So far as I can see there are two major flaws in the god game genre, which, if corrected would lead to an awsome game. The first is that the players rule is never contested. The player never plays politics with anything but other players, and even then the diplomancy boils down to who has the bigger gun. Never once will you fight a civil war, fund rebels in anothers territory, or hold the other lords of your realm in check. The solution to this is instead of holding the entire civilization, the player should hold a particular institution (army, church etc) or planet and control the rest of the empire and the entirety of his faction by order giving which other parts of the empire can react to. Example: Lenin orders his army against the rebels in the Caspian. Trotsky, being convinced Lenin is a true hero, agrees to send the army. The army led by comissars and sympathisers has no problem executing the rebels. The surrounding peasants are struck into submission by fear and awe at the red army. In this example, the army unit would have, lets say, these stats, where the number beside the thing indicates its importance to the unit- Health - 20, they will, after all, die for the revolution. The army in her traditions, command etc- 40 Equality- 30 Compassion - 10 Totalling 100 so an action that fills 0 points gets a mutiny, 100 gets done valiently. The player must try to bend other planets and his own people into his kind of men. Okay, sorry about going to high into detail, but you get the idea. Point number two, put 3 D&D players in a room with halfwit AI''s. Don''t give them a story. How long would they play? Why has there never been a story in an empire game? It''s because they don''t have dungeon masters. Why not? In my opinion, strategy games would be much more interesting if a DM handled a story arc in the game. To have the Dominion appear next to you in the middle Space War 3, or have a jihad rise from a player owned desert planet would be neat. Also, as you may have guessed since the game relies on human emotions ie. "Should we the Fremen accept Harkonnen rule or rebel" an AI would be...hard. Why not have a DM settle these issues? The key is having a program that will solve the basic calculations (when death star comes, cower) leaving only the most high level decisions needing DM intervention while still allowing the DM to enter any aspect of the game. What do you guys think? Thanks for your input.

I agree with you 100% on both counts. In too many games the player has absolute control over elements. Now in a true "God game" like Populous or Black and White, then I suppose this is ok. But for many strategy games, why does the player have ultimate control over the army and the economy?

In my own RTS game design, players will pretty much have to act exactly like a battlefield commander will. In other words, just because he clicks on a unit doesn''t mean he can interact with it. Just because the unit sees the enemy doesn''t mean the player will be aware of it. In fact, the player won''t even directly click on units to control them but will instead have to communicate with commander objects who in turn control the groups of units. But the main point is that even though he can see his units on the map, that doesn''t necessarily mean that A) he can control them directly B) that the player will know all the information that the unit itself knows and C) even if the player does have access to a unit that the unit will follow through on orders.

I think by eliminating the God-like element from play, it''ll practically be like creating a whole new style of gameplay. It will force players to think differently than they are used to.

As for the roleplaying comment, again I agree entirely. Starcraft tried to put a story element into the game, and Kohan as well. But for the most part, story backdrops seem to be add-ons, and not a fundamental part of the campaign. I read an interview with the creators of the Lord of the Rings RTS that will be coming out sometime in 2004, and I was disappointed that it seemed like the battles will be just for the sake of battles rather than highlighting what the battles were about. The idea of a GM handling the scope of a war is an interesting concept, and would get rid of the linear storyline complex that many people seem to have. My own game started off with the storyline and world background first, and from there, I realized how I wanted the gameplay to be. So in my game, the world and storyline are just as much a part of the entertainment as the play itself.

Thank god at least someone replied. Tell me more about your idea.

I''ve noticed there''s been a dearth of posts lately, maybe because school just started up.

Well, I''ve pretty much summed up my gameplay in a nutshell already For my RTS idea, I basically want the player to think and act exactly like a real battlefield commander would. Since a real life commander does not have God like omniscience, telepathy, clairvoyance and other broad discretionary powers, neither shall the player.

In my game basically the player is represented on the battlefield by an avatar. This avatar represents the physical presence of the player on the battlefield. The player''s "eyes and ears" are dependant on communication with his Commanders and the units himself. Therefore both communication and the Commander objects themselves are just as important as the units.

Also, since my game is a bit more grand in scale, a "unit", is not a single instance of something (for example 1 tank or a squad of infantry). Instead, the atomic unit of my game is what I call a Cluster. Clusters are made up of various individual units to comprise a hetergenous whole. For example, a Cluster might defined as: Motorized Rifle Platoon (composed itself of 3 rifle squads and a command squad and 4 light Infantry Carriers). Each Cluster has an attached Commander object that it takes orders from. Cluster''s themselves make up another organized unit called BattleGroups (which can in turn be made up of other BattleGroups in a nested hierarchy) who also have an attached Commander object.

So, in order to get your armed forces to do anything, the avatar must pass Orders to the player''s Commander''s. Perhaps more importantly, the player will only see what his Commander objects see IF and ONLY IF he maintains a communication link with those Commanders. This also applies to Clusters who become disorganized and UnitIntegrity dissolves who then can not pass information on to their Commander.

