead real extras and a wounded recurring side-character.

Repairing damaged tanks, or at least recovering them, and healing up wounded is nice for another reason. Assume that you pay for reinforcements from a command point pool. You have X amount of command points to begin with for dropping in reinforcements, and you really can't get more.

However, capturing enemy forces (they would surrender if you had them surrounded and broke their morale) and tending to your wounded soldiers and damaged vehicles (probably by sending them 'off map') would get you points.

So killing an enemy soldier gets you nothing. Losing one doesn't really cost you anything, but it does hurt morale some. Capturing an enemy unit gets you 1 point, while recovering your wounded gets you 1/2 a point for each. You get paid when you move them back to your base. Prisoners sit in detention areas until they can be processed and wounded and irreperably damaged (but not destroyed) vehicles air taken off-map.

So managing your forces well, fighting some and then retreating, and not extending your lines too much... it lets you keep refreshing your supplies a little and redeploying new, fresh troops. If you just throw your forces away into a meatgrinder, you're going to end up with the enemy capturing a good number of your wounded and damaged equipment, setting it off to be held onto, and gaining a large morale and 'command point' boost.

Whereas if you're able to allocate as few forces as possible to accomplish a given task (like holding a ridge or a pass) while you buy your allies some time, you can cause disproportionate morale and command losses. Victories like that would really help you out, and so people would naturally seek tactically intelligent ways to resolve conflicts rather than spam spam spam.

[Fire Fly]

I'm getting a little tired of the RTS tendancy to make troops so easily replaceable.

That's exactly what I was thinking, with the "limit on total deployable troops" change. When I play Total War games, I have to think about how to use my limited number of troops most efficiently. I can't throw away their lives the way I would in an RTS game.

The reason it works in the Total War games is that losing an army means an entire section of your territory becomes unprotected and you have to spend a lengthy period of time rebuilding. There have been past RTS games which have tried to implement the idea of deployment rather than building and some have worked and some have not. Force Commander tried it but the game did not succeed very well due to problems else where. Massive Entertainment does employ deployment in their games but their games are not real time strategies (as they say) but rather real time tactics; World in Conflict, to be released in a few months, will employ this technique. At the moment, they have some pretty promising novel ideas but I'm not sure how well it will work yet. Sudden Strike employs the deployment idea also but the thing is, you have so many units that it is impossible to control every individual unit. If the Sudden Strike games had better unit control and less micromanagement, the game would probably have what everyone here wants.

What everyone here wants exists, to a degree, but no one has been able to or has yet to or wants to put all the right ingredients together. I think a part of it really is due to a certain conservatism of RTS games as Chris Taylor keeps saying during his interviews about Supreme Commander. Take the vehicles going in reverse with the R button from C&C3, take the strategic map from Supreme Commander, take the deployment idea from the Ground Control series, take vehicle HP face values and firing arcs from Company of Heroes, take the squad unit function from Dawn of War, take the morale/unit experiences/fatigue concept from the Total War games and then add in some new ideas and that would be the ideal strategy game for a modern or futuristic war, in my opinion.

[PainRack]

Does anyone think it would be possible to "design" units in an RTS? Similar to what one would find in Alpha centauri?

If an RTS can significantly reduce the micro-ing and economy management of the game, one imagines that features found only in TBS games can come to play. The manager in SW Rebellion for example is a very powerful tool, use of this and perhaps standing orders that can manage an army or defence(one that can certainly be defeated by an intelligent human player) might allow unit design and even resuppling ammunition in a RTS without breaking it.


Close Combat 2 was one of the best games of the series primarily because of the ammunition constraints. Forcing a battle too fast or slow gave you tactical advantages/disadvantages, primarily being ammunition and requisition points. In a battle where I have to consider the benefits of suppression fire to protect my units against the fact that it may run out of ammo to kill an opponent later, it forces a real consideration of stragety and the need to take less optimal choices.

