Suggestion for a RTS-RTT game

[ray245]

A lot of people seem to have this complaint that most RTS have a huge focus on base assault as opposed to pitched or field battles in the middle of the map, which is why I have this suggestion to make.

I was thinking of this idea for a game.

The difference between RTS and total war games are, when it comes to battles, the total war series do not require you to build stuff. And you are able to engage in a field battle, and concentrate on the field maneuvers as opposed to building new barracks and turrets.

In most RTS like C&C 3, companies of heroes and Red alert 3, those games have a strong focus on micro-management.

Moreover, those games consist of numerous skirmish as opposed to a big pitched battle that requires the use of maneuvering. I think that one way to resolve that is this.

Instead of recruiting a unit consisting of one soldier or one horse, let the size of the unit be total war huge.

A unit will now consist of several hundred soldiers. While there are games where a unit consist of 20-30 men, they don't have a large unit consisting of several hundred men as a single unit.

What happens now, is players will actually start and assemble an army consisting of many units, and employ combined arms tactics. They can be bothered to merge their units as one main army, and the opponent will do the same thing. When that happens, both players can afford to concentrate on one issue at a time, which is fighting the battle as opposed to managing their city and the battle at the same time.

A player can spread his army thinly, however, a single concentrated thrust may spell doom for that player.

Moreover, if the map is big enough, like the map in SupCom, people might even employ strategy on a grand scale, as well as pre-battle skirmish.

People may move their troops to key cities and ports, securing strategic routes and etc.



So, let's go into more details on this idea , shall we?


The size of the map is big, much bigger than RTW battle map and etc. When we mean big, we mean SupCOM big and etc.

It could be the size of Italy for all we know.

In the maps, we can have multiple cities, ports and forts. If the city is left undisturbed, they will be able to generate income by their own. Every city has surrounding resources sites, from mines to farms. Now, unlike other games, you do not have to micromanage those resources sites. As long as the city is in your control, you will gain money from those place at a constant rate.

When the city is disturbed, they will start to lose money. And all one needs to do in order to do is to station troops on those mines and farms.

Another point to note is you do not have the chance to build new buildings and cities.

What is the reasoning for this? Mainly because this is a war game as compared to a empire building game.

In most wars, people may repair their cities, improve their defensive walls and etc, but they don't spare time building an Arena or new baths.

You are a leader during war time, and you would have to focus on war as compared to peace time business.

And what is the benefit of such actions? Instead of spending too much time worrying about how to earn profit and keep your people happy, as well as finding ways to increase the populations through micro-managament, you can focus on building and training your army.

The only thing you would worry about in a war time, is how to get enough people in your army.

In order to recruit an army, all you need to do is to order them from one city, and they will be trained in unit slots in real time. This mean you can train multiple units simultaneously.

In one city, you can train 4-6 cohorts of Roman Legionnaires together with cavalry units in real life. However, a cohort does take you more time to train them as compared to some militia units. However, when your city is besiged, you will be limited to militia units.

However, a city would have a roughly static population, as this game take place over several months to 1-2 years. Meaning if you lose a battle, your entire faction will suffer from the lost of men.

And one unit in this case, can consist of several hundred men.

What a player can now do with his army is to either group them together or seperate them.

And given that micro-managing is a huge thing to bother, an easier way is to get all of them together in one spot, and group them into one army. If your army is too spread out, it will be near impossible for you to manage all of them effectively.

When you press the group button, you can form them into a marching formation.

The cities will send supplies continuously to units out in the field, unless the supply line is raided or cut.

What happens now is, players would have an incentives to form one large army. A static population means the lost of a single battle at times can mean the end of the game.

A faction in this game will not have any unit limits. This mean the only real limit is their population size and morale.

The benefits of this means we can have uneven or 'unfair' battles at times. A player can actually have the chance to outnumber the enemy. How to outnumber an enemy is based on a player's skills and decisions.

A good player may be able to end out enough skirmish units to misdirect the enemy, gaining precious time to train more units. A well protected supply line also helps, espeically if the player is fighting in his home terrorities.

Or the player can choose to go for numbers over quality. A player may bother to raise an militia army to outnumber the enemy on purpose.

However, numbers isn't everything. It is important to know how to use the number advantages. For people who don't know how to use numbers properly wil fall into traps and result in a Cannae.

A good general can use his well trained but small army to his advantage as well. He could re-create the tactics of Hannibal or Alexander.

Manuver warfare on a grander scale can work as well, as armies might be divided and concentrated, siezing of key ports and cities.

