I think that Warcraft III does a very good job of modeling "war". I mean, just if you look at it you might see that it is out of scale, and has some non realistic aspects, but if you play the game enough you realize that very slight mistakes can change the entire game. I rarely found that the single player missions in warcraft were "save/load till you win". A lot of people criticize warcraft, for things it doesn''t even do. I heard one person on these forums complain that his friend has a high level hero and now can win every single game because of it.. and yet, warcraft doesn''t have contiguous hero''s.

-Fuzztrek

¬_¬

On the note of replayability based on a mission tree, I wouldn't want to intentionally lose a mission just to get at some of the lesser known missions.

However, there could be bonus objectives or special objectives that could affect which missions a player has access to. Maybe there is a side tree that has missions specifically for players that are able to complete the special objectives, and they fall back to the normal campaign when the side missions are completed (several in succession) or failed (first mission failed drops the player back, like the secret ops missions in Freespace 2).

The whole campaign tree should probably have several of these breakpoints to give the player multiple opportunities to access them.

Then there is the option of the battle scene creating itself from the known status of the campaign, turning the game into more of a simulation than a story. That way you can let yourself do as badly as you wish, losing more and more resources and then decide to fight back and push your way to the enemy leaders, and the game would support it.

How about a few possible endings to the campaign, where about 2/3 into the game it is clear exactly what the final goal is (annihilate the enemy, close off their access to the ground you have managed to hold, escape from the system, etc.)

[edited by - Waverider on December 2, 2002 12:20:12 PM]

quote: Original post by Waverider
On the note of replayability based on a mission tree, I wouldn't want to intentionally lose a mission just to get at some of the lesser known missions.

i would

[edit1]

quote: Original post by Waverider
The whole campaign tree should probably have several of these breakpoints to give the player multiple opportunities to access them.

a good idea IMHO since this makes the story develelopment not that complicated... CnC used this kind of mission tree i think... but there have only been one or two missions seperated.




[edited by - BB-Pest on December 2, 2002 12:59:37 PM]

perhaps instead of having to lose a certain way, after you''ve
beaten the mission, you''re able to access the alternate mission(s)
through a level selector (sorta like in warcraft and the like)

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

quote: Original post by eldee
perhaps instead of having to lose a certain way, after you''ve
beaten the mission, you''re able to access the alternate mission(s)
through a level selector (sorta like in warcraft and the like)

-eldee
;another space monkey;
[ Forced Evolution Studios ]

Do NOT let Dr. Mario touch your genitals. He is not a real doctor!

Final Fantasy X-2 is gonna introduce this... even though its not an rts

quote: Original post by NeverSayDie
Yeah, "partial victory with repercussions" is a design idea that has always appealed to me.

It''s actually called a Pyrrhic victory- referring to the Greek general Pyrrhus''s costly victory over the Romans in 279 BC.

I like tazzle3d''s idea of just having one big scenario ala Shogun or Medieval: total war. You basically start off with your starting elements and then play it out to the bitter end

I think this sort of thing is best as a multiplayer option, but I''m a fan of a more scripted drama type of campaign for single player missions.

If a strategy game has "missions", then either the player really isn''t in charge of the large pciture, and only has some force elements at his disposal, or the game is trying to tell a story. That''s fine, but if the designer is trying to get across the idea of no holds barred defeating the enemy kind of gameplay, then missions are not a good idea. The very fact that there missions implies that the player can not control his own destiny, and is forced to fight the battles the game designer made. A real commander fights battles when he chooses too, not because he is forced to. Even in a historical setting, if you script the missions, the player is doomed to repeat whatever side he plays...so again, missions are not a good idea unless that''s what you intend to get across.

I had an idea revolving around this concept once, I also don''t like the fact that RTSes take out most of the strategy aspects of war and that missions control your involvement too much.

My idea was pretty much this:
Put the player in a command position that''s not an overall command, but is not a low-level commander either, put him somewhere in between. Give the player essentially an overall command picture (like Shogun or Medival), but restrict him to his field of command. The commanders above the player, maybe as a sort of High Command, may issue objectives, or even specific orders to the player, but the player may ignore orders or not carry them out fully if he disagrees with them. Now, the catch is that the player may be removed from command if he pisses enough people off. You need to keep enough members of High Command on your side as you can while still fighting the war in what you believe is the best means available. Also, political reasons often influence military decisions (very often actually), take a look at early on in the Civil War, politicians for the north were pushing for offensive actions against the south, and even though most military commanders didn''t think the troops were ready, they had to move anyway because of the political situation. If you want to make a more realistic strategy game, you have to consider political and diplomatic factors as well as economic and militaristic ones that go into strategic decisions.

I have other expansions on these ideas, but they get kinda long winded, and they mostly involve situation specifics.

About 7 years ago, I got into choose your own adventure books. With every choice you made, you would have to go to a different part of the book just to continue forward. This concept can be applied to games like this too. Let''s say you are in a battle and it''s evident that you will lose. Well, then the leader of the opposing army gives you the chance to give up or die. If you give up, you are transported to a prison where you have to escape -- or you could go to a next level and play another key role in the game as a rescue team.