Of course, that situation really exists because CC2 relied heavily on infantry....... In the later CC series, tanks simply have too much ammunition for this to be a problem. Still, in a RTS where gameplay is longer, I can imagine how this might be another stragetic factor to consider.

Moving RTS away from build queues, economy and clicking is badly needed. Recon, a good Fog of War that actually allows stealth and surprise without incorporating stealth technology and the sensor counterpart, firepower and formation, ammunition are all desirable tracts. The annoying part is that these are scattered over different games........

I gladly scarifice polygons and graphics, even real world physics if they can make a good RTS that actually incorporates stragety like the war simulation its supposed to be.

[PainRack]

Wrong. If you have 50 turrets and there are are ten inbound bombers with 5hp, you DON'T want to fire all 50 shots at one bomber, EVER. You want five shots per bomber maximum. This is my point: not focus vs spread (which is useless in hp games, as you say) but WASTED SHOTS. In many situations it's not 'some' overkill, it's MASSIVE overkill, and this is exploited by players all the time. It's stupid, and I repeat - if enough shots are already travelling towards a unit to kill it, no more shots should be fired at it. Every SAM in your base should NOT fire at one target.

Just one nitpick. considering that humans do this in war, why should games remove this human weakness? Spray and pray is after all just another equivalent of this, and who can forget Gulf War 1 where over 18 HE shells from British warriors/challengers took out a single MG nest?

Perhaps incorporating this as a tech/unit upgrade may be better.

[Covenant]

Because human units usually have a gunnery dude who--I imagine--would be able to tell them where to place their fire. They don't all just fire at the closest plane unless the general himself calls him on the radio and tells him exactly which plane to shoot at.

[PainRack]

Because human units usually have a gunnery dude who--I imagine--would be able to tell them where to place their fire. They don't all just fire at the closest plane unless the general himself calls him on the radio and tells him exactly which plane to shoot at.

Aka, tech/unit upgrade.

Call it AEGIS or the like.

[Stark]

Just one nitpick. considering that humans do this in war, why should games remove this human weakness? Spray and pray is after all just another equivalent of this, and who can forget Gulf War 1 where over 18 HE shells from British warriors/challengers took out a single MG nest?

Perhaps incorporating this as a tech/unit upgrade may be better.

Sure, if you want to pretend the REST of your WW2 game isn't hopelessly unrealistic command and control wise. Instant comms, video feeds, satellite imagery, etc etc: clearly everyone can talk to everyone regardless of setting, so I'm fine with it. I was thinking of futuristic RTSs at the time, however.

I don't think RTSs should do the TA 'targetting centre' thing ever again. A super expensive lategame building that lets guns automatically fire on radar targets? Pfffft.

[Uraniun235]

I don't think RTSs should do the TA 'targetting centre' thing ever again. A super expensive lategame building that lets guns automatically fire on radar targets? Pfffft.

You're not being clear - you think that ability should be present earlier (as in always present or at least as a cheaper, lower-tech structure) or that the ability should not exist at all?

[Hotfoot]

I think he's saying it should always be there.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'm getting a little tired of the RTS tendancy to make troops so easily replaceable.

That's exactly what I was thinking, with the "limit on total deployable troops" change. When I play Total War games, I have to think about how to use my limited number of troops most efficiently. I can't throw away their lives the way I would in an RTS game.

Total War does indeed do an effective job of making men's lives valuable. It's the only RTS game i've played other then CoH which actually gives you a reason to order a "tactical withdrawal" when the going gets rough. When one sees history like Dunkirk, Stalingrad, and North Africa, it's easy to see why keeping one's army intact and alive is paramount to victory.

Total War isn't perfect though. I still find armies are a little too easy to rebuild at times. I have often wondered (unless it is already in the game, I haven't checked.) if it would be a good idea to induce a kind of population drain on troop recruitement. That way, your enemy can't just keep spamming men into the meat grinder without eventually causing a severe drain on the population of a town. Lowering its output. This should also impart a negative public opinion stance on the people. It gets kind of annoying to families when more and more of their loved ones are sent to fight an opponent who has already killed other family and friends.