Then there is the morale system. If the player lost too many men over the course of the game, cities may rebel or secretly side with the enemy. To avoid micro-management trouble, losing enough morale for that to happen is hard and is based on a dice system. Meaning there might be a 50-50 chance of that happening.

A Cannae like disater may prompt one faction into surrending, while it might also cause the population to fight even harder.

Another thing that might result in the lost of the game is the lost of the faction leader. While generals can be recruited and lost, losing the faction leader will result in a defeat for your side, just like RTW: Alexander.

This add a level of immersion into the game, where you actually care about your own neck to some extend. Some people might be more suicidal by sending the faction leader into the main battle line, while others might be more cautious.

For the units, they function in the same manner as any other total war games. They get tired, can suffer damage from flanking attack, and lose morale at times.

The most important thing this game can do is to actually have an RTS that based on massed formation from the classical to Napoleanic age and ensure we can have a massive battle as compared to minor skirmish.

Let us play an RTS where most players can actually bother to mass their army and fight a pitched battle in the field.

Too many RTS end up in base assault as compared to any meaningful field battle.

A field battle where the maneuvering of troops is actually important, as compared to having a chance to spam as many troops into the enemy base as possible.

[Stark]

You really need to play more games. Almost everything you suggest that would work is already in various RTS games (btw RTT 'genre' is stupid) and the rest is going to be a) very difficult to have work without massive frustration and b) won't sell to the current market.

Frankly, that you can say 'xyz complex system, to save on micro it's dice-based and random' and not see why most RTS players won't dig on it is pretty bad. A lot of your ideas are just going to create a game where once you start winning/losing it's difficult to turn the game around, but it's scale is such that you can lead people on a run-around pretty easily. What's your balance of defence vs attack? How do you ensure choices like split/concentrate, assault vs seige etc are valid and not hopelessly onesided?

[ray245]

You really need to play more games. Almost everything you suggest that would work is already in various RTS games (btw RTT 'genre' is stupid) and the rest is going to be a) very difficult to have work without massive frustration and b) won't sell to the current market.

Frankly, that you can say 'xyz complex system, to save on micro it's dice-based and random' and not see why most RTS players won't dig on it is pretty bad. A lot of your ideas are just going to create a game where once you start winning/losing it's difficult to turn the game around, but it's scale is such that you can lead people on a run-around pretty easily. What's your balance of defence vs attack? How do you ensure choices like split/concentrate, assault vs seige etc are valid and not hopelessly onesided?

However Stark, most RTS games don't really allow you to have a chance to play a field battle. Moreover, other than a few games like Company of heroes, flanking attacks can't even work for many games.

For a viable defense, I was thinking of something to ensure things like Fabian Strategy can work in such a game.

[The Romulan Republic]

(btw RTT 'genre' is stupid)

How so? One of my favorite games would probably be considered a real-time tactics game, and I see nothing about the concept that is inherrently flawed or stupid.

[Stark]

However Stark, most RTS games don't really allow you to have a chance to play a field battle. Moreover, other than a few games like Company of heroes, flanking attacks can't even work for many games.

For a viable defense, I was thinking of something to ensure things like Fabian Strategy can work in such a game.

I'm not seeing how this means you shouldn't expose yourself to more games before making likely-unworkable suggestions. You don't even understand the questions I asked because you don't understand how RTS games are played. Are you even attempting to appeal to actual real players, or just speculating? I'm not going to bother raising any more issues with your design until we can talk about these ones.

How so? One of my favorite games would probably be considered a real-time tactics game, and I see nothing about the concept that is inherrently flawed or stupid.

Okay, you're stupid then. The 'RTS' appellation is just that; a convenient name or marketing term. Most RTSs have essentially zero 'strategy', so attempting to distinguish some RTSs from others by how 'tactical' they are when they're all tactical is deeply retarded. I like complex,sophisticated and semi-realistic RTSs as much as the next guy, but the term 'real-time tactics' is dumb and tells you nothing about the game unless you ALREADY knew what 'RTS' meant and some of the history of the genre. Compare to 'fighting game' where the meaning is obvious. Amusingly, most nerds can't even agree on what constitutes an 'RTT' game, since some are very complex games, some are simple, some have bases, some don't, some but heavy emphasis on micro, some don't, etc. Turns out the term is worthless and back-engineered. Kohan is an RTS. WiC is an RTS. Ground Control is an RTS. They're distinguished by their individual merits and attributes, not membership in some super club of SMART RTS.

[ray245]

However Stark, most RTS games don't really allow you to have a chance to play a field battle. Moreover, other than a few games like Company of heroes, flanking attacks can't even work for many games.

For a viable defense, I was thinking of something to ensure things like Fabian Strategy can work in such a game.

