turn based vs real time games

[Shrykull]

Which do you prefer? I haven't actually played civ 3 yet, but isn't it very difficult, someone tells me he can't get past the prince level, anyone ever gotten to Diety? For right now I'd have to say I prefer turn based simply because they take the pressure off of you, whereas in real time you have to constantly be moving, warcraft 2 apparently doesn't have replays. would like to watch someone play sometime. Only game I know that has a spectator mode and only one spectator is red alert 2.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

They're different genres, hard to compare them. So called Real-Time Strategy games focus on tactical unit coordination and "base building", whereas most turn-based games are at the strategic level and are often infrastructure-building, diplomaticly and culturally minded empire-builders.

[Keevan_Colton]

Dont forget the X-Com games though....they are turn based at the tactical level

[Ghost Rider]

Different genres.

I prefer the speed of the RTS, but I appreciate the micromanaing one can do with turn based.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Dont forget the X-Com games though....they are turn based at the tactical level

True, but turn-based tactical games are usually focused down to a squad level, e.g, Fallout, Chaos Gate. So they're still not really comparable to RTSs, IMO.

[Sriad]

Dont forget the X-Com games though....they are turn based at the tactical level

True, but turn-based tactical games are usually focused down to a squad level, e.g, Fallout, Chaos Gate. So they're still not really comparable to RTSs, IMO.

And Worms. The best turn-based game (series) ever.

[Graeme Dice]

They're different genres, hard to compare them. So called Real-Time Strategy games focus on tactical unit coordination and "base building", whereas most turn-based games are at the strategic level and are often infrastructure-building, diplomaticly and culturally minded empire-builders.

Of course, you also have games like EU2 which are real-time at the (grand) strategic level.

[gravity]

I like both, though I probably lean a little more towards the turn-based side.

[Edi]

I like turnbased games, can't stand RTS because they ultimately just become click-fests. For good TBS strategy games that see a lot of tactical matchups in addition, Age of Wonders and Age of Wonders 2 are the best of the lot. I liked Warlords 2 and 3 as well. The HoMM series is somewhat of a different bird, though the combat in 2 and 3 wasn't all that bad. HoMM4 just ripped the tactical combat system (as well as a lot of other stuff) more or less directly from AoW.

For the X-Com series, yes, it had turnbased combat, which was nice enough, though I never used it in Apocalypse, I always chose the RT version because you could pause it and give orders and then resume. If not for that, every real-time combat would have been a colossal clusterfuck.

Edi

[generator_g1]

I prefer turn-based games like FF:Tactics and SRW:Alpha although I do play RTS's. My only gripe with RTS that it usually in network play, it can all boil down to who can mouse-click faster.

[Companion Cube]

I prefer RTS, because i'm more comfortable with making quick decisions than planning out strategies that take ages to come to fruition. Of course, lag is an issue in online games, but I can deal with it in FPS' so I don't mind it massively.

[Coaan]

Different genres yes....but they can be compaired in what they need to have a hope in surviving in them...fps...well that's obvious.

Real time strategy- You need the quick ability to think on your feet, setting that ambush up at the last minute as the enemy is marching to your base or always having an ace up the sleeve...I can remember many a time when Keevan and I have dueled with the computer in red alert 2 (both were hard ) and won simply because we out thought the computer and attacked from different angles. I'm not a particularly fast clicker but when you have the know how to back up what your clicking, it makes every one important..

turn based strategy- Simply, you can take your time and plan. This was an absolute nessicity as anyone that's ever played xcom on superhuman mode will tell you. if you didn't have three backups for the backups for the plans you just worked out....you were to put it bluntly...fucked.

[Darth Gojira]

I like RTS better. Turn-based games seem to take forever.












Besides. between AoW, AoM, and WCIII, what more could a person want?

[Coaan]

A pause button?

[Hotfoot]

Best of both worlds: Total War!