Just an idea though.

[Hotfoot]

Does anyone think it would be possible to "design" units in an RTS? Similar to what one would find in Alpha centauri?

You mean like in Metal Fatigue, Impossible Creatures, LOTR:BFME2, Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, Warcraft 3, and some other Sci-Fi game that escapes me at the moment?

It's been done, and honestly, while it's a neat idea, it doesn't work that well in a multiplayer environment, at least not when you have to do it while the battle is raging. Consider heroes, for a moment, BFME2 vs. Warcraft 3. In BFME2, you construct your heroes prior to a game, and then they level up accordingly as they go, effectly constructing themselves. In WC3, you have to manually construct your hero as you go, both in abilities and gear. This doesn't work as well in my mind, but there you go. Of course, these are heroes, and worth the extra attention in some ways, but it always comes down to certain things you always want them to do, so the BFME2 method is, in my mind, superior.

In the other games, you construct your units in the battle, but invariably certain things become useless. Game designers might think that some things are cool ideas and have millions of possible combinations, but when 999,993 of those million combinations SUCK ASS, well, it's hard to justify the need for those other combinations. Impossible Creatures is proof positive of this, when only 2 or 3 unit combinations were worth a damn at all. Hostile Waters gets away with this primarily because at most you have a dozen or so units at any given time and you can pause the game as needed (sadly, there was no MP). Metal Fatigue's system was relatively simplistic, all things considered, and could easily have been replaced with a half dozen combot configurations for each side or so, but it was just another thing to keep track of in a crazy game where each battle took place on three interconnected maps.

Moving RTS away from build queues, economy and clicking is badly needed. Recon, a good Fog of War that actually allows stealth and surprise without incorporating stealth technology and the sensor counterpart, firepower and formation, ammunition are all desirable tracts. The annoying part is that these are scattered over different games........

I gladly scarifice polygons and graphics, even real world physics if they can make a good RTS that actually incorporates stragety like the war simulation its supposed to be.

I think that RTS games should look to tabletop wargames for inspiration. Most TT wargames have many of the things we look for, and frankly moving many of the complex rules over to a computer to process would be ideal. Think about it, people enjoy the tabletop games so much they're willing to spend hours on each turn because the nature of the rules require that much time. Imagine how awesome it would be to play those kinds of battles in a fraction of the time, with good graphics and such?

[Vendetta]

I think he's saying it should always be there.

It should always have been there in TA. It's just that the programmers didn't think of it, and had to cobble it into the expansion as a buildable item when they had time to do a code overhaul for targetting.

[petesampras]

Does anyone think it would be possible to "design" units in an RTS? Similar to what one would find in Alpha centauri?

You mean like in Metal Fatigue, Impossible Creatures, LOTR:BFME2, Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, Warcraft 3, and some other Sci-Fi game that escapes me at the moment?

It's been done, and honestly, while it's a neat idea, it doesn't work that well in a multiplayer environment, at least not when you have to do it while the battle is raging. Consider heroes, for a moment, BFME2 vs. Warcraft 3. In BFME2, you construct your heroes prior to a game, and then they level up accordingly as they go, effectly constructing themselves. In WC3, you have to manually construct your hero as you go, both in abilities and gear. This doesn't work as well in my mind, but there you go. Of course, these are heroes, and worth the extra attention in some ways, but it always comes down to certain things you always want them to do, so the BFME2 method is, in my mind, superior.

In the other games, you construct your units in the battle, but invariably certain things become useless. Game designers might think that some things are cool ideas and have millions of possible combinations, but when 999,993 of those million combinations SUCK ASS, well, it's hard to justify the need for those other combinations. Impossible Creatures is proof positive of this, when only 2 or 3 unit combinations were worth a damn at all. Hostile Waters gets away with this primarily because at most you have a dozen or so units at any given time and you can pause the game as needed (sadly, there was no MP). Metal Fatigue's system was relatively simplistic, all things considered, and could easily have been replaced with a half dozen combot configurations for each side or so, but it was just another thing to keep track of in a crazy game where each battle took place on three interconnected maps.