What is UnitIntegrity? A fighting unit must maintain a certain cohesion to be an effective unit. If a unit becomes scattered either due to fighting, crossing rough terrain, or simple poor training, then the part that becomes "disorganized", can no longer take or send information to its Commander. For example, let''s say that we have the above mentioned Motorized Rifle Platoon get ambushed. In the fight, one of the squads and infantry carriers gets pushed back, and beyond the range of UnitIntegrity. To the Commander object, this squad just "disappeared" and he doesn''t know if it''s alive or dead. More importantly, this squad has to fall back in order to survive and while doing so, discovers an armored column a bit of a ways off....but unseen to the Platoon Commander becuase he is in a position that he can not see them. Unfortunately, since the squad is out of UnitIntegrity, it is therefore unable to communicate with its Commander to let him know of this development.

Since the Commander does not know, he is then unable to notify the avatar (the player) of this even though one of the player''s units does indeed see the enemy units advancing. Now, you might be saying, "well, in ancient warfare, that might be cool, since you don''t have radios to relay everything back and forth, but what about modern engagements?". Depending on what tech level you go, this has some very serious ramifications.

In pre-radio times, the avatar will be limited to communication at the speed that rider messengers can relay messages. This means that troop movements will be very late. Even in modern times, the use of radio can be handicapped. For one, you may want to maintain radio silence for surprise. Secondly, radio transmissions can be jammed (although enemy communications may be jammed as well) or worse intercepted and decoded. Satellite comms can work, but require no overheard foliage and of course a working satellite. So there are a lot of possibilities to be had there too.

Now what must be understood is that the player only knows information that he has contact to. So in the above example, it isn''t just the Platoon Commander who realizes the squad disappeared....it disappears to the Player as well. And if the player loses communication (or direct sight) with the Platoon Commander, then that Cluster disappears for the player as well (this could happen for example if the comm links are jammed or if the EW or RTO gets killed). It may be alive, it may be dead but the player himself won''t know.

This basically means that keeping in contact with your armed forces is CRUCIAL. And this isn''t the only God-like power I''ve taken away. In God like games, once the player clicks on his unit, he is guaranteed access and control of it. Well, I''ve already explained how I''ve taken away the access part of it, but the control part is not guaranteed either. Communication is a two way street. If the Commander or Unit/Cluster can not send information back to the avatar, that Unit/Cluster disappears. but it works the other way too. If the avatar can not send information to the Commander, then it will not follow orders. Not only that, but my morale system will hopefully be heads and shoulders above anything out there (I was weaned on military board and miniature games since I was 10yrs old).

Hopefully that gives you a good idea of how I''ll take away the God-like powers that players have in RTS games. As for the story concept, I''m working on that too. I actually feel my fantasy storyline has more appeal than my sci-fi, but I''ve been working on the sci-fi version a bit longer, so I''ll work on that first. The problem with a story in a RTS game is that it almost has to be an epic of somekind. However, I want to get across a more personal story which is very hard to do in a RTS game. I was considering Hero type units, but with all the flak that Warcraft III was getting about them, I''m very hesitant to do it even though my idea of a "hero" is far different than theirs.

Perhaps it is best to simply direct you to my thread on the subject here

quote: but I''ve been working on the sci-fi version a bit longer

Stick with scifi as long as you possibly can!

I thought you were more of an ancient/fantasy fan Silvermyst

The nice thing about fantasy is that I believe that it can make a far more powerful allegorical statement. Sci-fi since it pretends to cover what is possible or plausible has stricter confines. However, since Sci-fi is more realistic in a way, that is powerful in itself.

In my own setting, I wanted to get away from the typical trappings of a Tyrannical grand empire that tries to conquer everything, or of an alien horde bent on capturing/enslaving/eating humanity. I really started getting my ideas after reading a book on the American Civil War and seeing how greatly our perceptions of a matter is greatly dependent on what side of the fence you sit on.

I think understanding such concepts of points of view is all the more important in today''s world (i.e. the Middle East and Korea). We have to open our eyes and try to be in other people''s shoes to understand why they do what they do. Hopefully I''ll get some of that across in my story.

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

quote: I thought you were more of an ancient/fantasy fan Silvermyst

A little of both. But I think science makes for the better game design core concept.

quote: The nice thing about fantasy is that I believe that it can make a far more powerful allegorical statement. Sci-fi since it pretends to cover what is possible or plausible has stricter confines. However, since Sci-fi is more realistic in a way, that is powerful in itself.

The fact that sci-fi will somewhat dictate what's possible and not can actually be a great help in game design. My current project started out with a heavy dose of fantasy, but over the last 6 months has taken a drastic turn towards sci-fi, almost completely eliminating all fantasy elements. I find that it has made the project much clearer than before, less muddled.

Realism doesn't suck

[edited by - Silvermyst on January 16, 2003 3:40:11 PM]