Medieval: Total War is a ton of fun, and Rome: Total War has me drooling in anticipation. If only someone would make something like that with a science fiction tilt. Have over 10,000 individual ships/units on the screen at once, real 3D planets and star systems, all accurately scaled. It would be a marvelous thing, truly.

[aphexmonster]

Its all good...

[Coaan]

Best of both worlds: Total War!

Medieval: Total War is a ton of fun, and Rome: Total War has me drooling in anticipation. If only someone would make something like that with a science fiction tilt. Have over 10,000 individual ships/units on the screen at once, real 3D planets and star systems, all accurately scaled. It would be a marvelous thing, truly.

Meh..Shogun total war put me off...same crap after x number of hundreds of sieges against the enemies. When noone attacks back...it gets lame..

Wtf is with castle sieges too?..being a fanatic of the medieval era...I can tell you that castle sieges didn't end with killing everyone outside the bloody castles...you had to worry about those inside too, so why oh why do they stop at the outside?...I want to see the insides of these dammit

[Pu-239]

Best of both worlds: Total War!

Medieval: Total War is a ton of fun, and Rome: Total War has me drooling in anticipation. If only someone would make something like that with a science fiction tilt. Have over 10,000 individual ships/units on the screen at once, real 3D planets and star systems, all accurately scaled. It would be a marvelous thing, truly.

Closest thing would be HW. For a space RTS, I don't think you can cheat using sprites like Total War.

There's problems with poor frame rates enough when 100 or so super acolytes start firing 2 missiles each. Thats why HW:C has unit limits. All combat takes place within a 50x50km cube in deep space though.

[Coaan]

Homeworld...nuff said

The music and gameplay in it was amazing....and it was hard too

What did cataclysm add?...never did manage to get that

[Hotfoot]

Closest thing would be HW. For a space RTS, I don't think you can cheat using sprites like Total War.

Stars! Supernova Genesis was doing something similar, and Star Wars: Rebellion used sprites for the fighters (since you could have hundreds of groups on screen at any one time).

Meanwhile, Rome: Total War is going to have fully 3D models for every unit, highly detailed cities and landscapes, and it will still be capable of showing over 10,000 individual units on screen at any one time.

There's problems with poor frame rates enough when 100 or so super acolytes start firing 2 missiles each. Thats why HW:C has unit limits. All combat takes place within a 50x50km cube in deep space though.

You mention Homeworld in one breath, then Cataclysm in the next, while maintaining a straight face?

Cataclysms unit limits were more for game balance than anything else. Homeworld Classic had MUCH higher unit caps, not to mention much larger maps.

But yes, Homeworld was the last RTS that I really enjoyed playing, aside from Total War. The main draw to Cataclysm for me was the improvements made to the interface. Homeworld 2 should fill a void for me, when it finally arrives.

But I still want a Space Empires style game with a Homeworld-esqe combat engine, like Rebellion.

[Companion Cube]

But I still want a Space Empires style game with a Homeworld-esqe combat engine, like Rebellion.

That game had so much potential, it was a shame the execution was so clumsy...

[PeZook]

Homeworld...nuff said

The music and gameplay in it was amazing....and it was hard too

What did cataclysm add?...never did manage to get that

It added good voice acting

More seriously, it was mainly improvements to the interface (Time compression!!!) and a kickass new campaign. I liked the new one MUCH better than the old Homeworld (the final batle in the original had me laughing, I spent 3/4 of it crossing the map to reach the Taiidani mothership, and then utterly crushed what was left of their fleet in less than two minutes) - Cataclysm kept me on my feet at all times.

[Hotfoot]

Homeworld...nuff said

The music and gameplay in it was amazing....and it was hard too

What did cataclysm add?...never did manage to get that

It added good voice acting

The voice acting of Homeworld Classic was top-notch. Only thing that Cataclysm really added was the different sound files for each class of ship, which was a welcome touch.