I think another issue is in balancing. Having too many options available increases the possibility of having optimal or even worse exploitative units which break the game in multi-player. Just balancing a game with minimal numbers of unit types is incredibly difficult.

MOO2 multiplayer is a good example of this. At first multiplayer is great fun , then everyone figures out all the exploitative things you can do with ship design and it becomes lame. Instead of being able to design your own ships increasing gameplay depth, you must either use the optimal designs or lose to players that do. Not to mention the ridiculous kill the Guardian in the early stages of the game and hence probably win game ship design.

[Adrian Laguna]

Adrian, that link seems toast.

The site goes up and down. I assure you that the link does work when the site is up.

[dworkin]

A neat feature (and probably it's only one) from the old War of The Worlds PC game was that you could build your base in the strategic phase and if a battle was fought in that region, there it was.

Of course, since the AI was as dumb as a stone and always built the same base and never upgraded the defenses this was all a bit lackluster.

Nevertheless it did allow for such things as raids to knock out a specific building without having to defeat every defender.

It's the sort of thing I'ld like to see in Total War. If desired, you could send in raiders to intentionally destroy specific structures, especially mines and farms which don't easily fit inside castle walls. In addition, you could target cottages and churches to inflict some sort of happiness penalty.

In a raid, since the idea isn't to defeat the enemy but to do some damage and then bug out there would need to be a 'raid' option so that commanders used on raids arn't labled as lily livered cowards. Troops on a raid could be assigned a morale penalty (they're expected to run rather than fight) to prevent players always taking the raid option to prevent the morale/reputation hits if they lose.

The main problem would be that the AI would probably launch zillions of raids which would get very annoying, very quickly.

[GuppyShark]

Okay, that's the second time something that is already implemented in Total War has been suggested as something it needs.

CaptHawkeye - Your troops come directly from town populations. I will often avoid recruiting from some settlements and choose others for precisely this reason. In some mods with large unit sizes the AI will accidentally depopulate its towns entirely.

dworkin - Not quite what you've suggested, but Assassins can sabotage structures.

[Stark]

You're not being clear - you think that ability should be present earlier (as in always present or at least as a cheaper, lower-tech structure) or that the ability should not exist at all?

I'm saying it should always be there. TA gets a free pass because it's old and the building was a band-aid, but the whole idea of 'detected on radar, but must manually order firing' was fucking stupid. Particularly in TA, with a) crazy AI robot interlinked silliness and b) huge scale with stuff going on all over the place. SAMs would turn to face inbound planes detected on radar, but not fire until they entered their 'vision range'... that's the definition of stupid.

With reference to MoO2 multi... it's fun, but the problems with it are all MoO2s fault. MoO2 is an unbalanced game full of huge exploits, and not just in starship design (custom race design is ANYTHING but balanced).

[CaptHawkeye]

Okay, that's the second time something that is already implemented in Total War has been suggested as something it needs.

CaptHawkeye - Your troops come directly from town populations. I will often avoid recruiting from some settlements and choose others for precisely this reason. In some mods with large unit sizes the AI will accidentally depopulate its towns entirely.

Ah, all right then. I'm always so busy with everything in TW I often fail to notice some of the things about the game. But what of the "public opinion" idea? Or is controlling one's populace already enough of a pain the ass?

[Stark]

Controlling the 'on map' population would be interesting, particularly if you had a NOD/Consortium like organisation, who could hide inside that population and make the 'regular' army's job much more difficult. It depends on the focus of the game, of course.

[General Soontir Fel]

You know what I'd like? Standard sequence scripts.

When I play Warcraft 3, the worst part of the game is having to go through the same sequence of producing units, buildings, and upgrades, in the same order. You do a few variations (air power vs. heavy melee, for instance, depending on the map, and the races your allies and opponents play, but these are standard too...) Ditto for expansions. A base building, plus some towers for defense near the gold mine, five workers... This favors players who can memorize dozens of hotkeys or are insanely good at switching back and forth between their base and their army.