I'm not seeing how this means you shouldn't expose yourself to more games before making likely-unworkable suggestions. You don't even understand the questions I asked because you don't understand how RTS games are played. Are you even attempting to appeal to actual real players, or just speculating? I'm not going to bother raising any more issues with your design until we can talk about these ones.

I mean we don't have to appeal to the existing RTS fanbase do we? I am exposed to many RTS games, and I do play them. How a person win a online battle is decided by how fast you can build up your base, and your army. The guy with a larger army do win the game, most of the time.

Almost every victory in an RTS depends on your building skills. Every time I lost to another player is because he has a much larger army than me. Other than that, securing of resources is another key factor, and the only field battle the player might have in a game is fought over the resource sites.

[The Romulan Republic]

How so? One of my favorite games would probably be considered a real-time tactics game, and I see nothing about the concept that is inherrently flawed or stupid.

Okay, you're stupid then. The 'RTS' appellation is just that; a convenient name or marketing term. Most RTSs have essentially zero 'strategy', so attempting to distinguish some RTSs from others by how 'tactical' they are when they're all tactical is deeply retarded.

Actually my experience has been more along the lines of them being neither especially tactical nor particularily strategic. To most people, "strategy" seems to mean "grab units, build up a huge army using rock paper scisors formula, spam the other guy to death." This is my problem with stuff like Age of Empires, as much as I like it.

Oh, and next time you call me "that romulan guy", I'll call you "that hostile cynical guy".

I like complex,sophisticated and semi-realistic RTSs as much as the next guy, but the term 'real-time tactics' is dumb and tells you nothing about the game unless you ALREADY knew what 'RTS' meant and some of the history of the genre. Compare to 'fighting game' where the meaning is obvious. Amusingly, most nerds can't even agree on what constitutes an 'RTT' game, since some are very complex games, some are simple, some have bases, some don't, some but heavy emphasis on micro, some don't, etc. Turns out the term is worthless and back-engineered. Kohan is an RTS. WiC is an RTS. Ground Control is an RTS. They're distinguished by their individual merits and attributes, not membership in some super club of SMART RTS.

I agree the term is broad and vauge, and covers a wide range of material. In general, however, I understand it to mean something along the lines of "Real time empire-building game involving both economic management and large-scale combat. Often won by who can rush/spam the other guy the fastest." Whereas a tactical game would tend to have more detailed combat, but less resource gathering or army-building. Am I an expert on the history of the gaming industry? No. So this is just an attempt to explain what I think of/expect when I hear RTS.

As for how to improve RTS games in general, and ray's suggestions, I'll post a more detailed reply later. I'm kind of busy right now.

[Stark]

But that's the thing; it's a useless variation on a largely useless term instead of something meaningful. You even just provided a description of 'RTT' games that covers a) not all 'RTT' games and b) some RTS games, demonstrating it's uselessness. The RTS genre is as broad as the rock and roll genre, the wargame genre, or the romance novel genre, and adults just have to deal with that. Most normal people couldn't pick a difference between (say) Kohan and Age of Empires beyond 'is a bit slower' and 'has companies'.

And when you quote two people you have to type the quote=xyz thing out, and your name is too long.

If Ray continues to make totally unsupported and ignorant statements about the RTS genre I'm going to start crying. Ray, if you can demonstrate how your ideas provide an environment for positive play, do so. Having a huge map with armies that are slow to raise and semi-random rebellions sounds like a terrible play experience, and the unit balance will determine if tactics are even necessary - many games provide a semi-complex framework to play in, but the way combat rolls out means you just blob-fight or you lose. Making a game that's 'Total War on a giant RTS map with semi-random shit' isn't original or necessarily good. It's sad that Kohan already did much of what you speculate about a decade ago, and ran into pretty serious play problems (particularly wiht regard to unit limit).

[Samuel]

The difference between RTS and total war games are, when it comes to battles, the total war series do not require you to build stuff. And you are able to engage in a field battle, and concentrate on the field maneuvers as opposed to building new barracks and turrets.

In most RTS like C&C 3, companies of heroes and Red alert 3, those games have a strong focus on micro-management.

Although I applaud the reduction of micro (I watched a demo for Starcraft 2- good god, that is pathetic), you have made battles reliant on scouting and deployment. Which can be very dull.

Moreover, those games consist of numerous skirmish as opposed to a big pitched battle that requires the use of maneuvering. I think that one way to resolve that is this.

Instead of recruiting a unit consisting of one soldier or one horse, let the size of the unit be total war huge.

A unit will now consist of several hundred soldiers. While there are games where a unit consist of 20-30 men, they don't have a large unit consisting of several hundred men as a single unit.