More seriously, it was mainly improvements to the interface (Time compression!!!) and a kickass new campaign. I liked the new one MUCH better than the old Homeworld (the final batle in the original had me laughing, I spent 3/4 of it crossing the map to reach the Taiidani mothership, and then utterly crushed what was left of their fleet in less than two minutes) - Cataclysm kept me on my feet at all times.

The final battle of Homeworld was laughable? How could you possibly compare it to the Deus Ex Machina of Cataclysm's final battle, which utterly mocks all the hard work you did during the course of the campaign. The Super Acolytes given to you by the Bentusi allows you to destroy the Naggarok in a heartbeat.

The campaign for Cataclysm, while well-done in many areas, had far too many holes for me to seriously compare it to the original.

[PeZook]

Homeworld...nuff said

The music and gameplay in it was amazing....and it was hard too

What did cataclysm add?...never did manage to get that

It added good voice acting

The voice acting of Homeworld Classic was top-notch. Only thing that Cataclysm really added was the different sound files for each class of ship, which was a welcome touch.

Maybe it's just me, but pilots in the original sounded awfully apathetic, as if they were bored when getting fired upon.

The final battle of Homeworld was laughable? How could you possibly compare it to the Deus Ex Machina of Cataclysm's final battle, which utterly mocks all the hard work you did during the course of the campaign. The Super Acolytes given to you by the Bentusi allows you to destroy the Naggarok in a heartbeat.

The campaign for Cataclysm, while well-done in many areas, had far too many holes for me to seriously compare it to the original.

I compare them because while the final battle of the original was a total cakewalk (for me, at least), and consisted of flying across the map to meet a whooping three heavy cruisers left to the Emperor, the one in Cataclysm had me clenching the mouse in desperation while wave after wave of Beast ships came at the Kuun-Lan, while my own vessels were slowly loosing their combat ability, while the Naggarok consumed my vessels one by one as I desperately attempted to catch it with EMP, pin it in place and blast it to tiny little bits...

In a few words: I got totally bored during the climax of the original. I didn't during the climax of Cataclysm, so Cataclysm wins in my book, even despite the Deus-Ex machina

[Hotfoot]

Maybe it's just me, but pilots in the original sounded awfully apathetic, as if they were bored when getting fired upon.

Well, as I said, the new ship sounds in Cata was a welcome addition, especially for quick audio recognition of battlegroups when selecting a group of ships. However, I never had a real problem with the pilots in Homeworld. They seemed calm and determined to me, rather than bored.

I compare them because while the final battle of the original was a total cakewalk (for me, at least), and consisted of flying across the map to meet a whooping three heavy cruisers left to the Emperor, the one in Cataclysm had me clenching the mouse in desperation while wave after wave of Beast ships came at the Kuun-Lan, while my own vessels were slowly loosing their combat ability, while the Naggarok consumed my vessels one by one as I desperately attempted to catch it with EMP, pin it in place and blast it to tiny little bits...

Funny, the original final battle for me was quite nerve-wracking, even to the point where I killed the Emperor. Maybe the way you did things made it really easy for you (in which case, you can turn on the fleet limits in the SP game to make it so that you can't capture the simply massive number of frigates from the previous missions), but in Cata, the final mission was a joke. Well, unless you refrained from building the Super-Acolytes, that is. Then it becomes a bit more interesting, but I still beat the Naggarok without having to play the save-reload game.

In a few words: I got totally bored during the climax of the original. I didn't during the climax of Cataclysm, so Cataclysm wins in my book, even despite the Deus-Ex machina

Homeworld: After a long, hard-fought battle from the very beginning, you finally meet the emperor head-on in final combat. The only way you could breeze through this mission is if you had stolen practically every ion frigate and assault frigate from the previous mission. Realistically, the game should stop you from stealing that many frigates in the first place with the SP unit cap, but for some reason it doesn't. I don't know if this is due to a bug, an exploit, or something simply left in so that players who had gotten this far (and done rather poorly) could refresh their fleet's strength for the final battle and concievably win without having to replay several older missions to have the substantial fleet required for the final battle.