So... write a script to build a base of type X, and during the game, simply execute the script. Write a script to build an expasion, and as soon as the gold mine is secured, execute it. There are many sequences of actions that have to be executed frequently, but at a time of player choosing, so they cannot be completely automated. So... scripts.

[PainRack]

You mean like in Metal Fatigue, Impossible Creatures, LOTR:BFME2, Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, Warcraft 3, and some other Sci-Fi game that escapes me at the moment?

It's been done, and honestly, while it's a neat idea, it doesn't work that well in a multiplayer environment, at least not when you have to do it while the battle is raging. Consider heroes, for a moment, BFME2 vs. Warcraft 3. In BFME2, you construct your heroes prior to a game, and then they level up accordingly as they go, effectly constructing themselves. In WC3, you have to manually construct your hero as you go, both in abilities and gear. This doesn't work as well in my mind, but there you go. Of course, these are heroes, and worth the extra attention in some ways, but it always comes down to certain things you always want them to do, so the BFME2 method is, in my mind, superior.

My apologies, I meant have it as a usuable game concept in multi-player. Battle for Middle Earth 2 had the problem that the custom units were extremely cookie-cutter. This eventually just broke the game.

Furthermore, both WC3 and BFME2 focused on heroes as opposed to "normal" units customisation. CoH concept of upgrades and a fixed tech tree allowing new units and support options is probably the closest to what i have in mind.

I think another issue is in balancing. Having too many options available increases the possibility of having optimal or even worse exploitative units which break the game in multi-player. Just balancing a game with minimal numbers of unit types is incredibly difficult.

MOO2 multiplayer is a good example of this. At first multiplayer is great fun , then everyone figures out all the exploitative things you can do with ship design and it becomes lame. Instead of being able to design your own ships increasing gameplay depth, you must either use the optimal designs or lose to players that do. Not to mention the ridiculous kill the Guardian in the early stages of the game and hence probably win game ship design.

Well....... I confess that was the problem with the various games which tried this so far...... I guess i just blithely assumed this could be solved.

I think that RTS games should look to tabletop wargames for inspiration. Most TT wargames have many of the things we look for, and frankly moving many of the complex rules over to a computer to process would be ideal. Think about it, people enjoy the tabletop games so much they're willing to spend hours on each turn because the nature of the rules require that much time. Imagine how awesome it would be to play those kinds of battles in a fraction of the time, with good graphics and such?

Have you played some of the Wh40k TT converts? I can't recall the exact name of the game but it used the epic system with the plot of the IG retaking an Imperium world from Orks. It was turn based so gameplay was badly bogged down. Still, the cutscenes were fantastic, easily rivalling DoW.

OTOH, Shadow of the Horned Rat was an excellent conversion.... Its a pity that no Wh40k conversion ever captured that smoothness.

[Darth Wong]

You know what else they could do? They could make units cost more money depending on how many units you're recruited in total. This is not unlike reality, where you simply can't throw infinite numbers of men at something. They could also alter unit morale depending on how good you are at keeping your men alive. If your tactics involve hurling your men into the meat-grinder without concern for their safety, then the morale of your units should reflect that.

[Vendetta]

I think there could be room for a bit of choice in there. If you implemented rising unit costs as your total deployed army increased, it might be an option to recruit them at their base cost instead, but at a reduced morale and quality, so that the human wave of conscript peasants is an emergent property of the tactics people choose, rather than just a feature of one army type.

[dworkin]

dworkin - Not quite what you've suggested, but Assassins can sabotage structures.

I realise it's a subterfuge option in Rome and Medieval2.

I want actual raids, or probing attacks that reveal enemy troop strengths without axing some general's ability.

I however realise that I would suffer an inordinate number of such conflicts against me but then you could always have scout/anti-scout traits for the taking. Or the damn auto-resolve button (boo-hiss).