So there will only be 40 units on the battlefield, they will just have 500 hit points?

What happens now, is players will actually start and assemble an army consisting of many units, and employ combined arms tactics.

Or they will use Urban Cohort and Pretorian Calvary exclusively. They will get the most powerful or most cost effective and crush their opponent.

They can be bothered to merge their units as one main army, and the opponent will do the same thing. When that happens, both players can afford to concentrate on one issue at a time, which is fighting the battle as opposed to managing their city and the battle at the same time.

Why is managing Guns vs Butter bad?

In the maps, we can have multiple cities, ports and forts. If the city is left undisturbed, they will be able to generate income by their own. Every city has surrounding resources sites, from mines to farms. Now, unlike other games, you do not have to micromanage those resources sites. As long as the city is in your control, you will gain money from those place at a constant rate.

When the city is disturbed, they will start to lose money. And all one needs to do in order to do is to station troops on those mines and farms.

Another point to note is you do not have the chance to build new buildings and cities.

Empire Total war has that.

In most wars, people may repair their cities, improve their defensive walls and etc, but they don't spare time building an Arena or new baths.

You are a leader during war time, and you would have to focus on war as compared to peace time business.

Alexander's campaign refutes that.

And what is the benefit of such actions? Instead of spending too much time worrying about how to earn profit and keep your people happy, as well as finding ways to increase the populations through micro-managament, you can focus on building and training your army.

The only thing you would worry about in a war time, is how to get enough people in your army.

Or how much you want to sell your future to insure victory in the present.

In order to recruit an army, all you need to do is to order them from one city, and they will be trained in unit slots in real time. This mean you can train multiple units simultaneously.

There is a limit to how many men you can handle similtaneously- more men requires more camps, officers, etc.

However, when your city is besiged, you will be limited to militia units.

Why?

However, a city would have a roughly static population, as this game take place over several months to 1-2 years. Meaning if you lose a battle, your entire faction will suffer from the lost of men.

If several means three, and men can go 10 miles an hour maximum, than the battleground will be 300 mile maximum. Less than the width of Spain.

The cities will send supplies continuously to units out in the field, unless the supply line is raided or cut.

How would this work?

What happens now is, players would have an incentives to form one large army. A static population means the lost of a single battle at times can mean the end of the game.

Which is heavily ahistorical- that many men can't be supported in one place.

Then there is the morale system. If the player lost too many men over the course of the game, cities may rebel or secretly side with the enemy. To avoid micro-management trouble, losing enough morale for that to happen is hard and is based on a dice system. Meaning there might be a 50-50 chance of that happening.

Randomness in an RTS is bad.

This add a level of immersion into the game, where you actually care about your own neck to some extend. Some people might be more suicidal by sending the faction leader into the main battle line, while others might be more cautious.

So cutting the head off always works? Why do anything else?

Too many RTS end up in base assault as compared to any meaningful field battle.

Except it will be base assult again because cities are the cornerstones.

For a viable defense, I was thinking of something to ensure things like Fabian Strategy can work in such a game.

That strategy eschews decisive field battles, which you are trying to encourage.

Almost every victory in an RTS depends on your building skills. Every time I lost to another player is because he has a much larger army than me. Other than that, securing of resources is another key factor, and the only field battle the player might have in a game is fought over the resource sites.

Except you are proposing is the same, but with a slightly different skin over the mechanics.

Actually my experience has been more along the lines of them being neither especially tactical nor particularily strategic. To most people, "strategy" seems to mean "grab units, build up a huge army using rock paper scisors formula, spam the other guy to death." This is my problem with stuff like Age of Empires, as much as I like it.

And then your oppoent kills you because he knows when you attack and hits your undefended base. Scouting, bluffing, position, etc exist in RTS.

Oh, and next time you call me "that romulan guy", I'll call you "that hostile cynical guy".

Call him STRAK like Shroom.

[Stark]

Oh hush. I was trying to get him to actually engage in a dialog about his ideas, not just torpedo them all as broken. Now you've scared him off!

[ray245]

Oh hush. I was trying to get him to actually engage in a dialog about his ideas, not just torpedo them all as broken. Now you've scared him off!

Nah. I am open to people criticism as long as the idea can be improved.

I want to find a way where people can be encouraged to meet in the field and conduct a pitched battle.

[Stark]

Uh, you've had plenty of criticism and opening for discussion right here and you keep ignoring it. Can you talk about your ideas at all?

[ray245]

Uh, you've had plenty of criticism and opening for discussion right here and you keep ignoring it. Can you talk about your ideas at all?

Hold on, I'm still thinking over the whole thing you know.

I'm a pretty slow thinker.