Cataclysm: After a long, hard-fought battle, the magic-tech evil alien ship comes by to kill you for interfering with its plans. It is, essentially, a Boss Fight. I seriously dislike Boss Fights, with a passion. There are some games I which I will tolerate them, but RTS games have NO PLACE for a Boss Fight. Difficult battles against a superior foe? Sure. Difficult battles against superior numbers? Absolutely. Boss Fights? Come on.

What makes it a Boss Fight? Simple. It's one ship/character that has special abilities found nowhere else in the game but with that character. It follows a pattern which, when analyzed, allows for the defeat of the ship/character through conventional methods, but it takes longer, is much more difficult to do, and much more costly in the long run. Think Mega Man. Virtually all of the Bosses in Mega Man can be killed with his basic gun, but in order to do so, you need to analyze the Boss attack/movement pattern, so you can jump, dive, or run out of the way or into an advantageous firing position. However, find that one weak point on the Boss, and everything comes so much easier. In Mega Man, it's a complex case of rock/paper/scissors. Defeat the dude with the frisbee-saws, and Leaf Man falls over like a baby. In this case, the Bentusi give you the design for the Super Acolyte. This is more than just a special anti-boss weapon, it is the single best combat ship IN THE GAME. Twenty or thirty of them can obliterate the Naggarok in a few mere seconds of firing. Since you never get to really use them again, they essentially fill the role of the anti-Boss weapon.

At the very least, in Homeworld, if you stole a ridiculous number of frigates, you still had to actually fight said frigates or do something in order to capture them. Here, the Bentusi just give you everything you could possibly need to defeat the enemy. RUs flow like freaking water, so you can rebuild your fleet from nothing if you needed to. By the final battle of Cataclysm, I was swimming in so much RUs that I could have rebuilt my fleet fifty times over (including fishboning the damn CS) and still have enough to blow on a weekend in Vegas.

All Homeworld needed was Cataclysm's UI, and I would have loved to play it online more. The original game was much more balanced and stable online that Cataclysm (otherwise referred to as Crashalysm and Crapalysm by much of the online community).

That's the one thing that bothers be about most RTS games, the User Interfaces. Warcraft pissed me off to no end because of the arcane, nonsensical hotkey method. Same with Starcraft. It appears that some people have done a great service to Warcraft III in making some sort of program or script that emulates the Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising method of giving orders and commands (for reference, Hostile Waters is an EXCELLENT RTS/Action game in the same vein as Battlezone, with a kickass storyline, voice acting, and visuals. You can get it for as little as $2 in some places, not because it's old, bad, or buggy, but because Interplay completely dropped the ball on advertising and support. I highly recommend that everyone who enjoys RTS games get it ASAP, and yes, it is pausable, much like the Total War series). Natural Selection should soon get a similar upgrade to the Commander Interface (finally).

I mean, if I have a menu, rather than using the mouse to navigate it, why not just let me use my keyboard? Really, it's not that hard. Don't force me to divert my attention from a battle to make me click some upgrades or do a single character's special abilities. Reaction time is critical in a real-time game. The less time I spend dragging my mouse around the screen to interact with the menu, the better. Make the menu capable of providing the information I need without having to dive into numerous sub-menus (a fault of Homeworld). Let me have a build queue that doesn't require excessive micromanagement (still a problem in Starcraft and Warcraft). Let me have an easy way to give multiple orders/patrols/etc. (again, a flaw in Homeworld). Let me have groups as large as I want them to be (SC/WC again), and let me have lots of groups with which to play (would it really be so hard to include Shift-# and Alt-# groups into these games, thus tripling the number of viable battlegroups you can create? Or how about a dynamic group control system, where you can make as many groups as you want, assigning each one a different place in a custom menu, which can be accessed in a similar fashion to the build menu of SC/WC?).

But I ramble.